Bluebeard's Wife

[zankoku_zen]

Red rose petals floating in brackish salt water.

[LilBaephomet]

Bluebeard’s Wife is literally crying in the bathtub as a fragrance. (I’ve done plenty of that this year, consider me an expert.) It is the sad girl jam I have always needed. It’s Daisy tearing apart the letter from Gatsby on her wedding day after having destroyed her pearl necklace while the orchestral version of “Young and Beautiful” swells. 

 

In the bottle, it smells like warm salty tears spilled into a vessel filled with rose water. On the skin, some soapy notes begin to emerge, that saltiness translating to a once luxurious bath that has not quite gone cold though the occupant has not quite mustered the strength to extract themselves...or may never muster that strength. As it dries, the florals continue to float at the top, the brine settling to the bottom, and we are left between with steamed pink skin and tear-bruised eyes. If you enjoy a bright oceanic note, ghostly delicate florals, or the hazy echo of bath soap, I highly recommend this fragrance for you. 

[Threemoons]

Oh, but is this a gorgeous aquatic.  Super-duper clean-smelling; getting fresh saltwater with just a touch of white floral aquatic notes; if you are afraid of roses in blends this one may be for you as a gentle intro.  This smells like you just stepped out of the shower at some super high-end spa; not sure how else to describe it.

 

[fairybites]

Soapy rosewater; finally I have found an aquatic that I really like! Reminds me of taking a luxurious bath with rose petals and a fancy soap, and the description from an above reviewer saying that this is the "crying in the bathtub" fragrance couldn't have been more correct! My only complaint: I wish the sea salt lasted longer. I tested this after getting out of the shower and it compliments the soap I used wonderfully.

 

Beautiful, a potential upgrade for sure. 

[RoseThornAndOak]

I really like this! Its mostly about the sea salt and bubbles: clean, simple, wear anywhere type of aquatic.

 

There are definitely florals, but you know, if someone held this up to me I'd be completely stumped as to which, the rose is so well blended with the bubbly bathwater. I may not have guessed rose, most definitely not red. I do think white floral aquatic as mentioned above is more accurate. 

 

Not brackish, you won't smell of clam. You have The No Clam Stamp of Approval. I'll definitely be keeping this not-a-clam.

Edited November 24, 2022 by RoseThornAndOak

[Assimbya]

The Bluebeard version that this perfume most evokes for me is Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber," and its young heroine, newly wed to Bluebeard, entering into the unknown and sinister luxury of her marriage to him. The salt water-bathtub sensibility of this very feminine aquatic rhymes for me the range of water images in that story ("the amniotic salinity of the ocean"; "my tears in a flood"; gold bath taps).  It's a bright scent but to me also feels somehow underground? I keep picturing an elegantly tiled pool of saltwater in a windowless room. But as I write this I am also remembering the pool of tears in the opera Bluebeard's Castle, and this scent is such a perfect, gorgeous representation of that image! 

 

This doesn't change a ton for me on drydown - unlike reviewers above, the salt sticks around for me, as do the rose petals, which are definitely a subtler note than the salt water. This is a soapy aquatic, but intentionally so and in a good way! 

 

It's interesting - I have some many other visual associations with the Bluebeard story that if I had tried to come up with perfume notes for this character I don't think they would have even come close to this one, but it turns out to be such a brilliant interpretation that ingeniously talks to these different versions of the story. It's not a perfume I find myself wanting to wear out; it's lovely to wear while at home, especially while quietly reflecting.