Tabella

[alhbooks]

The voting tablet. Herbs and flowers that represent democracy, justice, leadership, and power: olive blossom, frankincense, tobacco flower, benzoin, Little John, bergamot, galangal, angelica, fig, sage, and ginger.

Odd, but the overwhelming scent I get is anisette...it covers all else. Oh, well.

[Ohmaude]

I love every single note in this blend, so I was excited to try it.

 

This is sharp, tart and golden and a bit conventional perfume-y. The Tobacco flower, bergamot and Frankincense really stand out at first, then the Sage and St. John come out, followed by the grounding sweetness of fig and benzoin, and ahh there is that ginger. It is completely unique and very well-balanced, but very faint. I have a feeling that will change as it ages. It reminds me of Pirate Moon, but I couldn't tell you why.

[milo]

This starts out very strong and resinous. Amazingly, there is a point where "poof", it fades very quickly and morphs into something vaguely citrus and herbal. Reminds me of Cytheria, in how faint it has morphed into. I do like this, not sure if I love it, though. Maybe some aging will bring out the other notes. I really wanted the ginger and benzoin to make an appearance, but alas, they are not there.

[Little Bird]

Luperci is my favorite bpal scent, so I was eager to try Tabella based on the reviews comparing the two. The two aren’t similar at all on my skin, though.

 

Tabella starts off very herbal and sage-y, with a hint of clean, green sweetness that I suppose is from the olive blossom. It smells rather medicinal on me. In the drydown, it starts to smell sort of dry and dusty, and a perfumey floral note pops up. Perhaps also a hint of sharp citrus from the bergamot...

 

Tabella is more perfumey, herbal, and dry on me than it is the resins or woods that I was hoping for. I'm not really picking up any resins, fig, spice, or sweetness that other reviewers have mentioned. I might keep my bottle and see how this is with some aging, but I’m not liking it at the moment.

[Rheliwen]

This is strikingly similar to Haloa on me. I didn't originally get the similarity until later, when I could smell my hand wafting in the air. It even has Haloa's cakey element.

 

This is rich and sticky with frank, ginger and sage taking the forefront. The other notes blend together in the background.

Edited December 9, 2008 by Rheliwen

[zankoku_zen]

Odd. I got something that definitely had some mintiness to it... like the kind from pennyroyal to it. It was a soft, breezy, herbally minty cool scent. Now it has dried and I can smell the olive blossom and a hint of ginger. Again, soft, breezy but warmer herbal floral.

 

Interesting, but not my kind of floral.

[Suu4LC]

Hmm, I remember not liking olive blossom, and I guess that still holds true, because when I sniff this in the imp i'm like MEH olive blossom.

 

Yeah, this is BAM OLIVE BLOSSOM on my skin. If you LIKE olive blossom, definitely check this out. I get a little bit of some of the other notes, frankincense, tobacco flower and sage specifically, but way too much olive blossom for my liking.

[sookster]

straight sniff from bottle it tobacco flower and olive blossom...

 

once applied this has so much depth and warmth...soooooooo beautiful!!

 

the ginger and fig become apparent as well as the sage...a perfect

herbal blend with so much complexity...love it~~~

[jehrichardson]

This is lovely - smells like a clean and bubbly soap, but doesn't smell soapy. Sweet with a nice balance of herb and floral with a bit of a resinous underpinning.

 

After a few moments, the resins start to pull up ahead a bit and the whole thing turns green and fresh. It's extraordinarily well blended, pretty, and seriously sophisticated.

 

Loves it.

[steelxrose]

Tabella - very pleasant.. light and feminine, which is not what I had expected from the notes listed. I admit, quite a surprise, but a pleasant one. I might have to track down another bottle.

[fiddledragon]

Beautiful! As just about everyone else has said, this is warm and serious and golden. I definitely get that anise note someone else was mentioning -- maybe the galangal and fig playing together weirdly? This is kind of like Luperci's Apollonian cousin. It's a very head-clearing scent, but not medicinal or minty or cold. It would be a great thing to have on during a test.

[Seadreamer]

Oh frankincense, you evil, evil creature. I didn't even smell you at first sniff, but within an hour, I had a full blown migraine. There's also something in there that smells sour to me. Not sure what it was, and I don't know if it would have faded on my skin, because I only sniffed from the bottle. It never even GOT as far as my skin. You know, migraines are why I gave up perfume 20 years ago. I'm so disappointed that I'm having problems again. At least, with these blends, it's a whole lot easier to narrow it down.

 

Anyway, this once-sniffed bottle will be going off for swaps. Too bad.

[pacifick]

Wet and on first application, it's a dead ringer for Johnson's baby shampoo. Which is ok, because I was dreading the olive blossom. After it dried, however, it was "vaguely herbal". Sometimes a hint of sage and oddly sort of a minty feeling without ever being minty. Possibly I just associate mint with clean/refreshing.

 

It vanished POOF after 15 minutes, one of the rare scents that does that on me. Usually they last and last and last.

[anardana]

This smells like fancy perfume, but I like it. It is sort of sweet, herbal, gently floral, loveliness.

[Tal Shachar]

I was about to post that I have no idea what people are talking about when they say "tart", because it was initially very smooth and soft when applied to my wrists, but for some reason when I added more on my elbows the ginger and bergamot came right out. So I see it now--in fact when I sniff between the two sites I get two different sides of the blend, the gentle sweetness of the fig and olive blossom on my wrists and the sharper ginger and bergamot on my elbows. Surprisingly I don't pick up frankincense, which is usually not shy on my skin.

 

Pierre Trudeau said, "Justice is to me a warm spirit, born of tolerance and wisdom, present everywhere, ready to serve the highest purposes of rational man." The golden gentleness and clarity in this really does evoke justice and democracy as a warm spirit as opposed to something cold or harsh or cynical, and that's what I love about it.

 

It does have very little throw, so I'll save it for occasions when I don't want to be an obnoxious walking scent cloud.

[isisonearth]

Bottle: Warm resins with the mellow somewhat oily smell of olive and a fragrant hint of sage.

 

Wet: Very mellow. Subtle bite of ginger, richness of fig, sharp beragmot. This is a great unisex scent, those blossoms are barely evident they really seem to just be there for balance to keep the other notes from becoming too sharp.

 

Dry:I feel like I'm getting a hint of lime, not sure where that is coming from. It seems rather herbal in the dry down. Gorgeous and complex. I'm so glad I got this one and sorry it has taken me this long to get it out and enjoy it. I do think I may have to share it with the Mr.

[Ajila]

In the bottle – Nothing at all, I had to check I hadn’t got an empty bottle

 

Wet on me – A slightly sweet, slightly soapy, herbal mixture

 

Dry on me – Sweet, soft and creamy musks

 

Overall – Not at all what I was expecting. In many ways it’s like Antique Lace but without the extra sparkle

 

[furygrrl]

In the bottle: Sweetness, a touch of something clean and herbal.

 

On wet: Still clean, sweet, and herbal. Definitely picking up on the tobacco flower (which used to be my favourite home fragrance from The Body Shop some years back). Very nice so far!

 

Drydown: Lightly perfumey. The bright, citrussy bergamot (which I love), the smooth, sweet, candy-like angelica, and the tobacco flower are dominating this blend. Underneath, I can detect a smidge of woody sage - possibly a teeny shot of the frankincense. No ginger yet, or anything that's yelling "fig" or "olive blossom" - though I'm sure the latter two are mixed up with all that sweet, floral goodness. The benzoin is also, thankfully, absent at the moment (it doesn't like me, sadly).

 

Overall: A very pleasant floral-herbal scent. It's heady but light, complex but not over the top, sweet and fresh with just a little herbal darkness to ground everything perfectly. Wearable and lovely. 3/5

[Coldfire]

 

 

 

 

Decant: powder and floral?

Wet on Me: I get the galangal and tobacco flower and ginger now

Drying Down: still getting a powdery effect and some wood. I’m thinking the galangal for the wood and the fig for the powder.

Dry: Less powdery sweetness from the fig, still that woodiness from the galangal. I like this and am glad I got to try it.

 

[savage_rose]

In the bottle this scent is sweet but has an odd metallic, astringent tang to it. On, it just turns into this oddly sweet, dry tobacco-herbal scent, but oddly sweet...a wrong sweet, like the scent of unwashed hair, or bread when it's just started to mold. Ewww.

 

It's incredible in the bottle though. Too good not to give it a go as a locket scent!

[sprocket21]

Wow, when I went to sniff the imp, it's like the oil reached up and punched me in the nose! It's very sharp and not sweet at all. Tabella is very herbal and dry - I think I can pick out the tobacco, but otherwise the notes blend well enough that I can't pick them out. Definitely too sharp and herbal for me.

[fairnymph]

In the bottle: Fresh herbs and flowers, and I can pick out angelica (sort of anise-y), ginger, bergamot and fig. Quite soft. A little spicy and a little sweet. Unisex.

 

Wet: More herbal (sage!), deeper. More masculine. I get a little bit of that incensey-sweet frankincense, and some citrusy galangal. Still a fair bit of spicy ginger. The angelica is bearably-licorice.

 

Dry: Deeper and more resiny, as that honeyish benzoin emerges. The olive blossom, too, has a sort of waxy, heady, smooth scent.The fig is slightly earthy and very creamy-rich.

 

Later: It is a bit medicinal, in a sort of Ricola-way, and I think that's the angelica and the quite-strong, scrubby sort of sage. Angelica and benzoin amping, a bit of tobacco flower.

 

Summary: It's warm and deep, green-fresh and spicy-zesty, with a bit of honeyed/resiny sweetness and rich but well-behaved florals. Pretty masculine. Low throw.

 

I do see the Faiza & The Apothecary resemblance. It's a bit too rooty/woody/dark resiny for me, as well as too herbal-medicinal. It's a very nicely blended scent, though, that should be popular.

 

 

[ShadowsDance]

Huh, it's bug spray in the bottle..

On my skin it's a very warm scent. The olive blossom and sage are quite clear. It fades a bit on my skin, but doesn't totally disappear. It does make it hard to pick anything out, however. It's very much a warm resin and floral type of scent.

[doodlehum]

Man...I love this, but I'm not sure I have anything to add to the previous reviews of warm&golden.

When it was all shiny and new and fresh from the lab, the notes I could sniff out were fresh-cut galangal, sage, copal, tobacco flower, and an underlying sweetness that must have been fig. A bright, light, sunshiny gold. Now that it's aged a bit, the galangal and tobacco flower have moved into the background and I'm sniffing out more frankincense. So the scent is more warm and resinous and less bright and sharp, but overall, it's still a light golden glow. Definitely in my top five

[GardenCat]

I can see what people say by sharp - the olive blossom seems to combine with the tobacco flower to overpower the frankincense. As it settles, it opens more. I'd be interested to see what it smells like on the DH though - it does seem kinda masculine...