The Smiling Spider

[Browneyes]

Bitter clove, black musk, mahogany wood, and patchouli.

Short review: Clove-y and clean

In depth: This scent is kind of hard to pin down on me. It sometimes reminds me of a spicy soap or cologne (though not in an objectionable way to me), sometimes reminds me of Christmas (because we do clove-studded oranges and bake alot with cloves, not that it smells like orange or cake though), sometimes I get the smoky clove cigarette scent, sometimes it's more musky, sometimes more woody. It doesn't seem to morph in stages, but rather it flits back and forth from one impression to the other, much like a fast-moving little spider
The spice is bitter and dry, not sweet and luscious like some other BPAL spicy scents. The scent is quite strong to begin with, but fades away gently. It is a somewhat masculine or at least gender-neutral scent.
I do like it alot, but it's very different from what I expected. I look forward to wearing it in colder weather, and I have a good feeling about letting it age for a few months, I think that might round it out and make it richer perhaps. Just a hunch. Glad to have the bottle!

(edited to add lab description) Edited September 24, 2007 by Shollin

[filigree_shadow]

Lots of clove at first, but after a while that settles down. It smells mostly like a dark patchouli -- not dirty, just dark -- with that lovely mahogany wood giving it a more elegant feel than it usually has. I usually think of patchouli as being a deep scent, but it seems more dry in this one. It's clearly not just patchouli, but I wouldn't have been able to identify what else was in this (other than some sort of spice).

 

I thought the clove would mess this one up for me, but it didn't. I like it.

[alhbooks]

Oddly, in the vial this didn't have much scent to me and it was quite pale when I first applied it. But within seconds the clove started to rise...not bitter, though. There's a subtle sweetness in there, maybe from the patchouli, which I ordinarily hate. It keeps growing, but hasn't reached overwhelming after 30 minutes. I'm surprised I like it so well. It isn't going into the swap pile after all.

[jolarocknrolla]

wet: clove band-aids. There is this odd strong medicine-y smell over the clove that only fades after about a 1/2 hour. dry: more smokey clove, maybe with a bit of cinnamon, reminds me of the goth club, lol.

[spicyelenore]

First on, this smelled sweet and a little spicy. I immediately got the clove ciggy that everyone's talking about.

Then, the muskiness started to come out-I got wary because musk often does not work on me. It also started to smell kinda dusty-woodsy?-in a way I was not sure I liked.

Hanging on...the patchouli comes out a little, but it's subtle.

Ok, weird. When I smell a few inches from my arm, I get cloves. Up close (sticking my nose in it) I get the muskiness and wood.

A very interesting scent-but it seems too manly for me. I think I will try aging it though, as someone else said. I'm not quite ready to give up on it.

[Fright]

I love me some clove. Hell, I love the spicy smells. I was dying to try this. I ripped into my package and coveted the tiny bottle. This is so nice, and so just.. yum. I could bathe in this. It's just so, warm and, kind of cozy? This is one of my favourites. I did pair it with some Saw Scaled Viper. Luscious. Delicious. So tasty.

[Nisaba]

Clove. But not straight out clove. Warm, rich, smooth, smoky clove. This is aged a bit too; a decant about two months old, and I think aging has brought the notes in together wonderfully. I can't really pick out any one except for the clove, but I can tell that the clove has been tempered with everything else. Lovely. I need a bottle.

[tartchef]

Mmmmmm, yummeh! I was afraid this would be a Big Scary Stomping Spider, what with the black musk, but no... this is a small, black furry little guy, with a sly little grin. The clove is the frontrunner, but the warm dark wood keeps it from piercing my sinuses... the musk adds the soft hairiness, and the patchouli just adds to the dark & secretive vibe... My imp's definitely aged as well, so it wouldn't surprise me if a fresh Spider had a sharper clove bite.

[batsy]

In the vial: Mahogany before the clove swarmed up, yum!

 

On the skin: Earthy, woodsy. As it warms with my skin, the clove rushes up again. It does smell exactly like smoking clove cigarettes. This might become a bottle for me. Lovely!

[TrailerTrashPrincess]

sniffiesniff: expensive wood and the sugared-tobacco scent of a fresh pack of Djarum smokes.

on skin: oh, my skin does something awful to this, and it turns into scorched cloves and fresh tires.

i think this is how everyone smells at the end of the night at one of the clubs i used to go to... at 4am when they turned on the bright overhead lights and everyone skittered out into the darkness.

.....and the spiders smile.

[hkhm]

imp: strong musk and patchouli.

 

wet: wow, deep clove with rich musk and the darkest patchouli possible. the musk is not sharp, it is deep and subtle. i must get my husband to try this scent.

 

dry: the clove is what carries this blend to the end, dark and spicy.

[myoubi]

PREFACE: I love clove. I will buy just about anything that has clove in it. If I could bathe in Sweet Clove SN every night, I would do it.

 

IN THE IMP: Clove and mahogany. This oil is thick.

 

WET: Warms instantly on my skin. The clove sweetens (although it's not a "sweet clove", it just kind of warms up) and the patchouli rushes forward.

 

DRYING: Clove and patchouli, with a woodsy sweetness. I can't detect the dark musk at all yet, which is good in my book.

 

DRY: After about 10 mins, this does what dark musk usually does on me -- goes to powder. :/ I like powdery scents, but I was hoping it wouldn't this time. Nontheless, it's sweet patchouli-clove-powder, which is strange but I like it. the Smiling Spider is a warm, blanket-y scent, and even though it doesn't do precisely what I wanted on skin, at some future point I may require a 5mL.

 

VERDICT: 4/5

[taramarie]

In the imp and wet on my skin, The Smiling Spider is very dark. I think it's the clove and black musk. It's a nice scent but not me. Unfortunately, the clove started to burn so I had to wash it off. Someone else can enjoy this.

[porcelina]

the tingly taste of clove cigarettes underneath a heavy cloud of woodsmoke. after a while it's JUST clove cigarettes which is perfectly fine by me because i friggin' love those things. the musk hovers in the background, no patchouli in sight. yippee!

[joseybird]

I love clove, but I'm used to the sweet variety, so I wasn't sure what to expect from Smiling Spider. I just saw CLOVES! and had to get a bottle =)

 

Spider's bitter clove note lives up to its name. It has some natural sweetness, but it also has a sharpish medicinal note not present in sweet clove. The black musk quickly appears after the initial blast of clove, its dark sweetness making up for the clove's sharp tang. The spicy patchouli appears next, blending with the clove. I can't smell the wood.

 

This blend captures the look of the picture perfectly. Texture-wise, it's a haze of black smoke.

[agnusdei]

I just love the picture for this salon, the little spider dude's expression is so perfectly balanced between stupidly goofy and completely terrifying. I also love cloves, which the Smiling Spider smells almost exclusively of. When it's first on my skin it's the most true clove scent I've smelled yet in a BPAL, like sticking my nose in a fresh jar of the spice (complete with that pleasant tingle in my nose!) It's not sweet clove but it's definitely not completely bitter either, there's a lively and warm presence to it that never gets too sharp. And yes, it smells very very much like sucking on the tip of a clove cigarette, which is admittedly my favorite thing about smoking them. With time the fresh cloves are softened a bit by the appearance of a smooth musky background, along with a touch of patchouli and woods. the clove still dominates to the very end though, which is what I was hoping for.

 

The Smiling Spider gets a thumbs up from me, I think I'd like to try layering it with some of my favorites, too!

[djsiberia]

i absolutely love cloves. this one has cloves and patchouli. i can smell some of the mahogany wood & black musk, but the main note is clove! i wish the patchouli would pop out more, but a girl can't be picky.

 

*swoon*

 

this is a definite bottle

[GingerGunlock]

This is the first (and so far only) bottle that I've bought unsniffed, and it is lovely. In the bottle, the dark musk and I think the mahogany are the notes most apparent.

 

On my skin, however, it's been different nearly every time I've worn it. I bought this to be my Ultimate Clove Scent™, and sometimes it is. However, sometimes it is musk and only musk, all day and with lots of throw. And yet again, sometimes the mahogany really takes the foreground, though not in an unpleasant way. On fabric (or on the cotton I used to wipe up a minor spill), it is almost entirely clove, but hasn't been consistently so on my skin. I love it anyway, but the Ultimate Clove Scent™ is still to be found.

[Wwindy]

A luxuriously soft, elegantly draped black cashmere sweater of a scent!

 

The initial stage and subsequent throw is mostly clove -- but not sweet or foody in any way -- while closeup sniffs give all musk and wood. Very dark, very warm, very much giving the impression of poise and style... yet somehow working for me even on this hot June Friday afternoon! Just gorgeous.

[greenranger]

On wet, clove and musk.

 

Drying, the wood and patchouli come forward.

 

Mmmm.

 

As long as the musk doesn't go all sweet on me...Well, actually, this might work even if it does go sweet...

[Miss Lynx]

It's funny -- when I ordered decants of some of this exhibition's scents from a circle when it first came out, this one caught my eye momentarily because of the clove (I love spicy scents), but then I looked at the rest of the notes and mentally wrote it off as likely to be too masculine. I should really know better at this point...

 

Because here's the thing: of the ones I thought were likely to work on me, almost none of them did. Mad Meg was nice, and Cleopatra Testing Poisons not too bad, but the rest went straight into the swap box once I'd tried them. And then I happened across this one at a meet'n'sniff, tried it, and... wow. This just might be not only my favourite of Exhibition Three, but possibly the entire Salon.

 

I think part of the secret to its turnaround on me is black musk. I should know by now -- black musk may be traditionally a "masculine" note, but something about my skin chemistry makes it go really sweet, and men's scents relying on black musk for their manliness tend to get a abrupt sex change when they hit my skin.

 

So on me, The Smiling Spider is a really lovely, earthy, spicy, slightly sweet scent that smells kind of like an Indian spice and incense shop, in the best way possible. It is not at all masculine on me -- quite the reverse. It's not a traditionally girly scent by any means, but there's nothing about it that smells at all unfeminine on me.

 

It's very much in the same ballpark scent-wise as Mad Meg and Priala, both of which I like. I'll have to at some point try all three of them on together and do a side-by-side comparison to see what my favourite is. Because I am very tempted to spring for a bottle of this, but I don't need to have too many scents that smell that much alike, so I should really narrow it down to just one of those three... But either way, The Smiling Spider and I have very definitely made friends.

 

Grade: A

Edited August 21, 2008 by Miss Lynx

[femmefatale]

All I can say is, this is the sexiest smoking room ever. I love it.

[zankoku_zen]

Definitely very clovey! It's the most predominant note on me. It was like a sweet clove. You love cloves? This is it!

[Iceblink]

I just have to RAVE about this one. It's the most gorgeous pure, strong clove (or at least that's all I'm smelling--maybe a teeny sniff of patchouli too) and it lasts like crazy and has great throw. I wore it to a club show tonight and I could smell it strongly all night long. Clove heaven!!! I need more.

[ralenth]

I was generously decanted a partial in a Pay It Forward swap by triptyenchanted because she saw clove on my favorite notes list.

 

Imp: Warm, spicy delicious cloviness.

 

Wet: Deep musk swirled in patchouli with peeps of clove.

 

Drydown: As it dries, this spider certainly has me smiling. The clove becomes more dominant, reminiscent of clove cigarettes, as others have said.

 

Dry: Mmm, yes. It's like holiday goodness, but without all that nasty fruit. Or like smoking cloves without inhaling fiberglass. Either way, triptyenchanted was right. It is the ultimate clove scent.

 

The throw is pretty good on my skin. I think I may need a bottle. Until then, I will savor my precious sniffie. Thank you!