Sylvilagus

After reading through the general Samhainophobia review thread, I think the 2017 version sounds a lot like the others… but since this is the only version I’ve tried, I can’t gauge whether it smells like it has the same Haitian vetiver or not. I’d be interested in trying more versions, though, because I love this one. This is a beautiful, spooky fall scent. As its description suggests, there's a contrast between deep, "menacing" notes and high-pitched, piercing" ones, which I would also describe as "chilling" in terms of both temperature and ambience. Vetiver and Bourbon geranium are the strongest notes for me. In the decant: Smooth vetiver! I don’t know different vetivers well enough to guess the origin of this one, but it’s woody and earthy rather than grassy or smoky. I also get geranium, clove, and a subtle background of something resinous. The oil is an amber color. Wet on skin: The vetiver comes on strong! There’s a musty-dusty quality that reminds me of an occult shop, incense and dry roots in antique wooden drawers. Within a minute or so, the dustiness backs off enough for me to start getting the geranium. The autumn leaf note, which reminds me of oak leaves, is there and gone as if carried by the wind. Drydown: In addition to being herbally cold and floral, this Bourbon geranium also has a fruity quality, like something dark and juicy. When the clove comes in, it mingles with that fruitiness for a suggestion of mulled cider. There's also a note here that reminds me of licorice, which I think is a “rooty” aspect of the vetiver or the otherwise subtle patchouli. Dry long-term: Some of the less prominent notes take turns coming to the forefront, with even the autumn leaves reemerging. Sometimes the oakmoss pops up and brings a little aquatic character to an otherwise very earthy blend, a trickle of water running through a ditch. The warm clove and vanillic balsams create a kind of tension with the dark vetiver and chilly geranium. I think at least part of the spookiness of this blend comes from these mixed signals between cozy, homey smells and otherworldly ones. About an hour in, the balsams turn a little powdery. Combined with the clove and the fruity geranium, this smells kind of... delicious? Not enough to take everything in a gourmand direction, just enough to give some alluring depth. There's something almost hypnotic to me about this fragrance. I wouldn't necessarily call it sexy, but it's at least a little sexy, in a ghostly kind of way. After about 6 hours or so, the eeriness fades away. What remains is geranium petals, incense-y warmth, and a surprisingly gentle earthiness from the vetiver. This last trace can linger on my skin for 12+ hours. Scent throw is a bit stronger than the other BPAL scents I've tried so far, although I haven't tried enough yet to have a good baseline. This is a gender neutral scent to me, not masculine or feminine, just autumnal and atmospheric. (That said, there are a few notes here that tend to be associated more with men's fragrances.) I think it’s perfect for a fall evening. The image this scent evokes for me is being outside a cottage just before dusk, looking across a field covered in fallen leaves, and noticing an unfamiliar figure standing right at the edge of the forest. There’s nothing about the stranger's appearance that stands out to you as alarming or even unusual, yet you can’t look away. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up, reacting to an otherwise imperceptible change in the air—or is that just the cold autumn wind? Ominous and entrancing. Bottle-worthy for me. [The above review is new, but I actually found my old testing notes from when I first tried my decant at the beginning of 2018. It looks like I picked out most of the same scent notes when the oil was fresh. I remember liking it a lot even at the time, but I did write that the oakmoss went soapy on me, and that I got "dirty" patchouli in the early stages. So I can imagine patchouli lovers being disappointed, but to my taste, this has aged wonderfully!]

2017 version. There's at least one note in here that is really not working out with my skin chemistry. I love the scent of fresh lemongrass, but this lemongrass smells unpleasantly like "lemon-scented" cleaning spray, except when the blood orange joins in and turns it "orange-scented." The citronella quality that rose geranium sometimes has might be contributing to this. Something also goes very bitter on my skin, and I can't tell if that's the orange, the lemongrass, or something else; I'm not getting any recognizable ginger, so for all I know, this could be unrecognizable ginger. There are some notes here that I like, too. That geranium is also invigoratingly minty-fresh (enough to make my nose tingle!), the frankincense is softly warm and powdery, and the bergamot pops out like a cheerful little bird. So I can imagine how this scent could be pleasantly uplifting, but the notes that don't work on me are just too prominent. I first tried my decant when the oil was fresh, and it smelled cleaner-like and bitter. A few weeks ago, I tried it again to see how it aged, and it smelled cleaner-like and bitter. I tried it again this morning... and for a few minutes, it smelled divine. Maybe it's because I had recently taken my hormones, or because I applied a bigger drop of oil than I had in the past, or both, but while it was wet on my skin, I experienced a version of this scent with no bitterness and no cleaning spray smell. It was chilly but joyous, a sunny winter celebration, the lemongrass as lemon candies sparkling like snow. And then I got the cleaning spray and the bitterness again. Boo. It was beautiful while it lasted!

I got a decant of this one at the beginning of 2018, probably because I liked the poem and the idea of a ghostly maritime fragrance. I tried it right away and did NOT like it. The kelp did something on me that smelled like seaweed rotting on the beach at low tide—which was certainly evocative, but not pleasant. I kept it in a drawer for years. Recently, I decided to revisit it and see if the oil having aged (or my skin chemistry having changed, or both) made a difference. In the decant: An aquatic single note, fresh and cool. Wet on skin: Very aquatic-cologne-y. After a few seconds I can recognize something like oakmoss in the watery note. I'm still pretty new to this scent family, and I can't distinguish it as saltwater as opposed to freshwater. Drydown: It starts to get soapy, but in kind of a nice way, like a fancy bar soap or a luxury shower gel. There's something astringent in the background, probably the yew berries, and maybe the kelp is contributing too. I think I'm getting a little cypress, but it's not very pronounced; I agree that these are wooden planks rather than still-growing branches. Dry: The fancy-soapiness continues while the kelp emerges a little more. Thankfully, it's no longer giving decay! It's mineralic and salty, so now I can definitely tell this is seawater. The soapy, clean element and the outdoorsy, marine aspect balance and contrast each other in a way that's interesting, if confusing. Am I swiping mini bottles of shower gel from the bathrooms on a cruise ship, or is it an old wooden ship from which I've fallen overboard? After three hours or so, the soapiness has backed off, and the other notes do something surprising. The minerals and astringency turn into a realistic seawater-on-skin smell. Now I smell like I've fallen overboard but gotten rescued, and I'm slowly drying off in the salty air. Scent throw seems medium-low to me. I don't think this is a strongly gendered fragrance, but it might lean a little more masculine. I'm glad I tried it again and got to experience a less aggressive side of the kelp.

Some background info, from Wikipedia: So the concept was a kind of psychic counterpart to electromagnetism, an animating energy that scientists had not yet been able to quantify, but that people especially sensitive to it could perceive as a glow in darkness. I think the most intense phase of Odic Force captures that inspiration perfectly. In the decant: Lime juice, minty menthol, and something a little musky that must be the amber. Faint yet piercing, like an unexplained high-pitched sound. The oil is light yellow. Wet on skin: Luminous, magnetic, otherworldly. I get the "green-tinged glow." The lime, eucalyptus-and-mint, and amber seem to vibrate against each other like they're building up static electricity. Something about this gives me a sense memory of entering the air-conditioned waiting area for an amusement park ride themed like a haunted old-Hollywood hotel. I guess it's possible that the park actually scents that area with eucalyptus, but either way, this scent definitely evokes feeling an eerie chill in the air. Drydown: Unfortunately, the lime loses its fresh-squeezed vibrancy within a minute of application, turning into the more astringent lime rind listed in the notes. This still smells nice, just not so fluorescent and ghostly-green. The mint distinguishes itself as a soft note, not sweet but almost creamy with the amber, while the eucalyptus starts to do something faintly mineralic that reminds me of... graphite in pencil shavings? Which seems so odd for eucalyptus that maybe I'm wrong about where it's coming from? It's not unpleasant, just puzzling. Dry: The good news is that the mint, eucalyptus, and lightly powdery amber hang around for a few hours, smelling "clean" without crossing the line into smelling like a cleaning product. The bad news is that the lime fades quickly once again, as if almost all the aromatic zest has been grated off the astringent pith. It's still a nice, gently minty scent. It's just that the opening phase is so ethereally beautiful and strange that it's a little disappointing for this long-term stage to be merely nice. Pretty low scent throw, which seems appropriate for a blend named after near-invisible auras. I think this is a truly gender-neutral fragrance. I don't feel like it's tied to any particular season, either. It would probably be great as a room spray, or for scenting your sheets. (Especially if you want to feel like you're staying at a haunted hotel... but maybe that's just me.) Even though I wish the lime lasted longer, I really like this oil. I would be very tempted to buy a bottle.

2017 version. I don't remember exactly why I bought a decant of this one, but I think I was interested in the citrus notes and liked the idea of a radiant solar scent for the dark of winter. In the decant: Resin and plumeria, with something sweet and sharp that reads like bubblegum to me. A few reviews in this thread mention getting a pickle-y smell from the bottle, and I can detect something like that, but it almost seems to be the bubblegum-y note's shadow. The oil itself is a beautiful golden color. Wet on skin: A brilliant sunburst! The citrus and tropical flowers radiate like orange and pink beams of light from a regal, woodsy core that I think must be the frankincense. (There's also a spicy flare of saffron right at the beginning, but it disappears almost instantly on me.) I keep thinking that sharp sweetness is coming from the plumeria or the hibiscus, but it also blends with the citrus so well that I can't be sure; when it doesn't come across as bubblegum, it's orange Pixy Stix, or maybe a candied tangerine peel. Drydown: The initial intensity calms, like your eyes adjusting to bright sunlight. The sweetness gets a little less candy-like, but continues to tie together the tropical florals and the citrus. Orange blossom shows up and makes things just a little soapy. There's also something else that's slightly astringent, like the orange's peel and rind. All the citrus seems dry rather than juicy. Dry: First, the floral-or-fruity sweetness fades enough to let a softer, much more powdery sweetness emerge. This might just be what amber does on my skin, or it might be the amber plus the heliotrope. Either way, combined with the soapy orange blossom, this stage reads deodorant-y on me. But then the soap dissipates, and what's left is powder, sweet plumeria, that woody frankincense note, and a hint of astringent citrus. Now it's a beachy solar scent, like a sunbather's perfume... or a really nice sunscreen. The plumeria and frankincense together remind me of (unlit) nag champa. While the earlier stages of this fragrance strike me as slightly feminine-leaning, I think this late stage would suit a beach babe and/or hunk of any gender. [It lasts like this for a few hours, until only powder and a faint bittersweetness are left.] EDIT: I must have misremembered and underestimated the staying power, because 14 hours after posting this review, my wrists are still holding onto a very light fragrance of baby powder and beachy blossoms. This definitely delivers on the warm solar energy. To me, the tropical florals make it feel so summery as to be ideal for wearing in the sunshine, rather than for evoking the sun when it's dark and cold out, but I do see how it could work for that, too.