The Magician's Apprentice

Surprisingly, I enjoy Athens immensely. I bought the imp with my boyfriend in mind, as he prefers sweeter and more traditionally feminine scents than I do, and so I wasn't expecting to be so keen on it. I was, indeed, quite stunned by my immediate enthrallment by the first sniff of the imp: it was overpoweringly sweet, more so than I had imagined. And yet, even within the imp, there was a certain tartness to this sweetness, a shadow of red wine, that had to be chased, and which I found absolutely tantalising. It is what makes this scent sweet, but not girlish. That slight bitterness, in fact, divided me and my boyfriend on this scent - I loved the red wine, he not so much. Upon application, Athens is almost an entirely different story for me: frankincense steals the show, with honey and wine now as the accompaniments. It is still sweet and quite mysterious, but it remind me more of a temple, with burning incense and libations, than honey. Quite another surprise this transformation, but not an unwelcome one; the scent wet is more suited for momentary olfactory enjoyment than wearing, in my opining, thus its drastic change makes it a better candidate for perfume purposes.

I knew I would love this the moment I saw the description - vetiver and leather? Could there be anything more bespoke for my taste? Bordering on obsessed with the idea of this scent, I ordered a full bottle immediately. Fortunately, I did indeed love this scent, as Iago lived up to my all of my very high expectations. In the bottle, the scent was almost acrid - something musty, something dark - almost like an old, dank attic. Not unpleasant, but not a beautiful scent by any means; pleasant in the same sense that plastic or wool might be. Definitely something that makes your nose wrinkle a little. I was in love already at this point. On my skin, the vetiver came through strongly, shifting the tone slightly away from the dank darkness to a less decayed scent. The leather notes soon followed the vetiver, so much so that after a while the scent softened to be more like an old leather jacket than the entire attic. To my disappointment, this did seem to mellow out faster than some of the other reviewers relate, although that might be because I did not mind the initial strength too much in the first place.