strahlend

I randomly pulled this out of my imps to test last night before bed and discovered that I really like it. I enjoy the idea of aquatics but very few of them work for me. Most of them seem soapy and that's not something I particularly like. R'Lyeh is different though. It really does come across as a dark aquatic. This isn't soapy at all. Most soapy aquatics remind me of a kind of aqua blue sort of greenish color, R'Lyeh though reminds me more of a deep marine blue with swirls of black and dark green. On my skin there's something that's reminding me of standing on a river bank and smelling just a hint of pine sap in the air. Oddly enough after a bit of dry down I start getting a sort of light warmth of spice or woods coming through. I'm surprised how much I like this scent, it's another to add to the bottle list.

This is mainly honey with a hint of the patchouli musk I associate with snake oil. For the first couple hours I really enjoy getting wafts of this up from my wrists. After that my skin eats it up and there's only a faint trace left and it smells mostly of honey by itself. It's very nice but it doesn't send me over the moon.

This is one of the first blends listing tea as a component where I can actually smell tea. On my skin it reminds me of soggy biscuits with a bit of pepper and honey. I like pepper, honey and tea... but since the main general impression is of soggy biscuits I would say this one doesn't work for me.

I had hoped that the carrot seed and orange blossom would be more noticable. This is a flowery, powdery, forgettable scent that reminds me very much of laundry soap.

This scent is really strong, and I like that. It feels very woodsy - more like dry bark or dry spices than a forest or anything green. On my skin this almost goes to scented candle territory because it is so strong, woody and suddenly sweet - like a pile of dried wood shavings with brown sugar and maybe hazelnuts sprinkled on top. This lasts and lasts on my skin. The color feeling is shades brown. The seasonal feeling is autumn, particularly Halloween-ish time. I can't wait to wear this when the trees are bare and the skies are stormy.

In the bottle I'm getting mostly jasmine, sage, patchouli... it ends up seeming mostly like a jasmine scent that feels really warm and earthy-sexy. There's something very compelling about this scent. I'm not usually a fan of jasmine but there's something about this that's drawing me in. The more I sniff the more I love it. There's a warm, woodsy feeling to this scent with just the right amout of spice... it's deep and rich but not too heavy. The only other scent I remember feeling this way about was Marquis de Carabas. I'm going to need to find another bottle of this one!

In the bottle this smells like a lightly lavender tinged snake oil with dragon's blood. During the dry down on my skin I feel like I can detect many of the components for brief moments - lavender, amber, hints of vetiver and patchouli. I never did notice sandalwood or almond. Eventually it dried down to simply a softer, gentler snake oil. Edit: either aging has really changed this bottle, or my nose has changed. This is a strongly snake-oily, vetivery, woody, and even musky-spicy scent. Wet on my skin the red musk pops right out, but later it blends in with all the other dark, rich notes. It's a potent scent, lasts all day and the little bit that got on my shirt lasted for days. It has a sort of cologny feel often associated with products geared toward men. I had sniffed this and then forgot about it, but I'm glad that I rediscovered it. Tombeur has been in heavy rotation this last week and I know I'm not going to forget about it again.

Not what I was expecting. This smells like skin musk, a touch of honey and a whiff of gardenia to me. I like it but it's not the paper/library scent I was hoping for.

Surprisingly, I love this rummy banana. I get the feeling it will be a good layering note giving an unexpected twist and more interest to other earthy or fruity blends.

Forbidding Foyer is the longest lasting scent I think I've encountered. It's woodsy and musty and feels to me more like a musty library than other paper-esque scents. This scent is deep, dark and intense and I love it very much. I'll be on the lookout for a backup bottle of this!

Anything smoky or woodsy in this blend is quickly swallowed up by a thick sweet scent that I'm assuming is treacle. It's reminding me of saltwater taffy for some reason. I really wanted to love this blend because I love the name and idea of smoke, tar and beer. I envisioned something dark and intense - this blend is surprisingly sweet and completely different than I thought it would be. Disappointing. 2012 version - much more smokey than the previous version I had tried, especially sniffing from the decant. It still ends up more sweet and fruity on my skin than I would expect, but it starts out much more of a bonfire feel.

I keep going back and forth on this scent. Sometimes I really like it, sometimes it seems just nice. I think it's because I really like the feeling of the deep, rich red wine and wood but I'm not so fond of when the red wine fades. The cocoa and sandalwood are great for giving depth and interest to the scent, I enjoy red musk... but when the beautiful red wine fades and turns into red berries it loses my interest.

I'm kind of fascinated by musty/mildew and other unpleasent sounding scents because they somehow manage to evoke the odd/unusual/werid feeling but still smell really good. I'm enamored. Erik does smell musty, a little woody and kind of dank. There's a sort of green feeling here too, like ivy. I really love this scent but need to reapply it often because it fades fast.

I started avoiding crow and raven named scents because I had the impression that they all contained violets. Color me wrong. I really love this scent and I don't get any hint of violets at all. What I do get is a bit of woods including but not limited to cedar, some evergreen and pine - which normally take over a blend but in this case are remaining supporting notes and adding a really lovely lightly foresty element, a bit of snowy/slushy coolness, and a feeling of light florals and green ivy. Along with Twisted Oak Tree and The Macabray this is one of my favorite scents. I can't wait to get some back up bottles in my stash, I know I'll be reaching for this quite often.

This is a very lovely scent. It's very soft and creamy with very mild florals that feel very clean and natural. It reminds me of Alice without the rose. I'm developing a theory that star jasmine is a really wonderful thing and completely unlike any other jasmine. This scent would be a favorite except for that it sticks so close to my skin and is so soft ... I prefer scents that are a bit stronger.

In the decant it smells like a lovely mix of fresh leather and something lightly woodsy. On my skin when this dries down it smells exactly like The Traveller, which is to say a very straight-forward leather and only leather kind of scent. I like it fine but I was hoping for something with more complexity.

Initially I get a sort of cold mint but after a few minutes and for the duration this ends up smelling just like Snow White, which I love.

I'm so glad you mentioned this - I've been looking for an excuse to try Erik & I'll put the others on my list

I bought this bottle for my mom and snuck a test in before passing it on. Oblivion is very warm, musky and lightly spiced... I can see why mom decided she wanted more of this, it's exactly the kind of scent she likes. For my taste this is just a little too sweetly musky. If I'm remembering right from other blends I think it might be the labdanum. Something here feels kind of powdery and suffocating to me.

Seaweed, honey, white mint, and ambergris. There is a musky tart/sweet feeling here that's reminding me a lot of Giant Vulva. I love mint but don't get any of it here. My impression of this scent isn't aquatic in the least - more like skin musk and honey. Still searching for an ocean scent that works for me, although this is a very pretty scent - just not quite what I was hoping for.

I love TOT too...it's one of my Top 10, AAMOF, and I don't think I've ever found its equivalent. I hope someone else can help us both, LOL! Hey stellans! It might be a bit of wishful thinking on my part, but I just got a frimp of The Black Tower today and it's the closest thing in the GC I've found to Twisted Oak tree. I believe it's the same prominent english ivy note with similar-ish dark/woodsy companion notes. I'm curious if anyone else smells a similarity here or if it's just me unfortunately for me, the red wine note in Black Tower amps to such a pitch it messes up the whole blend for me. Awwwww I so hoped that it would be a workable solution for both of us. Too bad there isn't a way to extract the wine for you. Ah well, there's always this years halloweenies to look forward to - maybe something similar will turn up.

Sniffing this scent made me smile - it smells just like a sugary fruity breakfast cereal (fruity pebbles). I don't think I'll want to wear it, but it's fun to sniff so I'll hang onto my imp.

In the imp I'm getting mostly a woodsy, somewhat sour red wine. Hm. Ok. On my skin - WOW I'm totally in love! This is a much more interesting blend now. I feel like I'm getting a hint of the clean ozone, lots of the teak, I'm not sure about burnt grasses – I would have thought a hint of vetiver – the dark green feel of the ivy... the rest I can't easily identify. The wine is gone, the leather is subtly lending warmth without being obtrusive. This english ivy smells similar to one of my all time LE favorites - Twisted Oak Tree, but this end up just a bit darker because of the teak and leather. As it wears Black Tower stays pretty true to itself after its initial dry down phase, just getting a little softer. I can't wait to get a few bottles of this and sit back and sigh with contentment.

I love TOT too...it's one of my Top 10, AAMOF, and I don't think I've ever found its equivalent. I hope someone else can help us both, LOL! Hey stellans! It might be a bit of wishful thinking on my part, but I just got a frimp of The Black Tower today and it's the closest thing in the GC I've found to Twisted Oak tree. I believe it's the same prominent english ivy note with similar-ish dark/woodsy companion notes. I'm curious if anyone else smells a similarity here or if it's just me

On my skin this is a cool, herbal green scent but without the pine or snow of other herbal green scents. Like a poster above it reminds me of The Apothecary. The feel of this blend is more akin to cerebral detachment rather than somber or funeral. In the dry down I detect an increasing amount of wood but it's relatively light and seems more like bark maybe. I enjoy this blend very much and I'm glad to have a bottle.