How Doth the Little Crocodile

[ModderRhu]

Chocolate peppermint, mint-soaked vanilla, pistachio, oakmoss, and green cedar.

Holy moly. I was not expecting to love this oil this much. It's so YUMMY! It's mostly chocolate and buttery pistachio at first, and the longer it "cooks" on my skin, a gorgeous, mysterious, jungle-y sort of smell comes out. I'm guessing that's the oakmoss. It's WONDERFUL! Oh man. I LOVE this!

[impolight]

:::HOW DOTH THE LITTLE CROCODILE:::

 

This fragrance is rife with intrigue.

Here, it gets associated with the Crocodile-Lamp that Grandpa bought to, "Eat the monsters and nightmares" that elicited screams from my room when I was about four...Thank you, Orange-Grandpa!

The components of this formula are also intriguing with no end in sight!

From the Imp: WOW! This scent actually DOES evoke saurean imagery...

The formula explodes in a dazzling pyrotechnical display of Brown and Green deep in the most reptilian reaches of the brain. This is amazing!

It is unfathomable how Elizabeth is able to so accurately coax these impressions from concentrated essences of plant residues.

The most apparent note, and incredibly so, is the Pistachio.

This has all of the rich, sweet exoticism of the drupe, and one can practically taste the dustiness of the shell.

The Chocolate-Mint is good enough to sit and beckon from the top of a sugar-cone.

The Vanilla is there, but is the hardest to detect of the the notes; it doesn't have the characteristic pervasiveness of the cacao and is a more generalised sweetness as a result.

The Oakmoss is a brilliant addition; it ties the entire formula together and is what MAKES this Crocodialian. Oakmoss gives this formula a glittering dangerousness that lurks just beneath the surace, it is the flicker of fear just before you lean over to drink.

On the Sin: The Cacao flares up in amperage for a brief moment before some aerial acrobatics and leaving a dusty contrail over the top of the rest. The Mint (surprisingly) takes a back seat to the Oakmoss and the Pistachio.

When Oakmoss and Pistachio join forces with the Cedar (which popped out of the foliage and screamed; nearly inspiring bladder activity) the result is the primordial power of a bone-splintering tail and a crushing bite.

From cute and sweet to utterly fearsome!

How Doth the Little Crocodile is totally rad.

While unisex is a possibility, it seems much more His thing after his thing after the morph.

How Doth the Little Crocodile is muddy, golden, latern-yellow, and at least six shades of green.

Wear this when you want to quietly lurk in a room and enjoy the spectacle of people wearing worried expressions, continuously looking over their shoulders, or starting every time someone uses the faucet.

Purest, mischevious delight.

4.85 out of 5.

[surf-tormented]

The Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie start of this scent, makes me think of my deceased mom and how she loved those cookies. The chocolate and mint smell very natural, not like a fake candle, so I love sniffing my wrist and remembering.

 

Soon, the top notes calm and I am greeted with a most luxurious non-foody mix of chocolate, cedar, oakmoss and pistachio. It's a real grown up chocolate that blends very well with the green cedar. I limit my foody perfumes to cocoa and some sugar now and then, but this is a magical mixture. Good to wear at work and it has a good throw on me and lasts. Other people have said it, but it is like eating chocolate mint cookies in a forest wetland. It's a good clash of the sweet and sinister, innocence and sophistication.

 

Someone sent me an imp of this for free and I've almost gobbled it up, so I just ordered a bottle of it. Highly recommended to those who like the idea of a chocolate scent, but don't try them because they are too foody or sugary. This is a dry mint chocolate, devoid of sugar and milk, mixed with dry woods, moss and a slight nuttiness (but again the pistachio comes off as part of the wood more than a food note). The cedar is the prime note on me and remains so until the end of its run. It's earthy, yet has chocolate in it and the chocolate doesn't overrule. Finally a BPAL chocolate blend that doesn't go too sweet or nutty on me! The chocolate works with the cedar as part of the earth note.

 

On top of this...this scent makes me happy. It brings on the charm. I probably shouldn't smile at it..but oh well, I am!

Edited August 25, 2010 by Madame Nyx

[obsidienne]

First off, I think that someone mentioned in another thread that this smells similar to Villainess' Dulces en Fuego... and, yes. So that's why this smells familiar! However, this has a greener quality, which is fine with me. When wearing this, I feel like I'm enveloped in a haze of rich chocolate, warm vanilla, bright peppermint, and soft green notes. It's lush and cozy, yet the green bits give it a refreshing, uplifting quality. The cedar does not turn to pencil shavings on me, it just provides a very lovely faint wood effect. And lastly, it is somehow a little bit spicy. Which notes are creating this effect? I have no idea, but that's the nail in the coffin that has elevated this into a favourite. This is definitely foody, but with a welcome twist. The scent is fairly strong, the throw decent, but it does seem to fade quickly on my skin. NOM NOM NOM. Need bottle(s)!

 

BTW, this layers rather spectacularly with Snake Oil, making a minty chocolaty extra smoosh of vanilla type Snake Oil. Divine!

 

Edited August 30, 2010 by obsidienne

[Molls]

It is official, I really can't do anything chocolate. This smelled so good in the imp, but on my skin, it smells gross. I would swear it had patchouli in it, because it smells like chocolatey B.O. I can't wait to wash it off...

[melrose]

On, wet: fantastic chocolate, not too sweet.

 

Almost immediately the mint comes out - York Peppermint Patty!

 

OMG, it's getting better; the vanilla is now the strongest note, with the chocolate, mint, and something woody riding underneath.

 

What happened? It disappeared after 30 minutes. Still, could be slather-worthy.

[Deiicide]

Oh Cedar you once again win out. I was hoping more for the chocolate soaked peppermint, the pistachio, vanilla, anything! But the Cedar clubbed everything else, and comfortably stole the show during the wet phase. It was only during the dry phase that some of the other elements poked out, and melded together. As my DH, mentioned when I let him sniff it. It smells earthy. So earthy it is. Might be a nice sleeping scent. Lasts a long time, but sticks close to the skin.

[SophieCedar]

Wet: chocolate peppermint hot cocoa. Hmm.. where's everyone else?

 

Drydown: ooh it's similar to wulric! I'm amping the oakmoss, which makes me very happy. That's one of my favorite smells. The vanilla soaked mint and pistachio are there too. Chocolate is still around however the peppermint isn't so pungent (thankfully) and the green cedar is smooth. Love it more than I thought I would. I avoided this one for a while thinking I'd hate chocolate peppermint.. Guess that's why I keep buying bpals..because there's so many unexpected hits.

[ShannonElisabethJones]

I got this as a frimp in my last order. I was really put off by the smell at first because I didn't know what was in it. Once I read the description, it made sense.

 

This one is great! So playful. I get a big blast of chocolate. My BF says it smells more generally of your Halloween candy bag. Either way, yummy!

 

After a while it mellows to cedar. I like how it morphed from sweet chocolate to earthy cedar. Really well done.

Edited February 6, 2011 by Sionann

[grrrlennyl]

How Doth the Little Crocodile

 

On: Really smooth mint chocolate. Very pretty and not overwhelmingly foody.

1 hour in: Mostly chocolate with a hint of mint.

6.5 hours in: Sweet and a bit chocolate-y. A hint of something woodsy.

Overall: This is just OK on me.

[Leafy Sea Dragon]

I bought a 5mL of this unsniffed from someone on livejournal after a long struggle between Little Crocodile and Rat King.

 

It turns out that this was probably a good decision, since the little croc is rather nice to me. This scent starts off as a blast of dry cocoa and mint with a hint of something green - like an abandoned mint brownie with a crumbled nut topping at the very edge of a forest. Or, actually, I'd have to agree with the people who said it was like an enchanted forest where the tree trunks are chocolate and the foliage is mint.

 

A couple hours later the mint and chocolate just up and leave, then I'm greeted with a punch in the face by Cedar which demands to know where everyone else went. I don't know, cedar. I just don't know.

 

Overall: This scent fits the verse it goes with creepily well. You're greeted with the security and charm of minty chocolate. You let your guard down and the cedar crocodile strikes!

[asciident]

Wet: Nutty chocolate, which is a bit minty. There’s a hint of green, a mix of the cedar and moss.

 

First on: Andes mints! Yummy. Still slightly mossy, but not much. The nuttiness of the pistachio is gone.

 

Dry: I think my skin absorbed most of the scent already, as it’s quite faded now. There’s a slight chocolate and nut scent again, but not much else. I liked the scent in its initial stages, but a scant whiff of chocolate isn’t much to go on.

 

 

[imaginepageant]

In the Vial: Chocolate! Very, very chocolate. I'm also getting the pistachio, a tiny bit of mint, and a general woodsiness in the background. This is yummy but not entirely in a foody way.

 

Wet: Oh! There's the vanilla, sweetening it all up quite nicely. The cedar is also coming out now. Still mainly chocolate and pistachio. The pistachio is unexpectedly lovely! This strongly reminds me of something, but as usual, I can't pinpoint what.

 

Dry: It's getting better and better as it dries. Sweeter, creamier, and almost milky. The vanilla is taking a backseat in this blend, only present in the sweetness of it all. And the mint is just a faint suggestion. Somehow, there's something musky and animalistic about it... is that the oakmoss and cedar playing tricks on me?

 

An Hour Later: It really hasn't changed much since the beginning. Still sweet and creamy, and full of chocolate and pistachio. It has gotten the slightest bit powdery, though, and that makes it smell more like a lotion than a perfume.

 

Overall: It's such a strange scent (pistachio?! I still can't get over that), but I really like it and am considering a bottle with my next order.

[Helas]

The wet phase of How Doth the Little Crocodile smells like rotting wood coated in extremely rich, cheap, melted milk chocolate to me. I ended up having to wash it off, since it made me nauseous. My sister, who owns a bottle of it, made me smell it on her once it has dried and it actually becomes pleasant if odd in the dry phase - rich loamy woods with a faint backdrop of sugared mint and chocolate powder. Unfortunately, I just cannot bring myself to go through the wet phase to get there.

 

Gourmand scents that appeal to me are rare and chocolate scents even rarer; How Doth the Little Crocodile is an unsurprising failure. Two out of five stars.

[necromanticize]

This is a very strange scent to me. I don't dislike it, but I'm not used to wearing things that smell like this.

 

In the imp it smelled like pure chocolate with a little bit of mint.

On my skin I get cedar quite strongly. It's kind of nice. The mint and the cedar work really well together, though the mint isn't very strong, and I can still smell the chocolate in the back. I don't get any pistachio though.

 

I think this could grow on me but I'd have to be in the right mood to wear it.

 

ETA: I think I smell like a candy shop and a Home Depot merged.

Not bad, but definitely weird.

My roommate loves it though.

 

7 hours later:

It smells like vanilla mint cedar and I quite like it. Yum.

Edited May 10, 2011 by necromanticize

[thewintering]

In the bottle: Dusky chocolate. I don't get mint, just a faint hint of the woods and pistachio that keep the chocolate from being cloying.

 

Wet on skin: In keeping with the scent in the bottle, on application this is vastly chocolate. If you focus you can smell the mint, pistachio and a dusky dried wood softening the cocoa.

 

Dry-down: The mint is very faint and the chocolate is settling into place with the rest of the scents. The pistachio, mint, cedar and oakmoss are harmonizing here so that their single note isn't really as important as how they work together. It becomes what I'd describe as an earthy chocolate spiced with precious woods.

 

Overall: It's not a dead ringer for Thin Mints, but you can imagine them in the blend once it dries down. To me this is more like the girl scout gave up selling cookies and went to a cabin in a wood with rich, dry dirt and sat on the porch with a box of thin mints spilled out next to her.

 

How doth the little crocodile evokes a rugged but inexorably feminine character in the wild west for me. Gunslinging and petticoats.

[calivianya]

I get a very strong blast of chocolate initially upon application, but it calms down into a nice chocolate/mint combination after the first five minutes. I can't really detect any of the other notes outright, but there is almost a nutty feeling in the back of my throat after I breath in. I don't think I would notice it at all if I didn't know there was pistachio in this scent.

[invisible iris]

It’s unbelievable to me how wearable this is, given the exceedingly cute concept. In the beginning it's chocolatey depth with all kinds of green notes poking through. Mint brings contrasty freshness, oakmoss brings humidity, and cedar brings an organic, ligneous backbone. Everything evokes a lovely green woodsyness.

 

On my skin, the cedar and oakmoss come to the front just enough to throw your nose so that if you didn’t know there was chocolate/mint/vanilla, you wouldn’t guess it was there. This is chocolate made all natural and clean-woodsy-wild. Like if you were in a minty mossy cedar forest, and instead of dirt the damp ground was made of cocoa. It is a lovely and lovable little scent.

[K.Harker]

Holy Double-Chocolate-Mint-Brownies Batman! I was about ready to gnaw my own wrist off when I put this on! Too bad it fades quickly! I'll definitely be getting a bottle of this next time.

[fiddlefox]

eeeh I really need a bottle. I had a sniffy I tested. Yes this is also what I was hoping spooky would be like. It smells dark and rich yet refreshing. It smells dark and dangerous like a crocodile in a strange playful manner. I agree with iris, it smells wild and woodsy but the soil is made of dark chocolate cookie crumbs.

Edited July 16, 2011 by ivy_fiddlefox

[Circaea]

How Doth starts off with a strong in-your-face chocolate. The mint comes out while it's still wet. There is a mid-stage that's kind of plasticky. Chocolate notes often do this on me (or maybe it's the vanilla.) After an hour I kept smelling U (Mutter Museum). I love that scent, so that makes How Doth a winner for me overall. I have a bottle of U on its way to me, though, so I don't need more of this little crocodile.

[voodoocatwoman]

This initially lovely chocolate scent quickly and completely morphed into ATTACK OF THE DREADED HAMSTER CAGE.

 

That is all.

[ladyjc]

I love this! Sometimes chocolate is iffy on me, but this one works! I think because this chocolate is melded so well with the other notes, plus it burns off rather quickly. After a while I get a dusty cocoa scent with a cedar and oakmoss base and it's great! Something about it is reminding me of Cupcake Spatter Pattern Analysis.

 

Need a bottle with next order pls!

Edited September 15, 2011 by ladyjc

[Klolly]

Ordered an imp of this along with a bottle of Morocco. I have loved mint + chocolate combos since I was little and love the woods to so here goes:

In imp: Grasshopper cookies crumbled in a wood shop.

 

On wet: The woods amp but mint hovers over all. This borders on masculine right now. The woods are deep and dark.

 

Dry: As I continue to wear it it sweetens. It's very unusual but I think I like it. I'll update after I've worn it awhile.

 

Much later: So this one has definitely made it's way into my top 5. It danced near masculine for a long time and I dislike masculine scents so I was scared but it never crossed that line for me and managed to stay feminine. By the end of the day you couldn't differentiate any of the notes but the mint and only because I knew what was in it. It became an almost creamy, white floral on me as I wore it. My ten year old said this was her favorite and my husband said it's nice but that morocco is better. Lol. I'd have to agree with him but this one is definitely high on my list.

Edited September 19, 2011 by Klolly

[rhubarb3point14]

Curiouser and curiouser.

 

The first thing I notice out of the imp is chocolate. But it is not confectionery chocolate. It is dark, crumbly, earthy, and bitter. It's like raw cacao nibs. It is accompanied by fresh mintiness, also not at all sweet.

 

Underlying this initial bitter-chocolate and mint impression is something odd that for a while I can't identify, until I remember there is supposed to be pistachio. It comes off a little cardboardy early on, but then it mellows and is just a subtle "thing." It's hard for me to distinguish in this scent, since to me, pistachios smell minty in the first place.

 

Pretty quickly, the oakmoss and cedar become front-and-center, and that's what this fragrance is to me: swamp, earth, green, with undergroundy whiffs of crumbly bitter chocolate.

 

My husband smells nothing but vanilla in this scent. I can't smell vanilla in it at all. Not even a little bit.

 

I think this fragrance is spectacularly executed, and I especially love how unsweet it is. I am still on the fence as to whether I personally want to smell like this. Is it me? I will report back if and when I decide.

Edited October 28, 2011 by rhubarb3point14