Isidore’s Phoenix

[LiberAmoris]

The phoenix is a bird of Arabia, which gets its name from its purple color; or because it is singular and unique in the world and the Arabs call singular and unique phoenix. It lives for 500 years or more. When it sees that it has grown old it builds a pyre for itself from spices and twigs, and facing the rays of the rising sun ignites a fire and fans it with its wings, and rises again from its own ashes.

Feathers of deep plum and wild violet darkly gleaming with myrrh, black amber, and benzoin.

Mmm, Isidore's Phoenix is beautiful purpled incense on me, like a dusky wing. Wet, the plum and violet are more prominent, but once I apply and this settles in, I get a good balance between them and the warm myrrh, black amber, and benzoin. The violet is lovely here—not overpowering at all, well blended with the plum and bottom notes.

This reminds me a bit of both Purple Phoenix (which shared notes of myrrh, plum, and violet) and Queen of Spades (which shared notes of black amber, myrrh, and plum). But Isidore's Phoenix is more straightforward than those blends in a way that suits it well.

Looking forward to wearing this plummy violet gem over the winter months!

[Little Bird]

I want to love this, but it starts off very rough on my skin, and I'm not sure that I even really like the drydown.
In the bottle and on me at first, Isidore is sharp and chemical, like hairspray and nailpolish remover. It slowly starts to calm down and goes through a soapy, strange phase that makes me think of dust covered white bars of soap, fruity shampoo, and waxy lipstick with a little cinnamon. It's soapy, dusty, waxy, with sour, tart plum... It's definitely not what I was hoping for when I read the note list and ordered my bottle. The floral is sharp and perfumey, not at all a sweet violet. The plum is more tart and sour than sweet for the first hour. Something goes very soapy and chemical.
It doesn't really start sweetening up or settling in for about fifty minutes on me, and then it still has that strange, waxy undertone and something that smells like cheap cinnamon potpourri on my skin. I can't really smell the myrrh, amber or benzoin, and the floral part doesn't really remind me of violet. It's just strange.
After the one hour mark, I'm left with a strong, sweet, tart plum and something almost peppery, with sharp, soapy, white floral and undertones of wax and powder.

[Upstart Crow]

Ohh, this is the plum I get from Bensiable combined beautifully with the violet note that BPAL always uses. The myrrh darkens it and adds some extra dimension. Lovely, complex violet scent for violet-lovers like me!

[The Forest Floor]

This one is a lot sharper, louder, and darker than I imagined it would be. I get an impression of a deep dark purple or blackish purple, kind of like the color of typical eggplant skin. I'm a bit of a noob and can't pick out what note or combination of notes is coming across as sort of shrill to me, I'm guessing the violet and/or the plum, but I'm pretty sure I'm not getting the black amber at all. Several other scents with black amber have a soft soothing quality I'm not getting here. I want to love plum scents because I love actual plums, but I guess I enjoy the note more when it's cast as a supporting role than the star of the show... unless that's the violet doing that. I really can't tell. Eventually, the scent starts to calm down some, after about an hour on, but it doesn't morph drastically, it stays powerfully "plummy" but is just a little less shouty about it.

I like it ok and think I will wear it on occasion (I wore it the other day actually)... but I don't love it or feel particularly attached to it. I will even have to avoid it on days when I don't feel well or feel like I might be prone to headaches.

[Lycanthrope]

I always tend to be a bit spastic with violet scents. My favorites would be orris-y/violet-y blends like The Darkling Thrush, and Sybaris, scents that really bring out the powdery, sweet and candy-like aspects of the flower. There are a few violet blends that seem to be a more forceful, less floral type of violet. Brusque Violet comes to mind, since the resinous opoponax turns it from being sweet and delicate into a much deeper, darker thing, but then turns woefully on my skin into a sourness that I can't get away with. Certain times resinous violet works such as in Nothing But Death, but I think that was tempered with some more sweet fruits.

 

This plum I get is definitely dark, dry, like a prune, and the benzoin resin must be driving this into the more sharp and dirty category. I can tell there is amber but it's not glittering like in some amber blends. Overall on my skin this does have a faint top violet note, but reads more as a deep slightly sour resin. The plum again gives it a rindy quality I just can't quite sit with.

 

I don't think this is one of my violet successes, but that's ok! So much more to try

[TrailerTrashPrincess]

not a proper review, but here's the experience i had with this the other night...

 

all the bottles i got had oil the same golden-clover-honey type colour. wet in the bottle i got a faint hairspray (white rain, specifically) type note, then the dab i tried on became warmer and a little foodier... i was reminded bit of the Eat Me / Drink Me series, briefly.

it is certainly more golden and apricot-y than i would have expected based on the notes. i don't really get plum or violet, but i can see how my head interpreted the rest as more like dried apricots.

[JazzieCazzie]

If there had been one blend from the Phoenixes that I would not have gotten, it would have been this one because plum hates me. However, I bought an entire decant set so here goes ...

 

IMP: Hmmmmm. Very interesting. NOT plummy, or at least not what I think of as plummy. The violet is probably the predominant note for me in the imp and I quite like violet. The resins in the mix come up quickly behind it and that's always a good thing.

 

WET: Shockingly good on me. A super-rich blend of amber and benzoin, with a chaser of violet, is making my wrist positively huffworthy while it's wet. I am getting ZERO plum.

 

DRY: The myrrh, as is sometimes its wont (though not always, luckily), dries down SUPER sweet on me to the point of being a little wonky and combined with the violet I end up simply too sweet.

 

OVERALL: While it's too sweet for me to keep as something I'd wear, and I'd rather make sure it got into the hands of someone who will give it a good temporary home and wear it well, I have to say this is an absolutely lovely blend -- intricate, complex and fascinating.

[jensdays]

I get violet, a little. No plum, sadly. It’s much more commercial perfume smelling than I’d hoped for. Dried it’s slightly powdery very perfumey violet. I won’t be keeping it.

[SophieCedar]

This is a lovely purple, low-throw perfume. The resins are present as well as the plum on drydown. Violets pouf when wet hence what I understand as the hairspray/white rain thing...it passes. I little like Morgause, but even quieter and a bit sweeter. Not bad!

[zankoku_zen]

Plum, amber and myrrh. There's definitely a smoky element to it, and there's something "gleaming" as well. It reminds me to Morgause actually. Slightly less smoky, but still deeply purple in vibe.

 

I'd actually recommend this to people that enjoy blends like Mme. Moriarty.

 

Purple, female, smoky.

[tealeaves]

In the bottle, and upon initial application, I get a sharp, chemical scent, rather like the hairspray/nail polish another reviewer had mentioned. Unpleasant! Wet on the skin, it's much the same, although less chemical, but still with that sharp edge - I suspect it's the benzoin and myrrh not playing well with my skin or each other. It takes a long time for the scent to morph in the drydown; while I'm somewhat better able to pick out the violet and plum notes as the scent dries and deepens, it isn't until hours later that the scent truly blooms with sweet, smoky plum and the dark violet, deepened by amber, that was promised. Incredibly unfortunate, because I love the final incarnation of this scent, but it takes far too long to arrive to that conclusion and at that point it's quite faint and has no throw to speak of. One for the swap pile!

[stellamaris]

Oh gosh this is just lovely, and very long lasting on me. Smells sweet, dark and plummy, not a whole lot of violet, I'm hoping that makes an appearance at some point. Lovely.

[patina]

This is a lot like Morganeuse, except less powdery and smoky. It's a very perfumy scent like it's made with some kind of night blooming flower. It's not especially dark, though the myrrh and amber underneath try to do their part.

 

The plum here is vaguely medicinal sometimes, occasionally like fake cherries, except with plums.

 

This doesn't have quite the vanilla and red musk depth of Mme Moriarty, though I could see a comparison to the new scent that has blackcurrant.

 

Edit: On the drydown, the resins come out. The plum becomes less medicinal and powdery and the whole thing gets fainter.

Edited February 24, 2016 by patina

[Casablanca]

Wand: The color purple. In a pretty good way. Like, a rolling-in-it-should-be-socially-acceptable sort of way. Mostly, I get the plum, with a touch of violet, and resins behind them.

Wet: Rich woodland purple in plum and violet. Plum hits the nose right before the flower. This seems to be plum++. Behind the double purple hit is a soft, dark, resinous, well-grounded mix of the myrrh (soft resin), amber (with a little vetiver maybe), and benzoin (rounding things out with a vanillic tone). The effect is like plum-colored violets growing in soft, resinous earth.

Dry: Fade and fade and mostly gone in an hour. This has flown the phoenix coop.

[LizziesLuck]

I wanted to try this when it was released, but the violet scared me off. Someone frimped me some, so I shall try it after all.

 

 

Wet: Whiffs of notes I love, like plum and Myrrh...plus violet going all powdery and drifting about. As I first start to inhale it, I love it, and as I finish inhaling, I hate it. Such a weird experience.

 

 

Dry: In throw a can smell that amazing black plum note, which I adore. But nose to skin, it's all violet, and I just can't handle it. *sigh* why must I always amp the notes I like least?