sarada

The sheer complexity of this blend attracted me to it even though most of the ingredients don't appeal...but those often work out to be the best scents, unexpectedly!

 

At first I'm struck by sharp, smoky wine-damp wood. It's a dark room lit only by the glint of lamp light, distorted through glass bottles tinted dark amber and violet.

 

It reminds me of The Black Tower for a moment...something about smoky wood, wine and something sharp and green. Then it transitions into Fortunato's wine cellar.

 

In just minutes though the dark curtains part and the main attraction is unveiled in the gloomy tavern: La Fee Verte, just visible through a shroud of murk and smoke. She is sparkling green and sugared. This settles into a steady wave of darkened La Fee Verte for the rest of the trip, with wafts of the wine caskets drifting up on a smoky breeze every time someone opens the door to the cellar.

 

Looking at the ingredient list, I'm rather amazed that there are so many florals in this. I really don't smell any at all. I love anything with a fougere in it though so this isn't surprising. This takes some of my favorite elements from other wine and wood-soaked blends and recombines them into something new.

 

I can't justify any more bottles right now until I really prove that I need to wear something on a regular basis...and there just aren't enough days in a year! But this is a serious contender, and I hope it sticks around for a long time. If you yearn for something like La Fee Verte but enjoy a slightly darker, smokier version with a hint of wood, this would definitely fit the bill.

Teak, teak, teak!

 

That's me, the insane person running around the room screaming "Teak!" every time a scent comes up that includes it. I LOVE teak. I covet these expensive $25 teakwood candles every time I see them in a boutique shop but I never buy one because that's a lot of money for a candle. Um, although I spent $300 on perfume this month.

 

Aaaaaaanyway. I love teak. I love cedar. I love rose when it is combined with a wood, incense, resin or smoke scent. I guess I probably like labdanum. Though the slightly sour scent that starts off this blend might be labdanum -- it's rather strong and a little bitter, but quickly burns off on my skin.

 

This becomes a gorgeous, shining, polished teakwood on my skin, smouldering with darkest, resiny smoke and the blackened petals of a perfect, dried red rose.

 

A bit like Parlement of Foules in a way, but with dark smoky polished wood instead of sweet resin. Oh dear lord this is gorgeous. Smoky dark woody resiny rose. Oh yes. Bring hither the haunted bloody marionettes, this is just what I was hoping for.

The notes listed for Mme. Moriarty are kind of a who's who of some of my favorite things, with the exception of vanilla though I am open to liking it sometimes. All of the red-purple family of scents that I love, backed up by the almighty patchouli! This looks promising.

 

As expected, in the bottle I smell first the wonderful red musk, one of my very favorite notes that the lab uses. It's shimmering like a red veil over what vaguely smells like Snake Charmer (minus the more coconutty parts of that scent). I immediately recognize those Snake Oil-family notes, whatever they are...syrupy, gritty and spicy, sensual and red-gold.

 

After a brief plasticky phase it becomes radiantly deep red-purple fruit with a shimmer of bleary golden haze. This is some strong stuff. I distinctly smell tobacco for a moment there...fruity pipe tobacco. I know this one will get me the "mmm, smells like pipe smoke" remarks that so many of my favorites do.

 

When it has moderately dried down this is nothing like the Snake Charmer/Snake Oil I had at first likened it to though it's a cousin. A fruity, pale spice lingers over deep tobacco, and red musk lingers like the flush on pale skin after lovemaking. Very strong, deeply sensual and certainly sure to be one of the lab's most well-loved creations.

I probably look kind of weird, nuzzling my arm like this. Mmmm, hello arm, how are you? You are looking very sexy today, arm.

 

This is phenomenal. This is completely unique among what I've tried from the lab, which thus far is something like 600 blends. Oh I recognize little flashes of leather and pine and cedar from other fragrances but all together like this, it is entirely new -- yet an instant classic. I feel like this was here all along.

 

In the bottle it seems very light, and just fainty musky and resiny -- I can't really get a handle on it. I smeared some on my arm, waited a little bit and......oh. Oh my. First, I'm reminded of lumps of pure resin, smouldering on coals -- but outdoors, with evergreens all around on a smoky, starry night just on the cusp of autumn. Dry, hot resiny incense on a crisp, clear night.

 

All of the smoky crispness of autumn with the warmth of snuggling under a blanket, rubbing your face against a stubbly chin, reclining into a soft bed of evergreen needles.

 

I wear what would probably mostly be considered masculine scents myself but I really need to try this on one of my mustachioed test subjects to see how it works on them. I'd follow someone to the ends of the earth if they smelled like this.

I can't believe that I hold in my hands a bottle The Jersey Devil...I have long wished for such a thing. To have it finally here, and have it be so much like I imagined, is beyond description! I should have ordered a 10 ml in the brief window they were available.

 

In the bottle, this is a forest -- bright, crisp pine and cedar, just like the real thing. The dry needles underfoot, the damp branches -- it's got a hint of Mistletoe in it but all in all it seems much darker to me than the other Yule-ish woodsy blends and lacks the snowy note. Sniffing this straight from the bottle, this is the essence of the Pine Barrens.

 

As it dries I do get a lot more of the berry -- specifically cranberry and it gets quite strong at one point before fading and drying down to the dry cedar/pine scent with just a touch of reddish sweetness. I don't specifically smell tomato leaf but I think it is helping to lighten the darker woods and make those notes crest and spike in lighter shades of green.

 

I also tried this on a guy (I try to keep one around for those purposes) and it went magnificently cedary on him. The berry phase might be stronger on some people than others.

 

Living just outside the Pine Barrens and having visited them frequently throughout my life...being caught up in the mythology of this strange place...this is just a dream come true. This perfectly captures the strange, twisted woods and the fresh, dry quality that the air has there as you wander among the dwarf pines and sandy roads, past the ruins of abandoned houses.

 

This will have to be enshrined in my Top Ten, not only because it is a fragrance that I absolutely love but because it feels as though it was made especially for us Jersey folks!

I had sniffed this at Absinthetics' meet & sniff last week and was completely enthralled. Yes, it does smell rather like Ice Queen! This is the new scent I was the most excited about. Frost and clay? Love it. I couldn't wait to try it out.

 

In the imp, it does very much remind me of that unique combination of elements in Ice Queen -- clean, faintly minty with a musky undertone, like a sheet of ancient ice, with years of soil and greenery trapped beneath the surface.

 

Kumari is a little bit more watery than icy, as though the thick sheet of ice has clear rivulets running off from it. The ancient greenery trapped within the opaque sheen begins to crumble and break apart, releasing a refreshing burst of fresh, fragrant leafy fronds darkened by mildew and age.

 

As it dries down a faintly earthy scent, damp clay, takes the place of those aquatic/icy notes. After the initial, fresh and frosty muted minty blast that directly recalls Ice Queen, I think of shards of ancient pottery frozen in ice, emerging as a distant sun begins to melt the ancient glaciers.

 

This is just a masterpiece. I like it even better than Ice Queen because it incorporates at bit of earthiness in it. I definitely need a bottle, the question is how soon can I get one?

 

I love these conceptual scents -- ice, snow, stone, space. I want more!

Love the name of this one!

Yes, the idea of "volcanic gas" was a little alarming in this but it's not scary at all in the imp. It is a thick, dark, damp floral -- I don't specifically smell the musk at first but I know it's in there, sort of amplifying everything. Damp and musky at the same time, but overall very much like walking into a tropical greenhouse.

There is a hint of something smoky snaking through, like a ritual fire sending out a beacon of smoke from afar. As it wears, the musk definitely takes form and emerges from the green gloom.

You know what this is?? The perfect scent to wear when you're watching "Lost"! Something dark moves in the lush damp jungle, something with dark and sparkling eyes dissipates into a column of black smoke. I don't know that I'd want to smell like this normally since the thick tropical blooms are a bit heady for me, but I just love the imagery it evokes!

 

 

I bought a bottle of this unsniffed because of the art, and because of snow and soil -- two of my favorite types of scents.

 

This was the first bottle that I opened in my package, I was so eager to see how it turned out.

 

Slush. Crisp, fresh, slush. Pine. Faintly minty-limey pine and a deep, pale blue breath of frost. This is very much like Skadi or Snow Moon...a touch like Talvikuu or Snow Bunny. In other words, if you love the snowy/slushy scents that the lab does so very well at winter time, here is the year-round version!

 

The earthy-woods element reminds me a bit of the trees in Nocnitsa, but covered in crystalline snow. This is gorgeous. I love every one of the snowy/icy scents and this is no exception. I think that the opoponax and myrrh might be helping this to be even a little bit stronger and longer-lasting than its more ethereal, misty counterparts.

 

As it dries the initial flurry of crushed pine and snow notes give way to a gritty, crystalline and slightly spicy earthy scent that must be those resins, spiked with cold pine.

 

Absolutely gorgeous!

Seduction is, I agree, almost pure ylang ylang to my nose. It's so ylang ylang that I can't take it! I think that a YY fan might enjoy Tisiphone too. I don't like YY a whole lot but I do like Tisiphone.

My friend told me to get a bottle of this unsniffed because I love wine scents, like Lilith, and I've had a good track record with honey lately (Honey Moon, Litha, etc). I just have a partial bottle of this now but wow, she was right! This does wonderful things on my skin.

 

In the bottle my first thought is "raisin bread", though. I don't like to compare things to baked goods, because I hate foody scents, but I put this on because I know it will change.

 

The grapey, raisiny wine scent is probably just the sweetened, spicy honey, mingling with woody myrrh, which also has a touch of spice to it, I've found. It's a dark red-purple with touches of rusty brown, in my mind. From across the room, someone says I smell fantastic. I think that the cassia is picking up and giving a sort of cinnamony incense ambience to the room.

 

I was worried about lemongrass taking over, but I don't smell it at all. Don't really smell the palmarosa either, it's mostly wine and honey streaked through with spicy myrrh. If you like the lab's honey but don't generally go for "foody" scents this is a good compromise between the glowing, radiant golden honey and a mix of woody, spicy, incensy and deep grapey wine that really stands on its own.

Most of my friends around here share my tastes and hate foody scents and are not wild about perfumey florals so I generally do well with my own favorites when I'm enabling, which include stuff like Urd, Anne Bonny, Cathedral and all that.

 

Of course most of my friends locally are male, and they think EVERYTHING smells like Play-doh. I've converted one heavily into some of the smokier and woody scents (Devil's Night, Sri Lanka, and all of the resiny scents) though.

 

So I don't know if I am any good at enabling any people who don't have the exact same tastes as me!

I tried this a long time ago, probably about two years, and remember enjoying it but not keeping it. Now smelling it again is like a weird nostalgia-fest of my early days of BPAL. I seemed to have tried and liked a lot of mint blends back then.

 

Actually what it reminds me of is Frost Moon. It's almost a dead ringer for Frost Moon in my memory and I get a vivid picture in my head of Christmas 2004 or thereabouts when I smell this, because of it. Weird. The mint in this is a bit more strong and mentholy...perhaps it's kicked up by the juniper.

 

Lotus is an unsettled and slightly nauseating note in aquatic blends like this and as it did in Frost Moon it puts me off a bit. Still, for its curious ability to cause me to time travel back about two years I think I'll hang on for it for a bit. As has been said before, it's a strong aquatic mint, and I don't know if I like it as a perfume, but I enjoy the overall experience of sniffing this one!

I've spent the past month wondering what on earth this would smell like, since there's so much going on in it. Although autumn is my favorite time of year I don't much go for autumn scents -- I am not fond of apple, cider, spice or pumpkin scents...in fact I can't stand most of them, but there's enough in this that I do like that it's worth a try.

 

Light, crisp apple is at the forefront here, inspiring my officemate to remark that it smelled a bit like apple fritters. Not what I was hoping for, but still, it's more like a fresh apple than a baked apple to me and that's OK.

 

As it dries it does remind me a bit of last year's Harvest Moon with its faint, light apple aroma and a dusting of tawny flowers. A sweet, dusty spice -- a natural scent, like an outdoor market in autumn with piles of apples and bushels of mums, and the distant smoky scent of pie crusts cooling. But it is not sickly-foody. The tart fruits and musky mum scent keep that apple/sugar sweetness at bay.

 

I catch a single glimpse of the bamboo shoot and tea leaf at one point, as if amidst all this autumnal wonder someone in a kimono drifts by holding a potted bamboo plant and a cup of green tea. That succulent glowing green contrasts nicely with the sunset oranges and golds that this evokes.

 

Happily, I don't smell hazelnut, which is a bad scent for me when it is strong. Maybe it's contributing a bit of that spicy quality to the blend. I am enjoying how dusty and smoky this gets on me as it dries. This is truly the traditional autumn scent that I can wear. When the air gets crisp and pumpkins start to line roadside stands, the inside of craft stores turns orange and black and I start to get cravings to buy notebooks, pens and giant stacks of books on literature and philosophy -- this will be the blend I reach for!

I was afraid of Roadhouse, early on on my BPAL obsession. I was terrified of tobacco back then, thinking it would smell like cigarettes (I was wrong and it's now one of my favorite notes!!), and afraid of hops (I hate beer) ... and not too sure dandelion or hemp would work as a perfume either. Just now, reading the ingredients to my DH he winced and asked why anyone would want to smell like that.

But of course, I've since learned that I love tobacco, like non-rum boozy scents and I like dandelion and other crisp green scents -- particularly that bitter green stem quality, it really adds a strange and memorable dimension to any perfume.

This smells largely of dandelion at first, both that succulent green stem that makes your mouth pucker, but also the musty soft golden dandelion. It gradually dries into more of a hopsy scent which I'm not as fond of...again, the association with beer, which I loathe...

But in the end it all comes together as the tobacco warms on my skin and it becomes warm, sun-baked dandelions and aromatic smoke in a grassy field. I think the imagery has been well-described throughout the review thread, but if you have skin that warms to tobacco it might come out very nicely in this blend. Definitely a summer scent, but since it's summer right now I can't wait to wear this on my next walk through a park! If I don't wind up drowning it all in bug spray and sunblock that is.

This smells very perfumey at first...I think rose geranium is the only thing that is really catching my attention, and it's not really a note that I like. But almost everything else in here, I love, because it's so resiny....ahh but I don't smell them!

 

Ylang ylang can come across as a cloying, chemical scent to me and while I don't get that from this blend I think it might be contributing to the overall perfumey floral aspect.

 

Fortunately though it dries down to mainly the frankincense and copal with wisps of powdery floral incense. Like several of the other Salon blends it makes me think of handrolled, fresh incense that you'd buy in an occult store, but not any particular scent, just a generic mixture of everything.

 

In fact, if you've ever gotten a whole bunch of imps in bubble wrap in the mail, this is almost the scent that winds up lingering on the bubble wrap after you've put the imps away. I love that scent actually! This doesn't seem to have enough personality on its own to grab me...but I think the complexity of the Salon blends probably deserves a few more tries for me to get to know them.

III

 

Previously reviewed by darkling.

 

I can't believe that there's such a gorgeous woody, sweet, smoky CT, that it's number 3, and that I managed to get it!

 

She actually described it perfectly in her review: it reminds me of the resins in Cathedral, but it's slightly sweeter, and as it dries there is a wisp of woodsmoke. The smoky wisp reminds me a bit of the Henri Bendel "Firewood" candle, when it's not burning. Not the acrid smoke of something like Djinn, but a soft smoky log cabin sort of wood.

 

I really love those sweet glistening resins...definitely reminds me of Cathedral or Pit and the Pendulum at first but it goes in a completely different direction as it dries, as though it's having a conversation with my skin.

 

This is just the perfect scent for me. Chaos works in strange ways!

 

ETA: I realized what it smells like on the drydown...kinda like Torture King without the orange/lime citrusy notes. Ooooh baby!

I've long hoped for a truly murky deep dark green aquatic and Isle of the Dead appears to be the answer. That's great because it's also one of my favorite paintings. I love the sense of foreboding and mystery that it evokes.

 

Cypress, junpier and I guess yew are very strong in here, almost to the level of a sort of paint thinner scent with a murky, swampy, mossy shadow. On my skin it is nice and strong and not quite so turpentiney.

 

Deep dark damp green woods, and a solemn veil of faint floral incense. I think the lily and rose are giving this some of the kick that really throws those dark greens out into the stratophere.

 

Oddly, this one ALSO dries down a bit like Sheol, which is what I also thought about Satan and Death. Weird. Medicinal dark green woods, faint resins and a spooky glow of funeral flowers. This is probably the perfect aquatic-based scent for me, even though it's really barely aquatic -- doubt I'll need a full bottle but I love having a sniff.

Upon first sniff I thought I smelled something citrusy over resins, and figured this must have been the one with lemongrass in it. But no, none of the ingredients in this match what I am smelling! Assuming my sample is labelled right I just have to wait to see how it develops.

 

It's actually beginning to make sense as it dries on me. The citrusy scent is tea, now that I think about it -- one of the pale teas like in Dormouse or Spirits of the Dead. It takes a bit of a golden-orange glow from orange blossom, but beneath this spike of sharp, bright scent is a warm valley of spicy resins.

 

It really smells a bit like Sheol to me as it dries. It has the same dignity and calm, and a very similar resiny drydown. I couldn't figure out what this one would smell like based on the description and I'm surprised and somewhat delighted. I don't think I need more than a sample of this to wrap my head around it but so far all of the Salon scents are fantastic, regal, refined and beautiful.

 

Later: Several hours later the Sheol similarities have faded and the vetiver is coming out a bit. It reminds me of the non-leathery part of Two Monsters now! At least the woody/vetiver part of it with that spicy resin undercurrent. Mmm mmm.

Oh my.

 

It's funny that in reading the ingredients to this I didn't really put together the fact that frankincense and myrrh, amber and sandalwood were all in it...along with, well, pretty much everything else in this is a favorite of mine. How did I not think to just buy a bottle unsniffed? I think I was completely dizzy and disoriented by the update that day!

 

To put things simply, this smells like walking into Mystickal Tymes, a store in New Hope, Pa. This smells just like it -- a combination of every possible type of resin and complex, powdery incense blend, all in one. It's incredible. I get a wave of nostalgia smelling it...kind of like the nostalgia I felt when I first smelled Tisiphone, though this does not smell quite like that (since it shares none of the ingredients!). It has a similar powdery incense store feel to it, but this is a bit lighter, more resiny, and refined.

 

I don't specifically smell the red musk, which normally really comes out on me, and the honey seems to take one of its more light and powdery forms -- I wasn't sure if the cardamom and saffron would spice it up too much but it's just like a faint layer of golden dust.

 

The sandalwood and resins come out the strongest on me, but they are more like sunlit motes of incense dust floating through the air, than the smoky, dark incense of the "churchy" blends.

 

Great, another bottle I need to get! I am afraid that all of the Salons are looking like bottle scents at this point. They're just SO good.

What they said!

 

Scherezade and other things with red musk are very headshoppy to me without having any nag champa in them (Lust, Fenris Wolf). Red musk is awesome.

 

But Urd and Hellion are the twin gods of nag champa I think. And Two Monsters if you don't mind taking a chance on a Salon scent! Oh god it's so wonderful.

 

Oh how I love smelling like a hippie.

 

Death Cap is another great one for an earthy/dirt incense smell.

There are so many notes in this blend, and from so many different scent categories, I had no idea what to expect but was kind of thinking it would be a smoky, sugary grapefruit with a bit of sourness over a soft wooden base that kept it from being too fleeting.

This is pretty close to my guess, but it's even nicer than I expected. I love wood, resin and herbal scents, I like grapefruit and I'm open-minded to the smoky vanilla and sugar notes as well considering that I love Devil's Night but I am really taken on a journey by this scent.

It opens with the strong fruity, tangy sweetness of grapefruit, backed up by a resiny wooden core. It fades very fast on my skin. But, in my hair it sticks around a bit and I keep getting hits of this grapefruit candy scent with just a slight swirl of warmth and smoke.

As for similarities, if you like grapefruit used in surprising combination with other scents (as in Cheshire Cat) this might be another good one to try. And if you like the citrusy musk of Enraged Bunny Musk this is a different take on that kind of combo.

I know that this is a bit lighter and fruitier/sweeter than my tastes typically lean but I really like like having a growing collection of unusual, atypical scents like this to fit every mood and whim.

 

Snake Charmer was actually a wearable Snake Oil to me, since it's the vanilla in Snake Oil that turns me off...but I only like Snake Charmer in the fall apparently since I haven't worn it since then.

Thank you guys for all these great recs. ( I was thinking of trying Eat me anyway, because someone told me it smelled like frosting and I love smelling like food)

 

I grew up in a town with lots of stinky unwashed hippies that wore tons of patchuli, so now I can smell it no matter where it is present...( No offense intended to stinky hippies)

 

 

 

some of us bathe ~and~ wear patchouli!

 

I never tried this before because, well, the vanilla scared me and also the word "priapus" sounded a little intimidating!

 

But pine, juniper and rosewood -- what was I thinking, to not want to try this sooner? And amber too -- it's a bit like Black Forest without the musk, and with a slightly more clear, biting, brisk pine. This is a sharp, sharp, bright green pine scent. This is probably the most piney that I have tried thus far. I'm sure it's also the kind that might make people think of Christmas candles or air fresheners, but for me this kind of bright, fresh green pine scent is paradise.

 

Vanilla? I don't smell it. Well maybe a little as it dries. A gentle warmth that keeps the pine from vanishing too soon. Yes, it warms up on my skin a little as it wears, along with the sweet amber, but it's always dominated by pine.

 

I don't know how I can possibly get a bottle fast enough. I like this more than Nocnitsa, I like it probably on a par with Black Forest, and I wish I had discovered it a long time ago when I was tearing my hair out looking for more piney blends. Here it is! I'm really glad that vanilla doesn't seem to be standing out in this for me, because that would have been a dealbreaker. Pure fresh scent of forest air and pine needles.

It's taken me all day to try to figure out how to describe Lotus Moon and I'm still not sure, but here goes...

 

First, a little about me and lotus: it ruins blends for me. It smells like little banana candies to me...like the ones in a pack of Runts. And in my mind it is always a large, pink, blobby shape that eclipses everything else. That's the story of me and lotus. Opium is also iffy, since opium poppy turns out to be the awful nail polish remover scent that I dread.

 

So, aside from my fears about those notes, let me just tell you how much I love pine resin, rose otto and amber. A lot. And what do I smell in Lotus Moon? I don't know, but it's wonderful -- and there's no pink blobby lotus hovering like a malevolent jellyfish in the corner of my vision and no opium screeching across like nails (with the polish freshly-removed) on a chalkboard.

 

I smell a wonderful soft fresh clean resin, something like that pure sap scent I get when I smear the resin from a pinecone onto my skin, but also something that just clears the air with a pale green, almost aquatic breeze. The rose otto seems to incorporate very well, so I don't really smell rose, but a sort of incensy hint of it. Amber sort of ties it all together but doesn't reveal itself as an individual note.

 

Refreshing but soft and comforting, is what I'd say about Lotus Moon. The lotus itself only bobs along faintly in the distance like a pink will-o-wisp on the edge of the pine forest, hovering over clear green waters. I'm glad I took a chance on it and I like it so far. There's a little bit of a piercing headache note in there for a moment, which might be opium, might be rose, but it fades before it bothers me. What a surprise -- I never expected to like a lotus blend!