The Scent of Bliss – Inquisitor

Inquisitor from Solstice Scents

The Official Product Description Sez:
A Dark Resinous Blend of Myrrh, Labdanum, Beeswax Absolute, Frankincense, Amber, Leather & Fire.

Like the history that inspired its creation, this blend is dark, heavy on Myrrh and Labdanum Essential oils with a background of Frankincense Essential Oil, all on a blanket of sweet smokey Beeswax Absolute, Benzoin Resin, Peru Balsam EO, Amber, Leather and fire. This is a very resinous blend that is supported by the sweet vanilla-balsamic ambered notes and is definitely geared towards those that like darker essential oils and resinous scents. The drydown is dry and sweet.

Sometimes I think picking out certain notes in these scents would be easier if I read the description… but then I am afraid I’d be slanting my own perception. as it is, I like seeing my assessments bourn out by what was actually used in the mix.

In the bottle, this smelled like my spice cabinet in the kitchen – and that is not a bad thing. There was a hint of sweetness, swirled together with pepper, something sweetly green like basil, and cold whole cloves. It was all bound up with one very non-kitcheny scent, though – of dry leather straps, like on old luggage that hasn’t been oiled or conditioned for years and years.

Many of these came through while wet on the skin, particularly the smell of clove and dry leather. They rode high over a subtler, less easy to distinguish scent that was hard and flat and cold; the closest impressions I could fix of it were oiled metal, and stone. I think this might have been the Labdanum.

After it dried, the scent changed in a big, wonderful way; it smelled of ash and heat, of leather, and a faint hint of emptied beesewax impregnated with vanilla. It was a startlingly soft, smooth, sweet note to play against the harsher tools of an Inquisitor – bespeaking perhaps the incenses and sweet perfumes of one overseeing an upcoming auto-da-fé.

Given the inspiration for it, this is an uncomfortably enticing scent, sweet and spicy and hinting to the nose at a heat out of sight.


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