Lolita

[Shollin]

Lolita, from Love Potions:

Bright, sweet and youthful, but swelling with a poisonous sexuality. Glittering heliotrope, honeysuckle, orange blossom and lemon verbena.

 

First sniff: Sweet - I smell oranges more than anything else. Voluptuous.

 

Wearing: Very citrus at first touch, somewhere between orange and lemon, a sharper lemon than the soft misty Phantasm. After a bit I can smell the florals winding around the fruits. Growing on me, but not a favourite.

 

Diffuser: Bright and bubbly. Once the initial orange wears off I can definitely smell the juicy strawberry.

[chin]

freshly applied: this is very fruity on me, but a red candy fruitiness - very sweet, but balanced by a bitter undertone. I compare this to ... don't kick me off the boards ... Hawai'ian Punch with Rum and Bitters, but in a good way!

 

drydown: four hours later, this is still strong on me though not overpoweringly so. Funny thing, my chemistry is normally bad for rose so I don't wear it even though I like the scent ... Lolita's drydown smells like rose on me! Not pure rose, but rosy, with a sweet dry candy mood to it. The bitterness hasn't lasted, but neither has the "punch" (pun intended!)

 

I like this one - it's playful. I may not go for the larger size, but I will keep my imp's ear!

[Pookymum]

Very lemony on first smelling. Very young, fresh and summery. It dries down to become more floral, a nice mixture of scents. Not one of my favourites but I do like it.

[Sarah]

Wet, this smelled like dried orange peel on me, and I don't mean the fruity zest---it was quite bitter/sour and remained that way for some time. It kind of mellowed out at the end, but among the light florals it still stood out. I'll give it another go, since the reason I was drawn to it was because it was a light scent, but I'm not feeling optimistic about this one.

[UltraViolet]

I like this.

 

It's orangey, sweet like honey, it's floral in a sweet way like gardenia or mimosa and it's minutely spicey. Altogether it represents a sort of childlike scent.

 

Lolita was also the first BPAL scent that I tried.

 

Maybe as I try each one I'll be raving like this about each one but I just had to say something about Lolita because it is nice.

[Witch Baby]

 

 

On the first sniff it reminds me of little girl's perfume. . .like a little nymphet trying to act all grown up.

 

 

While drying down I can definetly smell the honeysuckle and orange. . . it reminds me of a summer twilight spent in a friend's backyard in your little shorts and bathing suits. . .talking about boys and gossiping while eating orange creamsicles.

 

 

As my very first BPAL scent I really like it. It makes me feel like a giggly middle-schooler again

[Ina Garten Davita]

First Impression: Poignant floral.

 

Second Impression: Oh, this does not smell good on me. The longer it dries the more sharp and bitter it gets. It does not bloom in the lovely way that most of the others have.

 

Final Analysis: My chemistry did evil things while wearing this. Off to swap!

[TygherRayn]

Oh how pretty!

 

In the bottle: Very lightly sweet, not candy or wine sweet like Lilith and Bordello. Lighter, and crisper. Almost like Villain, but pretty and feminine.

 

Wearing: This is what I wish Villain smelled like on me. Sweet and lemony. I almost wish there were a little more honeysuckle in this, but it's nice the way it is.

[Laurel the Woodfairy]

I received this as one of my "bonus imps" and just got around to trying it on today. A friend told me, "You smell like bubblegum!" "Debauched bubblegum," I replied with my best naughty smirk...

[Lorencita]

I loved this... It is very sweet but not annoyingly so. I love that it can take on the mood that you are in, I wore it 2 diff. times and it was diff. both times. I really like this one, I will order a bigger bottle!

[evil_laugher]

This is very girly and flowery, very spring. My sister thought I smelled "citrus-y" when I put it on once, though I usually smell the flowers more. It's like a 14-year-old girl's toilette, very sweet.

 

EDIT: This might be a little too powderly sweet, I'm not sure yet. I have to try it more often. I don't know how heliotrope smells, but I believe that's what's the strongest here.

 

Edit2: Never mind, I do in fact delight in this. I just must keep it in moderation... Lots of moderation. And as advice, don't put it on right before you take a nap, because you do not want to be inhaling this as you lay on a pillow. Ah! But it gives me happy germs.

 

ADDED Sept. 10:

 

Part 2:

 

After several months, I've found this is my good weather scent. When the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the air is pleasant, this is the thing to get on. It's sunshine and flowers, and happiness. Wear it with light colors.

Edited December 5, 2004 by Shollin

[Splendid Molerat]

The novel was an annual read of mine for a number of years, and I always noticed some new complexity with every trip through it.

 

The scent is very true to the character of Lolita, with a brash and aggressive surface presentation, followed by a shy inner life that's difficult to interpret. While I'm wearing it, the oil veers between "Look at me!" attention-getting, and the almost-sadness of an empty garden.

 

I'm nominating this fragrance for the Booker Prize.

[TheDarkMother]

I recieved this as a bonus to an order that I recieved after I made a specific order for it, so I should have another imp of this to swap to da Minx when it comes in. I was looking at the ingredients and hoping beyond hope that the lemon verbena doesn't overpower the honeysuckle in this. I LOVE honeysuckle! You don't get enough of it in Florida, and I used to love them smell of the vines of them when I lived in Tennessee.

 

In the Bottle: I can really smell the honeysuckle! Mmmm...its heavenly sweet and reminds me of sucking the nectar off of honeysuckle stamens when I was a kid. God I loved the taste of honeysuckle!

 

On Me: Wow...how sweet! But...wouldn't you know it, the lemon verbena is really starting to overpower the other scents. No...wait...that was quick...now its an odd scent...a glowing scent. Ahhh...now I smell it, that Double Bubble Gum scent. Its bright and pink and very childish. If there was anything that reminded me more of my middle school days in Tennessee, this was it. Bubble gum and Honeysuckle. Its funny that you can re-live your youth with a scent. This kinda makes me wonder what happened to all those people that I used to know as I was growing up.

 

*Sigh* Another highly nostalgic scent! I love it!!

[lorajc]

This wore very light on me. I have extremely dry skin and my skin really soaks oil up. Needless to say, I had to reapply frequently. I got several compliments wearing this and one was from my husband who never comments. I couldn't pick out the honeysuckle in this, just the heliotrope and a general sweetness with a bit of a bitter top note. This was very well blended, sweet and lovely.

[hypothermya]

I decided to try this because I adore lemon verbena, and orange blossom as a note has worked on me in several other perfumes. I'm a bit wary of the heliotrope and honey blossom...

 

First Impression

 

There's something in here that doesn't smell so good to me. Maybe the heliotrope or something else....It smells green and citrusy and sweet and floral all at once, but there's a bit of a harshness in the bottle that's disagreeing with me.

 

Wearing It

 

When I put it on, the harshness was still there, and I was tempted to wash it off. But I let it dry down and within three minutes or so, it smelled divine. It reminds me a lot of a light punch, sitting on a glass table in a garden. There's a sweet orange/lemon/honey scent there, and it's slightly blubbly, and slightly bitter -- which for me is perfect, because I hate when scents get too sweet or too floral. This one is a perfect mix of all its elements, and I'm loving it.

 

 

This isn't the spirited bright scent that Katharina is...instead it's a lazy seductress, laying in the afternoon sun on her porch -- catlike. It seems very southern to me. There's something very light about this, but not innocent at all. I think I'll definitely be using up the rest of this imp...and knowing how Beth's perfumes tend to grow on me as I wear them, this will probably end up being a 5ml.

[k00kaburra]

In bottle: There's a sharpness to this fragrance that I find really abrasive and unpleasant. I'm not sure what is disagreeing with me. :-/ There is no innocense in this smoky fragrance.

 

On me: Smoky and sharp at first - I can't smell anything bright in this. Definitely no fruit. I wonder if my bottle is an off-batch because it seems so off from what everyone else has. The longer I wear the oil the more acidic the scent gets. Bummer.

[LiberAmoris]

Lolita smells to me like a lollipop. It's got sticky sweetness from the orange blossom and the fruity note from the lemon verbena. The heliotrope and honeysuckle add to the knowing innocence of the blend.

 

It would be quite nice on a warm day or when I'm in a coquettish mood. Unfortuntely, my love/hate relationship with orange blossom will probably prevent me from wearing this on a regular basis.

[feline.by.design]

When wet, Lolita smells really, well, acrid. Like an orange zest marinating in tart lemon juice. Really sharp, nothing sweet at all. Not what I expected as a fan of verbena and lemony fragrances from BPAL (Phantasm, Yuki-Onna, Zephyr and Embalming Fluid are favourites). The lemon in Lolita leans more towards the dreaded cleaning product smell on my skin, being so sharp and not really sweet.

 

After an hour it does eventually dry to something sweet once the citrus wears off, but it's too faint to make much of an impact on me. Perhaps one of my friends will appreciate this more.

 

-doreen

[closedacct]

Lolita

 

I can't believe that I love this! I did not have any expectations for this blend because I am a spicy, earthy kinda girl. HOWEVER!!! I fucking love this!!! It is soft and sweet. It reminds me of a young girls perfume.

 

Wow. It reminds me of those Strawberry Shortcake dolls that you squeeze and they blow sweet smelling kisses. And that is a totally positive thing.

 

 

Yay!

[jj_j]

I'd put this one off for a while, thinking it would be sweet and ... well, young. Young as in something I'd put on my three-year old, who loves scents almost as much as I do.

 

Lolita is absolutely vibrant and smooth - like a drop of champagne spilled on velvet. While the lemon verbena is a big part of the flowery citrus quality, it's got that rich, furry, decadent heliotrope note supporting it and weaving in and out. I love the orange blossom in here, too - one of my favorite white florals, because it's kind and gentle and not overblown, which many of the white flowers seem to me.

 

All in all, the notes blend beautifully, and this is the kind of scent I can see worn at a wedding or for some elegant spring or summer event. It's fresh without being "clean" and "breezy", if that makes sense, and to me, it's a beautiful rendering of womanly warmth and soft skin.

 

Not the longest-lasting of Beth's amazing scents, but definitely one I'll be ordering a bottle of - and not for my little girl.

[Ishtar]

In the vial, Lolita smelled very fruity and bright, with a definite orange twist.

 

On my skin, however, the honeysuckle and heliotrope were the most prominent notes, with the verbena a close second, making the blend rather airy, a little high-pitched and very clean.

 

On me Lolita is a very light scent, almost to the point of faintess. It does have good staying power, though. It is nice, but a little too juvenile and innocent for me to wear. Off to the swaps board with you!

[rainbow]

In the bottle and wet on skin- sweet orange with a hint of bubblegum. Innocent and very girlish.

 

Wearing- this scent grows darker as it dries. It gains a smoky undertone that waxes and wanes throughout the life of the scent, and fades in and out of the bubblegum scent. As it develops the florals and fruits separate, and I can smell both elements distinctly.

 

Like so many BPAL oils, this is a very well-blended oil, and while I know there are various fruits and florals at work, I'm having a hard time picking out individual notes. This scent is smooth, pleasant, summery, and uplifting. I like it very much.

[britgeekgrrl]

In the imp: fruity bubblegum, VERY sweet.

 

wet on skin: still sweet, but there's something a little wicked peering out from underneath.

 

drydown: the honeysuckle has manifested itself with a veangance, and so it remains a very sweet scent, but not as candy-like as it was in the imp. It's juicy-sweet and, in a way, a little bit mouthwatering.

 

It's definitely not a scent I'd associate with myself (or, er, the mental image of myself, I guess) but I rather like it. In fact, I think I like it because it's different from what I think I'd usually wear. It's bright and sweet and juicy, with just a hint of lushness - a very aptly named scent, I think. Another reviewer mentioned this scent made her think of a young nymphette trying to act grown-up and I think that's a very apt description.

 

I don't know if this will become buy-a-bottle material, but I think I'm keeping the imp as I can think of some occasions when a juicy-nymphette scent might be just what's needed.

 

- Johanna

[shelldoo]

hmmm wet the lemon was bugging me, i am not a lemony fan

 

dry down the lemon begins to fade and it becomes a soft, sweet floral, just beautiful!i am loving this one

[paperdoll]

Initial Sniff: I smell juicy sweet orange and strawberry. This is young and playful!

Wearing: Candy sweet when wet, the soft florals and lightly herbal lemon verbena temper the fruit as it dries. This fades very quickly, unfortunately.

Final Impressions: I can't believe that strawberry isn't listed as a component of this blend! I put this in the same category as Jailbait, Maenad, and Hollywood Babylon - I like them all, but Lolita is my least favorite of the group.