Armand

[doomsday_disco]

Who am I, Louis? Am I my history I have endured? Am I the job I do not want? I do not know anymore. No one has painted me in over 400 years.

An ancient grief hidden beneath exquisite restraint. Beauty preserved in ice and amber, this scent opens luminous, weightless and angelic, composed and immaculate, but as it blooms, it is a calculated cacophony of contradictions: sacred and artificial, tender and monstrous, youthful and impossibly old. White musk, iris, and frankincense fougere unfolding like a prayer, but beneath it lies something feral and desperately starving for love, but utterly incapable of loving without consuming: resinous woods, blackened clove, and blood-tinged incense.

Edited July 2 by doomsday_disco

[Invidiana]

Born into the mortal world as Andrei, later called Amadeo by his maker and sometime lover Marius, the vampire Armand was only seventeen when he became immortal. Innocence veils his bloodlust. There is a dichotomy to his scent, which portrays the young, angelic facade of a young man in the late 15th century, embodied by pale iris petals resting on sheer white musk, tendrils of frankincense clinging to his skin after passing outside a Roman cathedral. He could pass for a fresh-facd altar boy, but no one can see what lies on the other side of his soul. The mask of teenage purity has long since been adulterated. Underneath is an incense too dark to rise to heaven, entwining with ancient woods and resins from Rome as Marius knew it in the time of Augustus, scorched with clove and stained with blood. The lest vestiges of his human form fade into a memory of mist and flowers against the hot rush of sanguine desire.

[ghoulnextdoor]

Low-pooling smoke and a warmth that feels recently abandoned: a fleecy blanket fort someone else built, the air inside already breathed. A dim flashlight glow of clean, freshly laundered light carves out a lit radius in the resinous dark; the shadows retreat to the corners, tuck themselves in for the evening. The saggy-ceilinged gloom sticky and sweet, cooked-down fruit leather [raisin / plum jam / fig] secret snacks for dear amber-eyed velveteened friends, sleepy-whisper warm and pulled close, feet all the way to your chest, after all the monsters cannot touch you if the blanket covers you completely (also this blanket fort is through the back door of the vampire club in Blade; so close you can feel the bass through the floor, but the blanket rule applies here too). Sanctuary nested inside menace? Or was the coziness compromised all along? Undetermined. But the doorway is hands-and-knees only, and nothing out there kneels.

[Joyleaf_]

Armand is one of my favorite literary characters. I just wanna put him in a jar and shake it a little bit. I knew I needed to get a bottle of him when they announced the TVL companion scents. I'm excited to say I love the way this scent morphs and lingers on me. I'm not traditionally a fan of the lighter, more chaste notes in perfumes, I stick to rooty patchouli's and incense and smoke and leather usually. So! When I say the beginning of this isn't terrible, please know I mean it in the highest compliment! The gentle, light way this scent starts out isn't immediately headache inducing for me, but when the deeper notes come out to play? *Chefs kiss* . There's about a 45 minute section of time where I smell like a very very sexy man, and then it softens into this sort of cuddly infernal skin scent that lingers for hours. 

I keep getting whiffs of myself and thinking that there's an attractive man near me. And there is! It's Armand coming to make his Armends. Hold onto your heads, everybody. Or don't, I guess. 

[LavenderCoffee]

this is not a scent I would have picked out for myself had it not been associated to Armand, but it beautifully captures his contradictions, and now that I have it I will definitely be wearing it. an elegant and slightly ominous blend that creates a gradient on the skin from pale iris to blackened clove, like "oops! all grey area" but make it art, and it's arresting. I wanna say there's an elusive dark heart of woody oud to this, but it's the shifting swirl of soft clove and incense that draw focus. 

[galahad]

In the bottle: chilled clove

 

On the skin: soft clove, something floral, the metallic aspect of blood without any warmth, and some comforting soft woods notes emerging as it dries down.  This not something for me. 

 

ETA: the extreme drydown isn't too bad when the incense emerges.

Edited August 5 by galahad

[wilhelmscream]

In the bottle: light, clean, cool, and just a bit of clove.

 

On the skin: A battle between good and evil, light and dark. The clean, deceptive facade of white musk, iris and frankincense softens the dark simmering heart of wood, clove and incense smoke.

 

Overall: Soft, pale cologne over dark, spicy incense. Subtle. Charming.

[wolf_truffles]

It opens very softly, sort of clean and a little sweet and then quite literally blooms in minutes into a very gorgeous clove and incense scent, but with a subtle cool, clean cologne element that lifts it out of being resinous. I never really sniffed something like this before- its super fascinating! I tend to love incense notes for sleep and to have one so clean and soft smelling at the same time is exciting. Can't wait to try it for bed!