Circe

[Shollin]

Surround yourself with an aura of lethal allure. An incomparably enticing blend of intoxicating aquatic scents and florals.

First sniff: Light and ethereal, but much sweeter than I expected. A hint of sharpness that's almost citrus but not quite--on second sniff it seemed a bit cocktailish. I like that this is named after a dangerous but beautiful woman...it seems appropriate, like the sweetness might lure you in before you get stabbed in the back.

Wearing: Still sweet, but not loud or unpleasant. It's a bit honeysucklish. After about half an hour it shifted into yet another of those very specific scents I recognise but can't pin down, maybe a sweet frozen drink.

[Damask Rose]

Yuck!!! Never thought I would say this about a BPAL oil but I hated this one. It has a really sickly sweet flowerly smell. I really thought it was awful and nothing like its description. I wonder if anyone else out there thinks the same, or if I just have a strange nose!

[Laivine]

Because I really liked the aquatic floral flavor to this one. It made me feel like I had a blue green aura around me. Very pretty and yet with some dangerous shifts in the drydown.

 

It's one I might really try and wear more.

[jj_j]

This went on so overpoweringly I was tempted to run and wash myself with Dawn dishsoap to get it off quickly, but I stuck it out. The ylang-ylang is absolutely piercing for a while, and I've pinpointed the source of my occasional BPAL headaches - strong ylang-ylang.

 

Eventually, this softens up, and it goes sweeter, oddly enough - but in a much better way. It becomes a more tropical, flowing scent, and even seems to have a touch of banana in it - that dratted ylang-ylang again! - while being somewhat "perfum-y."

 

I'd say this is most like the over-the-top white florals that you sometimes get at the department store, but concentrated and lacking the chemical, astringent feel they often give off. Not something I can wear, between the headache and the pungency level.

Edited February 15, 2004 by jj_j

[divajen]

Oh, I just LOOOOOVE this one! It's my favourite so far! It is sweet and floral. Kind of makes me think of candy. Mmm!

 

Jenny

[Sarah]

This is gorgeous! I'm beginning to think a lot of aquatic florals really do suit me. So very few BPAL scents cling to me for more than several hours, and Circe is one of the precious few that lasts for hours on end. For those of you not getting along with the ylang-ylang, maybe Ophelia would suit you better?

 

It's a rich, heady scent that reminds me of a lotus floating in water. It's exotic, it beckons to you, quite suiting of an island temptress.

[littleblu]

First sniff: quite strong and sweet. Smells really posh and sophisticated.

 

On: It stays quite strong for a bit, but it starts to round off. I get tropical flowers and fruit and waterfalls, but in a very upmarket way. Hint of spiciness.

 

Drying: I can't make my mind up - I like it loads, then I don't... Probably need some time to figure this one out.

 

Dry: Still confused; I keep thinking that it's too "grown up" smelling for me

[TygherRayn]

Circe was one of salice's picks, but also something I was wanting to at least try. I'm glad he got it last order, definitely.

 

In the bottle: Very sweet. Not the honey sweet of Dragon's Milk or O, or the cloying cherry/almond of Eclipse ... but a very floral sweet. It's almost, but not quite, honeysuckle in the bottle .. I'm guessing the ylang ylang, though I don't know that note enough to pick it out.

 

First 10 minutes: Very floral, but I do get the aquatic nature of the scent. I feel like I'm drifting along in a tropical sea, with crystal blue water beneath me, swathed in hundreds of blossoms of all sorts. Oddly, I also get where jj_j finds the 'white'-ness of this scent too. It reminds me of the gardenia bush my in-laws have .. how those blossoms seem to permeate the air forever.

 

Wearing: This seems to have staying power, actually, and I'm rather impresed, as many of the lighter florals I've tried haven't stayed around. It still is giving me that gardenia/honeysuckle blend that's surprisingly lovely, considering how overpowering they both can be. I can also occasionally catch a fruity smell .. and I still get a 'blue' feel from this. Tropical and delicious.

[UltraViolet]

This seems to be a scent that has no middle road.

My nose changed it's mind many times before finally deciding that this was a nice scent.

The aquatic ingredients are what's holding my nose hostage here. The florals "feel" white. The floral is strong too but the smells all go to their proper places on the dry down.

I smell a teeny amount of coconut? Strange. I also smell the banana type of smell that JJ_J writes about above.

I'd use up the imp but I don't think I'd buy it again.

[Emu Nymph]

This is the first one that I HAD to wash off. there was something in it that on first whif made me not stand it. Makes me sad because I wanted to like this one too.

[Ina Garten Davita]

First Impression: Sweet jasmine and ylang-ylang

 

Second Impression: When I think of aquatic scents, this isn't one of them. This is a rich, heady, sweet floral. Mmmm, is that a touch of vanilla in there?

 

Final Analysis: This reminds me of a union of Delight and Siren. Jas and ylang work well on my skin and this is a nice blend.

[binkyboots]

bpal is a learning curve I think, aquatic/floral scents and I will never get along.

 

out of the bottle, phewww that's strong, but first impressions can be wrong so I dabbed a drop on my wrist.

 

on, wet, stronger and sweeter, I dont smell the ylang ylang, I smell a bathroom cleaning product.

 

dry, much the same I'm afraid, just slightly fainter, I agree it has good staying power.

 

the next morning, I applied this at 11pm last night, this morning I can still smell it, this stage I like, I can finally smell the ylang ylang (which I love, perhaps a single note?) and the watery scent has faded.

 

not for me this one.

[malanna]

When I first put this on, I thought, "Oh, no. Lotus." However, there's something tempering the lotus--it's still aquatic, but it seems like something is making it sweeter, perhaps the nectar of a flower that grows on the land. In fact, it might not even be a lotus, it could be, as the description says, a combination of another floral and aquatic notes. If that's the case, the aquatic notes are watery in the sense of a stillwater pond, with lilypads in the middle. It's pretty strong. 10 hours later, and I can smell it. It's now less lotus, and more sweet and clean.

[k00kaburra]

In bottle: Clean and sharp, but not in a citrusy way. It's quite light and brings a spring formed from melting snow to mind almost instantly. There is a zing to this fragrance.

 

On me: Mew. The zing seems to have been some sort of floral that's growing progressively stronger and stronger. I know I've smelled it before...maybe in Ophelia? I think it might be lotus, which tends to go funny on me, and Circe's going a bit odd as we speak.

[Northernminx]

A strong floral in the imp, this one was almost overwhelming for the first twenty minutes of wear. There's a strong note of lotus and some other flowers I can't identify, but the curious part of this is that the aquatic notes don't fade on me as they do on some of the aquatic blends. This one stays strong and almost salty, like a grove of flowers dipped in cold, deep sea water. It's lovely and mysterious and cooling. Figures I'd fall in love with this one and it's no longer available

[etherealchild]

In The Bottle Cool, clean, and wet

 

Wet The scent has completely changed. It has a warm, almosty foody smell to it........ some kind of almondy cake with spice....... wtf?

 

Drydown The aquatic note has come back, but the food smell remains...... how strange..... I have never smelled anything like this before. Ever. I can smell the aquatics, but how this is wearing, I would never refer to it as an aquatic scent.....

 

Two Hours Later Can't smell it....... faint powdery afterthought....... but pretty much nothing left.

 

Verdict REALLY disappointed. I lurrrve aquatics and how it smelled in the bottle and the description was great. My skin apparently had somehting else in mind.....

[voodoobaby]

In the bottle: Very candylike. I smell some citrus, probably orange or something similar. The florals are there, but it takes second command to the tart candy smell.

 

Wearing: The main note is now a bouquet of flowers. I smell lily for sure, and I think lilac. It's now very green. The whole thing is like eating an orange in the middle of a bright, sunny, green garden. Despite this imagery, it is at the same time quite deep. This would be perfect for spring.

 

Later: Hmm. Powdery fabric softener, but still tart. I don't particularly like it in this stage, but it's lovely in its earlier stage. I will definitely be wearing this on Passover this year, but after that I'll have to think about whether I'm keeping it or not.

[joseybird]

*sniffed from imp and from my fingers where a teeny bit rubbed off*

 

Juicy and florally, and aquatic. There's also something tart and citrus in here--almost lemonade--y! A very very unusual combination of scents. Unique, but also confusing The tart note blends back into the aquatics after a little while, reminding me a bit of lemon rinds and sea air...very interesting.

[antimony]

I got a huge kick of ylang-ylang from this, and I also got that tropical note other people have mentioned....

 

Basically I got bananas and Prell shampoo. oof.

[mmcfa2]

This one is like if lady of shallot moved to old new orleans! It's aquatic, but in a clean way not like bayou with the decay scent. And the florals are lead by ylang and honeysuckle and are lovely and overblown wild things. I like it very much! Jasmine peeks into view too, but not strongly as she is often wanting to do

 

The first few moments are loud and brash but the drydown is soft and lovely

[Lilithlefay]

I think this is one of the few real floral scents that I like. It has a sweetness to it and I adore the jasmine and ylang-ylang. The first 5 minutes are really strong but once it tones down a bit it is very nice.

[Voleuse]

I don't think aquatic scents make a good first impression on me. It's not a bad scent, really, but I did a bit of recoil, because it comes off so strong. I'm assuming it's the aquatic that did it, because I barely got any hint of the florals at first application. Which is kind of surprising, considering the forum almost uniformly labelled this as a sweet floral scent. Or maybe my mental "floral" tag is different.

 

Several people mentioned honeysuckle, which is what I think the scent fades to, after a few minutes. Less harsh to my nose, and the aquatic scent became more...inviting? And after a while, the floral really does become alluring. And as it softens, it starts to become more obviously complex.

 

This one's too strong for me, but it is interesting, and really pretty, I think.

[Little Bird]

I was leery of trying this one after reading the other reviews... but I'm bored today and am picking through my imp box.

 

Some people have mentioned ylang ylang in this one, but that note usually smells strongly metallic and overwhelming on me, and I'm not getting that familiar scent here. I'm also not getting any bubblegummy lotus.

 

This smells like a very sweet, yellow floral to me at first. I can imagine it having hyper-sweet jasmine or honeysuckle in it, but it doesn't exactly smell like either of those on me either. There are also hints of something like sharp lemon in here.

 

And it dries down to something like powdery dryer sheets on me, which I'm guessing is some sort of aquatic something. Aquatic florals and I do not get along... and Circe is just such a strange and hard to pin down blend.

[grrrlennyl]

at first: sweet, wet flowers.

 

on: definitely aquatic, but with lovely sweet flowers. very, very pretty.

 

3 hours later: soft, creamy flowers.

 

4.5 hours later: sweet lotus and other flowers.

 

overall: this is really, really pretty on me, but i don't think i'll wear it often.

[edenssixthday]

Circe - Oy! On my skin, this is all gardenia. It may as well be a gardenia single note. BPAL Gardenia and I don't really get along too much, so I'm afraid I'm not a very good unbiased reviewer of this scent. It's got really amazing throw (gardenia always does on me) and lasts for waaaay too long considering how unpleasant the scent is.