Mrs. Grose

[Foodie]

Mixed spice, rosewater, and black tea.

I open Mrs. Grose and inhale. Mmmmm... cinnamon and rose.

I apply Mrs. Grose to my wrists. Mmmmm... cinnamon and rose.

I sniff after my wrist is dry. Oh my gosh... I am in love.

It smells like a mixture of gingerbread poppet or some such gingerbread scent, mixed with Rose. It is absolutely divine. I haven't smelled anything like this before. There are musky roses, sexy roses, pure and innocent roses, but this... this is almost foodie. It's spicy and delicious and just perfect for the holidays. This is what I thought Harlot would smell like. Mrs. Grose is wonderful. I will be ordering a backup bottle or three.

[lahdeedah]

Caveat: rose freak here.

 

Sniffed this one at WC and immediately dabbed it on. It became an insta-bottle purchase.

 

 

 

In the bottle: dark, spicy cinnamon tea and roses

 

On the skin: lots of black tea, like sticking your nose in a tea chest with all manner of exotic teas. the spices are soft and inviting (not burny!), and someone's tossed some roses in that are starting to decay. this has a LOT of throw on me. a LOT. i actually can't smell it when i put my nose next to my skin, but it is wafting around me like a cloud.

 

Dry: less throw, it's pulled back in on itself and now stays closer to my skin. color is dark purply red, and it feels jammy, not dry at all. really does it for me in that it encapsulates that victorian vibe but it's not exactly proper, it is dark and slightly sinister.

 

Bit later: slight soapiness, but still a winner for me.

[OctoberGwen]

This is one of those scents that smells so familiar, somehow, it immediately makes me think "home." It's the strangest thing. Doom Of Beauty is like that for me, also, though in that case I know the origin: my mother's herb gardens. With Mrs. Grose, I wonder if it's deja-vu or some memory of my grandmother's house or...I just don't know.

 

I smell something that says "rosehips" to me, and definitely black tea, and a dusty, delicious spiciness. It's like the memory of more refined times that you get faint wafts of as you tour a historic mansion. It's cozy, with an edge. I can't describe it properly, but I think I need a bottle simply for the pure evocative quality of the scent for me.

[SadariEvenstar]

I wanted this one to work and was sure it wouldn't. I've been pleasantly surprised though. Mrs. Grose is wonderful. I can smell all three notes and the tea doesn't go gross like it has in every other blend I've tried it in. This smells like a cup of tea that I would love to drink (I love rose flavored anything).

[karykeion]

First review in a while, I got a lovely winter haul. Thank you TrailerTrashPrincess for the decant!

 

In the imp: THAT'S BLACK TEA. I'm so happy, I order so many oils because they have tea notes listed and I love tea and would love to smell like it, but I can never ever discern the note. That right there is black tea. Also rose, and I think cinnamon? Now all I need is for the rose not to go to crap on my skin--I kind of ordered this praying "rose water" and "rose" are different notes.

 

On me, wet: Oh my god, that's delicious. That smells like spicy black tea. It's vaguely foody, I guess because of the spices. The rose is sort of sharp, but I really like it. Like, bottle like it. The rose is starting to come out more, but even though it's punching me in the face a little bit it's not doing that weird awful fried chicken thing it's done before.

 

On me, dry: Oh my goodness wow that's rose. Most of the black tea smell is gone, which I'm sad about, and what's left is a kind of sharply spicy warm rose that I'm not sure about. I think I like it, though, and it's getting a full test run for sure.

[Ilex]

Wet and in the imp, burnt? What is that about? Its a little worrying.

 

Drydown: No more burnt smell. A whiff of roses and cinnamon jolly ranchers. Very sweet. The rose doesn't amp up, which usually happens with rose for me. I don't smell the black tea but that's normal, its usually an invisible note on me.

 

My husband just asked me to wash this off. "It smells like bad candy." I asked him if he could smell the rose, and he said "Maybe? Faintly."

 

Hmm... not a keeper.

[Mechanical Death]

This is simply beautiful. It smells exactly like a tea I have-- rose and cinnamon black tea, with cram and honey. This is ever so slightly spicy, but it smells like soft foody cinnamon, not tons of spice, and beautiful wet creamy roses, with a huge dose of honey. I know there's no honey, but rose water has that honey smell as well. accurate to the scent description, and not any note overpowers another. Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous.

[Floria]

This was a bit of a gamble, but I'm glad I got the decant.

 

In the vial: ROSE! Which was a bit disappointing, but not unexpected.

On my skin: predominately rose, but not amping unpleasantly. Slightly dusty foody spices underneath. I can't detect the tea as a separate note, but my skin tends to devour tea notes anyway.

 

I really like this, and I hope to see more of BPAL's rosewater note in the future.

[Alethia]

Thoughts before testing: This was an impulse add-on to my decant purchase because most "spice" perfumes turn to generic craft store on my skin. But black tea and rosewater sounded too tempting to pass up!

 

Wet: Strong black tea and rose. This is fabulous!

 

Dry down: The tea backs down and the spices start to come to the forefront (but they're not craft store spice thank goodness!) and mingle with the rose in a beautiful way. I love rose, and this is a beautiful spicy one!

 

Dry: After about an hour and a half, it smells exactly like the Middle Eastern market across the street from my apartment: just a mishmash of spices. It's pretty, but not necessarily something I want to smell like.

 

Final thoughts: Pretty, but I can't shake the association of the market and that makes it not for me.

 

Verdict: Off to the sales!

[Gateau]

This came so close for me, but in the end it didn't work.

 

At the start, it's a lovely spice mix, the kind of spices you find in holiday baking. That mixes with a beautiful rosewater, which doesn't go soapy at all. I am loving the Lab's rosewater note, from this and The Orgy. If the black tea hadn't come along and turned into something rather damp, stale, and dank, this would have been perfect on me, and I enjoyed the rosy, spicy throw it sent off. Unfortunately, when I'd sniff it more closely, that tea note (which I've had trouble with in the past) overwhelmed.

[jolarocknrolla]

Got a 1/2 imp of Grose because rose tends not to work on me, I was hoping the tea and spice would somehow save it ... but no dice. the rose went soapy. The cinnamon is nice but I don't get much tea at all, mostly that bedamned soapy rose. It was worth a shot!

[surlygurl]

This came to me in a tester pack. I figured "I love tea, I like spices, and 1 time out of 100, rose is okay on me". Well... this was not that time. The tea and spices were lovely. The rose? Not lovely AT ALL. If it had been yellow rose (which kinda works on me) or some other floral, it would have been a winner. But instead it was that cheap headache inducing rose soap. Phooey.

[Cinder and Smoke]

After some waffling, I bought a bottle of this unsniffed. I LOVE black tea and spices, but rose is one of those hit or miss notes for me. I WANT to love all rose scents, but in practice some of them scoot over into headache territory.

 

In the imp: Lovely black tea with dry spices underneath, and a hint of dusty rose. This is wonderful!

 

On my skin: As it dries the rose moves to the forefront and stays there, but it's not a cloying sweet rose. The scent is 'dry' to me--as if I were sniffing a box of tea leaves blended with dried rose petals and spices. The rose gets kind of loud for a while, so I have to avoid directly sniffing my wrist to keep out of headache territory, but it starts settling down after 20 minutes or so.

 

Drydown: Everything dials back a bit, and I get mostly dried rose petals with tea and spice hanging out in the background. A very nice, comforting scent.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Cinder and Smoke

[theseagrows]

i am a rose lover. though rose scents can be hit or miss on me, depending on what other notes are present. i tend to go for deep, dark dusky roses like in gypsy queen, or victorian rose scents along the lines of london or marie, but this one is very different! this reminds me first and foremost of this rose black tea i had, and how it might smell if you added some cinnamon to it. it's a spicy-rose-tea scent and it's very pretty but a bit comforting at the same time. perfect for winter! i like this quite a bit and may have to get a big bottle!

[Little Bird]

Mrs. Grose isn't working on me at all. I can't stand rose mixed with cinnamon for some reason, and that's mainly what I'm getting here. It's sort of like a sour rosehip tea smell mixed with sweet cinnamon.

I prefer Peacock Queen and Pink Snowballs from the Yule roses.

[zeldaZ4]

My first tester from the lovely pack of Yule decants I got from Ralenth (get well soon, Ralenth!!!)

 

In the Imp: Mmmmmm... smells like old fashioned rose potpourri and nostalgia. Like the first time I walked into a store full of handmade, country-style, crafts and candles. Now that scent is rather commonplace, but back then it was special. This imp evokes my initial love.

 

Wet on the Wrist: That same sense of country nostalgia, rose and cinnamon, amplified. No black tea yet.

 

Dry: Mixed in with the rose and cinnamon, I am getting the faint whiff of something cakey- like the gingerbread mentioned by Foodie, above. It's as if I were sitting in a Victorian parlor on a winter afternoon, with a cup of hot black tea and a plate of gingerbread beside a bouquet of dusty, fading, roses.

 

ETA: This had a lot of throw, and lasted a long time, too. I only dabbed a little bit on my wrist, but at the end of the day it was still going strong. It had morphed into something that reminded me of Eldritch Dark BO, incensey, perfumey, spicey, rosy.

 

Mrs. Grose is a very pretty, warm scent, but better suited to perfume the house than me. Today I dumped the imp into the faded remains of the wax in my scent burner, which was a Christmasy-spice blend. The wax has been in there a while, thus has very little scent left. I will report back on how Mrs. Grose fares in the room.

 

ETA more: She makes a lovely room scent!

Edited January 13, 2013 by zeldaZ4

[TheIceMaiden]

I think this is my favourite new Yule so far. Mrs. Grose starts off with warm, cozy baking spices - definitely cinnamon and maybe some ginger too? The rosewater comes in next, it's very floral but not perfumey as rose notes occasionally are. The drydown is lots of black tea with a hint of rose and spice. I thought this would be similar to Harlot, but it's much better - more well-blended and warmer and less perfumey.

 

Mrs. Grose smells very much like a rose tea I have and love, and I think I need to upgrade to a bottle.

[zankoku_zen]

Roses, tea, cinnamon.... in that order of strength.

 

Strong, elegant, feminine roses.

[milo]

Lots of odd spices, very little rose on me. This dries down to something like Red Rose, from the Unity set a couple of years back. Same kind of spices and resins, and some rose. Red Rose was much stronger, though. I have to say, this is well blended, even though it's not my type of scent.

[TrailerTrashPrincess]

sniffed from the bottle: there's a very specific scent i associate with most natural grocery type places.... not an herb shop (although those have their own specific scent, too), but a small, natural grocery. i've been to dozens, in probably a dozen states, and they all have a similar smell. if i had to try and describe it, i'd say it's all the scents Doc Bronners makes, but all mixed together (lemon-rose-tea tree-lavender-eucalyptus). and while not particularly pleasant, it isn't unpleasant, either. it's one of those scents that just *is*.

 

anyway, wet from the bottle, i feel like i'm standing in the back of the local natural grocery, in the bulk products section.

 

once dry and settled? it's like... almost-clove, and baby powder. which makes no damn sense, but that's what i get. a shame, too, 'cuz i had hopes for this one!

[holborne]

I don't really care much for rose, so I was a little dubious about this one, but I got it for the tea, which is a note I love.

 

Fortunately, this one worked out well. I do get a bit of rose, but mostly this smells like Christmas spices (couldn't tell you precisely which ones) with a faint rose in the background. I don't get a whole lot of tea, which is too bad, but I still think this is a lovely blend.

 

It also has the added bonus of being quite long-lasting on me, with good throw. That's especially impressive during the winter, when my skin is dry and scents tend to fade very quickly.

[yakiguri]

This is rose primly and quietly sipping at a cup of spiced black tea. I was hoping the rose wouldn't be too dominant (as it tends to amp) and thankfully it behaves itself. Can't wait to revisit after a few more months of aging.

[stellamaris]

Very sort of old timey, rosewater and spices. Reminds me a bit of Miss Lupescu in it's feeling. Very warm.

[megank4]

Strong smell of roses in the imp. I couldn't wait to try, so i layered it over red lantern, which i profusely applied for the day. Anyway, this reminds me of mourning lace for some reason. Warm, spicy, roses. Not picking up much tea yet, but will have to try again on fresh skin. Very nice so far.

eta: someone said this smelled very musky & sensual.

I don't think it smells at all musky but whatever.
On fresh skin it is very much spicy roses. Freshly applied, it reminded me of something, which i finally pinned down as gingerbread. Strange

 

I would say 85% rose, 10% spice, 5% tea.

Edited February 6, 2015 by Megank4

[KissleMeNow]

I spent a while trying to figure out exactly which spices I was smelling, but I couldn't pin them down. The best comparison I could come up was the scent in an Armenian grocery store. Lots of spices, savory and mixed (though not hot). I think the black tea is contributing to that. Wet, the rose skates on the edge of powdery, but it mellowed out as it dried. The black tea is a subtle but solid underpinning. When the scent was almost faded, I would get a whiff of it and think of my grandfather's impossibly-strong Russian spice tea. I expected this to be like Harlot, a scent which I think is wonderful, but if Harlot is all wild sensuality, Mrs Gorse is older, calmer, yet still confident. It wasn't really a foodie scent to me, although it had food elements – I would recommend giving it a try if you like the notes regardless of whether you like or dislike foodies. I bought a bottle unsniffed, and am really glad I sprang for it.