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smellsgood2014-07-21 07:29 pm
jenett) wrote in smellsgood2014-07-21 07:29 pm
Recent decant circle reviews
Crossposted to my own journal. Both circles run by the excellent synecdochic.
Specifically: Diamond Star, Eve, The Hourglass, There’s Water Here, The Gatekeeper, and Ice.
Diamond Star: Ambergris accord, guiac wood, white benzoin, immortelle, and Somalian myrrh.
Wet: Oooh. I really like this. Resin. What I think is the ambergris? This is one where I mostly don’t know any of the notes, which makes me go ooh but have a hard time pulling them out individually.
Drying: Goes to something resinous and a little incensy, and very warm and pleasant on me. I like smelling like this. It gets something a little brighter as it dries, like a ray of light.
Dry: Gone sort of faded, alas, but still with a hint of pleasant.
Eve: Her scent is one that travels through the eons: the Irish moss, yarrow, and hawthorn of the Iron Age Britons, ancient Rome’s omphacium and honey, myrrh and calamus from Egypt, the frankincense and damask roses of the Florentine Renaissance, white sandalwood from the Far East, Moroccan saffron and rose water, and a swirl of incense from the souks.
Wet: Lots of honey to start with, and a bit of incensy goodness, and a bit of flowers, and a little bite in the back of the throat.
Drying: Oh, wow, this is gorgeous. Can I smell like this forever and ever? Complicated and herby and flowery but not too much flower, and many-layered.
Dry: More honey, more sandalwood, lots of hints of other things. I still really like it.
The Hourglass: The white roses and orange blossoms of hope penetrating despair’s black fog of opoponax, black myrrh, bruised violet, clove, funereal lily, and grief-struck carrot seed.
Wet: Lily. And carrot seed. Which is a slightly odd combination. I like carrot seed as a note, mind you.
Drying: This goes to a somewhat bitter sort of aquatic thing now. Despair’s black fog, rather. It’s a totally fascinating scent, and one that sets very strong sense-memories, though not one I’m entirely sure I want to smell like often.
Dry: This changes and changes and changes - more of the roses and orange blossom now, and bits of the lilly and myrrh. Still also carrot seed.
There’s Water Here: The wisdom of eternity imparting a glimmer of hope through the grace of eternal renewal: the wild glory of nature bursting through cement, metal, and urban despair, purified by the waters of Lake St. Clair.
Wet: Oh, wow, aquatic while being totally not ocean. This is, mmm. Water. And metal. And something shimmery, just out of reach.
Drying: It gets fairly faint in here, just a hint of water, something like a swollen river after a storm.
Dry: Still faintish, but that quiet steady insistent fresh-water aquatic.
The Gatekeeper : A dry perfume, solemn and riddled with ancient, whispered secrets: brittle bones, the well-worn leather spines of forgotten books, crumbling papyrus, and the warm, strange scent of yellowed, crumbling manuscripts.
Wet: Wow. That is so totally a smell of ancient books. Wow. Um. So many ancient books.
Drying: Still with the ancient books. I am not entirely sure I want to smell like this, per se, for perfume, but it is the amazing smell of ancient books, and I could breathe it for days.
Dry: Definitely that ‘strange scent of crumbling manuscripts’ bit. I think what I find fascinating about this is it’s the smell that makes my lungs go ‘do you really want to be here?’ (for alas, the mind is willing, and the body has allergies) and yet, in perfume mode, it is not a problem.
Ice : Devoted ruthlessness. This is the scent of razors, cold metal, icicles, and her diamond-tipped claws: eucalyptus blossom, crystalline musk, white ginger, mint, and elemi
Wet: I put this on, and before I even put the imp down, it was this wave of - you know that smell, in the sharpness of winter, when the wind comes up, and it smells like cold? That smell. Exactly that smell. (I spent 12 years living in Minnesota. I know that sub-zero smell very well.
Drying: As it dries, it’s settling into something much softer and less sharp. Which is probably good. There’s little bits of sharp in there - I think the mint and the eucalyptus. It’s sort of like being in the Como Conservatory greenhouses in St. Paul in the middle of the winter, with all the snow and the cold and there being bits of flower scents in the lobby, and the cold’s right there, a handsbreath away, but right here is not freezing right now.
Dry: A bit more of the ginger, and I think the elemi, which is not a note I know, but it isn’t any of the notes I do know? Not quite floral, not quite sharp, all sorts of complex hints. I like this one a lot, and might need to get more of it.
synecdochic. Specifically: Diamond Star, Eve, The Hourglass, There’s Water Here, The Gatekeeper, and Ice.
Diamond Star: Ambergris accord, guiac wood, white benzoin, immortelle, and Somalian myrrh.
Wet: Oooh. I really like this. Resin. What I think is the ambergris? This is one where I mostly don’t know any of the notes, which makes me go ooh but have a hard time pulling them out individually.
Drying: Goes to something resinous and a little incensy, and very warm and pleasant on me. I like smelling like this. It gets something a little brighter as it dries, like a ray of light.
Dry: Gone sort of faded, alas, but still with a hint of pleasant.
Eve: Her scent is one that travels through the eons: the Irish moss, yarrow, and hawthorn of the Iron Age Britons, ancient Rome’s omphacium and honey, myrrh and calamus from Egypt, the frankincense and damask roses of the Florentine Renaissance, white sandalwood from the Far East, Moroccan saffron and rose water, and a swirl of incense from the souks.
Wet: Lots of honey to start with, and a bit of incensy goodness, and a bit of flowers, and a little bite in the back of the throat.
Drying: Oh, wow, this is gorgeous. Can I smell like this forever and ever? Complicated and herby and flowery but not too much flower, and many-layered.
Dry: More honey, more sandalwood, lots of hints of other things. I still really like it.
The Hourglass: The white roses and orange blossoms of hope penetrating despair’s black fog of opoponax, black myrrh, bruised violet, clove, funereal lily, and grief-struck carrot seed.
Wet: Lily. And carrot seed. Which is a slightly odd combination. I like carrot seed as a note, mind you.
Drying: This goes to a somewhat bitter sort of aquatic thing now. Despair’s black fog, rather. It’s a totally fascinating scent, and one that sets very strong sense-memories, though not one I’m entirely sure I want to smell like often.
Dry: This changes and changes and changes - more of the roses and orange blossom now, and bits of the lilly and myrrh. Still also carrot seed.
There’s Water Here: The wisdom of eternity imparting a glimmer of hope through the grace of eternal renewal: the wild glory of nature bursting through cement, metal, and urban despair, purified by the waters of Lake St. Clair.
Wet: Oh, wow, aquatic while being totally not ocean. This is, mmm. Water. And metal. And something shimmery, just out of reach.
Drying: It gets fairly faint in here, just a hint of water, something like a swollen river after a storm.
Dry: Still faintish, but that quiet steady insistent fresh-water aquatic.
The Gatekeeper : A dry perfume, solemn and riddled with ancient, whispered secrets: brittle bones, the well-worn leather spines of forgotten books, crumbling papyrus, and the warm, strange scent of yellowed, crumbling manuscripts.
Wet: Wow. That is so totally a smell of ancient books. Wow. Um. So many ancient books.
Drying: Still with the ancient books. I am not entirely sure I want to smell like this, per se, for perfume, but it is the amazing smell of ancient books, and I could breathe it for days.
Dry: Definitely that ‘strange scent of crumbling manuscripts’ bit. I think what I find fascinating about this is it’s the smell that makes my lungs go ‘do you really want to be here?’ (for alas, the mind is willing, and the body has allergies) and yet, in perfume mode, it is not a problem.
Ice : Devoted ruthlessness. This is the scent of razors, cold metal, icicles, and her diamond-tipped claws: eucalyptus blossom, crystalline musk, white ginger, mint, and elemi
Wet: I put this on, and before I even put the imp down, it was this wave of - you know that smell, in the sharpness of winter, when the wind comes up, and it smells like cold? That smell. Exactly that smell. (I spent 12 years living in Minnesota. I know that sub-zero smell very well.
Drying: As it dries, it’s settling into something much softer and less sharp. Which is probably good. There’s little bits of sharp in there - I think the mint and the eucalyptus. It’s sort of like being in the Como Conservatory greenhouses in St. Paul in the middle of the winter, with all the snow and the cold and there being bits of flower scents in the lobby, and the cold’s right there, a handsbreath away, but right here is not freezing right now.
Dry: A bit more of the ginger, and I think the elemi, which is not a note I know, but it isn’t any of the notes I do know? Not quite floral, not quite sharp, all sorts of complex hints. I like this one a lot, and might need to get more of it.
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...Windsor?
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And I am devoutly hoping that The Gatekeeper smells the same on me. Mmm, old books minus the actual mould, dust, etc.
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That said, I'm envious that your package arrived so quickly! I love my city's post office.
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The Gatekeeper and There's Water Here both sound interesting.
I've got The Gatekeeper and will try it next. There's Water Here is going on my wish list.