Hi'iaka: Review
I might have the first yet review of this...
The second I saw this on the site, I had to succumb. Pele and Manila are my very two favorite BPALs, so another tropical fruity floral? Oh, mercy, sign me right up! The mere notion that it might not work on me was absurd. I scoff at the notion! And buy a 5 ml! Hot diggity, bring it on!
Well, yesterday, my nice post lady brought me a package of BPAL (and stopped to use my restroom)...I ordered on the 27th, so this was a little quicker than I expected.
So...the suspense...would Hi'iaka work as well as I assumed it would?
Sister to Pele, Patroness of Hula Dancers, she is a Lady of Hawa'ii, and is caretaker, mother, and beloved of the land itself. The heart of the forest beats along with Her dance, and the air is suffused with Her scent: mai'a, hibiscus, white ginger, akala, na'u, Hawaiian moon flower, yellow ilima, pink lokelani, jewel orchid, and fringed orchid.
I admit it: I don't know what all of those things are, but I'm guessing they're flowers (duh!), and I know I like the ones I recognize.
First impression: whole lotta flowers goin' on, as Jerry Lee Lewis might have said while sniffing this. It's a whole melange of tropical floral. It's hard to pick out any one note, but orchid, or one of its close kin, seems to dominate. There's a note of slightly-spicy white ginger, and a backup of something rather bubblegummish. I like bubblegum. All right, so far so good; I can smear this on myself with little trepidation.
After ten minutes, the florals have not exactly settled, but have made this lovely blend that's sweet, but not cloyingly, artificially so: it smells like the freshest of sweet tropical flowers, and their greenery. It's like being in a flower shop. The scent is green and hot pink -- sweet, yet zippy. Hi'iaka, by the by, is NOT (IMO) a unisex scent; it's all girl. And while the florals are a little more pronouncedly floral than many of BPAL's scents, there is something about it that is very bathtime fresh, not person-who-smells-like-they-used-perfume-in-lieu-of-bathing floral, if y'all get my drift. Sweet as pie, but not heavy or cloying about it. The bubblgummy note remains, though it is fairly subtle after a short while. The slightly deeper spicy note grounds it just enough. But what we have here is lots and lots of flowers. And it *is* slightly bath producty, but in the best possible way.
It's not really much like Pele to me at all, but I could see the two as being complementary. It lacks the woody notes of Manila. This has very little non-flower base as far as I can see, but it's still nice, complex, and resonant.
Also, it lasts and apparently throws fairly well: I've only been wearing it for four hours, but I can still smell myself, and it's a nice scent. My daughter reports it's very nice from another nose's persepctive, for what it's worth. And no one around me cringed when i went out in public, which is what might have happened had this been a cloying (and annoying) floral. Woohoo!
Actually, I *really* like this. A whole lot. Goodness gracious, this is good. We'll be wearing this a bunch.
No tag for Hi'iaka yet, it seems...
By the way, I have three hibiscus plants, being quite fond of the flappy pretty things, and you know, mine have very little scent (maybe it's bred out of them). I'm thinking maybe they really should smell like this stuff. In an ideal world, they would. I am not, however, spritzing my plants with this. Nope, it's all for meeee.
The second I saw this on the site, I had to succumb. Pele and Manila are my very two favorite BPALs, so another tropical fruity floral? Oh, mercy, sign me right up! The mere notion that it might not work on me was absurd. I scoff at the notion! And buy a 5 ml! Hot diggity, bring it on!
Well, yesterday, my nice post lady brought me a package of BPAL (and stopped to use my restroom)...I ordered on the 27th, so this was a little quicker than I expected.
So...the suspense...would Hi'iaka work as well as I assumed it would?
Sister to Pele, Patroness of Hula Dancers, she is a Lady of Hawa'ii, and is caretaker, mother, and beloved of the land itself. The heart of the forest beats along with Her dance, and the air is suffused with Her scent: mai'a, hibiscus, white ginger, akala, na'u, Hawaiian moon flower, yellow ilima, pink lokelani, jewel orchid, and fringed orchid.
I admit it: I don't know what all of those things are, but I'm guessing they're flowers (duh!), and I know I like the ones I recognize.
First impression: whole lotta flowers goin' on, as Jerry Lee Lewis might have said while sniffing this. It's a whole melange of tropical floral. It's hard to pick out any one note, but orchid, or one of its close kin, seems to dominate. There's a note of slightly-spicy white ginger, and a backup of something rather bubblegummish. I like bubblegum. All right, so far so good; I can smear this on myself with little trepidation.
After ten minutes, the florals have not exactly settled, but have made this lovely blend that's sweet, but not cloyingly, artificially so: it smells like the freshest of sweet tropical flowers, and their greenery. It's like being in a flower shop. The scent is green and hot pink -- sweet, yet zippy. Hi'iaka, by the by, is NOT (IMO) a unisex scent; it's all girl. And while the florals are a little more pronouncedly floral than many of BPAL's scents, there is something about it that is very bathtime fresh, not person-who-smells-like-they-used-perfume-in-lieu-of-bathing floral, if y'all get my drift. Sweet as pie, but not heavy or cloying about it. The bubblgummy note remains, though it is fairly subtle after a short while. The slightly deeper spicy note grounds it just enough. But what we have here is lots and lots of flowers. And it *is* slightly bath producty, but in the best possible way.
It's not really much like Pele to me at all, but I could see the two as being complementary. It lacks the woody notes of Manila. This has very little non-flower base as far as I can see, but it's still nice, complex, and resonant.
Also, it lasts and apparently throws fairly well: I've only been wearing it for four hours, but I can still smell myself, and it's a nice scent. My daughter reports it's very nice from another nose's persepctive, for what it's worth. And no one around me cringed when i went out in public, which is what might have happened had this been a cloying (and annoying) floral. Woohoo!
Actually, I *really* like this. A whole lot. Goodness gracious, this is good. We'll be wearing this a bunch.
No tag for Hi'iaka yet, it seems...
By the way, I have three hibiscus plants, being quite fond of the flappy pretty things, and you know, mine have very little scent (maybe it's bred out of them). I'm thinking maybe they really should smell like this stuff. In an ideal world, they would. I am not, however, spritzing my plants with this. Nope, it's all for meeee.