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Champaca, black tea, tonka bean, and sassafras.

I was hoping this would not be sassafras single note, even though I like that note, I wanted to smell all of these things in the scent. When I first tried this, it was indeed a very light and sweetish sassafras single note, with a little bit of smokey tea in the background. It seemed to disappear almost completely on my skin. I put it away for a while (a few weeks).

I tried it again tonight, and applied a lot, probably too much. It's stronger now, and it's still sassafras, with tea and tonka, and I think the champaca is adding to the sweetness of the scent, but I can't really pick it out as a note. Overall this is really great, one of my favorite scents from Halloween or maybe the whole year. The sassafras is the same as in Laudanum, but this is sweeter and there is a kind of buttery, almost coconutty quality. I still think the tea adds a little smokey quality. Love it!

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I am teh sad. I really wanted this...I like sassafras and was thinking of something like Tombstone. My wonderful and amazing switch witch, Dark Alice, got this for me as part of Switch Witch gift, and I was SO THRILLED to get it.

 

Smelled it.....yum! Sassafras! Rootbeer! It does kind of remind me of rootbeer bottle caps too (though I'd totally forgotten about those candies til I read this thread--I LOVED them as a kid).

 

So I put it on!

 

About 20 minutes later, I started looking around the overpiled table for soap, because some soap was just TOO strong and the scent was bothering me. Found some soap (which smelled nothing like what I was smelling, but....) and put it away. 10 minutes later and I have a splitting headache and still smell the damn soap.

 

Then I realized it was the Slaugh. :( I've never had BPAL give me a headache before, and usually I can tolerate (and even like!) these notes, but for some reason Slaugh is just evil on me. Evil soap=headache.

 

Stupid skin chemistry! I so wanted to like this!

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When I received this decant in the mail, it was frozen solid! The cap had actually bulged off of it from the ice expansion! Makes me wonder what combo is in this besides for oil.

 

Wet: fancy root beer... smells like Fentimans dandilion & burdock soda (yum). Sassafras is strongest followed by champaca and black tea. Can't really pick out the tonka over the sassafras.

 

Drydown: I can smell the tonka now. It's mostly tonka and sassafras with black tea.

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The notes in this are LOVE.... individually. I love them all. As a combination? *shudder* Um... no.

 

Fresh on, I get lots & lots of rootbeer. Wonderful stuff. Then, I'm not sure what happens, but the tea, champaca and tonka do something unkind. It may be the addition of the champaca (which works so well in resiny blends!), but this just goes strong and dirty, and not in a good way. I so wanted to love this. Phooey.

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Slaugh

 

On: All I get is sassafras, which is light, sweet, and root beer-y. So nice. It actually kind of reminds me of the root beer flavor Bottlecaps candy.

2.5 hours in: This is pretty: very light, but sweet and almost a little incense-y. The sassafras is still there, but not as strongly.

5 hours in: Soft, pretty sassafras. I really like this.

Overall: This is really lovely on me. I think I'm going to test it and The Organ Grinder at the same time to see which works best on me.

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I thought this would be great because I like all those notes, but, um... no. The sassafras smells medicinal, kinda bitter. I don't know if that's the combination of tea and sassafras or what, but this ends up smelling too harsh for me.

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In the Vial: Saaaaaaassafraaaaaaas. Glorious, sparkling sassafrass! Exactly what I was hoping for! It's all I smell. Well, okay, no, I'm sure I'm smelling the tonka as well, because this is deliciously sweet. And if I try really hard I think I can smell the black tea. Really, this is just perfect root beer. I'm a little nervous about putting it on because I don't want it to go bad on me like Stimulating Sassafras Strengthener did.

 

Wet: Hmmm. I'm not sure what's happening here. I think the champaca is coming out - I'm unfamiliar with it, but Google tells me that it's native to India and resembles anise, and this is definitely striking me as Indian, but it's hard to describe how. Kind of like an Indian market, maybe? It's earthy and spicy, and on the drydown it gets a little woodsy as well.

 

Dry: The sassafras is just barely still there. It's much more Indian market than root beer now - wow, I never thought I'd say that. Reminds me a bit of Scherezade. Okay, I put some on the back of my hand to compare, and the sassafras is holding up much better there, just getting warmer and a little spicy.

 

An Hour Later: Nooooooo! It's all Indian market now, both on my wrist and hand. Maybe with just a hint of sassafras holding on for dear life. Basically, this is everything I didn't like about Scherezade.

 

Overall: Why! Why! Whyyyyyyyy! Okay, it is that time of the month so there is still hope. I'll retest it in a couple of weeks. If all else fails, I'll keep this for a scent locket or to use in my hair or SOMETHING.

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root beer, wow!

 

this is kind of like an herbal, root beer hard candy. not terribly sweet, made with real sassafras and other herbs, a lovely translucent brown in color. it's not super foody- the tea gives it almost an astringent quality, and the tonka sweetens in an earthy way, without straying into dessert territory. it's a really lovely scent, and while at first i got NOTHING but root beer, when you sniff more closely you realize that there's more going on here. i really like it, just wish it lasted longer on me.

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In the imp: I get ... mint? It's cool, almost shockingly so.

 

Applied: Holy sweet floral, Batman! Um ... yeah, not so much so.

 

Dry Down: Ah, there's the sassafras, giving me ... root beer. I don't want to smell like root beer. I'm the oddball who doesn't even like root beer..

 

Yeah, not keeping this imp.

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Wet: sassafras...my favorite note evaaaaa!!!! Sweetened with tonka, very much like a fancier version of root beer bottle caps at this stage (I loved those the most!). Dry: sassafras tempered with champaca, like root beer incense...I love this!!! Will buy every bottle I can find!! I don't even care about throw or staying power at this point....I think I officially drank the bpal kool-aid now, my first back up bottle purchase!

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In the bottle - Allllll sassafras. God, I love root beer.

 

Wet - This is very much single-note sassafras. It’s a very comfortable blend, probably a bit friendlier for most people than Stimulating Sassafras Strengthener.

 

Drydown - Hard to explain. This isn't quite root beer ... it's lighter. More along the lines of those hard candy root beer barrels, just in liquid form. The sassafras is blocking out the other notes; I’m not getting any tea or champaca. Fine by me.

 

Verdict - Fantastic scent for root beer lovers. If you’re not a root beer & sassafras kind of person, I doubt you will like this. It’s a pretty good stand-in for the hard-to-find Anti-Saloon League. I’m going to consider getting a backup bottle because I am a root beer whore and I have no shame.

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In the bottle: sassafrass (to me that means root beer)

 

Wet: this smells like root beer mixed with incense which must be the champaca. Which is pretty cool and masculine. The tonka is there and must be what's adding more sweetness and making it smell so much like root beer.

 

Drydown: I never get any tea here it must be drowned in sassafras. But that is what the dry down is. Almost a sassafras single note on my skin.

 

This has pretty good throw and lasted about 2 hours.

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In the bottle: Incensed sassafras.

 

Wet on my skin: Spicy vanillic root beer!

 

Dry: Cool, delicious, spicy tonka root beet. I adore the sassafras note, and Tombstone is one of my favourites, and this scent has a similar feel to it. Tonka does the usual woody-vanilla thing on my skin, and the champaca in this gives it a slightly spicy/incensed quality. The tea is faint, but rounds out the scent and seems to give it something of a softer herbal feel than the sassafras' bite initially gave. Soft, fuzzy, mildly incensed herbal sassafras-tonka-tea. It's gorgeous and I'm so glad I found a bottle.

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This is a nicely aged Slaugh which I got recently.

 

It's very root beer intense at first, without the sweet creaminess that's present in Doc Constantine's Stimulating Sassafras Strengthener, which I'm a big fan of. Then the black tea slips in, creating a strong herbal backing. It's like a dark root beer tea. Finally, the champaca takes over the other notes. Sometimes I like champaca, but this is doing a soapy thing I sometimes get from the note. I sort of like it, but it's really odd. I will have to do more experimentation with Slaugh to see if this one's a love or not. It's definitely unusual.

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In the imp Slaugh is delightfully rootbeery, but it goes on minty on my skin, which I had forgotten had happened once before with sassafras -- Laudanum was straight-up toothpaste on me. I'm not a fan of mint. Eventually the toothpaste vibes settled down enough for me to appreciate the tonka and black tea, and the champaca was perfectly well-behaved, but the drydown would have had to be incredibly fabulous to salvage the scent for me. I'll be passing this decant on.

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These notes can work individually on me, but together? Not so much.

 

Slaugh starts off with a strong sassafras note that is like a root beer barrel candy with a bit of a wintergreen vibe. Then the black tea note peeks out, and it has a bit of a black licorice-y edge to it, which I am not fond of. Once the sassafras begins to calm down, the champaca emerges and becomes really strong, so that it's super heady champaca flower with a trace of black tea beneath it.

 

I generally love root beer scents, but this one is not for me.

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Forum purchase. Thirteen-year-old Slaugh is a morpher on me.  Freshly applied, it seems to be a licorice/tea ancestor of Levitating Phallic God, with sassafras + champa doing a credible imitation of licorice. A little later, the tonka slides in & smoothes all the edges off, leaving a subtle, close to the skin blend without a dominant note. Black tea, champa, sassafras & tonka combine into a warm, slightly bittersweet herbal blend. 

I think this would be gorgeous on Teapapa, although he hasn't been wearing much fragrance this summer.

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