Pothôn Mêtêr

[binkin]

Rose absolute, caramel, ripe red berries, pink pepper, Balsam of Peru, cognac, and benzoin.

In the bottle, this really smelled like black tea with milk and spices. After sniffing for a few minutes I decided it reminded me of chai, which it looks like a few other people have thought, too.

On, wet, it smelled largely the same as it did in the bottle. As it dries down I'm picking up more of the rose and balsam, so it feels kind of like sipping chai while sitting on a deck, looking at a forest, surrounded by rose vines. (Personally, that's where I want to be.) There seems to be a lot going on. It's not really foody, it's not really floral, it's not really woody. I had forgotten the notes and was very surprised when I saw what they actually were.

Definitely a keeper. It doesn't scream "OMG SEX!" to me but it's got sort of a grown-up confidence going on.

[angelicruin]

Sniffing the bottle, this is all pink pepper and berries for me.

 

On my skin, it's still mostly spicy pepper, but I do smell a bit of the rose and caramel as well. Berries are kind of lost until it dries down a bit more. Still, this is almost all pink pepper on me. Which is just fine with me.

[Pottersville]

Ohhhhh, this started out so wonderfully complex on me .... fruity, spicy, resinous. I couldn't stop huffing my wrist! And then the rose came out, clubbed all the other notes senseless, and turned to cat pee. Srlsy. Rose, why do you do this to me????

[fairnymph]

In the bottle: Light yellow oil. Sweet, SPICY, and a little foody. Reminds me of Pepper. Pink pepper and balsam jump out especially.

 

Wet: Rose! Very full-bodied and velvety, too. Berries, but not to sweet or artificial. The caramel is very smooth and not cloying.

 

Dry: The pink pepper is more aromatic, less spicy. Loads of piney-resiny balsam - it's almost smoky.

 

Later: The benzoin emerges majorly, as is typical with my skin. Lovely though, and not overpowering.

 

Summary: Smoky, sweet, deep. Lush but not too strong rose, exotic pink pepper, light caramel/burnt sugar, BALSAM, and rich, honeyish benzoin.

 

My favourite of the Odes, but still not me.

[caitilarkin]

In the imp: Pink pepper and sugary rose

 

Wet on skin: The pink pepper is amping and going sweet. Calm down, pepper, and let the other notes get a turn!

 

Dry on skin: Nope, the pink pepper is doing its sweet cactus blossom dance on my skin and has scared the other notes away. Oh well...

[dreadpiraterustypants2]

expectations-

roses and pepper please

imp-

spicy carmelized roses~yum!

wet-

yum, interestingly foody-reminding me of butter rum cookies, or invasion of the flesh eating reindeer. must be the congac and caramel combo~

a bit quiet though, but that might be a nice change of pace-

dry-

fades to a soft rose

verdict-

warm and tasty, one of my fav Lupers'. A lovely comfort scent~

[nekogrrl]

Wet on skin: Pink pepper ahoy!

 

Drydown: Pink pepper still.

 

Dry on skin: Pink pepper and I think I'm picking out some of the benzoin.

 

15 minutes later: Still very pink pepper, and I /might/ be getting some berry goodness.

 

Verdict: While I like the scent of pink pepper, something this strong isn't much fun.

[alterosen]

This was my favorite of the Aphrodites. I can't stop sniffing it. I could have sworn there was ginger in this - the pepper is combining with something else in a really interesting fashion. It's spicy but not terribly sweet or foody. I don't really notice the rose or berries except in the background once dry but I like the whole combination of notes. I definitely see a bottle in my future

[SensationalGrendel]

I first must say this one did not smell much at all like I imagined. I wanted it to be a fruitier, sweeter version of Red Rose from the Unity set. It actually smells just like the Home Sweet Home Yankee Candle scent. I can smell the rose absolute, but I think it's the pink pepper/Balsam of Peru/cognac blending to cause the intense spicyness. I definitely do not get the caramel or berries. It was a surprising scent, but not a bad one. It's very comforting and good for cold, gray, lazy days in.

[aquazoo]

Rose, berries and spice! I smell cinnamon.

 

 

[Little Bird]

In the bottle, this smells faint, and odd. I get caramel and something that smells like tobacco.

 

On my skin, this is weird and unpleasant. Pothon Meter smells very dry, and makes me think of potpourri. Dried flowers and gross potpourri spice? It smells like a cheap craft store. In the drydown, it smells slightly smoky and gross, and also gets very perfumey. I picture a woman wearing a cheap, suffocating perfume and smoking a cigarette in the potpourri aisle of a craft store.

 

I had to wash this one off.

[AuroraLlew]

this goes on heavy and foody and turns into powdery rose death on me. I don't know why I keep trying scents with rose in them.....

[rayvn1]

Very pretty, slightly bitter rose blend. Rose is predominant as expected, but it has a warm depth I'm guessing comes from the benzoin that usually likes my skin. Glad I tried it!

[Miss Lynx]

I was a little nervous about the caramel in this one, since that's killed more than one scent for me (BPAL's caramel note tends to smell really cloying and synthetic on me, sad to say). But thankfully, as with Melainis, the caramel in this one is barely noticeable at all.

 

What stands out most to me in this one is the rose, but it's not overpowering -- my skin tends to amp rose a lot, but while the rose does seem to be the top note here, it's not amped beyond all reason. There's a soft added fruitiness from the berries, a little kick of spice from the pepper, a softly incensey undercurrent, and also something a bit cold that I can't quite place. I'd have almost thought there was some orris or mint or something like that -- something that would give it an edge of coolness. But I'm not sure what in here would do that, unless it's somehow the alcoholic edge of the cognac, which is otherwise not making itself known too much. At other points there seems to be a faint herbal bitterness underlying it, offsetting the sweetness just a little.

 

The combined effect is fairly sweet and light -- at least compared to the kinds of scents I usually wear -- subtly spicy, and while not too deep, at least complex enough to be interesting. It's a fair bit "girlier" than my usual sort of scent, but I sometimes like that in the spring. As rose-plus scents go, this can't really compete with the greatness that is BPTP Red Rose (the hands-down winner of this year's Lupercalia for me), but it's a pretty nice one and I may well keep it.

 

Grade: B/B+

[Mishinka]

OMG love! This is my very favorite scent I've tried since the Halloweenies last year.

 

In the decant I get a zap of spicy pepper that smells almost like cinnamon straight off. There's a slight woodiness in the imp that I think must be from the balsam, ad I can smell a little booze when I'm looking for it. I have no idea where the The rose is really strong when it's wet, but it's a rose I like, like the one in Day of the Skulls. It stays spicy, and I start to smell the berries as it dries down. The alcohol really just jumped out at me, too, but it stays mostly spicy rose at the end.

[lilacea]

Slightly soapy rose is the first thing I notice here, but with a little astringency and a caramel back up. The caramel is very mild once it hits my skin; cognac is pretty light on too, not much is coming out on my skin at all, but it lends a fres sext boozey quality to the whole. The balsam gives it a bit of a fresh sweet woodsy feel, very clean. There's a spiciness I originally thought may have been a really light clove or geranium, but from the description, I'm begining to see it's the pink pepper. I imagined this to have a sweeter berry note than what it does, but it's almost non existant to my nose. Clean, rosey, softest wiff of spice, a barest touch of smooth caramel, but still pretty tart and a little bitter.

[cinnamonster]

First few minutes on skin this is like a slightly more complex version of Corinne Cobson's quartet of Love etc perfumes, the Romantic feelings one (pink pepper and cinnamon) which I love to bits and hoard the last drop of. I get all excited about Pothon, then rose creeps in and takes over and shoves cinnamon out of the window. Then as revenge, cinnamon sends in someone to dump talc all over rose, and that's how it ended folks.

 

So sad...this could have been my everyday "me" scent, but my everyday me smell is not "talc". Pah.

[BuxomM]

It starts off sweet and spicy pink pepper, like sweet cinnamon. Then the rose comes in and there's a slight booziness from the cognac.

[hlinspjalda]

In the vial: Rose first, then tartness, then sweetness, then pepper, then boozy. This reminds me a little of "Fire Phoenix," only with rose.

 

Wet: Wow, that's kind of indescribable. I get balsam, berries, pepper, booze, but very little rose or caramel. It's a little sweet, a bit grassy, and I love the warmth of the pepper.

 

Half an hour: Oh, I like this one a lot. It's gently sweet, spicy, herbal, and just a bit rich and boozy. The rose is sweet rather than heady and binds it all together beautifully. No foody impression from the caramel, which is what I feared most.

 

Two hours: Yum! This continues to remind me of "Fire Phoenix," but I'm not sure why since they have so few ingredients in common. I'm getting sweet, pepper, rose, herb, and I think that must be the cognac. I want a bottle of this.

 

Three hours: Some of the sweetness is over, and the booze is gone. Now it's a slightly herbal, slightly sweet, peppery rose. I do still like it, but it's not as extraordinary as it was before. Quick fade, eh? I'll have to think about whether I need that bottle.

 

Second and third tests were a completely different experience, from the get-go: sharp and sour. How could my skin like this once, but never again? Oh well, I'll always have "Eustephanos"!

 

[catattack]

Imp: Fruity and "watery" (not ozone).

Wet: Fruity, but not overly sweet. I smell caramel in the background. Not getting any rose (hurray!). It's becoming a little tart, maybe from the berries? And the benzoin is making an appearance and adding a little more sweetness.

Drydown: The combo of berries, greenery, spice, and florals really work well in this blend. Further, the Pink Pepper comes out and it's fabulous.

Overall: This is nice. It's reminiscent of Yule scents. To me, this is a winter scent.

[Aldercy]

Gasp! I love the rose and pink pepper combination! And it's not exactly rose and pepper... the two scents are really fused together into one weirdly invigorating, fiery floral. As this is about the third rose blend I've fallen for, I think I'm going to finally have to give up my belief that I dislike rose. BPAL, you have done what a lifetime of smelling actual roses could not. I'm almost annoyed (in a financial sense) that I now cannot automatically dismiss everything with a rose note.

 

I was afraid of the presence of cognac, as booze pretty much never works for me, but it has very politely not reared its ugly, alcoholic head in Pothon Meter.

 

The luxuriant, honeyed, malty warmth of the caramel and resins provides a wonderful base for the peppered rose. Not saccharine or flighty... it's a highly romantic, velvety, mature scent. I would enjoy a bottle of this.

Edited August 12, 2009 by Aldercy

[Muppetk]

wet: OMGFOODY buttery caramel with rose and something fresh in a headlock.

 

dry: thankfully, the caramel has backed the heck off. Now I can smell the rose which has merged nicely with the red berries, the "something fresh" appears to be cognac (and it's very fresh, not boozy at all, I managed to identify it only because I've smelled cognac absolute before) with a bit of fuzzyness & muskiness underneath which could be the pepper combined with the benzoin. This is nice. I don't know that I need any more of it, but I'm certainly not going to fling away my partial imp in disgust.

 

Then again, I'm not sure that I have a FRESH and sprightly (as opposed to fresh cut) rose scent... it does make a nice change. I need to test this again. I might need more after all... actually there are very few "fresh" scents that I like at all. Interesting.

 

dry a little longer: the notes are melding together a bit more and I think I'm liking this one more. Nice.

 

Verdict: undecided, needs more testing. But leaning towards "acquire a half bottle or so."

[Diva Urd]

Vial: Rose and Pepper... the result is somewhat clove-y, but not bad out of the vial

On: Becomes a bit more rosey, but it's still mainly rose and pepper, maybe with a bit of benzoin. The other notes don't seem to show up while wet, and thankfully, the rose doesn't seem inclined to SCREAM like it usually does on my skin. It doesn't seem to change much during drydown and has quite a bit of oomph.

Later: Again somewhat clove-y rose. Not bad. I never got caramel or other listed notes, this was mainly rose and pepper, and the pepper might have mingled with a whiff of benzoin for the clove-y effect. I don't think it's bottle-worthy, but I'll keep the decant.

[TrailerTrashPrincess]

i didn't much care for this when the Aphrodite series was out, but now that this bottle is going to live at a new home, i thought i should do a quick review. but a quick reminder: i hate pepper, it ruins everything (food or perfume).

 

i think i've mentioned in reviews before, about the rosebush we had growing out by the pool when i was little... it was there when we bought the house, no idea what kind of roses they were, dark dark fuschia pink, beautiful. but they stank, smelled like black pepper.

 

this blend smells like those roses, but rolled in sugar. not that it is actually sweet, really, because the cognac and pepper temper the caramel and fruit... but overall it is a very interesting blend.

 

[tragedy]

pure and utter fail on me.. smells like flat spicy pepsi... maybe it needs to settle a bit