Ave Maria Gratia Plena

[mspixieears]

A pale, delicate, truly angelic blend. A scent created to emulate Adonis' halo of beauty: fragile, distant, and radiant. Rosewood with Sicilian lemon peel, red Mysore sandalwood, pale musks, sweet mountain sage and a dusting of lily, night-blooming jasmine and orris.

 

This reminds me a lot of Delight, Jezebel and Psyche – though more floral. It has that lovely powdery quality that is soothing and intoxicating at the same time. It’s very nice, cannot stop slathering it on but it is similar to something I already have in imp form.

Edited April 4, 2007 by Shollin

[stellans]

[

Ave Maria Gratia Plena began as my imp du jour, but unfortunately as is often the case with anything lemon (or lemon-related), that one note amps itself up unbearably on my skin. I ended up having to wash AMGP off and pick a new imp for the rest of the day.

 

In the imp: fresh and floral, only a hint of lemon. This boded well for me, but alas.

Wet on skin: uh-oh. The fresh floral is still there, but the lemon is coming through now like gangbusters. I don't know how long I can stand wearing this.

Dry: I couldn't let this stay on as long as I would normally in a test run. After the first 30 minutes I started getting a headache and had to wash it off.

Verdict: Not a keeper. Too bad, because I liked the sound of it.

Edited June 5, 2010 by stellans

[Electra]

Oh gosh, this smells awful on me. Really, just awful. Hello, jasmine. I see you still hate me.

 

It's all jasmine on me, and that is Not Good, because it doesn't smell like jasmine but distorts into something horrid. Not a keeper.

[AmyAngel]

In the imp, this smelled to me like floral air freshener sprayed over a freshly peed-in litterbox! On, it is much better. It became a lovely floral for a while, and I thought it might be a keeper, but then it started to sharpen again on my skin. It's still floral, but now it burns my nose and really does smell like cat pee. The floral is being overwhelmed by the sharp ammonia smell. Bien Loin d'Ici had a similar sharpness on my skin. I haven't quite figured out what is causing it though! Washing this off!

[Nia]

wet: oddly medicinal, and a bit like glue. And a bit bitter.

 

On my skin: for a few minutes it's veeeery sweet! Then it becomes a subtle, fresh, lemony floral. This smells quite a lot like the gently uplifting and energising scent I have been craving for lately. It smells as if it is meant to be aromatherapy.

 

The only flaw I find in it is that it's a bit too mild, in the sense that it doesn't seem to have much throw. I will probably use it for aromatherapeutic purposes. For example, on pulse points when I have to study and concentrate. I would even buy a bottle if it continues to work for that.

Edited April 13, 2007 by Nia

[jade_starlight]

When I read the notes for this blend I was pretty sure that it wouldn't work on me, but since it was a frimp from the lab I tried it anyway. And I was right, it didn't work on me. The white florals and the jasmine teamed up and with my chemistry it smelled really just perfumey and somewhat overpowering. Off to the swaps for someone who works with florals better than I do.

[Schnax]

Wet, this is all flowers. Mostly jasmine, but not entirely. On drydown the musk and sage come out to play, with the floral lingering about the top. I thought I caught a whiff of litterbox at one point, but that may have just been my cat's litterbox After a few hours this goes powdery, but it's quite nice up to that point.

[PurpleHeather]

This was the first BPAL scent I tried, and I've not yet got a fantastically well developed nose, but on me it was overly floral (understandable given the number of flowers in the blend) and went talcy from a sort of floral cleaning fluid beginning Sadly one for the swapbox.

[PersephonesChild]

Err, no.

It smells very perfumey to me, and is almost a dead ringer for the perfume my grandmother used to wear. The nostalgic feeling was kind of sweet, but there's not way I'm wearing this.

[steffanina]

Ave Maria Gratia Plena-

 

In Bottle: Incense, spice, something dirty-diaper-y like jasmine. Oh, look, there's jasmine listed in the fragrance. Yes, that's what jasmine does to me.

 

Wet: Peanuts and spices and faint dirty-diaper jasmine and incense.

 

Dry: Eh. Jasmine and I are not friends. Plastic diaper scent stays around.

 

Overall: Not for me.

[Naamah_Darling]

This is a light and subtle blend that is herbal and woody and just a little floral. First out of the bottle are the rosewood and lemon, making for a rather traditional light cologne base. Behind that are the musks and the sandalwood, swirling right around there with the sage. The third breath reveals the sweetness of the jasmine. The notes here appear pretty much in the order listed in the description. Overall, in the bottle it's a light and delicate but decidedly masculine blend.

 

It goes on very strange. It's hard to pin down, but my overall impression is one of brightness, but scorched around the edges. There's definitely something here that's turning to the smell of smoke. It's woody and herbal, still, with the florals bringing up the rear, and yes, it's still masculine, though verging more toward unisex.

 

I can't decide if I like this or not. On the one hand, it smells so odd that I want to dislike it immediately. On the other, there is something very sexy about it, even as the fleshy florals combined with the sage and lemon make it smell vaguely repellent.

 

It's intriguing, a smell I can't make heads or tails of, and because of that I keep sniffing at it, trying to make up my mind. It doesn't really smell like anything else. Once it dries, that aggressively burnt edge leaves and it's a simple woody blend with a lovely overtone of musk, florals, and a little lemon. Very nice.

 

I really want to smell this one on someone for whom it really works because I have a hunch it'd be really amazing.

[alianthe]

In the bottle: High, sharp, and distant, slightly woody and somewhat chilly.

 

On my man (dry): He swore all he could smell was baby powder. When I sniffed him, I got an overwhelming sensation of vanilla cigarillos. It didn't exactly smell just like that, but the scent reminded me of them.

 

On me (dry): It blended together differently on me. It was a bit discordant on me, and while trying to figure out exactly why and what it was that was causing the trouble, I started getting queasy, a sensation that increased until I washed it off.

 

Conclusion: It's a scent that sticks - it took two washings to get it off my man, and four to get it off me (probably because I put a lot on in the attempt to isolate particular notes). Didn't work too well for me or my love, so it's off to swap and hopefully find somebody it works better for.

[ClareN]

Rosewood, lemon peel, red sandalwood, musk and sage all sound great. Too bad it doesn't end there, because the next two notes are all I can smell...that's right, this is yet another scent ruined for me by the evilly overpowering lily and jasmine.

 

But if you've read this far, you probably don't mind lily and jasmine, so why listen to me?

[xeresana]

I really like this one on me. Not too heavy, it becomes a soft rose-powder scent that's rather comforting.

[Lunaratu]

I can definitely smell the rose in this as it smells sharp and soapy on my skin. This stays all rose all the time on my skin so, which given that rose hates me, I just ended up washing it off.

Rating: 2/5

[FallDaze]

The lemon peel pops out at me first in the imp, but underneath the sage is pretty prominent.

 

At first it is rather faint and delicate. A very clean and floral scent

 

Sadly, this turns into a soapy floral. A delicate but soapy floral. Definitely not for me.

[idoru]

Oh, is this ever one that morphs on me. Initially, AMGP is the smell of an old church at Easter -- heady lily arrangements underpinned by something ecclesiastical. Mostly, though, it's lily with jasmine.

 

Within half an hour, the florals are gentling, becoming more subdued -- and within an hour on my skin, AMGP has shifted to a beautiful pale musk scent, with rosewood, the barest hint of sandalwood, and a corona of white flowers. I thought I must be going crazy, to go from such a floral-dominated scent to musk with floral afterthought.

 

This certainly bears wearing again, though I definitely prefer the second stage -- while I like lilies and jasmines in person, I prefer them as secondary players when it comes to perfume. Musk, on the other hand.. yum.

[SarahScent44]

In the imp with this, I get jasmine with just a little sage.

 

On my skin, there's rosewood and musk, and the sandalwood comes out, with some lemon.

 

When it's dry, it's very sweetly blended, and it's hard to pick out individual notes; very traditional but not bad. This is nice, but I'm not sure it's a keeper.

[TrailerTrashPrincess]

sniffed from the imp: jasmine!

on skin: jasmine... if there's anything else, i can't tell. i can't get past the jasmine. it hateses me as much as i hateses it.

[stardreamer]

First impression is fairly floral. But after it's been on me for an hour or so, there's something in it that smells like fresh sweat. I'm not kidding -- you'd think I'd been to the gym, but I haven't. This one isn't going to get a staying-power estimate, because I'm headed for the shower! And needless to say, the imp is headed for the swap pile.

[odalisque]

In the imp: Wow. Is that musk? Cause, damn. It's MUSK! MUSK! MUSK!

 

Wet: More musk. Oh, and that must be ... sandalwood? I thought it was frankincense, actually, but now I see that there isn't any frankincense in this one. Huh. It's powerful and resinous.

 

Drydown: Oh. Oh, my. Suddenly the musk is playing nicely with a cluster of lovely floral notes. I can smell the lilies, but they're not overpowering.

 

It's at this stage that I start sniffing my wrists compulsively, so I have a lot of impressions of the drydown and ripening. Musk with lovely floral notes changes to almost-completely rose, which changes to amber and florals with the slightest hint of lemon (ha! I thought I smelled lemon in there) and progresses to a beautiful rounded, warm, resinous blend of sandalwood and something that smells like amber.

 

I like this one. I really like this one. It's just beautiful. And then it happens: it goes from amber to baby powder. WTF? Argh! No! How can this be happening? O turned to baby powder on me, too, and I thought amber was the culprit for sure when I sniffed my beautiful Ave Maria disappearing on me. but there's no amber mentioned in the description at all. Maybe it's the musk? That seems to be the only note they have in common.

 

Gutted. Maybe this one would work well as a bath oil or a soap scent. I liked it a lot.

 

ETA: the really odd thing about this? Even after all I could smell close to my skin was baby powder, i kept catching whiffs of musk as I moved around. After a bit I realized it was me, or rather, the Ave Maria -- it was throwing straight musk somehow.

Edited December 30, 2007 by odalisque

[Sheyona]

it's mild on me. very mild. is stays for all it's mildness but i can not place any of the scents on me.

[bryghtrose]

In the imp I smell rosewood. On my skin I smell rosewood.

It eventually dries to lily.

 

I'm not sure if I like it. It's similar to a lot of other blends I love, but somehow this one doesn't grab me as a blend, despite the fact that I love a lot of the notes.

[voodoocatwoman]

In the imp: Lilies and sandalwood

 

Wet: The sandalwood is a little more pronounced and I am picking up orris.

 

Dry: White flowers- jasmine and lilies, with sandalwood and a touch of powder.

 

It is beautiful, but I think it might nauseate me if I slather. This is a dabbing only scent.

 

ETA: Several hours later the powder is gone and I am left with the most delicate and beautiful floral and sandalwood blend. LOVE LOVE LOVE

Edited March 7, 2008 by voodoocatwoman

[twilighteyes]

Rosewood, musk, and sandalwood. Not getting any floral or lemon.