call me Bliss

Madboy by ZOMGsmells

The Official Product Description Sez:
This scent is the scent of mad genius hard at work. There’s leather toolbelts and handy restraints, of course. And over here, the shelf of glutinous unguents and resins imported in plain brown wrappers…a scrim of dust on the old projects that no-one is allowed to discuss…

…and a bit of that unknowable SPLAZANG that gives a creation LIFE! NEW LIFE! HA HA HA HAAAAAAaaaaa….

That description is fantastically in line with my own experience of this scent, and I’m going to go out of my way to tag in +Amanda Rachelle Warren on this one because I think she’d fall in lurve with it.

In the bottle, the very first thing that hit me was the scent of leather that I think of as ballet slipper leather; it’s a leather that is bright and fresh and warm and flexible and soft to the touch. There was an inexplicable sweetness with it as well, that I could only nail down as slush puppy or candy on an apple. All these were smeared with the scent of oil and salves, with a tang of electricity running through it. Ever put your tongue across the prongs of a 9V battery? That taste. That’s the smell.

…stop looking at me like that, I never said I wasn’t weird. (And a Madgirl needs to understands all aspects of what she’s got to work with.)

On the skin, these all smoothed, but none of it really fell away. My first skinwet notation specifically is Leeaatthherrr and that was handwritten, so you know I mean it. Leather smeared with oil, and stained a bit with a hint of what comes across is a spiced candy, though I like that in the OPD it’s put up to unguents and resins. I can completely roll with that. Bookending that spiced sweetness is the subtler scent of oiled metal, balancing out the warm leather.

The life on this is pretty long – 24 hours after putting it on, there’s still a hint of it on the wrists, and a slightly strong whiff of it still in the décolleté. Something that holds on so strong, it’s going to be a pity to wash off. But wash I will, and not just because I have all my own smelliness to deal with – I need to wear a new scent today!

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.

Spellbound Woods by Solstice Scents

The Official Product Description Sez:
A Soft, Incensy Blend of Vanilla, Sandalwood, Cedar & Amber

Spellbound Woods is magical blend of alluring vanilla, sandalwood, amber and cedarwood. It is amazingly soft, light and sensual…not overpowering at all. It is softly sweet from the vanilla, but not in a buttercream foody kind of way. It is a nice unisex scent and smells like a light, very mild incense without smoke notes. A soft vanilla is the strongest note, laying on a bed of very mild and delicious woods. This scent is pure magic. Contains sandalwood essential oil. A top seller!

This is one where the name is so wonderful that I was actually leery – I so VERY much wanted it to be as good as it sounds, that I was terrified it would fail me. Dear self: Stop placing so much importance on smells and words.

(Dear self: Are you kidding? You know who you’re talking to.)

The track. I’ve gotten off it.

….I blame the Spellbound Woods. 😀

So I opened the bottle, and for quite possibly the first time since I started doing these reviews, I had trouble picking out any singular notes on first whiff. It was too rich, too complex. Rich woods and heavy lilies and other exquisitely fragrant florals blossomed out from under that tiny cap like the spring kiss of a druidic goddess. There was dampness to it, dank vanilla, and an ever-so-faint hint of something fruity.

I HAD to get this onto my skin to see what it would do.

The first flush of scent was pure, dark vanilla, shot through with a note that was part soft rubberball, part decaying vegetation, and part wet crumbling wood. It was strange, and rather wonderful, and a little concerning. I was afraid that entrancing in-the-bottle spell was fading.

A short while later, as it dried down, the scent was sweetly rubbery, like a powdered bouncyball of my youth. Yet there remained, doo, the sweetness of a dark and decaying vanilla tree, succumbing to the dampness of a deep wood. Yet it was still intriguing. As time went on through the morning, the scent faded, and much more quickly than I anticipated. Come lunchtime, it was nearly indistinguishable, and I was thoroughly saddened.

Then the day carried on, and I found myself catching hints and wafts of scent here and there. A tease of vanilla, a brush of glimmering deepwoods flowers, a dash of old wood would catch my nose at the most unexpected moments. Come evening I found myself sniffing deeply at my wrists again, eager to discover what the Spellbound Woods were up to. They did not disappoint; vanilla flowers and dark woods, while now muted, dance together upon my skin.

Spellbound indeed.

Attic by Solstice Scents

The Official Product Description Sez:
Vanilla Accord, Western Red Cedar Heartwood EO, Osmanthus Attar, Sandalwood EO

Shake gently before each use. An aged cedar chest filled with fine fabrics, exquisite lace-overlay dresses, heirloom linens and crocheted tops, forgotten in the attic of the manor house. The scent of this cedar chest and the soft mustiness of stored linens with the beautiful, yet faded, perfume of the owner still detectable upon the fabric is captured in the Attic Perfume. A fine vanilla accord is paired with the most gorgeous red cedar heartwood EO, aged sandalwood EO and osmanthus attar. Attic starts out strong, with a burst of the cedar EO and vanilla accord but mellows into a sweet, woody, slightly musty and dusty fragrance that is exquisitely atmospheric. It shares some character with the Manor perfume and fans of Manor may enjoy Attic, especially if they like really gorgeous and true cedar essential oil. This cedar smells just like an aged piece of dried cedarwood and pairs wonderfully with the other notes on the dry down.

This is the first time that I have pulled the OPD of a scent and had it so exactly and unequivocally mirror my own experience of the scent.

On opening the bottle it hit my nose as WOOD. CEDAR wood, with a faint hint of pine. There was an undeniable overlay of dust, but largely the smell was woods and brass. There was a teasing tang, a metallic edge to the scent in the bottle.

Then I put it on my skin. Wood wood wood wood! It smells of old chests, of the fragrance found only in aging, decaying cedar. Over that floated the scent of clothing in trunks, natural fibers laid long ago to rest, warm and forgotten. Wood and dust and wood, dank stale air. Threaded through the middle of it was an extremely faint dried fruit (dried cherries, I thought, but looking at the OPD and searching up the scent of Osmanthus (which is said to be apricotty) it must be that) note.

Ten minutes dried, it settled into a soft smell of things stored and forgotten and aging – of dusty cloth in decaying, perserving cedar.

Now, more than 12 hours later, the scent is faint at best. There is barely a hint of cedar on the skin with a sweetness that must be that vanilla accord.

The strong wood scent of this perfume turned out to be far more pleasant than I would have expected, and it balances nicely with the sweet and soothing notes of the vanilla and the osmanthus. I’m not head over heels for this one, but I do certainly like it. I could see this being very satisfying as a subtle daily wear scent for anyone regardless of sex.

Pharaoh from Solstice Scents

The Official Product Description Sez:
This oil has been reformulated from the original blend as of 2013. It smells very close to the original, almost identical. Pharaoh is a fragrance comprised primarily of the long-established, popular and neutral scent of Egyptian Musk spiked with just a few drops of Frankincense Essential Oil and a splash of honey far in the background. It is a beautiful, very soft fragrance that is perfect for wearing when you’re looking for something understated and muted but would like to smell clean. It is a truly wonderful unisex fragrance that has a slight tinge of the exotic and is clean, fresh, mild, natural and has just the slightest hint of a floral. The frankincense is very soft and detectable solely upon application. After that, it takes a back seat and really is more of a note adding depth rather than one standing as identifiable. The honey is a very mild natural honey and does not contain the almond notes that other honey blends have.

Bllllaaaauuuugggghhhhh. I have a lot of words for this scent, but none of them are “clean” or “fresh” or “mild” or “floral. DX

In the bottle, it was truly intriguing. It was Sweet with hint of understated spice, warm – like fresh bread baked with cardamom in. There was just a whisper of something dark and dusky, like near-decaying moist vegetation overhanging the edge of the Nile.

Then I put it on my skin. It lost a lot of the sweetness, and that dark dank scent began to take over. It was like wet cardamom bread, with a hint of something waxy, something animal; the closest I could come was lanolin. It smelled familiar, but I couldn’t exactly place it, so this was when I went to actually look at the product description (which I usually don’t until I’m getting ready to make this post, to keep my impressions unskewed/unspoiled.

The scent I’d not been able to identify could only be the Egyptian Musk, and the longer I wore this oil, the more it took over, to the point where that was the only smell there was. It was strong, and thick, and I personally found it unpleasant. My only previous experience with animal musk was when my cat was in heat back in the day. I wasn’t even wearing this perfume for an hour when I started to get a headache, and all I could think about was feline estrus.

I only had it on for a little under two hours before, for the sake of my aching head and unhappy brains, I jumped in the shower to scrub clean.

Like always, this scent may react differently to your own body chem, but it’s awful on mine. I don’t want to smell like a horny cat. I don’t want to risk migraines from my applied scent. This one is most definitely in the Scents I’m Going To Give Away list, along with Nize Hat.