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Mechanical Death

Conical Beast

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Conical Beast, Clark Ashton Smith.
Black cherry pulp, aged patchouli, wild fruit gums, pine sap, night-blooming jasmine, and vetiver.

First? That NEVER happens. Oh boy.

This is a very odd oil, but I'm liking the hell out of it.

It smells very juniper cherry berry pine and smoke. I can smell all of those things in the oil form. A little soapy as well, but not in a bad way.

On the skin, the berry cherry sweetness comes top, with a hint of pine. It's not minty, just piny, like pine needles and the sap from fresh pinecones.

as it dries it's not sure if it want's to be a warm smoky berry scent, or ever so slightly cool and minty. It still holds onto that clean feeling. It's very interesting.

Definitely unisex. Sweet enough for a girl, but smoky with enough masculine notes to be tough and heavy enough for a guy. It's definitely a late fall/winter perfume.

As it dries further it becomes mostly dark dried fruit. It's the scent of a mixed bag of dried cherries and cranberries, with this hint of burnt sap, which sounds horrible but it's the most amazing earthy smell with a zing of piny mint after thought. Like you're sitting in a wood cabin huddled under a blanket with your sweetie in front of a roaring fire, snow all around and the scent of pine trees from the forest wafting through munching on some left over trail mix after a day of snowball fights and sledding. I find it fun, cozy, warm and chilly at the same time, and just a little bit sexy.

I should try it on the Fiance and see what it smells like on him. I bet it would smell incredible. Foresty scents smell like smex on him.
I can see myself wearing this in the winter a lot.

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Oooh I like this one...I only get the cherry at the top, and then it turns into very lush darkness. Alot of backbone from the vetivert, but not overpowering.

Edited by stellamaris

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I almost cut this out of my decant order, but I'm glad I didn't. It's really interesting.

 

Conical Beast is heavy on the black cherry (a tart, mushy, burgundy fruit smell-- very realistic and not at all the bright red cough syrup of regular cherry). When I first apply it, I get a blast of that as well as some gritty, rough vetiver. The angry, rusty-nails-and-meaty-smoke variety. This is worrying at first, but within five minutes it's completely calmed down into the more balmy, comfy vetiver I love. Like an earthy summer night and kind of sexy. It mixes perfectly with the rustic black cherry. As it dries all the way, I'm getting a touch of warm patchouli and a touch of fluttering white jasmine. I'm ultra-picky about jasmine, but night-blooming seems to work best and it's very subdued here. It contrasts nicely with the heated darkness of the rest of the scent.

 

Overall, it reminds me a little bit of Earth Phoenix (Chinese musk, dark musk, moist soil, black cherry, opoponax, night-blooming jasmine, plum, woodland tobacco, snakeweed and cypress), but more sensual. It's unusual, but stays close to the skin and is very wearable. Definitely keeping the decant, and it could be a bottle purchase. This definitely is the best cherry-centric oil I've tried.

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I'm surprised that the jasmine is what prevents me from loving this blend. It kind of smells like a dirty diaper on me! It vacillates between dirty diaper and woodsy, clean cologne smell. I wish the cherry had more of a presence. I can see this blend layering well with Kabuki or something to amp the cherry. I'm not giving up on this one!

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Heavy on the black cherry, fruit gums, and a whiff of vetiver and patchouli. Jasmine is thankfully a no show.

 

Fun, fruity, rooty.

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I was really hoping the jasmine would be far enough down the list to not make an appearance in this, but sniffing from the vial I can smell scratchy floral. And if I sniff from farther back, the overall impression is that it smells like a permanent magic marker.

 

I don't get much cherry here, and no patch, or pine, or even vetiver. No individual note seems to stand out, besides the jasmine.

 

On me it smells somewhat less like a magic marker, but still smells like stinky floral. I keep sniffing, hoping to catch a whiff of one of the other notes, to no avail. One of my least favorites from all the decants I got.

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On my skin wet: Ergh pine, cherry and jasmine have merged into one stinky cloying mess. :ack: This isn't the cute jasmine from Ceanothus Silkmoth but a jasmine-sledgehammer. Okay it's calming down a tiny bit, enough to be sniffable... This jasmine is really powerful... I'll risk another sniff when it's dry.

On my skin dry: Well it turned into jasmine (surprise!) with added sugar. The jasmine isn't too bad but it's giving me a bit of a headache. A little goes a long way, a very long way.

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Ahh jasmine, we meet again. Please behave as the rest of the notes sound divine!

 

Imp: Dark, sweet fruit with a hint of kitty litter (dammit jasmine).

 

Wet: Definitely jasmine. It's strong too, I can't make out any of the other notes. Luckily it's less cat pee jasmine and more oomph floral jasmine at this point so I can deal with it, even if it's not my favorite.

 

Dry: All jasmine, all the time. It's a nice floral jasmine at least. No cat pee as it usually turns on me. It's still a pass though. I wish I'd gotten all the other notes as I was hoping to get those instead of my nemesis.

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My decant of this is definitely strong on the jasmine, and it's the sour, dirty, perfumey sort of jasmine that I don't care for. As it dries down, it's sour jasmine with a background of something that smells like PineSol to me. I was hoping for a mix of fruity & earthy, but this is sharp, sour floral on me.

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Fruit gums are a note that never fails me, so I'm looking forward to this.

 

Imp: Patchouli and heavy, sweet fruit-- cherries and peaches and other berries, backed by a very cloying, almost sickly jasmine. Which is weird, because I usually love jasmine! I think it's the combo of jasmine-vetiver-pine-fruit that's making this smell like really unpleasant bubblegum. Too bad, because all of those notes are generally okay on me by themselves.

 

Wet: Way heavy, WAY perfume-y jasmine and soap scent quickly covers up the bubblegum (thank goodness.) I get a burst of incense and a sticky lovely bit of those fruit gums that are always stellar on me. After a minute, patchouli and pine come out to calm the whole thing down. Aaah, that's better. Now it's dark fruit and polished wood and incense and night air.

 

Dry: Eventually this dries down into something very similar to Nightmare on me, but without the linen note. It's sweet fruit, dried fruit, patchouli, incense and a breath of floral. Lovely!

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This one is a morpher to be sure. It starts out as an odd combination of vetiver and night-blooming jasmine. Gradually, there is a wonderful ambery musk and fruits, but more musky/amber. It then turns into an expensive powder, kind of ethereal and orris like. Three different phases, and I'm talking totally different. I really like the middle phase, it is downright amazing, but it doesn't last too long in this phase. I enjoyed this, but not sure I need any more. May track down a decant.

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ITB: Hmm, cherry cough syrup, jasmine, and patchouli. Interesting, but not revolting.

 

Wet: I get more cherry pulp than artificial medicine, although there is still a slight nod to that quality here. Next, I pick up the patchouli, the jasmine, and the wild fruit gums. It's a bit sweet.

 

Dry: Now that it is dry, the patchouli, jasmine, and vetiver are strongest. There is just a hint of fruitiness (cherry), but not enough to make this overtly sweet or overtly fruity.

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In bottle: This is extremely well designed. Seriously, I’m someone who hates vetiver and who can’t wear two other notes in here and I think this is beautiful. The balance of this is brilliant. Patchouli, pine sap, and vetiver form a dark faction in which each is distinct, yet cooperative with the others. This is balanced by a sweeter, juicier faction formed by cherry, jasmine, and fruit gums, in which all are also distinct yet beautifully consonant. The balance is perfect and each element shines. I wouldn’t have guessed this would work from the description, but oh, was I wrong.

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I was frimped a decant of this. Preconceived notions: It has a lot of worrisome notes, but I try to make a policy of testing everything at least once, because I've had some surprises before with things that I didn't think would work. Night-blooming jasmine is usually better on me than "regular" jasmine, but the vetiver and patchouli are always a concern. "Wild fruit gums" sounds interesting... no idea what to expect from that.


In the decant: I definitely smell the pine sap and also the black cherry. But most of my impressions here are for the blend itself rather than individual notes in it. After I sniff it, the scent that remains in my nose is reminding me of powdered laundry detergent or something, oddly. There's also something vaguely musty and basement-like. This is making me think of doing laundry in the basement when I was staying at my grandma's house as a kid.


On my skin: Cherry... I can smell the patchouli lurking in the background but it's not dominating. This black cherry note is a little boozy. With the pine + cherry, I could almost think this was a Yule scent. It's still smelling laundry soap-like overall, though. The night-blooming jasmine is being more soapy than "toilety", thankfully, but I still wouldn't call its performance here a rousing success.


Quite powdery-soapy on the drydown. I don't hate this, but I wouldn't choose it to wear either.

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I'm picking up the same thing as Little Bird. Amping dirty jasmine with some cleaner smell in the background. DO NOT LIKE.

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I'm going to agree with torikitty that there's some dirty jasmine going on, but on me, it's blending with the other notes and ends up being pretty interesting.  The pine sap adds sort of a gritty, forest vibe to everything. I don't really smell vetiver, but I'm guessing it's darkening things.  I don't get anything fruity.  Maybe my skin eats those notes, or maybe they've aged out from my decant. Overall, I like Conical Beast.  It's sort of a earthy, forest-floral with a bit of funk. Brooding but playful.   

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