Black musk, tobacco, fir, balsam of peru, cumin, bitter clove, crushed mint, and orange blossom.
re-sniffed on 6/24/10
in the bottle: Amazingly, I pick out most of the listed scents. This is uncommon, but it might be because the components are uncommonly strong and distinctive. Tobacco. A warm spice: clove. Something musky. A wood. A kind of catch-in-my-throat dryness; don't know where that's coming from. I will admit that I smell something that reminds me strongly of some kind of alcohol, but it hovers somewhere -- strangely -- between red wine and whiskey, even though neither is listed. Second try: Now I don't smell anything remotely like alcohol, rather it's all about wood and very strong clove. Really, this is predominantly clove.
on wet: A little floral. Tobacco.
drydown: The floral has gone creamy in a vanilla-smooth kind of way. What I'm smelling now, at a slight distance, just 2 minutes later, is nothing like what I smelled in the bottle. If I put my nose right on my wrist and inhale deeply, I get the clove and tobacco, but they're ghosts. OK, clove and wood, in that order. There are definitely other scents in the background, but they're almost "transparent".
one hour later: The scent is dominated by clove, with a deep, dark undertone which is almost impossible to focus on -- I know it's there, affecting my response, but it's almost subliminal. I'm going to say it's the musk and tobacco working together, but that's purely a guess; I can't, in all honesty, smell musk and tobacco.
before too long: I can barely smell anything on myself. I suspect that the scent is just as strong (if my SO walked in right now I'm sure he'd notice the scent immediately) but my nose has become immune to it. That's disheartening. I wear perfume primarily for its effect on me. Maybe today isn't a good day to be testing. I'll probably have to revisit this one yet again.
end of day:
compared to official description: I've never, to my knowledge, smelled Balsam of Peru, though it seems from my research that it's a fairly common component in scents, so it'd probably be more truthful to say that if I've smelled it before, I wouldn't have know that was what I was smelling. Second time around, I detected no floral notes in this. I'm pretty happy that I didn't pick the cumin scent out of this. I like cumin as a culinary addition, but I always notice it at the top of every spice mix, so I need very little to get the full effect. It so easily could have been overkill, but I don't smell it at all in this oil. What I do smell strongly is the clove, which is fine; I like clove so much I've even been known to chew the plain dried cloves like candy.
notes: I started this a little too late in the day to do a full review. I'll have to come back to it. This is pretty close to gender neutral to my nose. Having said that: It's hard to tell when it's just me wearing it, but I suspect that I would find this drop-dead, oh-my-god-take-me-now sexy on the right man.
A wonderful antidote to an all-nighter oozing with drunken, addled perversion and debauchery. A fresh, crisp white linen scent: perfectly clean, perfectly breezy.
in the bottle: Okay, I have to say it: dryer sheets. It makes me think of fabric softener or dryer sheets; it's what warm, clean clothes used to smell like straight out of the dryer before I started using unscented laundry products. Floral, but it's that light, breezy, not-obnoxiously-floral floral that definitely puts one in mind of clean laundry. As a matter of fact, I'm having trouble moving past the laundry connotations as some part of my brain is now reminding me insistently that I'm behind on laundry and need to start working on that NOW!
I can't pick apart the notes. All I can really think is floral. Actually, this puts me in mind of a kind of jasmine. Or maybe orange blossom. A little sharp. This could give me a headache, I think.
on wet: Exactly the same.
drydown: More rounded now, not so stabbing-me-repeatedly-with-flowers. Actually, even more like laundry products now than before.
one hour later: I'm not interested in leaving this on for an hour.
end of day: Definitely not interested in leaving it on all day.
compared to official description: It really does have a "clean" feeling, but I know that's because of the whole "mmmm... fresh, clean laundry" connection. Psychologically, there's nothing quite like pulling warm clothes out of the dryer and draping them on yourself -- for me it's an instant mood lifter. Not because of the smell, but because of the feeling of clean. It's an enduring emotional scent connection for me. This is a great scent for someone who wants to give themselves an instant hit of "fresh and clean".
notes: To be frank, I stopped using scented detergents and dryer sheets (never used fabric softener) because I grew weary of the types of scents that are used for that category of product. It's interesting to see the connection between this scent and those things, but I in no way want to smell like this myself.
Bottled gloom; the essence of oblivion. Blackest opium and narcissus deepened by myrrh.
in the bottle: Clean scent, some kind of wood. Slight smokiness. Pleasingly warm and dry in a resinous kind of way. Something smooth running behind.
on wet: Incense. More incense. Truly, incense. But somehow not obnoxious.
drydown: Still wood-y. Still incense, with a hint of sweetness behind; a kind of fresh, floral sweetness that isn't perfume-y, but more warm and heady.
one hour later: The slightly resinous, dry quality has returned, but I can't pin a scent on it, it's more of an impression. The light but warm and heady floral is still there. This is turning into what I would think of as perfume in a more classic sense, but not like any perfume I've smelled before.
end of day: Dry, resinous floral, with the floral barely in evidence. The dry quality is more pronounced, to the point of making me feel like I have a catch in my throat. Gives me the urge to drink water. I believe that the dry, resinous quality comes from the same component that I was reading as smoky while still in the bottle.
compared to official description: I don't get the morbid bleakness suggested by the official description; but then again, I'd be hard-pressed to describe the smell of oblivion.
notes: I'd have to say that, overall, I like this, but being ridiculously picky, I'm not convinced I want it. It doesn't scream "wear me!"
I commented in my last review that I don't know the scent of myrrh well enough to identify it. I wonder now if the slight smokiness I smelled in the bottle would be the myrrh, since Velvet had a smoky quality to me and also contained myrrh. Having said that, the smokiness wasn't pronounced, and may have snuck in later as more of a dry warmth.
A number of times during the day when I was moving around I picked up a wafting scent which made me think of a faintly sharp, non-spicy lily, but I could never smell it on my wrists, only when my hands were moving around at a distance. Except for the odd waft every now and then, this stayed exceptionally close to my skin, but didn't fade completely. Another potentially good second-skin type scent I think, but not for me.
ETA: This one is really variable on me. At certain times (ahem), like when I reviewed, it's too strong and floral. The rest of the time, that wonderful smokiness really comes through and it becomes a scent I enjoy. I'm waiting on receiving and testing the dozen imps currently on order before I decide to get it, though. This is close, really close, but I'm thinking that if I can get this close, I can get even closer. I have high hopes for some of the oils described as smoky now.
ETA, again: I mixed the whole imp with a vanilla-based after-bath oil and got something that makes me feel naked in my clothes. After I've spritzed and smoothed it, I get the urge to ruuuuub against everything, like a kitty demanding affection.
The warmth of doeskin, dry plains grasses and soft, dusty woods warmed by amber and a downy, gentle coat of deep musk.
in the bottle: Strong, but not oppressive musk (light); very familiar, almost soapy background -- amber?
on wet: Amber, I think, almost 100%.
drydown: Mostly amber. Slightly soapy musk, not unpleasant; this is a scent that suggests warmth and would be an excellent "enhanced skin" scent for someone. (Not me.)
one hour later: Warm and sweet. Musk and amber. Some other very subtle but warm and ... airy? light? dry? ... scents.
end of day: Amber, period. On me, soap.
compared to official description: My nose probably isn't good enough to identify subtle woods and grasses. I will say that there are definitely elements other than amber and musk, but whatever they are, they're very close in scent temperament to the former two, and I can't break it down into individual notes. if there's wood, it's very harmoniously combined and disguised by its neighbors. Near impossible for me to pick out anything individual, but after the drydown and through the first part of the day I detected something slightly spice-like in a non-foody way. Cinnamon? Vanilla? (Or coumarin, perhaps -- as in dry grasses; just a guess.) FWIW, the warm sweetness strikes me as more feline than canine. Canines, to my nose, have a drier, muskier scent.
Also, no hint of doeskin, which I will assume is meant to be a light leather scent.
Having said all that, I'll say again that the stated elements may well be there in enough quantity to affect the character of the oil, but I'd need to smell Coyote sans doeskin before I'd be able to properly state my opinion of how things like doeskin (dry grasses, soft woods, etc.) work for the whole. Right now, it's a homogeneous mix that, for me, defies dissection.
notes: I think I tend to read amber-based scents as soapy or powdery depending on the surrounding scents.
ETA: Months later, I've tried Coyote again and I get a different impression. On my wrists, recently dried, it's still very much amber with dry wood, but in the bottle it smells completely different than it did the first time: Now I get light leather and hay-like scents very strongly, with a little amber underneath.
The Four Hundred divine rabbits of the Aztec pantheon that preside over parties and drunkenness. Bittersweet Mexican cocoa with rum, red wine, and a scent redolent of sacrificial blood.
in the bottle: Rum! And a scent that I know must be cocoa, but that seems more like a toasted sweet nut. Actually, it reminds me strongly of Nutella. There's something a bit sharp running behind which I can't pin down at this point. There's also a sense of unpleasantly over-the-top (sort of sickly) sweetness, like rancid fruit.
on wet: Nutella. 100%.
drydown: The Nutella has faded into a slightly food-y, cozy, very comfortably enveloping scent, which strikes me as the scent equivalent of being wrapped in your favorite blanket on a cool autumn evening. Wow, that's pretty evocative; I'm surprising myself a little. I'm getting a warm, headshop-y undertone which I think is some sort of musk, though that's not listed.
one hour later: I'll be going to bed with this on, so I'll have to start this review over another day to get the full day's worth of critique. G'night.
I decided to amend my thoughts from my previous post. The whole "no better than a walking room freshener" bit was harsh. I understand the other side of putting out a particular image (the projecting side, as opposed to the being-projected-upon side). I can't speak for everyone, but I know that we women will, on some occasions, choose our clothes, makeup, hair color, etc. because there's a facet of ourselves that we want to nurture and make prominent. We all have some aspect of bad girl, ingenue, sophisticate, tomboy, fighter, animal, sex toy, etc. And yes, sometimes we want, or need, to focus on that part of ourselves -- to bring it to the fore. Choosing a perfume that announces who (or what) you are is a convenient way to do that. So, yeah, while I sometimes resent being forced to view someone in a certain way based on the temporary choices they've made with their physical appearance or grooming enhancements, that's how the game is played. You are who you appear to be until you've decided that you want to know someone better, then you let them in and you are who you are. Rant neutralized.
And my apologies to those who prefer perfume with a lot of throw. While I may not necessarily want to get anywhere near you, I've known your scent to sometimes brighten a room, change the atmosphere, or set a mood.
Elevators are quite another thing.
