Witch Flash

[doomsday_disco]

It doesn’t get more “traditional” than this: a cauldron of tattoo ink infused with sorcerous roots and heady incense.

[bheansidhe]

All of the Flash blends share the same blue-black India ink note, faintly acrid and cool-smelling (how does it smell cool? It smells cool like a fresh, wet sheet of ditto paper just pulled from the mimeograph machine - there's a scent flashback for ya). For Witch Flash it's paired with unapologetically smoky, acrid herbs, rushes, roots, pungent and ferocious, overlaid with sweet incenses. I get hints of grassy vetivert, the scorched husk of a burned cinnamon broom, hay, mandrake, and an incense note that manages NOT to smell like Nag Champa, but is somehow aggressively maroon (???) and tinged with classic frankincense, "if incense were distilled into a cordial" levels of intense. The smoke aspect is biting but sweet (more like The Lights of Men's Lives than Brimstone)

 

The herbal/acrid/smoky aspect reminds me of -- I think -- Witches' Kitchen or The Witches Go to Market. 

Edited November 3 by bheansidhe

[ghoulnextdoor]

The blackest black that light refuses to touch, proprietary darkness jealously guarded, Vantablack if it grew roots and got tangled in underground electrical wiring. Dank sour earth threaded with something chemical and adhesive, the smell of vinyl insulation wrapped around ancient woody resins, rubbery and sharp and deliberately strange. A color so black it's basically a monopoly, a void so deliberately crafted it feels witchy by sheer force of absorbing everything around it, turning incense smoke into something industrially arcane and territorially weird.

[patina]

In the bottle I got shifting scents: ink, something burgundy and resinous, and a mildewed gritty floor-patchouli that almost stopped me from trying this. (Sorcerous roots?)

 

Luckily, it’s a lot milder on. It’s mostly something dark and matte my brain wants to see as a mild patchouli (but it probably involves vetiver). Ink I recognize from The Illustrated Woman comes out with a bit of scorched scent. Not smoky but hot metal and a hint of scorched skin. Only a faint hint. A bit of resin. This is largely a flat scent.

Edited November 19 by patina

[gentle-twig]

I love witch flash ! It sits in that frizzly place where incense and spices come together, with a little extra earthiness and tattoo ink to make things a little edgier. The tattoo ink feels a little bit sharper than the ink note I’m used to, but it’s definitely related. Otherwise I get sandalwood, patchouli, and a little frankincense that gives it that spicy “sparkle” overlap with the warm spices that are also here. There’s other stuff going on too, and it definitely has some mystery notes in common with GC Baba Yaga. That scent is one I keep an imp of around because it fascinates me but ultimately feels unwearable for me. THIS on the other hand feels just beautiful despite some elements (almost industrial ink, bitter spices, gnarly patchouli) that threaten to go harsh. And it makes me feel more like myself. The definite winner out of my weenie decants.