Erato

[twilighteyes]

The Lovely. She is the Muse of mimicry, and inspires both erotic and romantic poetry. She is crowned in roses, holding a lyre. Her scent inspires creative expressions of love and lust: a crush of roses with sweet pea, myrrh, ylang ylang, orris and stephanotis.

In the bottle: I smelled without looking at the description first. Impression: Roses as a top note. Something darker as a bottom note. After looking at the description, I can smell a bit of sweet pea.

Dry on skin: Roses still. This reminded me of "Victoria" all day (The Stardust Victoria.) But it has a bottom note that Victoria doesn't, so it IS different.

Good throw and longevity.

[gchris]

In Vial: Very floral

 

Wet: Aged florals, not fresh, smells old. These are strong powdery smelling florals.

 

Later: This shows no signs of fading. If you like roses, if you like sweet pea, you'll love this. That is pretty much all I am getting from this blend.

[Ravenclaw79]

In the imp: Sharply sweet roses, almost nose-crinkling.

 

Wet: Powdery roses, with maybe some other flower poking in there from time to time (sweet pea, must be).

 

Drying: Meh. Old lady-ish powdery roses. Not a fan.

[voodoocatwoman]

In the imp: Orris. Ick. Smells like hay.

 

Wet: Sweetness of some kind coming through. Floral? Maybe. I do NOT smell typical rose, though.

 

Dry: Soft flowers. Very soft. (I would actually like for this to be stronger than it is)

[donnatron]

Imp: WTF, mate? This is my second imp of Erato. The first was a frimp from the lab in early January right as Erato exited stage left. That imp was a dark red colour. This one is almost clear. And it smells completely different from the other Erato. The other one was very viscous and overwhelmingly sweet. This one smells of lush roses with a dry violet touch of orris.

 

Wet: Ah, there's that thick molasses scent I associate with Erato. But... it disappears almost instantly, replaced by rose.

 

Dry: Bizarre. This is... beautiful. I get a luscious, dry rose with a touch of ylang ylang and orris root and the sweet pea and stephanotis. It's a gorgeous floral, complex and dense and soft and round and womanly.

 

Throw: A few inches from the skin.

 

Overall: Phooey. I was relieved that I didn't like this, seeing as how it was DCed. Turns out that if I get my hands on the right batch, it's good stuff.

[Argentwolf]

Straight out from the imp, it smelled like soap. So, at least I smelled clean, albeit with a sharp touch of lye. And that's the way it stayed, the first few days that I wore it.

 

Today, though, it smelled differently...it actually smelled *good*, and of flowers. (Yes, I tend to persist with scents, even if they don't work right away.) I couldn't really detect any myrrh; I think in the imp I'm mostly smelling ylang ylang and sweet pea. As I put it on, the flowery notes gained a bit of strength, but weren't overpowering in soapiness as they had been before.

 

Dry, I smell sweet pea, and perhaps rose. There *is* a faint bit of soapiness and powder to it, which keeps it from being perfect...but it's definitely an improvement.

 

So, hm, something's definitely going on with my body chemistry. The only notes I've previously experienced have been sweet pea and myrrh, so I'm not sure who the culprit is for the strange, intriguing acrobatics that I'm noticing here.

 

In the end, unfortunately, there was just too much soapiness present to make this one a keeper.

Edited May 2, 2008 by Argentwolf

[sadtomato]

A soft, sweet rose I'm really liking.

Not quite like the big, fat, wet roses of Whip.

This rose is much, much softer and there some underlying sweetness to the scent which keeps the rose from becoming totally overpowering.

Mmm.

Loving it.

[Epiphany]

In the imp and wet on Erato is a sharp aggressive rose--not a crisp green sharpness like Rose Red, but an older, drier rose. Drying, this is a rose boquet--the other flowers are there, but aside from the stephanotis, I can't pick out any of them individually. This is a rose potpourri that belongs in the parlor of a not-so-Victorian lady. Very rosy. Very pretty. Softly, and subtly sexy.

[fairnymph]

Sniffed in imp: Sweet and slightly powdery; heady florals. The rose, ylang-ylang, orris and sweet pea are all distinct.

[melrose]

For the 5 minutes it lasted, it seemed pleasant enough. Sigh.

[Delirium1009]

In bottle/imp: Cool, sweet roses.

 

Immediately on skin: This is very perfume-y. The roses come out the most, but they’re tempered by the sweetness of the sweet pea and stephanotis (though I really can’t pick out those two; they blend with the rose). There’s definitely a resiny, incense quality to this scent… like sweet smoke wafting above a fragrant bouquet of roses.

 

After a few minutes: This is heavily dominated by the rose, but it's a pretty scent. It has a cool but lightly resinous feeling, and the other flowers add a feminine sweetness. There's a nice solid base to this now... something a bit cooler and smooth, but not aquatic. I would say this is a rose dominated cool floral blend with a light bit of resin.

 

Overall Impressions: This is a very nice rose scent. It’s blended with other flowers, but it’s still mostly rose. It’s a cooler, resinous, pretty perfume-y scent, and has just a touch of sweetness. If you enjoy floral rose blends, this one may be right for you.

[stillalive]

100% floral on me. As much as I love the muses, this one is rather headache-inducing. *rubs forehead* Ah well. At least I can say I've tried it!

[mgrazulis]

Soft tender rose, a hit of ylang ylang and stephanotis...very feminine, classic and sweet. The sweet pea kicks in midway with a gentle whisper of sweet myrrh. Inspiring...

 

As it dries, the orris does what it normal does on my skin and amps to the 100th degree into a powdery headache inducer. Far too powerful for me.

 

[Victory]

Erato is very definitely floral, with rose being the strongest note. It actually reminds me of another BPAL scent, although I can't remember which, and also of the smell of my BPAL box. There's a lot going on in there, and the notes are somewhat discordant to me. The myrrh and flowers are not playing well together. But I will give the caveat that I don't much care for floral perfumes, so floral lovers might not find this at all jumbled and non-harmonious. I'm glad to have tried it, though.

[freyasfae]

Le sigh. I got this in an imp lot I purchased on Ebay. Scents like myrrh and ylang ylang can go iffy on me, and while the rose (which my skin loves) helped, this was still amped myrrh on me. I suppose I will have to avoid myrrh from now on.

[Lucchesa]

Testing blind, I got rose, definitely rose, a lot of rose, and maybe some violet, which I think now may have been the orris, and Other Florals. I couldn't tell what the Other Florals were -- I would not have identified ylang ylang, which is often a bad actor on my skin, nor sweet pea, which is usually good. I was pretty sure there was something else in there, but it didn't scream myrrh to me. Erato definitely becomes its own thing, in which it's not easy to pick out the individual components. It has decent wear length, too. Rose is not my best note, so I'll be passing on this imp, but I'm delighted I got to try it.