The Wiley Grasser

[calivianya]

 

THE WILEY GRASSER

Pine needles, wildflowers, and cotton candy.

 

 

I was very excited to get this as I love pine and candy scents. The wildflowers I'm not too sure about; I'm not usually a floral person but some are okay. I really hope they stay in the background, or are of a kind that does not immediately spell nasty floral death or baby powder on my skin. We'll see.

 

In the bottle: I smell mostly pine needles with a hint of candy and something else I can't immediately identify. I'm not too great at telling florals apart, to be honest. It smells a little sharp.

 

Wet on my skin: COTTON CANDY... with a tiny hint of pine. This is very sugary and bright, with a little bit of pine holding it down. Right now, I love this scent.

 

5 minutes: Okay, now it's still COTTON CANDY, but with a hint of something floral. I can barely smell the pine right now. I can't quite pin down what the wildflowers are, but something in this reminds me of this Lily of the Valley body lotion my mother used to wear when I was a kid. I can't tell if I'm getting that impression because The Wiley Grasser actually has lily of the valley in it or if it's because of how sweet this scent is. That lotion was very sweet, too.

 

15 minutes: The wildflowers and cotton candy are warring for dominance, but in a good way. The pine needles remain totally in the background; I don't think I'd be aware of them if I didn't know they were there. I'm surprised at how much I'm still liking this with as much floral as it has. I'm picturing a field of flowers with piles of cotton candy scattered throughout. This scent is bright and very happy. If it had a color, I would call it a playful neon pink. I haven't smelled anything from BPAL that smells remotely like this before. If you lightened up Sugar Skull and mixed in a little bit of flowers, you might come close, but Sugar Skull can be very heavy and deep on my skin, and this blend isn't either. It's very interesting.

 

Drydown: The cotton candy wins out over the wildflowers, though not by much. The wildflowers are also not turning into baby powder, giving me a headache, or amping like no one's business, so I'm a little surprised. The pine needles make a little bit of a comeback - they're not even half as strong as the floral or cotton candy, but they are lending a faintly sharp, woody note to this blend.

 

This scent has medium strength with little throw. I smell it best with my wrist almost to my nose. I can't really say as to the wearlength yet, as I'm going to have to get ready to leave for work in a bit, but it has been on for a little over an hour so far and it has not faded noticeably on my skin. However, I didn't even let this get to my mailbox - I ran up as soon as the postman came into the parking lot and got it right off the truck - so we'll see if it does something different when it settles. I'm hoping it doesn't change too drastically, though, as I'm fond of it the way it is. This may be a new top 10 scent for me - I'll have to try it a few more times to decide for sure. Either way, I'm very glad I ordered a bottle.

[Siberia]

As weird as this combination sounds, it works very nicely. I smell a hint of fruity, natural pine needles at the front, and a base that is a mix of wildflowers and cotton candy. The cotton candy is definitely pink to my nose, and the wild flowers are sweet and meld perfectly with it - the flowers here remind me of the flowers in Lilith's Tea Party. The pine needles are subtle and burn off first, leaving the sweet cotton candy and flowers. This lasts about four hours on me and has light - medium throw. It's a playful and almost girlish scent. I like this one.

[stellamaris]

Beth, you need to stop. How can you take pine and cotton candy and make amazing? For heaven's sake. I almost inhaled my arm. Please send me one gallon of this...

[LizMarivi]

Wet: Pine-sol with a small hint of candy... in a good way. lol

 

As it dries: The pine starts fading into the background and the cotton candy and wildflowers really take over the scent! It's very sweet, but not tooth-achingly so. I like it, and would consider getting a bottle in the future.

[boxinghelena]

Thank Goddess I don't detect the pine in The Wiley Grasser. It's definitely sweet. I get that right away. I wouldn't say cotton candy but definitely something sweet. Not bad.

~

[Ghost of a Rose]

I chose this blend to try just because the combination is so bizarre that I was intrigued. My imp is a decant from schackjj, The Goddess of Decanters (to borrow a quote from another participant in our decant circle!)

 

In the imp: Clear, colorless oil. In the vial, I smell the flowers first, then the cotton candy, and then the pine. On the wand, the pine needles take over so that I can smell little else - just a timid thread of cotton candy wafting behind the pine. This is sinus-clearingly sharp, reminding me of eucalyptus or used motor oil.

 

On me, wet: On my skin it is the same as on the wand, but thankfully softer. And - again, thankfully - here it is eucalyptus rather than motor oil.

 

On me, just dried: For all its initial aggressiveness, the eucalyptus-like note of the pine evaporates quickly and is nearly gone in the few moments it takes for the oil to dry. Now the fragrance is pine-tinged cotton candy, which is rather strange, but not unpleasant.

 

After 10 minutes: It is all cotton candy, just sugar with a touch of vanilla. Not really my thing. I'm waiting for the wildflowers . . .

 

After 20 minutes: Some florals have indeed appeared, but I'm not sure it's an improvement. It smells like the artificially-scented plastic of a child's toy. Like those small scented dolls that used to be sold for little girls - anybody else remember those? Strawberry Shortcake dolls. That's what this reminds me of.

 

After 1 hour: Still Strawberry Shortcake dolls, and even more plastic-y.

After 2 hours: No change.

After 3 hours: The scent is the same, but is now very faint.

 

Verdict: Wow, this goes from Head-Clearing-Nasal-Decongestant to Little-Girl's-Artifically-Scented-Plastic-Doll in 10 minutes flat! The scent doesn't do much for me in either phase, but you've gotta admire the sheer exuberance and ballsy-ness of such a bizarre combination. And neither phase is actually unpleasant. I'll keep it around as a novelty.

 

I can't wait to see what other reviewers say about this!

 

My rating: 3 stars

[strahlend]

Never in a million years would I have thought that pine would work with cotton candy, but DOES and it's really amazing. In my decant it smells just like the description, the cotton candy smells just as one would imagine and the pine needles lend a unique green element - it's fresh and wonderful like standing in a forest. Even if you don't normally like pine I would suggest giving this a try.

 

Skin testing:

This is pretty incredible. I've never smelled anything like it. I get more pine and candy than wildflowers. I can't get over how well these unlikely companions marry together.

It dries down to more cotton candy than pine. I don't usually do sweet and foody, but this will be a welcome exception. At this stage it reminds me of wearing vanilla perfume in a forest. It lasted for quite a long time on my skin too.

Glad to have a bottle on the way. These Pickman Gallery scents are killing my budget!

 

*edit*

 

When I received my bottle from the lab it seemed different than the decant I had.

The bottle seems to have much more of the flowers, less pine, less candy and it fades off of my skin within minutes.

I really hope that giving it a week or two will give it time to develop and hopefully more closely resemble my decant.

Edited November 15, 2011 by strahlend

[malibusunny]

I couldn't convince any one else to try this with me, but I ordered a bottle anyway. In the bottle, it is a Disney Christmas -- cotton candy and pine. Wet, i get a touch of flowers through the green, but *flowers* not *floral* if that makes sense. On my skin, there are no flowers, the pine steps back and the cotton candy goes full force. I tested this yesterday and it is still very apparent today, so test with caution, this one lingers!

 

My high school girls would have been begging me for this one for sure.

 

7/10

 

edited to add: for the poster who smells the strawberry shortcake dolls, that happens to me a lot with sweet bpals, but it always goes away when the oil ages. some of my favourites (lawn gnome, i'm looking at you!) have 'strawberry shortcake doll" in the initial notes on my spreadsheet.

Edited October 19, 2011 by malibusunny

[angelicruin]

What an interesting combination of notes, but it works! Starts out heavy pine and just a trace of cotton candy. As it dries, the pine fades back and the candy note becomes more pronounced. Floral note is in the background from wet to dry. It's there, but only when I really concentrate on that note.

[Klepz]

In the bottle: This is like Plastic Pink Flamingo with pine.

 

Wet: Pine and cotton candy How on earth does this even work? It’s not bad!

 

Dry, this is like a very sticky child handing me a bouquet of pine and flowers. But way pine, and light on the flowers. It's that breath of floral that works for my floral-hating skin, like that in Lilith's Tea Party. The cotton candy note is lovely, but far too overshadowed by pine.

[TrailerTrashPrincess]

when i first opened the bottle, it smelled like the old glass bottles of the Pine-Sol concentrate. SUPER pine-y. like, hands-on-hips, curl of dark hair across the forehead, cape waving in the breeze, Super Pine.

maybe with a little hint of something sweet, but mostly just Super Pine.

 

in the time it took me to put a drop on the top of my hand, and do a few decants... then close up the bottle, stopper and label the decants .... it had become pure, unadulterated, Strawberry Shortcake doll-head.

now, i love me some old-school Strawberry Shortcake. i hate her new face, but i'm pretty sure i have everything ever made from the original version. why, yes, all my stompy boots are on my old metal Strawberry Shortcake bookshelf, why do you ask?

and sniffing my hand was like being instantly transported back to 1983. which is crazy. and neat. and i'll keep it, because of that. but, srsly, i don't want to smell like Strawberry Shortcake's head.

[tajana]

The pine needle really shouts out loud when this is wet but as it dries the pine backs down to an interesting foresty backdrop that throws the fresh wildflowers and fluffy, girly, distinctly pink candy into psychedelic high relief. It smells like you were wandering in a pine forest and then suddenly came upon a castle made of pink marshmallows and pink gumdrops and pink cotton candy, populated by a few dancing cartoon flowers. Even with the pine, this is too sweet for me, but it's a fun fragrance.

[fetish911]

Pine & cotton candy. huh. It works! I really don't get much pine at all from this. Its definately sweet candy, and some greenish flower scents in the background. It soo freaking weird, I love it! I don't need than a decant, but its neat none the less. Perhaps there are some bottles that are heavier on the pine? Cause really this decant doesn't have much in it, yet other reviews are OMG PINE!

Edited October 24, 2011 by Fetish911

[Antoinette]

This is a clever blend! In the vial I get mostly pine with a sweet undertone. But once this hits my skin it flip flops to mostly sweet pink cotton candy with pine in the background. As it dries the pine becomes less noticeable, and the wild flowers hover somewhere in the middle. It evokes the image of walking through a cool forest while eating fluffy pink cotton candy. I think it's a cute scent, the final dry down of it reminds me of the same sweetness I get from Celeste - not an exact match, but a reminder of how that one also dries down on me.

 

The Wiley Grasser is a fun blend!

[Little Bird]

I don't like this for the first few minutes on my skin, where the pine is sharp and pinesol cleanser-ish, but the drydown is really nice and balanced between sweet cotton candy and clean floral. The little bit of sharpness from the pine just makes the blend smell darker and keeps it from being cloying as it dries down. It's like Velvet Unicorn with a bit of bite & darkness to it.

 

I really like this, and I'd say it's a must-have if you like cotton candy scents. I think that this is my favorite of the blends released in the Halloweenie update this year.

Edited October 27, 2011 by Little Bird

[Gwydion]

In bottle: Not what I was expecting. The wildflowers turn out to not be a good mix for me and the cotton candy smells slightly chemical and plays badly with the pine needles. I’d call the cotton candy dominant. I think I’m going to be glad this was just a decant and not a bottle. Wet: It’s still not right, but in a different, even harder to define way. I’m suspecting the cotton candy accord broke down and mated in chaotic ways with the pine needles and various wild flowers. If I concentrate it, I can almost reassemble it, but it’s hard. The wild flowers are dominent. The core of the cotton candy that didn’t melt into other things is about tied with the pine/cotton candy hybrid that my nose is mis-parsing for strongest scents, though some of the wildflower hybrids are trying hard. As it wears a while, most of the cotton candy reassembles and actually does some interesting things with the wildflowers. This stage is much prettier than in bottle or after initial application. It’s still doing something peculiar with my skin chemistry that is similar to the peculiar thing my skin does with icing notes, so I’m guessing it has something to do with a particular sugar element. It is very delicate and floral at this stage, and increasingly pretty. Someone with different skin chemistry or a less peculiar way of breaking down scents could be wonderful in this. Dry: Generically pretty wildflowers with a touch of icing.

[sharkdiver]

I don't like this for the first few minutes on my skin, where the pine is sharp and pinesol cleanser-ish, but the drydown is really nice and balanced between sweet cotton candy and clean floral. The little bit of sharpness from the pine just makes the blend smell darker and keeps it from being cloying as it dries down. It's like Velvet Unicorn with a bit of bite & darkness to it.

 

I really like this, and I'd say it's a must-have if you like cotton candy scents. I think that this is my favorite of the blends released in the Halloweenie update this year.

 

 

THIS exactly...I bought my bottle unsniffed, and Little Bird's review is very much my experience witht eh Wiley Grasser too!

[Jammies]

On me this is almost entirely strawberry sugar. If I stick my nose against my skin and inhale, I can smell the pine, otherwise it's just pure cotton candy.

[kjirstiben]

Pine? Check. Flowers? Check. Candy? Checkcheckcheckcheck....

 

On me, this is a bright, sweet scent with a greenish undertone. Without the notes listed in front of me I might have thought grass instead of pine. Something about the combination of the green, floral and sweet notes comes across to my nose as fruit... maybe candied fruit. Pink candied fruit... those little liquid-in-the-center strawberry hard candies, to be precise.

 

I like it and it stays remarkably true to form from wet to drydown... After a few hours, due to a quirk in my skin chemistry, I get a burnt-sugar note for a short while, but then it goes back to smelling nice again (this happens with a lot of candy scents).

[puck_nc]

Origin: decant circle

 

Initial Thoughts: It must have been very late when I selected my decants, because a few that I bought, I'm now wondering why they made the list. I like pine. I like the possibility of wildflowers. I'm not sure about the cotton candy. Maybe it was the illustration.

 

In the vial: Um...ew. My first mental impression was cat pee... that's not promising. A high, sharp scent with an unpleasant sourness.

 

Wet: Okay, now it's Pine-Sol that's just been used to try and mask the litterbox. Whatever the florals are in here or whichever pine note it is, something really doesn't like me right now.

 

Drydown: Wow, thank goodness! The cotton candy sweetened and the florals bloomed and I am guessing the pine has been beaten into submission. It is now a soft and very sweet floral scent.

 

Verdict: Well, it quickly ends as something beautiful. Not sure about a bottle, though.

[milo]

Wet, lots of pine with a lovely candy sweetness. I'm getting no wildflowers, thankfully. Dry, the pine fades, and we're left a with a soft fluffy cotton candy scent. Bottle worthy for sure.

[AmandaArcana]

I got turpentine. Nothing else.

[zankoku_zen]

Cotton candy and wildflowers! It sort of reminds me to Jailbait, but better.

 

Way too sweet for me, but I can see a young girl liking the candy sweetness of this.

[angelamaria]

In tester: whoa. super sweet syrupy cotton candy, a touch of pine and faint flowers. Quite dead on.

 

Wet on skin: hello, cotton candy! This is far too sweet for me, for sure, although it's a very pleasant cotton candy smell. The sugary-ness has faded a little from the tester scent to let the pine and wildflowers take a bit more of the spotlight, but it's still predominantly a cotton candy scent. But it's definitely better IMO now than it was in the tester.

 

Dry: sadly, with my skin chemistry, the sugar goes all burnt but the pine and wildflowers hold their own, and is quite pleasing. It's a bit saddening really: the wet phase, when the sugar wasn't too sugary and the pine and wildflowers were not cowering in the corner was quite nice--if the sugar was dialled down a bit, that phase would probably be a bottle scent. And I think, if the sugar did not go burnt on me, in time it would have been that way on my skin.

 

Verdict: spot-on, but my skin chemistry messes it up.

[Klolly]

I purchased this in a decant circle run by Balame, who has to be the best decanter out there because I can't imagine anyone doing a better, more through or pleasurable job of it than she did!

 

In bottle: Ooh, pink sugar crystals. Very syrupy and sharp. It's hard for me to recognize the pine or wildflowers yet.

 

On wet: Hmm. It reminds me of snowcone syrup and lemon lime soda. Very fun and bright and playful.

 

Dry: basically the same, only slightly softer and a bit warmer. It kind of smells a bit like cherry cough syrup but not too much so. I like it.

Edited November 16, 2011 by Klolly