VultureGirl

Ooh, I get first crack at describing this scent! It and my bottle of Cathy arrived today and because I have zero patience I tried them both straight away. With Heathcliff I immediately got an intense scent memory of the men’s department at a venerable old department store where my grandmother used to shop. That area always smelled of expensive cologne and I would dawdle there, smelling the fancy bottles and running my hands over the well worn oak furnishings and silk ties before inevitably being dragged off to try on uncomfortable formal wear in the children’s section. This is an intensely, deliciously masculine cologne, and it cloaks its raw underbelly well but even so I immediately catch whiffs of birch tar and vetiver (two of my favorite scents that both love me and my skin in return). I also get a light dusting of something like lilac that shrouds the darker core of the scent which I think I recognize from other BPAL fougere blends. And all this is rounded out by the leather (which is a very subtle leather) and wood notes. All in all it’s an absolutely delicious beast of a scent and I think I’m going to spring for another bottle with my Luper order.

Leather, black pepper, cassis, khus, and black amber. My first review! And the first review of this scent! Im truly honored. The leather comes through first, then dies back a little while still acting as backdrop. Its an older kind of leather, well worn - it reminds me of baseball gloves or saddles. The amber fills that feeling out, as well as what I think is the khus (which is apparently vetiver? But a different part of the plant?); it rounds the leather note out and puts me in mind of more masculine cologne, though it stops short of being too in your face manly. At the very end I get something peppery and slightly acidic - the latter of which I think is the cassis. Its got a subtle throw on my skin that oscillates between being close and unobtrusive but when I turn it suddenly makes itself very apparent. I feel very mature wearing it as well, though its a kind of mature that starts in a blazer and ends in a leather corset, if you catch my meaning.