Enlightenment of the Courtesan Jigokudayu

[ellebelle]

 

ENLIGHTENMENT OF THE COURTESAN JIGOKUDAYU

Silken coconut, angelica, soft golden incense, tiare, carnation, and Asian pear.

 

This is very, very sweet both in the bottle and wet on my skin. If I didn't know the notes, I would have thought that cream and sweet pea were elements in the blend. It has a very sweet, creamy feel to it. I think that the sweetness comes from the fruit in it and maybe the coconut. This does not smell at all like suntan lotion to me, so maybe "silken coconut" is different from regular old coconut? Sadly, I do not get a strong carnation or tiare smell, which is too bad as they are my favorite note. Instead, everything blends together into ... sweetness. This, to me, is in the same scent family as Agape and blends like it. Pretty and quite girly.

 

As it dries down, the scent does not really morph. Low throw.

Edited April 2, 2011 by Shollin

[Lit Chick]

EEEEEEEeeeeEEEEEeeeeEEEEEeeeeEEEEE!

 

Instant love.

Perfection.

This may just be my BPAL holy grail.

 

Freshly wet, it is super-sweet. Fruity. The pear is singing. Then it quickly dries into a soft, gentle, every-so-slightly-spiced lotion scent. It's kind of creamy, kind of powdery.

Very second-skin. Hardly any throw and does not have much huffability in that it's a very natural scent, so it smells more and more like yummy skin than perfume.

 

I had DH give a sniff with his fresh nose and he very much approved. It's sexy, but not in an agressive way. This would be an excellent bridal BPAL. Its subtlety and low-throw make it more work-friendly than many of my other BPALs (no one will be saying who smells like booze/cookies/bonfires).

 

I am not a bottle-hoarder at all. I will be getting 2 backups, that's how amazing it smells on me.

Edited April 5, 2011 by Lit Chick

[DangerInRed]

I expected this to be more floral, but I think I agree with Lit Chick in that this scent is very "second skin." To me it's great, the perfect amount of sweetness, not too strong or too soft or too floral. The coconut didn't smell suntan lotion-y AT ALL. It's just beautiful, and I am glad I took a chance on buying a bottle unsniffed!

[diBenjamin94108]

Sweet coconut-fruit in the bottle. Wet on skin, it's candy-like, then it settles down into a mellow sweet fruity-floral scent with coconut overtones. It is feminine and young but not childish. The candy moment has passed. Totally subjective, but it makes me think of a young woman on a glamorous beach vacation. (The coconut accounts for that, though it isn't like suntan oil.)

[Gold Dust Kitten]

IMP: Bright, fruity coconut

WET: Sweet coconut, juicy Asian pear, and tiare

DRY: OMG NOM. Mouthwatering golden coconut fruitiness. It's refreshing and feminine.

 

This scent is so delicious that I could eat it. It's probably going to become a bottle because I die for coconut scents in the Summer.

Edited April 7, 2011 by Shollin

[edenssixthday]

Enlightenment of the Courtesan Jigokudayu - This is an absolutely amazing scent. It opens up as an extremely sweet and juicy fragrance, but the juiciness is that of sweet pear, not your typical fruit punch/berry kind of juiciness. Initially, it smells like sweet coconut milk (real coconut milk straight from a coconut, not the coconut of pina coladas or suntan lotion) and pear juice and a hint of warm woodiness from the incense. As it warms up on my skin, the incense becomes less woody and more smoky, but very, very lightly so. The angelica grounds the scent and the tiare gives it a bit of an exotic floral scent and somehow, despite the tiare and coconut both in the same scent, it's not a tropical scent at all. The carnation was the note I worried about the most, but it's faint and gives the scent just the lightest touch of spiciness. After drydown, the coconut is still sweet and present, but there's also a slight nuttiness about the overall scent that I can't help but wonder if it comes from the coconut. While the scent dries down to something fairly subtle on my skin, it lasts a long time. I prefer the strength of uber-sweet juiciness of the scent when it's still wet, so I think this is going to become a much-beloved scent locket fragrance that will be absolutely perfect in mood for the upcoming spring/summer months.

[calivianya]

I agree with the candy-ish descriptions. This is a very, very candy sweet pear and coconut blend. I can't smell the carnation, and I'm not really sure what tiare and angelica smell like so I can't attest to their presence. It is a very soft and subdued kind of scent. Very pretty.

[marared]

Reading all these reviews, it makes me wonder if I got the same blend as everyone else, because this smells like coconut wax crayon on me! I smell no pear, no carnation, nothing sweet - just coconut! It's definitely not suntan-lotion/oil coconut, though, which is definitely in its favor, but... yeah, I don't like smelling like a crayon, either. Oh well.

[violetblue]

Like others are saying this is pretty!!! I like the creaminess in it (which I never expected from these notes) that doesn't go plasticy at all on my skin. I already had WILF on from earlier, but when I applied this close to where WILF was, it layered really nicely. This will probably be a bottle purchase for me. Fresh and just gorgeous.

Edited April 8, 2011 by violetblue

[innerflect]

This is lovely, it reminds me of a softer version of Tiki Princess. I get a similar soft coconut without the louder pina colada notes I got from Tiki Princess. On me this scent is fairly delicate, mildly sweet and not too candied or cloying. it is very well blended and I wouldn’t call it really a fruity or floral scent, more of just a nice light creamy sweet scent. I can see this being a very good scent for spring!

[misamisa01]

This is an interesting scent. It's also my firt BPAL scent with coconut in it.

 

The coconut is the major star in this - sweet but not cloying. The pear wants to come out but the coconut beats it down. After drying down some the carnation comes into play and brings a bit of spice into the mix, and a smidge of powder that goes away. The spice goes away and it becomes sweet again and then the spice comes back.

 

Overall, not a bad scent but one I don't usually go for because I'm not the biggest fan of coconut since it's usually too sweet. Not a bottle purchase for me but I'm glad I have an imp of it. A good spring/summer scent.

[Dark Alice]

Wet: Overly sweetened coconut with hints of pear and incense.

 

Dry: The pear and coconut battle it out on my skin for ultimate domination....however the carnation just referees the fight balancing them both out a really sweet coconut scent with light pear notes. This is sad. The coconut is actually too sweet...so my decant will have to do me. I was really excited about this scent too.

[Heavenlyrabbit]

Gorgeous scent that disappears within minutes. Really heartbreaking. Where does it go? How can something that suits me so well be so impossibly short-lived?

 

WHY?

[Gin]

OMG. This is the Holding Back The Night oil I was most looking forward to. It is GORGEOUS. The coconut and pear and tiare... it's really just heavenly. Sugary sweet fruity-floral. Reminds me of Nymphia.

[filigree_shadow]

This one is my favorite of the series. It's soft, pretty, sweet, smooth, and feminine.

It reminds me of Lovers in a Ricefield -- not in scent, but in feel. It's not super loud, and it doesn't stay around for a long time, but it's sweetly pretty. I can see the comparison to Tiki Princess.

 

I have trouble with some coconut notes smelling like plastic on my skin, and this one is doing it a little bit but not overwhelmingly. I can only smell that strange artificial scent if my nose is right next to my skin, but sadly this one isn't strong enough for me to smell it at all unless my nose is right next to my skin. So... although this isn't a clear winner for me personally due to my skin chemistry, I bet it will be hugely popular.

[hlemonds]

This is a really lovely blend. Definitely a spring or summertime fragrance. I will agree that it is light in feel, but it seems to be lasting pretty well (I applied at least a couple of hours ago and I can still smell it quite well without having to sniff my wrists). It may help that I doubtless got some in my hair, which certainly helps a scent to last. I can smell a similarity to Tiki Princess, but to me this is less foody, frothy coconut. This is somehow a scent where I can definitely smell the coconut, but it doesn't smell foody to me at all. The coconut has a really wonderful light creaminess. A year ago I probably would've said that coconut was not a note I cared for very much in perfume, but I have found that it can be really enjoyable (especially in warm weather) if there is enough complexity to the overall scent. I like the coconut being there as a scent element, so long as I can detect other scent elements as well. This is a really, really nice coconut scent because it has beautiful complexity and it doesn't leave me smelling like cheap suntan oil.

[JLH]

I was worried that this might be too sweet for me, especially because it is very sweet in the imp. When it's wet, this is also VERY sweet, but after about 5 minutes some of the sweetness burns off, leaving a sweet, warm floral. The pear and coconut are prominent, and I'm also getting some of the incense in the background. As it dries, the incense and carnation come forward even more to temper the sweetness. Although this scent is lovely, it has a very low throw. It would probably be a good candidate for slathering.

[Akurarei]

Enlightenment of the Courtesan Jigokudayu

 

In the Bottle:

sugary sweetness!

 

On my Skin, Wet:

Sugary Juicy Pears - plus something akin to Wisteria...I don't think Wisteria is a note in this!

 

On my Skin, Dry:

Sweet Pears & Soft florals; gentle whiffs of carnation

 

Verdict:

A soft, lovely spring scent.

It does make my nose itch just a little bit

 

ETA: This is a definite scent locket blend! I think my skin amps something that makes my nose itch, haha!

Edited April 18, 2011 by Akurarei

[raisin]

Based on the reviews, I didn't expect to like this one, since "sweet", "fruity", "candy", and "floral" are all things I tend to avoid. I thought I was safe.

I sampled this one at will-call, however, and adored it.

It's soft and pleasant and I'll totally second the "skin-scent" description. Very faintly, I get the pear (the same one from Ginger Skulls, which is the only other pear scent I've sampled) but mostly it's kind of a nicely blended creamy-and-vaguely-smoky type thing. The coconut I get is more husk than fruit, the florals are only barely there (which is a little bit of a bummer, because I do actually really love carnation), and the incense is pleasantly mellow.

 

It's really a perfectly unobtrusive oil and I'm so pleased I gave it a try.

[Schmoozy]

Such a beautiful blend from start to finish. At first it is very juicy, lush pear with a smattering of coconut. It's sweet, fun, fruity and summery. After it has a chance to dry down, it completely morphs. The pear and coconut take a back seat and the tiare, spice from the carnation and incense take over. The coconut becomes dry and over all, the feeling is smoky, spice and hazy. At this point the throw is very faint, and sticks really close to the skin. I love it!

[cinnamonster]

Couldn't for the life of me remember the notes for this when it arrived and I sniffed the bottle, wet it's pink super sugar, it's intensely pink with a buttery undertone. Wet it is not really doing it for me.

 

15 minutes in, it's still mainly sugar with a hint of tropical-floral peeking through, it's growing on me. It's kind of like a sun creamed five year old covered in candyfloss, a hint of incense in the air from some teenagers beginning a beach party 300m away, and finally some pear pops out.

 

20 mins in the floral aspect is really growing up, now it's more teenager at the beach party.

 

I was all ready to swap this but it may have won me over.

[Little Bird]

This blend reminds me a lot of Pink Phoenix in the bottle and on my skin at first. It's hard to pick out any one note and the whole thing sort of melts together into one big swirl of creamy, pink smelling sweetness with slight fruity tones. I was thinking that the blend was a bit too sweet for me, but the drydown is really gorgeous as the hints of tropical tiare and spicy carnation start to come forward. Within a minute on my skin, it starts morphing into pure awesomeness.

 

The drydown here is like a dry, warm, sugar dipped carnation that reminds me a lot of Very Slightly Haunted Dollhouse and Hod(which I love). The warm, sugary qualities remind me of blends like Midway. I think that I'm also picking up on the golden incense here, because there's something exotic and hazy giving the scent some lift and making it really sparkle on my skin.

 

I don't normally like pear or fruity notes and was expecting this to be way too sweet and cloying, but this is surprisingly lovely. It's like dry carnation and cotton candy with a sprinkling of gold dust and hints of sensual incense. Beautiful.

 

ETA:

I wound up swapping my bottle of this away, because it got intensely cloying with age. It started to smell like sickly sweet pink bubblegum and pear syrup that didn't change or soften at all in the drydown. I couldn't pick out any of the carnation or incense anymore.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Little Bird

[sunshinedaisybliss]

I'm not sure I can add much more to the reviews already here.. but I have to agree, this is a very very pretty blend. I feel it is perfectly suited to the Courtesan in this Asian-inspired context - it's feminine, sweet and golden, but there's also a bit of mystery in there.

 

On first application, everything was very sweet and fruity - it took a few minutes for the coconut to come out. After about 20 minutes, the 'golden' aspect comes into play and the scent develops a kind of glow to it - it really came alive beautifully, and that was actually my favourite stage of the perfume.. before it lots its shine a little and kind of collapsed into a fairly flat fruit/carnation/coconut smell.

 

After a full dry-down I'm left with a nice soft pear that's not overly sweet, a soft hint of coconut, and a top note of carnation. I definitely found this blend to be more interesting on my skin before it flattened out at the end, but it really is very pretty and definitely worth a try if you enjoy these golden Asian type fragrances.

[milo]

Wet, I get banana (WTF?), plus a bit of tropical floral. This really seems like an Atomic Luau blend to me. It dries to a plasticy vanilla, with a touch of sickly sweet pear. Some blends (very few to the many of bpals I've tried) turn to plastic, and I blame a certain vanilla. It smells like a scented plastic doll left in the car to bake on a hot summer day. I blame my skin chemistry, as it smelled just fine in the imp and on. Quite surprised that I think banana may be a note to explore...

[thekittenkat]

In the decant: Coconut and Asian pear.

 

Wet: The pear calmed down.

 

The dry-down: There's still coconut, but it's rather light and mild. The angelica and tiare are now present. And perhaps a hint of the peppery carnation. This is a real morpher. I think that I'll keep the decant and wear it in my scent locket when I want a nice light coconut scent. Otherwise, I'll wear Tiki Princess or Snow White. Might look for a partial, as it is a nice scent.

 

ETA: After posting my other reviews, I see now that this is my favourite of the set, so I may have to actually order a bottle. It took a while, but the pear and coconut kept the other notes in check.

Edited May 14, 2011 by thekittenkat