The Shivering Boy

[The_Merf]

Cold, cold forever more. A winter storm roaring through empty stone halls, bearing echoes of despair, desolation, and death on its winds. The scent of frozen, dormant vineyards, bitter sleet, and piercing ozone, hurled through labdanum, benzoin, and olibanum.

This is sleet and pine--this scent comes from the same woods as Black Forest, but it is closer to the warmth generated by civilization in general. I think that the benzoin and oilbanum are giving me the resiny-pine scent. It is very Christmasy--there feels like there should be a red berry involved here somewhere (though I guess, given the description, better a grape). Actually, I'll emend that a bit; this smells like a fresh Christmas tree just bought into the house, with some sap still running. The scent even evokes the idea that the tree still has a bit of snow on it and is cold. Very nicely done. Edited December 9, 2007 by The_Merf

[Astarte]

Unfortunately I also get the sweet pine note in this scent too and its fairly overpowering. It does feel as if there is more to the scent beneath but I also feel that strange duality, in that it feel simulteanously cold and warm.

 

Interesting scent but not for me.

[Tulliver]

I was utterly delighted when the Yules went live and I saw this was one of the listed scents. This was one of the very first true ghost stories I ever heard and it's always been one of my favourites with the poor little, rightful lordling and his greedy uncle. So I was and remain unashamedly biased. There's no WAY this bottle will be sold on even if I can't stand the blend.

 

As it happens, I CAN stand the blend. In fact, more than that, I actively LIKE the blend. It's not my favourite - and it does remind me of one or two others - but it is lovely.

 

In the bottle, I get pine and wet and cold. I'm loving this snowy winter "thing" that Beth does with the oils. I have no idea how it happens, but it's absolutely right.

 

Wet on my skin, it's still just pretty much the same - pine, wet and cold. But during the drydown there are other scents that come through. I think it's the labdanum, benzoin and olibanum making their presence felt, albeit only slightly. Whatever it is it works. It REALLY works.

 

Dry: Okay, I'll confess. This isn't one I'll wear a great deal. But I DO like it quite a lot. The background sweetness is a perfect counterpoint to the cold and the bleakness and the pine. And I think it'll be a perfume rather than a room scent although it would adapt itself perfectly to either, I think.

 

And I'm still squeefully delighted that Beth made this one. I almost feel she did it just for me.

 

Edit, December 19th - Just updating to say the more I wear this the more I love it. It's actually making its way up to the top of the Yule 2007 list now. It's utterly exquisite. Gah!

Edited December 19, 2007 by Tulliver

[taramarie]

Wet on my skin, The Shivering Boy is just grapes. I guess the frozen vineyard thawed on my skin. Dry, pine starts to come through as well. I like this one but I can't see myself wearing it often.

[lainevierge]

I wish I liked this as much as some of my other favorite pine blends (Nocnitsa, Black Forest, The Snow Storm) but it's missing something. I get the frozen grapes, but I'm not impressed with them. I wish this one was stronger and had something more interesting about it.

[arabella]

First Impression: Ozone. It's that blast of cold air you get when an unexpected gust blows the door open.

 

Dries down to: It takes a while, but tiny hints of grapes emerge eventually.

 

Additional Comments: This reminds me of the watered down wine I was given on special occasions as a young child. There's nothing here that interests me as an adult.

 

Lasted: An hour or two.

 

Rating: 2 out of 5.

[crazyredhead17]

In the vial, this was a cold, wintery scent.

 

Wet on me, it's allll soap and pine. I've never had an aquatic go soapy like this, although this is my first foray into the "snow" end of the spectrum so maybe that's why? Anyways, not a keeper.

[forspecial_plate]

This is quite lovely and if you like the old Hunter Moon, you might really like this.

 

It starts out, in the 'wet' phase, as a bright and lively grape-ish scent, with a delicate frost and a touch of winter greenery. Later on it deepens, and becomes a frosty foresty grape scent with resins. Very nice! It's like the winter counterpart to the older Hunter Moon which I love. Definitely bottle-worthy, this one.

[sweetcoma]

Very strong very sweet slightly soapy grape juice. Quite concentrated and lasts pretty long. I think people who prefer foody scents might like this.

[euterpe414]

At first I was not going to order this scent, but I changed my mind at the last minute and I'm glad I did! This is one of the more interesting blends that I have smelled this year. All of the elements in this blend are equal to my nose- resin, fruit, forest and snow- they produce an overall smell that is really comforting, a bit spicy but with an underlying chill to it. Almost like sipping hot wine out in the nighttime winter air.... So, I can't really put this scent in any category since it embodies many of them- that's a good thing, I think! Thankfully I don't get any soapiness from this at all, and it lasts quite a while on my skin with a bit of throw. Shivering Boy is a fantastic winter scent and probably the most unique to my nose of all the Yule blends.

[kirakira]

When wet and first applied, The Shivering Boy smells like Vick's VapoRub or a menthol cough drop. After dry, I smell pine and a slight undertone of menthol. I will wear it the next time I have a cold to see if it makes me feel better.

[Brianne]

I've seen some people raving over this one so I was really eager to try it (though the description did not lead me to believe that it would be very "me"). Right away, I can see why it is appealing to some - it's got a very musky appeal to it, with a strong outdoorsy scent with it. It's woody and piney with a warm musk background - very comforting. Makes me think of putting on my husbands coat and getting that whiff of his smell. It's definitely masculine in my opinion, but I could see a woman wearing this too.

 

I'm a bit torn on whether or not I'd really need a bottle for this one, but I definitely will keep my imp.

[Dinerdulcinea]

Oh, how I wanted to love you, my boy. But you betrayed me. You had a lovely face, but once I had you in my clutches, you turned on me...like so many others.

 

Alas!

 

I must not succumb to similar temptation from your kind again.

 

 

Too piney and fake fruit-air-freshner-y. ARGH!

[lisawoj]

I had high hopes for this, but in my scent locket all I could smell was ozone and cantelope/melon--neither of which I adore.

[Limelight]

Yeah, I can catch the pine and the snow of it, but to me this also smells like the fire the boy might have managed to build and drape himself over. Woody, woody, piney, snowy, woody...with maybe a hint of the desperation the poor kid must be feeling. I got to test this from a sniffie, but I think I would have been pretty happy with it if I'd ordered it. Not strong enough for me, but it's quite nice just the same.

[Shannihilation]

In the bottle this has a chilled floral smell to me. I'm not overly familiar with any of the notes except the ozone so I'm not sure which one or ones may be the floral I am picking up the most. On my skin it's still a cool floral but the ozone and the sleet are really coming through. It smells like a cold winter day with the smell of the rain (sleet) in the air. And there is very definitely some pine in there. It's not overpwoering at all, but I can pick it out for sure. It's really pretty. Initially it's awfully strong but after about 20 minutes it softens quite a bit and becomes this really lovely cool, clean scent. I like it alot.

[PurringPulsar]

The Shivering Boy

 

In the imp: soft winter pines with a sweetness and resinous warmth.

Wet on skin: like the Snow Storm, but warmer and sweeter and with more fruit and resins.

Dry: mmm, this is lovely! It actually reminds me of Skadi, but this one is warmer-it’s not as cold and shivering as I expected. There is a hint of coolness but it is more like sleet than full on snow. I also smell hints of clean ozone, slightly citrus-y, as well as notes of vine leaves and pine, but no grapes. But those resins are fantastic-they add depth and warmth to the scent.

After a while: now I get more in the way of fruit. This isn’t a deep red wine or a sweet sugary grape juice scent though. I smell lots of green vine leaf here. This now smells mushy, it’s hard to describe but it’s like crushed, slightly fermented white grapes in slushy wet snow which is melting. I also smell the frankincense note underneath, a soft golden scent, and the sweeter benzoin. This scent is still surprisingly warm, a comforting winter scent edged with a hint of pine or fir. I like this but I wish it was a bit colder in feel and that the fruit note was more defined. At least it’s not smelling overripe and oversweet, even if it smells like it’s fermenting.

Sadly, this scent melts away and fades fast from my skin! I get traces of gorgeous pine resin and vines left behind after a few hours, but it’s so faint now…no more sweetness or fruit either.

Verdict: after seeing gushing reviews and swooning fans of this scent on Lush NA (you know who you are!) I had very high hopes. And I like this a lot…but it’s not outright love. I like the notes here…the ‘vineyards’ smell less like grapes and more like vine leaves and squashed fresh white grape fruit, some of which is fermented, it’s a green-fruity mix. The snow notes are lovely but I was hoping they’d be much colder and more obvious. It definitely is more sleety than snowy though. the resins do add a little depth, sweetness and contrasting warmth to the scent, but I was hoping those resins would pop out a lot more. They are too faint for this resin lover’s tastes in here. I smell evergreens here too. the biggest disappointment is that this scent faded too fast, melted away, lost it’s coldness…disappeared and left a ghost of scent behind on the skin. I am keeping my decant, just in case age brings those resins out a bit more, and hopefully I can give this Boy some love.

Emoticon rating:

Is it a keeper? Not sure yet…I’ll keep the decant for sure.

If you like this, try: Death of the Gravedigger, Snow Storm, Haloa, November, Old Moon

[Epiphany]

In the bottle, I smell a cold, sweet resin.

 

Wet on my skin it is slightly sweet, with a sharp chillness of ozone.

 

As it drys, the resin works its way back in, melding with the scent of piercing cold air, and a frozen-grape smell...which is quite lovely.

 

Sadly, this continues to morph, in reaction with my body chemistry, to produce a cloying grape-sweetness. A cold sweetness, for certain--I am drowning in white-grape scented snow drifts...For about a half and hour I was overwhelmed with this perfumy grapy-ness. Then it finally mellowed out into a nicely balanced sweet, cold, resionous scent. The final smell is quite attractive, but I'm not sure that it's me. And I'm really not sure that I'd be okay with being assulted by grape for a half an hour every time I wore it...(I must make a note to beware of grape in the future...)

[fairnymph]

In the bottle: Sweet herbal resin over ozone.

 

Wet: Even more herbal, almost astringent. Some pine too. The ozone here is lighter than in say Archangel Winter or Mechanical Phoenix. Still quite sweet - must be the olibanum.

 

Dry: The ozone is a bit more apparent, the pine has amped, and the olibanum has calmed down a bit. Still quite sweet.

 

Summary: Sweet, almost fruity pine and frankincense with a whisper of ozone. Not particularly cold or masculine, imo.

[voodoobaby]

My first thought was that this smells very similar to Skadi. It starts out very heavy on the frozen evergreen backed with berries smell, but the more I sniff it, the more I think it smells a lot more complex than Skadi, perhaps a bit earthier or spicier. It's still very similar, though. My opinions are very much the same for both blends -- it's pretty and pleasant and I'm glad to have tried it, but blends as wintery as this don't really suit me. If you want to smell like Christmas, though, this is a good bet!

[ImperatrixMundi]

Damn that grape. This starts out so nicely with all these resins, especially the labdanum. And then? Grape takeover. That is a bit of a disappointment because the resin smell with just a touch of wine and snow would have been great. Alas it was not to be.

[edenssixthday]

The Shivering Boy – This is my favorite of all of the Yule 2007 blends. It is a scent that is very cold, windy, and sad, yet tragically beautiful. The strongest scent is actually very wintery-green, reminding me intensely of juniper or maybe even holly, although I don’t see either of those notes listed in the ingredients. It’s also got a touch of powdery amber about it – again, another note that’s not listed in the ingredients. Of the scent description notes, I think those that would best describe this scent are “frozen”, “bitter sleet”, and “piercing ozone.” It’s such a perfect winter scent and while I’m not wearing it much now that spring is here, I wore it a lot last winter and expect to wear it often every winter until I run out of it. The scent has above average throw and average wear length.

[evanescence]

I can't describe this, but then I'm not too into ozones... The benzoin in it is what I'm responding to the most. There is an occasional whiff of green, fresh and cold. It fades fairly fast on me, though, so I'm constantly needing to reapply. Still, a very nice winter blend.

[zankoku_zen]

This for me was a weird mix of ozone and resiny like blend. Very warm, and it was a different take on Jacob's Ladder on me. It made me think of going to church during Christmas. It had this outside overlay to it - like pine --- but rather it was the incense of pine sap.

[Katherynne]

This. This is it. This is my FAVOURITE blend.

Cold and windy and winter while still remaining sweet, like the blush of cheeks and lips in the cold. I ADORE this scent. It has a strong hold for me, lasting quite a while, and the ozone-y snow note is bright the entire time. This is brilliant.

 

I shall now proceed to hoarde it.