The White Lady of Durand Eastman Park

[LunaLovegood]

THE WHITE LADY OF DURAND EASTMAN PARK
In the early nineteenth century, a woman and her daughter took up residence in Rochester, where the Durand Eastman Park now stands. The woman was fleeing an abusive husband, and fled to Rochester to in an attempt to find solitude and safety for herself and her child. One terrible day, her daughter went missing. The grief-stricken mother searched the area frantically, but her daughter had disappeared without a trace. Over many weeks of searching, the woman became convinced that her daughter had been a victim of foul play at the hands of a local farmer. Unable to find her child, mad with sorrow, she flung herself into the chilly waters of Lake Ontario. Her spirit haunts Durand Eastman Park now, accompanied by a pair of phantom hounds. She is believed to be a protectress of women in peril, and exacts vengeance on any man that she encounters that have done any woman harm. Bittersweet and ethereal: bergamot, cacao, white tea, jasmine bud, narcissus, and tobacco flower.

I only did a skin test while I was at NYCC, but I didn't buy this one.

When I first opened the bottle, I was very underwhelmed. Nothing in it jumped at me. Because I was curious I decided to do a skin test, just to see because with bpal one never knows.
After dry down, this lady is quite pretty! Very subtle, feminine and floral. My thoughts was that it was a fragile lady.
And then, it just went powdery on my skin. Had it not been for this I would have gotten one of these ladies, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. Not much throw or lasting power either.

I will add this though, considering I am not a floral gal, the fact that I consider this blend pretty says it all.

[ellebelle]

For me, the wet stage in this is quite peppery smelling. As it dries, it goes through a really pretty stage where it smells a bit like sweet grasses - I think it's the combination of tobacco flower (one of my favorite notes) and bergamot. As it continues to dry down, it turns into an odd, murky scent - it evokes the feeling of still waters with something not quite right below. And finally, in the end ..... powder and plastic.

 

This is an interesting scent, a morpher, but ultimately not for me.

[Invidiana]

This really is a morpher, but thankfully on me it morphs for the better. At first it is somewhat peppery and very floral; I wasn't even sure it would warrant a bottle for me. However, after giving it a minute or two I could have sworn I was smelling a completely different scent. Whatever made it seem peppery had completely faded and in its place was a lovely creamy "white" scent laced with soft cocoa, and I can smell the tobacco flower which reminds me of Door. It's sweet but not too sweet, and definitely evocative of the theme with the ethereal feel. I can also happily add this to my extremely short list of BPAL scents containing jasmine that actually like me.

[porcelina]

this has changed a lot as it's aged, or at least since i first reviewed it. it's a really interesting scent. i am not a fan of the jasmine, which is a bit sour on me, but i've never quite smelled anything like this- light florals and tea with a bitter cacao heart. i think jasmine and i just don't personally get along.

Edited January 29, 2011 by porcelina

[absinthetics]

Definitely a morpher. It's very aquatic, but there is something under there that turns... very strange on my skin. Something I've never smelled before. It does start out peppery as stated above.

[Ravenclaw79]

In the bottle: ... rubbing alcohol??? It smells sort of like my doctor's office smelled when I was a kid, but with something sharply green layered on top.

 

Wet: Oh lord... rubbing alcohol and feet, stinky feet. Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff.

 

Dried (I stuck with it, just to see): Someone with smelly feet is walking barefoot through the perfume section of a department store. Eew.

[fetish911]

I do not like how this smells wet. I can smell tobacco like there is no tomorrow. Its very overpowering on me. Perhaps I amp it? Its got a strange sharpness to it. Jasmine can also be a death note for me as well. I can kinda smell it lurking underneath the stinky tobacco flower smell. So far, this is not good. I am nervous- its actually burning my nose.. I am gong to let it dry down and see what happens. If I can tolerate the dry down... ooof.

 

edit- I couldn't take this one. I had to wash it off. It was one of the worst scents I have smelled on me in a while. I kept hoping it would dry down to something tolerable but alas, it did not.

Edited October 14, 2010 by Fetish911

[zankoku_zen]

Unfortunately in this one, the white tea + jasmine makes this a soapy floral. I had high hopes for the cacao + narcissus, but it just devolves into a dusty soapy mess.

 

White, clean, floral.

[Ashenrook]

Many thanks to my wonderful NYCC angel for picking this up for me!

 

In the Bottle

Kind of dry and musty, but with a hint of spice. There's something dark about it, lurking behind the faded White Lady.

 

On Skin: Wet

Musty old dress fabric and lace, but in a good sense... The image of faded white lace comes to mind. There's nothing sweet about this one, but there is an aire of sophistication about her. It is...elegant, but bitter.

 

The tobacco flower and narcissus is kind of heady, but not overpowering.

 

On Skin: Dry

I am starting to detect the bergamot and a hint of white tea. The cacao, oddly, is absent...but I can feel its earthiness lingering in the background.

 

The jasmine bud is hiding way back there, peeking over a hedge.

 

Afternotes

It is starting to go a bit powdery, but in a classy sort of sense... Not because of a skin reaction. The White Lady is drifting away on the ether, her bitterness and determination going with her, leaving a peaceful, ghostly, powder of jasmine, tea, and a hint of tobacco leaf.

 

 

Verdict

On an American scholastic grading scale, I give this two sets of scores...

 

A B for how I wear it, but an A for execution.

 

It is a good scent. Whenever I wax poetic as I have, I know it is so. This is the scent of a bygone age, but it does evoke things like wandering through an antique shop or unearthing your great-grandmother's wedding dress in a long-forgotten trunk stowed away in the attic.

 

It is classy. It is refined. And it is old... For those who don't really want to smell like a classy old lady, you might want to give it a miss. Otherwise, break out your petticoat, your best frock, and a parasol... This one is for you.

[beachbabealways]

In the bottle this smells so good but Like Ravenclaw79 I had this eew getitoff moment as well! I didn't get stinky feet though ... it was much worse! I got VOMIT!! (stinky feet would be bad too)

 

However as soon as it dried that went away which took like 1 minute ... thank god. Once dried it transformed into this lovely light creamy grassy smell. I think what I'm picking up most is the tobacco flower, bergamot & white tea. I really like this stage a lot but the whole vomit thing in the opening bothers me. *shivers*

[marared]

This one does indeed have a very high-pitched, bitter start to it - it smells like the white tea was steeped way too long, plus jasmine always tries to go cat-pee on me for the first couple of minutes. It morphs very quickly, though, into a low-key white floral - the jasmine is there, but while it isn't as *loud* as jasmine usually is, it still dominates the other notes to the point that only the white tea asserts itself. (I was terrified of the tobacco flower after Tobacco Honey, but I can barely detect it.)

 

Between the initial bitterness and the soft floral that takes over, it's like getting a brief glimpse into the dark corners of someone's soul just before they put up the barriers of normalcy.

[Little Bird]

I don't often enjoy jasmine or perfumey florals, so this didn't have much of a chance on me. I recognize the tobacco flower in this, because it always smells dry, white, and slightly soapy & sour on me. The tea makes it even more of a sharp, clean scent and the jasmine amps up the sour aspect. So it's a perfumey, soapy-clean, sour floral smell on my skin. I like my floral blends to be sweeter, creamier, and more natural smelling, so this doesn't work for me.

I was curious to see how the cacao would work here, but I don't smell anything chocolatey at all. This just smells a lot like the traditional, sharp, department store floral perfumes that I can't pull off at all. I wound up scrubbing this off after a half hour, though it was pretty light and didn't have too much throw by that time.

[milo]

This kind of reminds me of one of the Graveyard Book scents. Maybe Lady on the Gray? What ever the case, this is very ethereal, whispy, traditional floral, without peaking at the notes, kind of an orris floral, and STRONG, so a little goes a long way. This blend really does smell 'white', if that makes sense. Very pearl-like. I could imagine a ghost smelling like this. This however, is not me. It's just a bit too strong.

[edenssixthday]

The White Lady of Durand Eastman Park - This is one that based on the ingredient list alone, I figured could go either way on me. It opens up with a blast of narcissus and bergamot, which would typically be death on me, but the other notes underneath creep up around the edges and make me think perhaps it's something I'll end up liking after all. Once the scent dries down, the narcissus and bergamot ease back significantly and give the white tea and tobacco flower a chance to step up, and it's very, very pretty after all. The jasmine bud is present and while identifiable as jasmine, it's not OMG JASMINE. Rather, it's soft and gentle, almost watery and wispy, and it blends gorgeously with the white tea. While it opens up like the sharp stomp of someone's combat boot on your face, upon drydown it turns out to be quite wispy and ethereal, very pretty, and reminds me of The Unicorn not necessarily in the way it smells, but in its overall feel.

[ralenth]

Wet: Foul, rotting odor, mixed with wet vomit. Hard pressed not to wash this off!

 

Drydown: As it dries, it seems to be mixed with aquatic cologne-type notes. It's genteel and ethereal, but there's still that scary opener lingering about.

 

Dry: Unchanged.

 

Overall: It sounded like something I might love, but it completely failed on my skin.

[rawgirl75]

With the right chemistry, I bet this would be beautiful. But for the rest of us... horrid horrid horrid.

 

The scent in the vial is really nice. But freshly applied on skin, it went absolutely foul on me. Wet vomit indeed. It took about 15 mins for the stench to fade and then so it wasn't so bad. I could start to smell a little bit of that nicer scent I sniffed in the vial. But there's no way this will ever work on me, not even with aging.

 

Full chemistry fail. Rating 1 of 5 (hate).

 

I should add that this blend didn't have any of my deathnotes (well maybe jasmine, but sometimes that works) so technically it should have worked. Drat.

Edited February 22, 2011 by rawgirl75

[Koumori]

It does sound like this one is chemistry-dependent, and it doesn't work for me at all. I love the scent in the bottle, where it's a rather wistful floral. When I applied it, though, wet I got an immediate acrid smell, the vomity smell others have noted. I had to force myself to sit through drydown and not run to wash it off immediately. Luckily, that bile smell does dissipate, and it dries down into an intense floral. On me, I got a tea-steeped floral upon initial drydown, but the narcissus and jasmine took over soon enough. Both of those are usually death notes for me, but in this case the jasmine seemed to work well on me without turning into an acrid headachey mess. I do get a sense of that etheral nature of the scent description. With the narcissus, though, the florals were just too strong for my taste.

Edited February 21, 2011 by Koumori