The Lady of Shalott

[amaltheagray]

THE LADY OF SHALLOT --

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,

Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,

Till her blood was frozen slowly,

And her eyes were darkened wholly,

Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.

For ere she reach'd upon the tide

The first house by the water-side,

Singing in her song she died,

The Lady of Shalott.

 

The scent of calm waters just before a raging storm, limned with achingly-beautiful blooms, an icy scent, but somehow warm, and mirror-bright: bold gardenia, crystalline musk, muguet, water blossoms, clear, slightly tart aquatic notes and a crush of white ginger.

 

seeing this in the list of new scents made me emotional. this is one of my favorite poems and stories and archtypes. i know most of the poem by heart, i love the song version done by loreena mckennitt, i have 3 posters of different versions of the painting (the spinning wheel in the tower one is my favorite, with the threads going everywhere)... okay, now that i've stupidly established my lady of shallot cred...

 

this is a brilliant blend. the aquatics keep the flowers from being too twee. the ginger grounds it and gives it some sharpness. the blooms are indeed achingly-beautiful. regret, nostalgia, loss, anger, betrayal, frustration, being trapped. it's as if the musk, which is present but not over-powering and the ginger are being reined in by the florals. what she wants vs what she must be. i hope the aquatic notes don't force it to go sour on me because i want to be able to wear this so badly. it's stunning.

Edited September 17, 2007 by clover

[FireInCairo]

All hail Afred Lord Tennyson's lady! This scent is bottled melancholy. A very water-like scent that flows and flows. I can almost smell a bit of sea salt in this. Very translucent... goregous.

[alizarin]

Translucent is indeed an excellent adjective for The Lady of Shallot.

 

The scent seems to ebb and flow on me like a tide. At first the floral notes were very sharp, and then the aquatic notes took over. Very languid and and soft but with depth to it. Almost turned a bit soapy, but a good afternoon-in-a-spa kind of soapy.

 

Now it has a sort of goldeness to it, an almost buttery quality. It reminds me of floating candles, the way they glimmer on the water.

[hypothermya]

First Impression

 

Gardenias and ginger. It isn't the sweet gardenia in Sacred Whore of Babylon or in Le Serpent Qui Danse. No vanilla here. This is a fresh watery gardenia (smells just like when I picked them from the bush outside my childhood house and put them to float in a bowl of water) with bits of ginger and musk. The sweetness that is there almost reminds me of fruits (peaches or apricots) but I know there aren't any in here.

 

Wearing It

 

Gardenias love my skin. The first thing to pick up and strengthen in scent is the gardenia, and it almost overpowers everything else in the scent. Thankfully it isn't nearly so bad as roses are on my skin (which take over the entire scent), and as it dries the musk notes come out along with a gentle amount of ginger and aqautic notes.

 

As it finally dries entirely those clear water notes reemerge and grant it that watery loveliness that I first smelled in the vial. It's very clear, and amusingly enough also reminds me of the famous portrait of Ophelia, laying in crystal waters surrounded by floating flowers. But fortunately, this also works beautifully for the Lady of Shalott as well. Very graceful, feminine, and lovely. I think that this will have to compete with Venom for my upscale, femme perfume. And I'm thankful that there's finally a gardenia perfume that I can wear.

[Eldritch]

In the bottle: I'm relieved with how watery and wane this smells in the bottle. I had a big concern ordering the imp that it'd be Hi I'm Floral! In actuality, however, it's a wane scent--I don't really smell florals in here at all, really. It's puzzling my nose.

 

Wet: A crush of greenery on wet rocks and sunshine. I applied it to my wrist and got this momentary burst of sweet that morphs right away into something else. I get the picture of dusty antique lace--sun-faded creole dresses and forgotten pearls. That sense of time-worn memory, wane sunshine and feminine wistfulness. I can't identify a single scent, however. My nose so so confused right now.

 

Dry: Wow, no floral in sight. There's a washed-out sweet scent that I just can't place--not almonds, but it has that smooth, weighty "feel" that almonds do for me. It reminds me of the gold tones on Tzakidim Nistarim. I keep on just getting the impression of wet, riverbed stones on a sunny day. The mix of wet, lupid water and warm, summer-afternoon "gold" is v. interesting.

 

Unfortunately, it seems to be fading fast on a one-swipe application.

[Lucretia]

well, it smells like a gingery lake. Or wet cement. with flowers... This is my first aquatic scent I really didn't know what to expect at all. I think overall I am pleasantly surprised. It smells wet and dark with ginger and floral notes that I can't really put my finger on. I like it, but I can't really figure out why. It feels sort of mysterious on, like unchartered depths. I don't think I'd buy a bigger bottle just cause the ginger and water together are somewhat unfamiliar to my nose, but it really is an amazing scent in terms of capturing the scent of a lake out in the wild with all the flowers around the banks.

[allidavie]

I'm so bummed, because from the description I thought this was going to be the one for me, but on me it smells closer to an actual shallot than anything else. It has the same note that Has No Hanna had that turns to celery seed on me and that's all I can smell. *sulks* And now five minutes after I put it on I can barely smell it.

 

Remember the old joke "the food's terrible and the portions are so small?" This one doesn't smell good on me and the smell fades fast!

[isyche]

in bottle: Watery floral.

 

on: Green, warm, aquatic floral. I don't get any ginger from it. it reminds me of a stream running through sunny grassy meadows.

 

Hmm. I wanted to love this, but I'm not sure what I think of it yet.

Edited November 13, 2004 by isyche

[fairywingmaker]

This is so beautiful. Everything I hoped it would be. The Gardenia is very soft on my skin, and the white ginger plays beautifully with it. This scent will replace my beloved Pisces...It reminds me of it...maybe its the water blossoms. I bought a 5ml of this, and I'm not sure if I'll be sharing

[inkstone]

In the vial

Watery florals. In particular, I really smell the gardenias, but it's like gardenias floating in water.

 

Wet

As usual, the musk comes screaming out and drowns out all else. Why does my skin always do this? But it's a light musk, so it doesn't make me cringe. Instead it just makes me look at my arm in amusement. As usual though, it recedes after a few minutes and I start smelling the florals. Oddly enough, while I could smell the gardenias in the imp, they don't come out on my skin.

 

Drydown

My skin tends to smell faintly aquatic on its own anyway, so this scent is very translucent on me. It has that same ebb and flow that previous reviewers have mentioned. It's interesting. I can smell the ginger and water blossoms now. I'm not sure what muguet smells like, so I don't know what to look for there. I don't know if that's the faintly green note I'm sensing or not. Honestly I smell like I've emerged from a lake whose surface is covered with floating blossoms, and the water is drying on my skin.

 

Final Thoughts

I'm not sure what to think of this blend. I don't know if I like or not. It is a second skin scent on me and merges really nicely with my skin chemistry. It's warm, cool, fragile and weighty all at once. It's pretty, but I really don't know what to think of it.

[Gin]

In the vial, I smell the florals and something green. On my skin, the florals are overwhelmed by the aquatic notes. It makes me think of very deep, still water. There's moss on the rocks nearby and algae on the ones under the glasslike suface. Reeds and flowers grow in the water, just out of reach.

 

Although it paints a beautiful picture in my head, I'm not sure this is an oil I would wear.

[Caitfish]

Oh, this is lovely. This order was so fantastic - two blends that are less aquatic than evocative of an aquatic mood (the Lady and Black Pearl). The notes in this blend are incredible, it's so soft and soothing, but slightly vibrant and lively at the same time. It's more aquatic than Black Pearl... damn, I love this scent. It doesn't last too terribly long, but that's alright.

 

Big bottle!

[Astarte]

Initially in the bottle I could smell a deep green scent of gardenia tinged with aquatic florals. When I put it on, unfortunately the gardenias took over and I couldnt smell anything else. I was dying to sniff the ginger, the musk, the blossoms but alas it was not meant to be.

 

I will definitely have to give this another go though as other people's chemistry in this thread seems to have worked out more favourably than my own.

[Fishwomon]

I first heard about the Lady of Shalott from an Indigo Girls song back in college: "...when it comes to flesh and bones, you remind me of Shalott, only made of shadows, even though you're not." Er...and neither was she. She saw only the world's shadows, but she herself has flesh and blood, in love with Lancelot. OK, so it's not the best song.

 

Then I found this painting of her. I'm fascinated by the idea of someone who is fated to view the world only in its reflections and shadows.

 

The aquatic notes in this scent make me think of the Lady's mirror as well as the water she drowned in. At first sniff, Lady of Shalott smells floral, green, and watery at once. It smells very fresh and a bit sweet. It reminds my of a scent my mom wore for a while, Calyx by Prescriptives. But where Calyx was fresh greenness with the usual alcohol-department-store-scent, Lady of Shalott has a darkness and depth to it. Green watery depths.

 

The gardenia stays prominent on my skin well into the dry down, but this isn't an "old lady perfume." After more than an hour, the floral recedes, and the spiciness of gardenia stays, met by the ginger and the grounding musk. The scent is light, which I like. After wearing it all day, I still smell pale deliciousness on my wrists, and I'm tempted to add some Snake Oil to spice things up a bit for evening.

 

This is a lovely scent. Melancholy, as another reviewer said. But also dreamy and comforting. I can't wait to wear it on rainy spring days.

[Northernminx]

One of my college English classes spent four days analyzing this poem not in terms of "right" or "wrong" but in terms of what we felt it meant. One of the more interesting, and certainly my favorite, interpretation is the artist in her tower weaving reflections of the world; she descends only to find that both the world and the people in it aren't quite as beautiful as her reflections and don't understand her work.

 

So needless to say, this got bought gleefully for a test and I am oh so glad I did. Deep blue aquatic saltiness, cool and calm. This is what I wanted Danube to stay like and it never did. Lady of Shalott manages to be soothing deep, cool, and vaguely salty, like a river winding to sea. The florals come out a bit but not overly so, soft wilting blooms by the riverside.

 

Translucent, poetic, gorgeous. 5ml a must

[Lit Chick]

Oh, heaven. My first BPAL oils all went soapy or powdery... and this lovely, lovely lady did not. I smell gorgeous.

 

When wet, I also noticed a fruitiness. Not over-ripe fruit, but a fresh, crisp scent - reminiscent of apple or pear. I think that must be the muguet. The crispness fades with the sweetness, and the drydown is gently fresh.

 

Today is a miserable, rainy winter day. Everything is iced over, but there is no sun to make it sparkle. Slush and dreariness. But with this scent on, I can see the secret beauty of it. I am enjoying the delicate chill of the air, the contrast of wet branches on grey sky, and how everything is hushed...

 

My first big bottle will be this Lady.

[tempete]

Sigh. Another scent gone soapy, thanks to the lily (muguet) note. It seems that I also have to stay away from aquatics because their scent doesn't agree with me. At times, I could detect the musk and ginger underneath the soapiness and aquatics, which was frustrating. My imp of Lady of Shalott will be heading to the swap/gift pile, where it will hopefully find someone who loves her better.

[Laurel the Woodfairy]

I don't even *like* gardenias, but I had to buy this in honor of the lovely Lady whose image (by Waterhouse) looks mournfully down on me every day when I wake up. I have a Pre-Raph poster gallery in our bedroom, and I put the Lady next to La Belle Dame sans Merci, whom I see as her flip side--the woman to whose love men are enslaved and go to their doom, just as the poor Lady did for Lancelot. It's a yin/yang thing, I guess. *Anyway*, on to the oil...

 

I am happy to say the sweet, sweet gardenias fade like sunshine on the summer hills, and cool shadowy aquatics and ginger remain. A gentle, sad scent, complex and wistful as she herself.

 

::softly sings the poem set to Loreena McKennitt's music::

[sarahmarie]

This is beautiful in the imp. On my skin, it does what many oils with floral notes do to me - it becomes straight-up gardenia. All gardenia, all the time! I like gardenia, but I wanted the full effect. It is lighter than Sacred Whore was on my skin, and it was slightly more "watery". I didn't smell anything overtly aquatic about the oil, but the way the gardenia came out on my skin was lighter and wetter than other gardenia scents. However, it was still pretty one-noted on my skin, so I gave it to a gardenia-loving friend instead.

[Shollin]

First sniff: Gentle, sweet, slightly sad flowers twirling slowly down to float on the river. (Yes, I’m thinking of that scene from Fantasia.)

 

Wearing: The water is more apparent on my skin, very crisp and fresh around the floral. Pretty... but I don't think it's quite me enough.

[Lorencita]

I love this! It's soft and sweet, and I do love me some aquatics! I am happy I got this, once it dries down... its perfection (4 me)

[Falathwen]

I was compelled to try this blend because this story in all its incarnations (poem, paintings, song, etc.) has always enchanted me. I was dubious though, because gardenia is amplified by my skin chemistry. When wet, this fits the image so well. I do get a sense of very beautiful and very cold flowing waters. It is sharp, but also wistful and lovely. The notes blend seamlessly, though I can sense each of them. The ginger in particular is absolutely perfect. Unfortunately, as it dries down the other notes fade and gardenia takes over completely.

[phaedrine]

I was glad to try this, because I do adore the waterhouse painting, even though I'm not much of a floral person.

 

In the vial, it's all wet, white florals. Very soft and feminine and pretty.

 

It doesn't change terribly on me once it drys, I get mainly the gardeina softened by musk. The aquatic fades first, and the other notes never seem to really come out at all.

 

It doesn't last long on me at all, maybe two hours, but it's so sweet and calming that I can see myself reaching for it when I just need some quiet time.

[VelvetSky]

The Lady of Shalott starts out on my skin all sharp musk and gardenia. The musk is extremely magnified on my skin and almost drowns out the other notes. I'm surprised that other reviewers are getting this as a soft floral on the topnote, as it's very strong and pungent on me, not at all soft.

 

As it starts to dry down, the musk fades back a bit and I start to get the green, watery notes. I'm picking up the muguet and the salt, and I'm liking this oil much better as it warms.

 

The base of this fragrance is watery, a bit spicy with the hint of ginger.

 

Any musk other than Chinese White seems to be quite disagreeable with my chemistry. Unfortunately, it drowns out any subtleties in every other note in a perfume on my skin. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to try TLOS, and I know it must smell divine on another woman.

[Macha]

When I was deciding my first actual BPAL order from the lab (rather than a trip to Black Broom) I did some searches for notes that I like: gardenia, ginger. Lady of Shalott was one of the ones that came up, so I wasted no time adding an imp for it to my order. Besides, I always loved the Loreena McKinnett song.

 

Wet, in the vial: Gardenia, but pale and wet, with a crispness at the back and other notes hard to identify. My boyfriend is much impressed with the smell of the imp and agreed that ordering more had to happen and soon. There's a green peppery sharpness laying under the flowers, like smelling water lily and bit of broken stem at the same time.

 

Wet, on skin: Oh my god, this is beautiful. It's wet and clear and sweet and it wraps around me like floating in cool water on a hot summer day. The smell is at once salty and sweet and herby and floral and beyond lovely. Also, a little hard to describe.

 

Dry, on skin: As it dries a little more of the musk comes up, but it's one of Beth's white musks, which are gorgeous creations that make me want to glue my nose to my wrist. The ginger is there, and the lily, but it all blends harmoneously. The scent wafts throughout the day: it flows and ebbs like water in a stream.

 

Conclusion: Prior to finding BPAL, one of my favorite perfumes was Michael by Michael Kors. This isn't a replacement for that fragrance, but loving the first, I cannot help but love this. It's truly a beautiful fragrance, languid and unhurried, floating and ethereal. Do I even need mention I ordered a 5ml?