Hymn

[taramarie]

A paean to true holiness, spiritual purity, and sacred enlightenment. Based on an incense blend sacred to the Virgin Mary: perfect rose absolute and Palestinian Lily of the Valley with olibanum, labdanum, frankincense and myrrh.

I'll start by saying I was wary about trying Hymn since frankincense and myrrh make up the incense used at Mass and I'm not fond of that smell. Thankfully, I don't smell them at all. What I do smell is lily of the valley with a rose base. If these are church flowers, they're flowers in the church's garden, not in the chapel.

The flowers smell so good together that I'm definitely putting a bottle of this on my wishlist.

[Gwydion]

It is strongly floral when fresh, and pleasant enough. It really wears well, however. It wasn't something I would have picked, but I've grown fond of it.

[hipslike___cinderella]

This is SMACKPOW lily at the initial whiff. I love lily, but you have to deal with the first sour-floral stage. It softens up rather quickly, and you get the powdery resins. I smell the rose absolute only after the lily softens up a bit.

 

About 20 minutes later, this is BEAUTIFUL. Middle body of resins, all so blended well that I can't pick apart labdanum/olibanum/frankincense/myrrh, and even the rose plays together well. While I do smell "flower", "rose", and "resin", it's still impossible to pin this down as a "floral", "rosy", or "incencesy" oil (does that make sense?). It's all blended just right, and is what it is. Very mature and lovely. My only qualm is that it faded so fast.

[CrazyPretzel]

This is a very nice incense blend -- I'm wary of labdanum, but it's quite soft here and the flowers make this very gentle overall. I was planning on swapping this but it's become so pretty on the drydown that now I'm not sure!

[Nimthiriel]

Initial impression:

In the vial, I'm surprised by how soft it is – I expected something sharp, given the ingredients, but it's almost mellow. I'm interested in how this will turn out!

 

First on:

While still wet, it's so soft, subtle and light, that I can barely sense it. It's like a white cloud, just out of reach, somehow.

 

Dry:

After about 10 mins, it has grown a little braver, but it's still amazingly soft and gentle. It does smell pure! Pure and soft, like a whisper from beyond comprehension. Wow, this has already turned me into a poet!

 

After about 20, the myrrh is coming through, warming te scent a little – it makes it a little more earthy and real, rather than floating and celestial. Mm.

 

After about 30+ mins, it's a very warm floral, but still light and gentle. Not intrusive in the least. A pleasant breath of the divine.

 

Finally:

I'm a little ambivalent. It wasn't as I expected it to be, but it was good nonetheless. A keeper for the moment.

[Vampy]

Got this as a frimp off another bpaler. When I first smelled it it was just for a brief sniff before I moved on to testing the thing I'd actually bought, and all I thought was - "hmm, this smells nice, but I bet it's going to turn bad on my skin." Later on before I tried it on my skin I looked up the notes and thought, "Rose. Oh damn. That's why."

 

I like the way roses smell. I even like the scent of rose on me, when it's subtle - but see, rose just doesn't do subtle on me. Ooooh no. Rose can only scream and whack me over the head with its thorny branches. Like some bitchy primadonna, she will not share attention with any other notes, and she will screech at you until you'd rather just cut off the offending appendage that she has taken over rather than deal with that headache-inducing smell any longer.

 

So, given that it does smell quite nice in the bottle, and I really love resinous scents... I take a chance and dab a tiny bit on anyway.

 

The resins underneath the florals create a beautiful backdrop; it actually makes me smile for a moment, it's such a peaceful, lovely smell. Soon, the rose dominates as I expected, but at first it wasn't screaming in my face - it was a quiet, unassuming rose, damp and lovely.

 

But that was just an evil ruse to get my hopes up. Because after about ten minutes -

 

AAAAAAH ROSE ROSE ROSEEEEEE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET IT OFF ME.

 

Headache inducing old lady rose soap. I CRY.

 

 

I think I might give this a try as a room scent or something - it is a beautiful scent. It's too bad rose is my mortal enemy.

[KassiK]

In the imp: all i get is honeysuckle (even though I know that's not a note).

wet: Oh this is divine. It's almost got an aquatic feel to it, but that's probably the Lily. Wow, I'm very impressed. A sharp, sweet floral with a lucidity like that of something reflected in water. Shimmery and nice, well blended.

drydown: Same thing only the watery-ness is coming in and out instead of staying. Whatever note is producing that watery smell I wish came out more. Even so, I'm in <3. The scent is very well blended so that it's hard to pick out notes - the way I like it. I like BPALs to smell like themselves.

 

Note to others: Rose usually NEVER goes well on my skin and in this case, it's really not ruining the scent.

[Styx]

Hymn

yellow oil

 

frImp (Thank you!) : Sweet, fresh Lily and Rose. Perfumy.

 

Skin: It immedietely got floury. I just know the Lily's the culprit doing this to me. Oh Phooey, this was so nice in the imp too, I'm sad.

The resins amp the flouriness, which doesn't help, but the rose is a very gorgeous one that doesn't have an oldish smell.

So I wore it for a day anyway. The flouriness fades to an acceptable level, much to my happiness, after an hour.

The ending was similar to Endymions, but more rosy, warmer and deeper in a perfumy way.

Its a very soft and gentle scent, I can imagine it smelling absolutely lovely on someone that can wear it with both florals clear.

Smells like a well-behaved young lady that would go to church wearing a white hat.

[funkmoppet]

Lab frimp.

 

So very floral in the imp. Wet, sweet floral.

 

The Lily dominates everything else once it's on my skin, and stays amped right up until dry-down, where the rose takes over. I like rose, but especially with lily, it's gone to a soapy, powdery variant that isn't doing it for me. This sort of rose sticks to my skin like glue, and even manages to kill the frankincense and myrrh (which should gang up and go to powder-of-doom on my skin - a distinctly different smell).

 

I'm left with powdery, rose-scented bath products from yesteryear.

 

Swaps.

[LadyBug]

A dark smoky scent and I can really smell the frankincense and myrrh. This was a very pretty scent but for me I like lighter and happier scents that jump out at you! I kind of am reminded of incense too! Maybe this could go in my oil burner while I'm smoking some hooka! haha

[Babylon]

I love the smell of Lilies of the Valley, but the rose in this blend is sharp and overpowering. After about 5 minutes, it also goes soapy.

[DifferentDances]

Imp: Cologne and incense.

Wet: Very, very faint bread soaked with a touch of aquatic cologne.

Drydown: Slightly sweet, incensey soap. Still faint.

Dry: Odd. It's become pink eraser shavings, like the pink erasers on the tips of pencils or those solid pink erasers that leave more pink smudges than actual erasures. Bizarre.

 

My rating: 1/5. Very faint to begin with, and then goes through one of the strangest BPAL morphs I've ever experienced.

[QueenFae]

When this is first applied, it is very, very rosey. I was sure this was going to be a straight up pink rose scent. After it dries down, the underlying incenses and resins begin to emerge, and Hymn morphs into something completely different. It becomes a churchy, frankincese, smoky resin blend with the perfume of the rose absolute floating shyly in the background. This really does remind me of sunday morning in church when I was a little girl. This has medium throw.

 

Not quite my kind of thing, but hauntingly beautiful just the same.

[Christine Daae]

Another imp I've had for over two years and never written a review of.

 

In the imp, this is sharp and incensey.

 

Wet on my skin, this is still incensey, but with a sour undertone. I don't remember that being there, so it may have gone "off" in aging since the last time I used it.

 

As it dries, it becomes sweeter and more floral, that sour note disappearing. Again, this has been a scent that I use in my hair, though I use this one less than I've used Seraphim.

[Dymphna]

In the imp: This imp is spitting all over the place, so I figured I might as well try it. In the imp, it smells like ROSE. A bit of sweetness from the lily of the valley, but mostly ROSE. Not a good sign.

 

Wet: ROSE. It's not immediately turning to soap on me, though, which is encouraging. My skin chemistry has been changing so much since going off the Pill that I feel like I need to try everything all over again. Even stuff with rose in it.

 

Dry: Ah, there's the soap. Okay, noted. Rose is still a no-go. It seems the recent changes in my skin chemistry have done me a bit of a favor, though, as the soapiness is neither as intense nor as long-lasting as rose usually is on me. Pretty soon, I'm back to that sweet pink rose and nothing else. And that definitely is long-lasting. Unfortunately for me, soapy or flowery, I seem to amp rose to high heaven and this is just too intensely sweet.

[darkblade]

Hymn (Sin & Salvation)

 

Bottle: Definite lily of the valley in there. Pretty!

 

Wet: Uhoh. I dunno what it is, but that does not smell so pretty.

 

Drydown: Hm. Ok, this thing has a bit of throw. And it's not throwing ighy. It's starting to smell prettier if I do not stick my nose right up on my wrist.

 

Later Drydown: Ok. The not pretty is gone. \o/ I'm not getting incense, but is a demure floral.

 

Verdict: Probably not one I'll wear a ton of, but it's nice to have one on hand. It's definitely one that I'll need to put on a little while before going out though. I wonder how this would layer with Veil?

[folledesmots]

The rose and the frankincense are not playing very well together. Sort of smells like a Sharpie pen to me.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one! All I get for hours is a really sharp, astringent smell--maybe partly the labdanum? The drydown is a gorgeous, rich floral, but I can't stand the alcohol smell to get to it.

[romaprincess]

Received in a mad imp order of everything myrrh.

 

In the bottle: Rose and Lily of the Valley. Love!

 

On: Wow, this has some kind of throw! (I'll have to apply a little less liberally next time ) It was stand out ROSE and LILY on me at first, and now has mellowed out to being and incensey rose/lily scent. I love this! I seem to like all things church like (my other one that I love as much as this one is Midnight Mass from the resin notes as well.)

[Flowermouth]

Whoa.

 

Right when I sniffed this, I kind of flashbacked to this one day (I was 9 or so) when I was at a water park, floating around while "As I Lay Me Down to Sleep" by Sophie B Hawkins was playing.

O.o Weird how that happens.. I don't recall there being any lilies or roses or any of that there. Just the chlorine and sunblock smell.

 

It *does* smell watery, though. It's comforting, but it also smells very sad. I'm sitting here wanting to cry for no reason..? But I love it and cannot stop sniffing it.

 

(and of course I spilled the imp. arg.)

Edited November 29, 2007 by Flowermouth

[starcr]

In the imp, the dominant scent of Hymn is the lily of the valley. It’s more floral and lighter than I’d expected from a scent with incense notes in it. Unexpected. A little astringent, maybe. On my skin, though, the incense comes out and it smells much more like I expected it to. It’s a lot like Rose Cross, but with a more complex floral tone over the incense… which is exactly what I expected and hoped for, from the description. As time went on, though, it started to get a little perfumey for my taste. But it’s still a good scent.

[savage_rose]

For whatever reason, this blend smells like lily and honey on me. I can just barely smell rose, and the frankincense and myrrh aren't present at all (unless they are combining to form that honey scent?). It smells very clean and light. There's something ever-so slightly cloying about the sweetness, but otherwise it's perfect.

[fairnymph]

Sniffed in imp: Very powdery floral. Rose.

[hkhm]

imp: smoky rose incense.

 

wet: rose and... frankincensse. but more rose ick that frankincense yum.

 

dry: this is by far one of the soapiest rose scents i've ever tried. darn.

[Iceblink]

Frankincense usually smells awful on me and in Hymn, it's making the flowers go straight to soap. I love this in the imp but my skin doesn't like it at all.

[butcherbaby]

this scent is exquisite!

this is what i was hoping/expecting spellbound to be like, until it went all rose crazy on me.

 

in the imp, the rose smells fairly astringent, so i feared the pungent rose explosion i usually get. but not this time! wet, the rose is strong, but it's the scent of a velvety deep red blossom in full bloom, and it stays true.

15 minutes in the incences come into play. it's all very lovely and blends well. it has excellent throw and staying power.

my roommate walked by on my first try of this and asked me "what are you wearing? it smells like magic!" '

 

since i am always thrilled when a lab rose blend works on me, this is already on my big bottle wish list :-)

Edited May 29, 2008 by butcherbaby