The Lion

[juniperus]

The dry, glorious warmth of the Savannah. A golden, spiced amber, proud, regal and ferocious.

Bottle: frimp - much love to the lab. spicy and golden, none of the amber yet, but this is lovely - spicy without being food-y.
Wet: ginger! on my hot skin it's the scent of hot Vernor's Ginger Ale (the real thing, none of that Canada Dry stuff). (hot Vernor's is great when you have a head cold, BTW. seriously, and so nice to a sore throat.)
Dry: very much the same. spicy and warm and golden.
Later: energizing, luscious, and wonderful in its spiciness. Spice without being food-y, yay!

[furiana]

This is my favorite that I've tried so far! The Lion a very simple scent on me, but oh, do I love amber and cinnamon together! Both notes are present at first. Once it dries, the Lion turns into cinnamon with a wisp of amber; after several hours, amber is the note that lingers.

 

Delightful.

 

 

ETA: 6 hours later, and the amber's still there! I have to hold my wrist against my nose to smell it, though. It'll be gone in another hour.

 

ETA2: It's still here, after a total of 9 1/2 hours! In the heat of late summer, too! Guess I know what note to look for if I want a long-lasting scent

Edited August 4, 2006 by furiana

[forspecial_plate]

This smells strange, tantalizingly familiar, but I can't put my finger on it. It's kind of rich and buttery, spicy, and has a sandalwood feel to it. There is also a weird medicine/medical quality that reminds me of a doctor's office. It's not sweet, but somehow too rich and almost cloying. It's not terrible or offensive really, just not my thing. It is kind of a golden smell. As it dries, another weird note starts to peek out that reminds me of sour puppy breath. I guess it's just going sour on me, but it's a really strange thing to smell halitosis on my skin!

 

I guess I'm just not an amber person, although I do love Aureus which may have amber in it. But the Lion just isn't working for me.

[seamor]

Wow, wonderful!

 

Sharp dusty ginger/cinnamon/sandalwood spice with an amber base. Not sweet at all.

 

Oooooweeee! I love it, love it, love it!

 

Unfortunately, the spicy part only lasts about an hour and a half on my skin, leaving behind a gentle, almost transparent, amber. Maybe I can try it in a scent locket, or on my hair ...

 

... or maybe I'll just pour it on by the bucketful.

[WidgetAlley]

A slightly mangled Imp of this arrived today... but who cares what the label looks like? It's the precious that counts!

 

In the Imp: Faint, faint amber and spices and something like tea. And I mean faint. It's more an impression than an actual smell. It's cool, though, rather than warm, and that part is not at all what I was expecting.

 

Wet: This blossoms into a sweet golden amber, with a touch of something round like vanilla or tonka or a sugary musk (or maybe almond-- I'm catching the slightest hint of playdough), quiet background spices and a gentle black tea. It's beautiful and soft, and for the first five minutes quite cinnamony, but then it dies back and lets the amber come to the forefront.

 

Dry: The same. This is lovely, but whatever's going to playdough is a bit much for my tastes. I'll try it again at a different time of the month, but as it is, I wish it had more volume and less playdough.... I may be passing this on; it remains to be seen.

 

[edit] I must say that I received an aged imp of this in a swap, and it's much better now-- a myrrh and cinnamon black tea over amber. It is indeed dry, dusty, and almost slightly acrid, but in a wonderful way (weird as that is!) I like it, and will probably keep the imp.

Edited June 8, 2009 by WidgetAlley

[kwelge]

Mmmmmm. Lovely. Decided on an imp of this after Brisingamen showed me the glory of amber.

 

I'm getting the image of lightly sweet mirror cakes dusted with cinnamon and sugar, sitting in front of a sleepy golden Lion. Golden amber with nice spice to round it off for an hour or so, then its mostly an amber-y skin scent. Totally addictive. I'm definitely keeping this one!

[indicolite]

You know, this is spicy amber, and I ordered an imp because I like spices and I like amber.

 

And I like the Lion, yes. But I am not going wild over it, like a lot of people are.

 

I do not know why.

[Trish]

Note: I'm not at all familiar with amber.

 

In the imp: slightly spicy, warm and golden. Nice.

 

Wet: Extremely sharp and almost medicinal. Spicy, almost incensy. After a couple of minutes the cinnamon - and maybe cloves? - makes it's presence felt.

 

Dry: The cinnamon gradually fades, and with it some of the sharpness. I normally love cinnamon but there's something about this I don't like so much. There's a slightly musky golden type scent underneath too. The amber?

 

45 minutes: This is starting to get much better, a lightly spiced warm golden scent. It's gradually becoming softer and warmer.

 

1 hour: It's gone to powder. A softly spiced powder that's not bad mind you, and my partner prefers it now than at any other time.

 

So I'm assuming it was the amber that turned it to powder, although since that didn't happen to me with Sin I'm guessing it won't happen to blends with less amber in it, or a different type.

 

This will probably go into the swap pile, although I'll give it another go before that.

Edited August 26, 2006 by Trishek

[Gale]

I love amber--I love spcy scents.The Lion is both.

 

In the imp and on wet, I smell cinnamon and amber. Very nice, not overpowering.

 

Dry, the cinnamon retreats and the ginger emerges, with the amber remaining as it was.

 

Stays a gingery amber for the duration--which is four hours and counting. It's a really lovely, well-blended scent. Very warm--perfect for a cold, rainy day! I'd wear this on sunny days too.

 

5 ml ordered 8/22.

[ceej]

Ferocious? Don't think so. But warm and golden and spicy, definitely. Cinnamon in this, and maybe something like clove. It reminds me of a glass of hot sweet chai. This would be great on a rainy day, or to sleep in on a cold night.

 

Bought a bottle just on the description, and very glad I took the flyer.

[flyingpizza]

I can't really add much to what's already been said, but I do have to say this:

 

Normally, Amber is just evil on me. Yucky, old lady-scent, powdery evil. But the amber in The Lion is such a delicious wonderful Amber. Yum.

[gaai]

This is a really light scent on me and I get more cinnamon than amber........sadly.

I love amber and the combination with a little cinnamon sounded really nice......but it's the other way around.....my skin seems to amp cinnamon-type scents .

Still a lovely scent, just not what I expected and I don't think I'll wear it much, but I'll use up the imp! ( maybe make a nice sugar scrub with it )

[girl_android]

I got an imp of this in one of my random forays into ebay, which is what's tiding me over til I can work out what I'd like to go in my first actual order (:

 

From the description, it didn't immediately strike me as something that I'd love straight away, maybe because I haven't had much experience with amber in scent blends, so I didn't have any clue what I'd be in for.

 

On first sniff, I kind of earmarked this one as something I should go back to, cos it did smell bright, golden, and smooth in the imp, it's just taken me til ... a month later to *actually* get back to it.

 

Wet on the skin it smells much like the imp, as it dries down it turns into a lovely skin-scent on me, kind of like sweet, clean skin. It's not particularly spicy on me, there's nothing that makes me think cinnamon or ginger, and the sweetness isn't necessarily a foody kind of sweet.

 

I'm now at the 4 hour mark after today's application (wrists only), occasionally I'll get random whiffs of this as my hands move about, but otherwise I don't notice it's there unless I put my nose to my wrists. I also wore this a couple of days ago, and there was still scent I could detect when I went to bed that night. Given that it was a long day, I liked that this had staying power. I also like that it doesn't have massive throw, because I wear scents primarily for myself, and then for those who are close enough to me to smell, although DH is currently rolling his eyes at this current scent frenzy ...

 

I really like this, and it's currently on my list of things that I wouldn't mind in a bottle. I'm giving all the imps I have so far enough of a chance to state their case, before I take any sort of bottle purchasing plunge though ... I think my account balance needs a bit of a break!

[steffanina]

The Lion-

 

In Bottle: Oh, yes, that's what I call a golden scent, amber-rich and spicy.

 

Wet: Very amberish bloom.

 

Dry: I love this to pieces. It's richly amber and has that almost-vanilla undertone (I wish there was even more of that) and is so warm and fragrant...mmm. I feel like a goddess in this. Like if there was enough of it I could walk about being worshipped.

 

Overall: I love. So much.

[supremegoddessofall]

This smells "dry," like a desert. It's really difficult to say what exactly I'm smelling here. It doesn't really smell like amber to me. Needs a retest.

Edited October 19, 2006 by supremegoddessofall

[spring heel]

At first I didn't like this too much, not sure why. I just didn't like it at all. So I saw it sitting in my imp box and decided to try it on and it was pure amber and cinnamon. Which is great! Amber is by far my favorite note, now with cinnamon... I can go either way. I liked it in this blend but I think it would be nice if there were something else. But I loooove this just as it is. Hmn. It wasn't as dry as I was expecting, the cinnamon almost makes it seem... moist? Not sure how that works. :S Lots and lots of cinnamon. Although if I develop a new found love for cinnamon this blend would be responsible for it.

[PilotKitten]

Spicy powder is all I'm getting out of this one. Amber is usually hit or miss with me on the powder thing... I guess I'll just have to chalk this one up to a miss. And it sounded so good too.

[UberAlice]

This smelled lovely, rich and ambery on me when it was wet. Dry it turned all sugary sweet heliotrope and went hypersugary on me. Sad, as I love amber. Off to the swap.

[Iceblink]

I got this to try out of pure curiosity--would BPAL amber go bad on me? It's in so many scents that I thought "Well, I'll try The Lion, and if it goes off, then no more amber blends".

Well. Amber and I get along just fine, it seems. I love love love this. It's like some wonderful baked pastry--not overly sweet, just golden and spicy and warm. It's perfect on a nasty rainy day or on a chilly night and I think it'll be a great warm-weather scent too. So bring on the amber!

[valentina]

In the bottle, The Lion is a spicy, outdoorsy-dry amber. It very, very much evokes the hot dry savanna, with the big cats sitting around in the shade in the middle of the day. On my body, it starts out ambery and spicy and then - bam! - it turns really dry and dusty. It's sharp, almost acrid, dusty spice. Something about the dry, dusty BPAL scent amps up on my body with extreme efficiency, to the point that it becomes the focal point of a scent. The gold and warmth of the amber went buh-bye, like a lion ate it for a snack. I waited to see if the dry smell would back down, but it didn't -- it stayed put for several hours, then burnt off, but took the rest of the fragrance with it. The Lion isn't bad on me, it's just not golden and warm -- it's a hot, dry blow furnace.

[lanablade]

In the imp: Spicy amber and almost a honey smell.

 

Wet: Amber, spice, sandalwood, something slightly powdery in a good way. Definately a golden scent. I think I'll be adding Amber to my Notes Loved list.

 

Dry: Something almost fruity comes out in this as it dries. It's still a wonderful spicy scent, and it's got a lovely amount of throw. Not too much, but enough to know it's there. I really like this one. I'm so glad someone recommended it to me.

[maribouquet]

imp: amber and cinnamon

same on skin, wet and dry

 

This was the scent that taught me that even though my skin seems to love amber and amps it to high heaven, I myself am not a big fan of amber (RAWR!) - I like the warmth of it, but it also has a strange, icky undertone on my skin. I do like the cinnamon in The Lion, though.

 

ETA 8/21/07 - I'm trying this again, just for kicks and really, really liking it this time around! It's very warm, with a pleasant hint of spice. Who'd have thought!

Edited August 21, 2007 by maribouquet

[talula_fairie]

Eh. A little too much cinnamon for my taste. It's not a horrible smell, but it's just not me.

 

Swap pile!

[jasmine]

If I say "this is a dry, tawny smell," I know it looks as though the name is completely controlling my review, but that is the initial impression. It is a lightly spiced blend of rich, yet not heavy amber.

 

For me, this scent evokes the smell of summer wind blowing through dry grasses. It isn’t a vegetative scent, but it suggests vegetation all the same. It’s a free, enticing, breezy scent. At home, the dogs used to smell a little bit like this after running through the back field at noon. Smelling this makes me feel happy and relaxed and liberated. It’s completely unisex, too; I wouldn’t bat an eye at smelling it on a man, but it doesn’t seem out of place at all on me.

 

This scent feels out of place in winter, but it will be a spring and high summer scent for me, I think... something to bring the feeling of summer into the office when I have to be working instead of out playing.

[Doomramen]

I'm not sure what I think of The Lion.

I'm pretty sure it smells like sticky spices on me.

I'm pretty sure that it isn't a good smell.

Maybe this means amber isn't good on me.

It might just be that when I smell it, I think I'm not supposed to smell like that.

I will be trying it again, though, just to be sure.