E Pluribus Unum

[greenranger]

E PLURIBUS UNUM
Out of many, one: a bouquet of the States' flowers.

Out of many, one indeed. It is soooo well blended. I like it more than I really expected. I'm just geeky about the election and had to try it whether it worked or not.


I really can't identify any individual notes in this. Absolutely nothing is amping on me. One, unified, floral scent and not FLOWERS OMG at all.

[MeiLin]

In the bottle: A clean, soft, hopeful floral.

 

Wet: Ylang ylang? What is Hawaii's state flower? No, that's the Native Yellow Hibiscus. This isn't tropical, but I smell something ylang ylang-ish in a very well-blended floral.

 

Dry: Woosh! It's gone! Little throw, little stay. Might be a good nighttime sleepy scent.

[sarada]

Florals can be very difficult -- but if there is one way I like them, it is in an absurd profusion. Like Flower Moon, we have here an explosion of flowers -- pastel colors flying in every direction, tinged with a hint of greenery. Wildflowers in dusky shades shadowed in the twilight, not too strong, but the closer you get, the greater variety you can see.

 

There's a level in the game "We (heart) Katamari" where you go through a fairyland rolling up giant beds of flowers while soothing, dreamy music plays...that's kind of like what this smells like. Occasionally a fairy screams when you roll her up, too.

 

The floral palette that has appealed to me in the past includes Flower Moon, Phantom Queen and Poisson d'Avril. Given that a great many floral notes give me a headache, it's a hard mix to achieve, but this falls into that category -- a plethora of wildflowers spiked with a few herbal/green notes. No attention hogs here -- everyone quietly files into place and takes a seat in a field to watch the sun set -- a choir of a thousand voices united in sustaining a single harmonious note.

Edited November 27, 2008 by sarada

[karihan]

Mmmm, nice. I agree with sarada's comparison with Flower Moon. Here we also have an assortment of florals, all in excellent balance so that one isn't dominating the other. I find E Pluribus Unum to be a little lighter than Flower Moon though, a little more subtle, sticking a bit closer to the skin. This particular profusion of flowers also smells a little warmer, a touch spicier even, as opposed to the hint of fruitiness Flower Moon has on me.

 

It's a lovely blend over all, and doesn't morph much from bottle to skin. I think this would be an excellent floral for those who normally find floral blends to be too overwhelming.

[hkhm]

bottle: flowery! this has a candy-ish quality as well. it's quite sweet and a bit tropical feeling.

 

wet: finally! a floral blend that doesn't go cloying on me. it's not as candy-like anymore... something in it reminds me of a less tangy version of kitsune-tsuki.

 

dry: this just fades and fades and fades until it's pretty faint. i wasn't sure i'd like this one, it's nice to be pleasantly surprised.

[alicia_stardust]

If you like blends such as Flower Moon and Poisson d' Avril, you're really going to love this. I find it to be an uplifting and fresh floral, not perfumey at all. There's almost a sweet, candy-like quality to the medley of flowers—and it is a medley, indeed. I can't even pinpoint a single "color" for this blend because there is such a well-blended variety here. It's definitely refreshing and light with just a touch of herbal greenery to it. It doesn't stick around long but it's a buoyant little number!

[hellomoonglow]

New! Now you can have all the floral with none of the headache! Tired of being actually able to identify that one floral that sticks in your craw, making your eyes water and your nose tickle? Get your E Pluribus Unum! A perfect blend of 51 flowers!

[Dark Alice]

This is a lovely green floral. I can't detect one flower from the other and its very clean....and soapy either. I think this will be one floral scent I will go for when I want to smell like more than one particular flower. It is quite lovely!

 

D. Alice

[tat2dluvgirl]

OMG! Are you serious? This is so very, very, very PRETTY! I am loving it! Very girlie, soft, floral. A bit old fashioned. I think this is going to be one of my daily favorites.

[Ravenclaw79]

A nice, well-blended floral -- and "well-blended" is an understatement. I can't pick out a single note here, 'cause they all mix together so nicely into one harmonious blend.

[waternight]

In the bottle: Just like everyone has said - a soft, gentle, well-blended floral.

Wet: Mmmmm... this is lovely. Very gentle and understated, but soft and floaty and beautiful. It represents unity very well. Unity and peace.

Dry: POOF! And off she goes. Well, she's quite lovely while she lasts. I think I'll have to apply with a heavy hand with this one.

[Alchemy21599]

This a lovely floral blend:some green-ness, some white floral, some spicy floral. I get a tiny whiff of violet top note. Long lasting, but close to the skin.

[isisonearth]

This is just plain enchanting. It is not a strong scent...people won't smell you from a distance but up close you get a multitude of wildflowers. All day long it seemed that every time I sniffed my locket I would "find" something different in my bouquet. It has some fresh green notes as well. A fragrant expression of unity well realized.

[Leopard403]

This is lovely, and unlike a lot of "serious" florals on my skin, it lasts and lasts and just gets prettier as time passes. Very well done!

[jencallisto]

In the bottle: A soft, springlike floral.

Fresh on the skin: A little spicy, not too sweet, complex, light, pale powdery florals of all colors, with a bit of fresh green to go with them. A little perfumey/lotiony.

5 minutes later: Yeah. This smells exactly like lotion. A rather nice, light, pleasant lotion, though. Right now I've got Tabella on one wrist and E Pluribus Unum on the other, and I'm thinking they might smell rather fabulous layered together.

10 minutes later: Hrm. As much as I want to love this, I feel like there's some flowers in here that just aren't quite for me, tugging the whole of the scent in a not-me direction.

30 minutes later: Light, powdery floral, sweet and just a touch sour.

1 hour later: Oh, this has sweetened up a lot, to something pretty and powdery and really very lovely.

2 hours later: Light, delicate, beautiful, like a bouquet of powdery pastel florals.

3.5 hours later: I can't get over how pretty this is.

6 hours later: Just so pretty! Old-fashioned, but in the best possible way. Delicate and classic.

 

Verdict: I was a little worried at the beginning that it would stay at the lotion stage, but it settled into a really beautiful floral. I'm definitely keeping this bottle.

 

One word: beautiful.

[mgrazulis]

Indeed...a lovely fresh green floral blend. All in a chorus singing sweetly and gently. No arias, no divas...just a fresh refrain from all 51 in magnificent unison! What a bouquet!

 

[inurbanus]

E Pluribus Unum proves that you should never judge a BPAL scent by how it smells in the bottle. I was worried when I sniffed for the first time because this was a lot more herbal than I was expecting, but I dabbed some on and am very happy I did so. This is really nice. It reminds me a little bit of my Sea of Tranquility, which has lost a lot of its sweetness as it's aged. This is a like a rougher, more homespun version of that. Unum isn't in-your-face at all; it's quite mellow and laid back, making it perfect for those who aren't big floral fans. As far as blended florals go, this isn't my favorite, but I think a lot of people will enjoy it. I can tell this is going to age really well.

 

3.5/5

[PinkoCommie]

This is a very pretty, soft, sweet, well-blended floral. It's gorgeous. It really sings on my friend, though; whether there's wood in it or not, I don't know, but something goes very wooden on her in the best possible way. Very nice. But my heart belongs to Tabella.

[hlinspjalda]

In the bottle: Ethereal floral: rose, possibly something like violet, maybe something lilyish. But mostly ethereal.

 

Wet: Sweeter and more earthy now, but still with that ethereal edge. Definitely rose, something lilyish, something more tropical and fleshy too. So far, I like it.

 

Half an hour: Something sweeter and fleshier than rose is dominating, although I still get rose. It's not headachy, exactly, but it's somewhat sharper than I wanted. I think it needs to develop more.

 

One hour: Rose, fruit blossom, something lilyish, definitely still violets. Not sure what else is in there, but there's at least one fleshy tropical. It's settled down a lot, though, into something that's intense but not headachy. I definitely get fruit blossoms or maybe clover, something honey-like, off it.

 

Two and a half hours: It smells most obviously of something like gardenias now, something sweet and fleshy. It's almost a neroli scent. Maybe orange blossom? Not a lot of throw, though. I like it much better now.

 

Four hours: Sweet, gentle, fleshy flower. This reminds me a bit of Loralei now. I'll keep at least some of this; I think it would make a great Election Day perfume for me. I think I'll wear it on Inauguration Day, too.

[harmonyfb]

I was really expecting this to be cloying, but it's a faint floral in which no one note dominates. When I first opened the bottle, it smelled like...well...a beauty shop. Don't know why it sparked that particular association, but there you go.

 

Dry, my skin is drinking this up, so that it's a close-to-skin kind of fragrance. Very unexpected.

[Lit Chick]

Wet, this was a fresh green bouquet of wildflowers.

Dry, it has morphed into something unpleasant and harsh. I'm thinking it's the dreaded violet effect - and sure enough, when I look at the list of state flowers I see violet is a favorite. Bllleeeehhhh. Why not more carnation, USA?

 

This will be swapped, because while I liked it wet, Violet is the one note that never, in any form, ever works at all on me. If you are a violet fan, this is a must-try because it will likely be a delightful, happy floral on you.

Edited December 3, 2008 by Lit Chick

[PersephonesChild]

Oh noes! This blend is not working!

 

I bought this blend in a celebratory moment on Wednesday morning. I expected I'd love it-- it would be a sentimental gesture, and I really do think of myself as a floral girl. And some of those state flowers sound amazing!

 

When my box from the lab finally arrived, I ended up tearing into my Party frimp first-- and ignoring E Pluribus Unum for about a day.

 

Today I sniffed it and was... uninspired. It didn't smell bad. But it didn't really smell like much. I decided it needed to breathe and expand on my skin, so I put some on and... was instantly over-taken by a soppy-smelling rose. The same rose that dominates All They Had Seen, and All They Had Lost, as well as Water of Notre Dame.

 

In conclusion: I love rose, but there is a rose note that I amp to the exclusion of all other notes, and it is in this blend.

[papermaker]

E Pluribus Unum means out of many one, but out of the many I couldn't pick out one single note because this is so well blended. It is not OMG flowers b ut a nice subtle blend. I will be reaching for this fairly often.

[milo]

My skin amps florals, so I was a little leary about this. At first it is this beautiful, spicy floral. This soon disappears, and it is more tropical smelling floral to me, not really a good thing. Maybe I amp the tropical more? I just get a gardenia-like scent in the dry down. Funny how some reviewers notice the other flowers, like the violet and rose, I just get the icky gardenia. Will give it another go, though before it goes.

[Little Bird]

I don’t generally like floral blends, especially when they're a mess of many floral notes, so E Pluribus Unum was a scary thought for me. And I don’t really like it on myself, but at least it’s not so strong that I find it offensive.

 

There’s a bit of herbal greenery to this at first, and it smells rather clean on me (slightly soapy). It morphs briefly into a cloying, tart sweetness that smells a bit tropical, but it dries back down to a light, clean floral scent that’s a little perfumey and a touch powdery. It makes me think of very old floral perfumes collecting dust on someone’s vanity. On me, this morphs through a couple stages of soft, floral perfuminess and disappears rather quickly.

 

I might keep my decant of this for when I'm in the rare mood to try on a feminine floral scent. This isn't really a strong fragrance, so I could wear it without getting a headache. Then again, I have Tiki Queen for my go-to girly floral (that I love and adore <3), so Unum may not be a keeper.