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dronzeka

The Little Wooden Doll

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Gently carved wood warm with a maternal love that reaches beyond death: rose-infused amber and soft golden sandalwood.

 

Warm amber and rose, touched by sandalwood. Soft, golden and princess-y.

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Today I rediscovered an old imp of this in my stash and decided to retest it.

I remember I didn't like it when fresh, but to my pleasant surprise it is now exactly what I had always hoped it would be!

The rose is strong and freshly-picked and the amber and wood lend a glowing quality to it that settles warmly on the skin.

 

If you are put off by this at first try tucking away for a while and see if you like it bettet aged. My imp has certainly grown wonderful with age. I am now contemplating a full bottle to store away for a year's time...

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This one really surprised me! I can't stand rose-scents much, they give me a headache. But I think the amber and sandalwood blend out the rose nicely, making it really delicate, sweet, and slightly powdery. I would definitely recommend if you're usually gourmand, and think you can't handle rose usually. This might surprise you.

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I blind bought a bottle because I live fast and loose, and this one sounded just lovely.

 

In the bottle: Beautiful soft wood shavings and light varnish. I had been concerned previously when people said varnish that it would be an abrasive and heavy chemical smell, but it's very pretty actually.

 

On wet: Wood shavings, varnish, and a little rose mingling in the background.

 

Dry: Sandalwood and rose-y amber. A soft, dry scent. Definitely leans towards the woody category more than floral.

 

Overall: Very happy with the gamble.

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Sometimes sandalwood goes sour on me, sometimes it's gorgeous....here's hoping!

 

 

Wet: Quite sour initially, but then hugely sweet rose amber amps way up. It's almost candy sweet now. Pretty. Hoping it settles a bit more.

 

 

Dry: Sweet rose amber and warm dry sandalwood. I like it - not sure I love it. I think it needs further testing.

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Ah, this is pretty. Wooden Doll has little impact, with each note like a gentle glow, but it smells as described: a woody and rosy amber with golden sandalwood. The wood gives me an impression of oak.

This is a soft skin scent on me. I would love it as a bath or body oil.

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I got this in the amber imp pack recently. I didn't expect anything special from it based on the description, but it's rocketed up to one of my favorites. It starts off as...warm lumber? This sounds totally unappealing but is, in fact, a lovely moderation of Lab's usual piney/woody/lumber note, which usually comes out on me as CEDAR CEDAR CEDAR. Then as it mellows, as the other folks have noted, into a rose scent--charming, warm, woody. Far more complex and engaging than other rose scents seem to be.

 

This one's a winner! Thanks, BPAL!

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I do like woody blends, I find them relaxing. This was a frimp from the Lab, thanks! Definitely rose here, and sandalwood. Sandalwood can be iffy on me, but here it is working. I really like this, and will probably use it from time to time. It is very classy, something I'm not as a rule, but I can work it on occasion:)

 

eta: I'll have to find my decant of Eve OLLA, but from what I remember, this is very much like her.

Edited by milo

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I'm getting a lot of wood varnish from this while wet. It's very chemically and almost sour. It's very much a woodworker's scent. It smells just like finishing up a project with the varnished piece, the fresh-trimmed scrap wood waiting to be cleaned up, and some sawdust that escaped being vacuumed. None of the listed notes register in my nose because I kind of can't pick up anything but this random almost-finished carpentry project. I'm passing on this one.

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A few years ago, I opened this imp and got some on me, and it smelled like wood varnish. I have been avoiding testing this once since then... but here goes.

 

In the imp: I get both notes. The golden sandalwood jumped out to me first, though.

Wet: At first, it's this soft amber, but then the golden sandalwood note emerges, along with the rose part of the amber note, and the combination is quite sharp and somewhat sour (but not nearly as sharp as it was when the imp was fresh).

Dry: After the scent has been dry for a while, it becomes softer, and the amber gets to shine. I'm still getting a lot of the golden sandalwood, but the rose has calmed down significantly, so it's not sour anymore.

Verdict: Although the dry phase was pleasant, the wet stage of the scent wasn't very nice on me. I have to say that a few years of aging really helped this scent, though!

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Lab frimp aged about 6 years. I love the concept of this, and think the notes embody it well. And I love rose and amber; and like sandalwood very much. I'm excited to try it!

 

In the imp: Clear brown oil with a salmon-colored tint. I smell only generic wood, which oddly has an extremely salty and vinegary character that makes me think of dill pickles.

 

On me, wet: The same.

 

At 5 minutes: The wood, salt, and vinegar have all fled, leaving behind an odd fragrance that is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, and which smells vaguely like dill. I don't think it is supposed to smell like this. The imp was stored in a cool, dark place, but nevertheless it appears to be past its "use by" date. What a shame. I'm sure I would have loved this.

 

At 10 minutes: I've gotten an occasional faint and fleeting whiff of rose, but it is overpowered by the main vaguely dill scent.

 

At 20 minutes: Rose is definitely present now. But the weird note - which is now more sour than dill - is still stronger.

 

 

At 30 minutes: This is definitely a rose scent now. But the off note is sticking around, still with a hint of dill.

 

At 1 hour: The same, but getting fainter.

 

At 1 1/2 hours: The rose has faded away and the fragrance is mostly amber. With just a trace of the off note, I'm getting a glimpse of what this scent should be, and it is heartbreakingly beautiful.

 

At 2 1/2 hours: The off note is completely gone now, leaving a very soft and pretty rose-and-amber powder.

 

Later ETA: After reading the reviews, I notice that another reviewer mentioned dill pickles. So maybe my imp isn't deteriorated, maybe it just smells like that to some people. I know it's not my skin chemistry, because it smelled like that in the imp, before the oil touched my skin. But I've never gotten that from any of these notes before. Maybe there is something else in this that isn't listed? Curiouser and curiouser. I want to try another imp of it to see what happens, and I do have another one.

 

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take 2 - Different imp, also aged about 6 years

 

I still get the dill note, but it is not nearly as strong, and it vanishes quickly. The scent is mostly wood for the first 15 minutes, after which the rose comes in and soon takes over. At 2 1/2 hours, I get the rose and amber fragrance I was hoping for, but by now the strength of it has faded considerably. At final drydown, it is a lovely single note amber, but faint. The amber is there, but never assertive enough to be a main note in this blend.

 

Verdict: I do like this imp much better. It doesn't quite make my Favorites shortlist, because the rose note is less strong, less fresh, and less realistic than some of BPAL's other rose fragrances. Like dried rose petal potpourri rather than fresh blooms. So very pretty, though.

 

Predominant Notes: Wood, rose

 

Character: A morpher. Woody for a short time at first, then rose.

 

5 out of 6 stars

Edited by Ghost of a Rose

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In the imp: Sandalwood with a touch of amber.

 

On my skin:

 

Wet, it's predominantly sandalwood, though there's nothing harsh about it, which makes me think the amber is affecting the blend, even if I can't detect it quite yet. As it dries, the rose-infused amber comes to the foreground. As someone who often amps rose to high heaven, this is a lovely variant on it. The note is definitely amber tinged by rose, not rose overtaking everything. 

 

Given some time to develop, however, the rose does amp considerably on my skin. It's not as overwhelming as rose often is on me -- and the quality of the rose is excellent, sweet and pure and not a bit soapy -- but this has become decidedly rose-dominant, with a faint undercurrent of amber and an even fainter undercurrent of sandalwood. 

 

After about an hour of wear, the amber starts to turn the scent powdery though the rose is still present. I can't see this ending well from here. It's a lovely scent in its best phase, but it's just not of the note profile I like to wear a lot. If, however, you are a person who would like to wear rose but on whom rose often becomes a hot screaming mess, this would be an excellent scent to try. 

Edited by torischroeder9

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In the imp: intense, varnished wood. Once applied, it softens considerably, and the rose and amber notes amp up a lot. The end result is a very soft rose/amber scent with the wood adding some depth in the background. Unfortunately, rose tends to turn to baby powder on me, so I eventually wind up with a very powdery sandalwood.

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Soft, gentle sandalwood & rose, with amber grounding them. A warm, dry scent. I tend to layer this with other rose blends, as it is a little drier than I prefer. It's very simple.

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Sandalwood dust, with the rose + amber combo totally reading as cedar at first but turning to a very light floral and an amber that smells exactly like real amber resin (which I have been looking for for AGES. This is my favorite bpal amber note).

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This was a frimp in my latest order (so very new), and I detest rose, but had cautious hopes because I love the other notes. Alas, it just screams "Grandma's Rose Soap", and I had to scrub it off. It seems any scent with a rose note does this on me.

 

I'll shelve it and let it age...maybe the other notes will come out to play after a while.

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Strong sandalwood, befitting the name Little Wooden Doll. The sandalwood is lightly perfumed by rose, a gentle rose, maybe because it’s really the amber that is perfumed. I don’t get a very obvious amber note until late in the wear, as the powdery smooth wood dominates so much. The rose slowly merges more and more into the wood through the wear, until I can’t pick it out too well. 
It’s a very pretty, girlie sandalwood scent, true to the theme, I even get a soft sense of melancholy.

 

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Wow! So many mentions of strong sandalwood, and yet I get absolutely none.

Wet, I am struck by just how candy sweet this is. This is a golden amber, not powdery at all, and it is mixing with rosewater to create a strong cotton candy note. This is as far away from my usual scents as possible. It's not bad, just not me.

Once dry, the rosewater comes to the forefront with the amber just underneath. It remains this way for quite a few hours, but with good throw. After about 4 hours it becomes a skin scent, and the amber overtakes the rose again. I adore both of those notes, but without the sandalwood to ground it, it's just too sweet for me. It's an official lab imp, and it was left to settle (not fresh out of the mailbox), so I know this is how it will probably always smell on. Sandalwood goes either really right or really wrong on me, so I can usually sniff it out. If it would have been there, this would have been perfect. 

3 out of 5 stars.

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Judging by the name I was expecting a scent with a strong woody note. I was not expecting to get such a candy sweet rose from it, right from the start! This is not the flower rose, it's rose candy! I know a lot of you love the candy sweet scents, but this is not for me. 

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The wood is very acrid at first, and the rose amber is overpowering. Even after I've been wearing it a couple of hours the notes don't quite work together, but I expect it will improve with age.

Update: Just 8 weeks later it's much better. The wood is no longer harsh and the notes blend together much better. I agree with a previous reviewer that it's more like dried rose than fresh, but in this case that's not a bad thing. It's sweet but not excessively sweet and overall I really like it.

Edited by Kebab Fiend
updated review

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this has changed with age CONSIDERABLY. i remember it being acrid/sharp when i first received it.

 

when wet, the sandalwood and rose are most prominent on me. i hardly get any amber until it dries, but it does peek out eventually, adding more warmth.

 

when dry, the rose quiets down considerably, but is still very present (atleast, to me. i say this as someone who doesn't wear or enjoy many florals, and is just beginning to accept rose into their collection).

 

after an hour, the sandalwood dominates and the scent leans more woody. this blend is dry, warm, golden, and wears a little perfumey on me. 

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I tried an old imp of this (from the amber imp pack) today, as I'm working my way through old stuff I never wear to see how I like it. The description sounded just lovely, but I was really disappointed. Wet, I got mostly sandalwood. It was a rather sharp sandalwood, but the edges of it softened pretty quickly with the amber, and I got a bit of the rose. Oh, nice! Not my favorite, but not bad at all. But then, gradually, the rose got more and more obnoxiously present until it really overwhelmed the sandalwood and amber. While I've been known to wear a little rose, it's usually a sweeter and more powdery rose (think a culinary rosewater scent). This was a much more perfume-y rose that just did not work on me. It's a scent for rose-lovers, not one for amber-lovers--at least, as it behaves on my skin. Boo.

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Honestly, pretty similar at first and when wet compared to Harper that I just tried. :P Or rather, this could be the wooden sister of Harper.
But! This is a strong resinous-y wood, a soft rose in the background and a strong amber alit with golden specs of sandalwood.

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Something about these notes combined goes incredibly sweet on my skin, like almost overpowering sweet. I'm amping the rose-amber and the sandalwood vanishes. So overall impression is incredibly sweet resinous rose.

 

It's actually quite pretty, but not what I want to smell like.

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“Oh did you want a beautiful gentle rose and sandalwood? You wanted to smell delicate and pretty? Well you’re getting wood polish and sickening rose scented bathroom freshener” -my skin, about 15 minutes into wearing this. I had to scrub it :(  The opening was quite pretty however, and it smells lovely on my mom so its a skin chem issue.

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