Very Slightly Haunted Dollhouse

[Jammies]

VERY SLIGHTLY HAUNTED DOLLHOUSE
A life in miniature, manipulated by deft little hands: sugared carnation and wispy white wine grape.

In the bottle: very rich, very spicy carnation--a lot of clove and very little floral.

Wet on skin: the same carnation note and a sweet white grape note which reminds me of Titania.

Dry on skin: baby pink carnations, sweet and soft. A good perfume for a day when I want to smell carnations but don't want my co-workers asking who got flowers.

[cfrancesca]

This is really well-blended and lovely. I get a sweet, slightly tart, pretty carnation. Carnation Wine?
After the dry down I seem to get a lemonade in the background, but it's probably the white grapes, they are smelling slightly citrusy to me. I love this, it's like a softly musky vanilla sugared and creamy pink limonade.

Very nice and fresh for the spring/summer.

Edited March 22, 2015 by cfrancesca

[VioletChaos]

in the bottle, i found the grape to be pretty strong, more like a white grape wine than just grapes. the carnation was a good balance.

 

wet on my skin, the sugared aspect that i know so well from such beloveds of mine as Faith, Hope and TKO started to show itself, which is what i was hoping for.

 

on the dry down, it becomes fully the Sugared Carnation love i was hoping for, a perfect addition to the others i already mentioned

 

several hours later, the sugared aspect has faded and the white grape mixes with the carnation to become a very soft skin musk. it reminds me, in fact, of a drug store perfume i wore 20 years ago in high school called "skin musk".

 

in all: very little throw- and i slathered it- very light and delicate, but with a definitely specific presence. this is lovely all around, and am very happy with it

[Little Bird]

I didn't think that this would work on me. I love the smell of carnation, but it tends to give me a headache, and grape usually equals grape bubble yum on me, which I don't want to smell like. I was expecting fresh carnations and grape candy, and it's not that at all. It's more of a pretty, dry, perfumey type of scent.

 

On me, this smells like dry carnation dusted in a sparkling sugar. I don't get a strong grape or wine note on my skin (though it smells deliciously fruity and slightly citrussy in the bottle). This actually reminds me of High-Strung Daisies, but a more grownup and perfumey version.

 

Dry, sugary, perfumey floral, with a tiny hint of something that smells slightly citrussy in the drydown. It smells like edible flowers, but also a lovely, enchanting little perfume. I think that this is a good scent for a slightly haunted dollhouse, and a great scent for me . My husband also gave this one a 9 out of 10 rating, which doesn't happen very often.

[FandF]

This was a surprise hit for me as well. I don't care too much for carnations (like Lush Potion or bpal Hod...though i like Clemence) but this isn't really what you would necessarily first think of as spicy carnation scents. It's very fresh...like when you first squirt an orange but not the orange smell...that initial blast of "citrus" that is bright. I also get a clean Charmin scent (in a good way). Neither the carnation or grape scream....grape turns weird on my skin and this does not. This is oddly wonderful and beautiful! I love this scent!!!

[angelicruin]

Wet on my skin, I get mostly carnations, but very sweet, almost candy-like.

 

Very sweet an juicy, perhaps from the grape note, though it's hard for me to really discern a specific grape note with this oil.

 

Becomes a little spicier as it dries.

[puck_nc]

Origin: decant from an Inquisition circle off-forum

 

Initial Thoughts: I love me some carnation. Not quite as sure about the grape.

 

In the Vial: Very light and airy. I'm having a hard time getting a good noseful of scent. I think I can smell the carnation and a fruity note, but it's all very faint.

 

Wet: Again, this is extremely light. If it stays like this, I'd recommend it to folks who want to wear a scent, but have to deal with people who complain about being overpowered by perfume fumes. At the moment the carnation is the stronger note, almost like a fresh flower, with just the slightest fruity edge.

 

Drydown: It gets a little more sugary and fruity, still all the while staying extremely close to the skin.

 

Verdict: I could see finishing the decant, but I'm not sure about tracking down a bottle.

[sprocket21]

At first when I apply this scent, I get a blast of spicy carnation, and I started to wonder if Very Slightly Haunted Dollhouse would turn out to be what I wanted from Hod. Then the carnation goes POOF, and the white wine grape says HI! Now it's a very sweet florally grapey smell. I know it's carnation, but the grape is interacting with it in a way that makes it smell just sort of floral and not spicy. It seems like something I'd want to wear to an elegant tea party; very light and feminine.

[fairnymph]

Extremely pale virtually colourless yellow oil. Sweet, sugary carnation (smells pink or white to me, not too heavy or spicy) and the grape is surprisingly fruity and bright, not as syrupy as I'd feared.

 

Tarter, juicier! I get some definite citrus - it reminds me of clementines or tangerines, and I get tart juice and peel both - it's so tart it could even have some lemon too. Delicious! It's less sweet though I still get a lovely sugar note, crystallized - it really does remind me of crystallized edible flowers. The carnation is very soft and delicate and surprisingly green, with milky-stemmy note that makes this scent super fresh in combo with the citrus.

 

Here's the carnation! it's still a very soft/light carnation note, but it has amped up to be the strongest note, and is accompanied still by that lovely stemmy green note. The fruit has faded greatly, almost completely, and most of the sugar has too - this is still sugary, but it's much less sweet than it is in the bottle, and overall this is not anywhere as sweet as I'd feared. I don't think I'd guess there were grape in this, btw.

 

STEMMY, very green, planty carnation with a little spice that finally emerges. The sugar remains only very lightly, the fruit is long gone. Not a very sweet scent in the end. The greenness of the carnation is interesting (and unique), but I usually like 'fresher' green scents and this is more of a dry, almost powdery green scent. It's just not *quite* good enough to keep. Decent throw and longevity.

[zankoku_zen]

Agreed. This sort of starts with a blast of citrus and sugary grape with carnation lurking in the background, but it dries to a green carnation sort of blend. Kinda warm, slightly sugary.

 

Meh.

[heathercaley]

Just like all the other Inquisitions, I love this one too!!

 

Once applied, I smell sugary grape scented spicy florals. It's lovely and innocent, with just a spicy kick. Carnation is one of my favorite floral note. It isn't too strong in this blend, but just apparent enough to give it some beautiful spice.

 

As it starts to dry down, the sugars start to dissapear, leaving behind white grape. It's definitely white.. could almost mistake it for a different type of fruit. Purple grape has a more distinctive grape smell about it, and this is not purple at all.

 

It's pretty dry now, and what is left is white grapes and carnations. It's beautiful =)

 

Verdict? Not your kool-aid brand!

[milo]

This one is a bit of a surprise for me. I get a carnation with citrus and a bit of white wine. The wine doesn't bother me like I thought it would, as I generally don't like the smell (or taste!) of white wine. As it dries, there is even less wine and the citrus also fades. I get a creamy floral, which I'm thinking is the carnation. This kind of reminds me of White Rabbit and a bit of Hod. A somewhat sweet, milky floral is the end result. Pretty, but I don't think I need any more than my decant.

[crebbsgirl]

This dried down to a really sweet carnation scent on me. The grape wasn't overly fruity by the end of this, however, the wet stages were very very fruity and sweet.

[Ravenclaw79]

Funny how the Lab's carnation never smells like actual carnations on me. But at least I've learned to identify it now: it's bubblegum mixed with anise-like spices. And that's predominantely what I get from this.

[Schmoozy]

 

At first this is sugary sweet bubble gum, but as it dries down the carnation notes appear. Hints of spice make their way to the top while in the background the white wine grape is fresh, juicy and effervescent. It is definitely sweet and very whimsical.

[PurringPulsar]

Very Slightly Haunted Dollhouse

 

In the imp: wine gums! Yes, this smells just like wine gums (which incidentally don’t contain wine!)

Wet on skin: citrus? I do smell dry white wine but I smell lemon too, and berries?

Dry on skin: hmm, this has a similar lemony note to the one in Left His Nurse. Not sure what that is? It’s not bad though, this scent overall is very pretty. Surprisingly fruity, actually. This to me smells like fizzy lemon sherbet with wine gums. In a nutshell, it smells like sweets. I think I smell the wine but it smells more like lemon spritzer to me. I also smell something vaguely spicy, and certainly some sugar, but the most important thing seems to be missing-where is the carnation? I smell hints of it, a vague pink sweet floral-ish spice, but it’s not making itself obvious. In fact, the lemon here smells like lemongrass/verbena?

After a while: this turns really cloying. This doesn’t smell like carnation to me. It still smells like wine gum sweets, but with something sickly sweet. It reminds me of a kind of red fruit jelly scent, incredibly sweet, gelatinous, sticky, and as to what fruit it smells like, I can’t say-somewhere between strawberry, raspberry and red grape. There is a hint of rose petal or geranium too, which is nice, and that weird lemon note, which isn’t so nice. But it doesn’t smell like what I expected it to smell like. Where’s my carnation? This seems a world away from the glorious carnations of Pink Moon 07 or Ysabel bath oil.

Verdict: I have no idea what happened, but had I smelt this without a note description, I wouldn’t have thought it was carnations and wine grape. It’s a lot fruitier and sweeter than expected. It smells very pretty at first and has a fruit flavoured sweet scent, like strawberry wine gums with rose petal jam and some kind of strong lemon randomly added. And then it develops a scent that I find more cloying than anything else I’ve found in BPAL, and it made me feel a little queasy-I’ve never had this reaction before. Usually fruit scents or even gourmand scents don’t give me this reaction but this scent was too much, an overload of candy coated roses and strawberries oversweetened with dessert wine and added syrup…and not a carnation to be found.

Emoticon rating:

Is it a keeper? no.

[mryan66]

In my opinion this is one of those scents that defines the magic of Bpal. It’s neither pretty, friendly, or even approachable [you can approach, but beware] It’s is the most awesome batch of deceptive creepiness ever whipped up. On first whiff its just a harmless mix of spicy flowers and summer fruit, but on application it gets crazy; Squishy , sticky jelly cookies [apricot to me] gone stale, and something boozy, like fermented apple juice, sort of a wine smell, but slightly evil. I can definitely smell the carnations, but again, they aren’t in a pretty bouquet; they’ve had their heads plucked off and are languishing amid the cookie crumbs. Over all this is a coating of dust. I never could define exactly what ‘dust’ smells like, but this is it, an almost imperceptible sensation of suffocation; the microscopic detritus of all things dead and gone, but, with cookies! When my sister and I were little we used to leave ‘offerings’ for our dolls so they would stay in their places at night. That is what dollhouse reminds me of. This is a WEIRD scent, and I would wear it all the time, except, unfortunately I didn’t discover Bpal after this inquisition had passed, and all I have is an imp, which I will greedily covet forever [or until I find a bottle.]

[filigree_shadow]

Very sweet, kind of powdery chalky grape. With a little bit of carnation underneath.

Not really my thing.

[grrrlennyl]

Very Slightly Haunted Dollhouse

 

On: Very juicy, sweet white wine grape. I love that note of Beth's, so I'm pretty excited about this one.

1 hour in: The grapes have gone almost syrupy sweet on me.

7 hours in: The grape is still very sweet, but also a bit sour on my skin now.

Overall: I think the grape got to be overwhelming on my skin.

[SnowWhiteMoon]

In bottle: It smells almost like plastic lemons. >.>

 

On me: It almost smells like white grape juice, but more like white grape juice that's soured (and not in a nice, happy, winey way).

 

30 minute dry down: It's... I get the faint sweetness of carnation--reminiscent of Pink Moon '07--but it's that slightly sour twang of old green grapes that I just can't get over. It's like a darker, little less sweet version of the 2007 Pink Moon for sure. Maybe on someone else it's gorgeous. On me, it's highly unpleasant.

[Incendiare]

Carnation and wine are two of my favourite notes so I just had to try this. In the bottle, it's doesn't even smell like those two notes combined. It smells more like a tarter grape twisted with something citrusy. There's a floral note in there too but it's more along the lines of a white floral, oddly. Wet, it's even fruitier, but still no carnation. After about five minutes, the carnation peeks out a bit but the random lemon note is still the strongest. Actually, going back to smell this in the bottle makes me realize just how much more sugary it is in the bottle. Now that I think about it, on me, it reminds me of Spun Sugar Spectre bath oil, which goes weirdly lemony on me. This is much nicer in the bottle and this will give me an excuse to wear my scent locket more often.

[zeldaZ4]

Fruity bubblegum! Raspberry? Grape? That's what I smelled when I first dabbed this on my wrist.

 

About an hour later, the fruity sweetness is still there, but it now has a lovely layer of soft florals and cream over it. I don't see a cream note listed - could this be the yeast from the wine?

 

Delicate, wispy and ethereal. LOVE!!!

[Xue_Bai]

Frimp from CRoseWhisper....thank you!

 

As others have said, very light, and it does come across as lemonade-ish with carnation playing through it. Lightly spiced as well. It's very doll-like, but something creepy does whisper through it, really tying into the name well. Doesn't appear to last long on me though which is a shame! Going to hide the decant until I save up for a scent locket.

[violetblue]

Fruity bubblegum! Raspberry? Grape? That's what I smelled when I first dabbed this on my wrist.

 

About an hour later, the fruity sweetness is still there, but it now has a lovely layer of soft florals and cream over it. I don't see a cream note listed - could this be the yeast from the wine?

 

Delicate, wispy and ethereal. LOVE!!!

THIS! I just got around to testing a frimp of this and loved it - was able to get a bottle from ISOs and LOVE this! So glad I was able to find a bottle.

[Ryan Hemphill]

This was an impulse buy off of the lab's Ebay a little while back. I've worn in it a couple of times since it's arrival.

 

This is what is says- all sweet carnations and wine grapes. I adore it. I do get a hint of a bubble gum type of sweetness from it. It's not a "pretty" floral- but a very colorful candy floral. Dries down to a sweet creamy floral, and I can still smell the grape in there.

 

I just love it. Something about this scent just makes me smile with each sniff--Childlike and full of happy memories