King Mandarin

[Dark Alice]

King Mandarin is a refreshing, tart, opulent citrus oil. The scent is uplifting and cheering and creates a strong sense of well-being. It is a relaxing fragrance that promotes sensuality through delight.

Fresh: Orange peel. Fresh Orange peeled from the top so you can still smell the greenest part of the orange and the peel.

Dry: Flat, long lasting, strong orange mixed with a lot of peel. Not a fan. So glad this is going to a new home.

[jolarocknrolla]

Lots of mandarin w/ a lot of rind. juicy and slitly bitter, it really wakes you up - i love it!

[OctoberGwen]

I love this: it smells exactly as though I've just peeled back a section off a super ripe, juicy orange and stuck my nose into it (pretty much what I was looking for and expecting.) I smell the tart rind and the sweet flesh. This is so luscious and realistic!

 

Fresh out of the mailbox, it's not sticking around long on my skin but in my oil burner and scent locket it will be killer. This is a scent that makes me feel instantly lighter, brighter, and happier when I smell it.

Edited January 8, 2013 by OctoberGwen

[Cinder and Smoke]

So a couple weeks ago, I was peeling an orange for a snack, and the smell of the fresh peel was so heavenly, I thought man, I wish I could figure out how to scent my house with this. So naturally I squee'd when I saw King Mandarin in the update, and immediately purchased a bottle of it.

 

This smells so fresh! It definitely has the twang of orange peel/zest rather than just the sweetness of the fruit itself.

 

...aaaand directly into the oil burner it goes!

[livingdead71]

Wow! This is so realistic, it smells like I rubbed an orange peel on my skin...which seems weird as a perfume at first. It gets a little softer on dry down, however, and is so yummy in my scent locket, I'm having a hard time keeping my nose off of it! I'm very happy to have a bottle of this, and can't wait to try layering it with some of my single note favorites!

[Mechanical Death]

Mandarin has always been a favorite note of mine. I love the crispness, the slight sour edge and the bright scent.

This is no exception. A perfect rendition of the juiciest ripest sweetest mandarin, ever so tart on the drydown, with a slight floral edge from the rind. Lovely!

[Melenass]

Fresh and vitalizing orange. I love this scent.

Edited January 10, 2013 by Melenass

[Alshneato]

I was worried about this because I am not a fan of super fizzy peel smell. This is so orangey- it does smell like orange peel but not in a strong fizzy way. I quite like it I think!

[sharkdiver]

This is stunning - such a bright cheery zesty scent - it smells spot on of peeling a Mandarin orange. I am looking forward to laying this with a bunch of other blends!

[ladymeag]

In the bottle: Orange oil, no doubt about it.

 

On Me: This is definitely bright. The first time I wore it, I had just been peeling clementines for my child and had a lot of trouble determining (even after washing my hands several times) if it was the clementines or the King Mandarin I was smelling. I had to test it again another day. It picks up a bit of complexity as it dries but remains very firmly orange-pith. It smells like a million things to me - scraping the pith of orange peels to make candy or marmalade, peeling clementines for eating, afternoons picking up oranges under an orange tree I once had, and holiday boxes of oranges. Sadly, it doesn't last very long on me - two or three hours and it seems to be gone completely. Though, that reminds me of having a box of clementines around - perhaps I'll just peel another.

[Little Bird]

I love mandarin oranges, but I always have my husband peel them for me, because I hate the slightly sour, slightly bitter orange smell that they leave on my hands. When I first tried my decant of King Mandarin, it smelled exactly like that, and I was regretting buying a bottle (yes, I caved and placed a full bottle order before getting my decants, lol). It starts off a bit sour, a bit bitter, and a bit fizzy smelling. It reminds me of the orange in Polynesian Pop, but sharper.

 

Thankfully, though, the drydown after about 5-10 minutes is better, softer, and sweeter on my skin. It smells more like the sweet juice of a mandarin orange than the bitter peel part. That bitterness is still there and probably needs to be layered with something sweeter for me, but it's the sort of thing that I'll like layered.

 

King Mandarin is very simple and very realistic. Some of the new single notes feel more complex and not really single notes to me, but this one is simple, and I like that about it. I don't know that I'd wear this on its own, but I will love layering this with vanillas, florals, and pretty much anything. I'm glad that I ordered a bottle.

[zankoku_zen]

Bright orange juice and peel. This smells like when you first "peel open" a mandarin or clementine.

 

Low throw, sticks very close to the skin, and my skin just eats this puppy up. But it's very very realistic.

 

Simple, juicy, citrus.

[abejita]

I got this bottle as an unexpected freebie, to make up for an order error (I should post in BPAL Chatter about the customer service, classy and helpful as always!).

 

What a lovely surprise. I hadn't ordered it because citrus just fades so quickly, and I worry about the longevity of a 5ml. I have so much perfume that it seldom go through an entire bottle of anything but my most beloveds. I thought this SN would be lovely, but seldom-used.

 

It may be more often used than I thought. The scent is dead on, specifically mandarin above other types of orange/citrus. And it's the whole fruit, juice, pith, peel. It's almost hard to review, because it's difficult to say anything but "Why, yes, yes this IS single note King Mandarin." It's lovely, and I look forward to layering it. It does last longer in a scent locket than on skin. Pairing it with Madagascan Vanilla Rum is delicious, by the way.

[neuilly]

As others have said, this is very spot on. It's bright, it's juicy, it's the whole orange. I think it's super yummy and all I could hope for. However, I'm not sure how much I will where this. I love it in blends but on it's own...it makes me hungry? Lol.

[Gin]

Yup. Orange.

I felt like it faded pretty quickly on my skin, so I tried it in my scent locket yesterday. It's lasted for ~36 hours now and is still going strong--although, I probably put an imp's worth on the cotton, and the throw isn't very strong, but *I* can smell it and that's all that matters. The scent is bright and cheerful and makes me happy.

[Floria]

Yep, this is mandarin. Very true to the real fruit, and not much of a morpher.

[hecate_jones]

This is precisely the smell of a real, fresh clementine. Which is what folks in Texas call mandarins, or something very close to them, anyway. I digress. Opening the bottle was exactly like peeling a fresh clementine. Wearing the oil gives my skin the smell my fingers and hands have after peeling and eating one. Lovely, soft, sweet, bright citrus.

I think it'd be very interesting to pair it with the vanilla SN, and smell like a Dreamsicle

[Verios]

This was exactly what I was hoping it would be, when I swapped for this from a very kind forumite! It smells just like a freshly peeled clementine--it even manages to catch the amazingly real smell of the peel being right there and present as well--I'm really hoping my skin doesn't eat this scent (I just put it on to try, because I couldn't wait after practically swooning when I first opened the bottle--I'm going to enjoy layering this with some of my other scents, to see how nicely it pairs!

 

EDIT: and alas, it fades in like...an hour. But it was so, SO amazing while it lasted. <3

Edited February 7, 2013 by Vashtya

[Evilynn]

Yup, pretty much exactly like the scent of your hands after peeling a mandarin. It doesn't morph much and it see,s to fade relatively quickly, but it's gorgeous while it lasts, and I think I'll get a lot of joy out of it during the darkest parts of the year (I get SAD, so I'll be happy to use this as aromatherapy)

[sarandipitee]

This is like Christmas to me. Growing up, we rarely bought a box of clementimes excpet around the holidays. No matter how much you washed your hands after indulging, they still smelled of them, usually because you'd have a little of the rind stuck under your fingers nails.

 

Sweet, juicy and SO realistic, but fades in minutes. Happy I have a scent locket so I can enjoy it for hours and I can't wait to layer it with something. Love this.

[porcelina]

i'm amazed at the depth i got from a true "single note-" mandarin and nothing but mandarin. at first i get the bitter pith and then the juicy fruit within- it's deliciously realistic, and i don't even like to eat oranges. i'm afraid that the luscious, juicy quality does not last, however- it dries down to a powdery, fake orange scent, like chewable vitamins.

[lohengrin]

In the bottle: Orange, heavy on the peel.

 

On skin, wet: Same as in the bottle.

 

On skin, dry: Still more or less the same. A little fainter now but hanging in fairly well for a pure citrus scent.

 

After an hour: Still hanging in there! And still very orangey. Really, of the three single-note accords I've tried, this is the only one that's actually smelled anything like I expected/hoped for.

[Eemia]

I can't believe how realistic this smells. All the descriptions here have it right. It's natural, fresh, happy, bright, juicy, etc. etc. and I crave it like crazy. And though it has a short lifespan on me it really stays true to initial zingy orange without mellowing much or turning sweet. I love it in a scent locket so it can just stay that way all day long. I wish I had gotten more than one bottle of this, which is funny because usually citrus doesn't have the appeal for me that other fruit notes do. I have huge love for this.

[mymymai]

In the Bottle (ITB): Strong, fresh-off-the-tree mandarin.

 

Wet: Bright, juicy mandarin and mandarin peel. It makes my mouth water!

 

Dry: I still get mandarin, but it has that odd metallic tinge that citrus gets for some reason.

[Invidiana]

Holy. THIS SMELLS LIKE THE REAL THING. Dead ringer for the real thing. It's exactly, and I mean exactly, like peeling a fresh tangerine and biting into that first piece with the smells of the juice and the peel harmonizing. This is a really refreshing and energizing scent that's like wearing an instant burst of sunshine.