Trickster


There was an open space around the church; partly a churchyard with spectral shafts, and partly a half-paved square swept nearly bare of snow by the wind, and lined with unwholesomely archaic houses having peaked roofs and overhanging gables. Death-fires danced over the tombs, revealing gruesome vistas, though queerly failing to cast any shadows. Past the churchyard, where there were no houses, I could see over the hill's summit and watch the glimmer of stars on the harbour, though the town was invisible in the dark. Only once in a while a lanthorn bobbed horribly through serpentine alleys on its way to overtake the throng that was now slipping speechlessly into the church. I waited till the crowd had oozed into the black doorway, and till all the stragglers had followed. The old man was pulling at my sleeve, but I was determined to be the last. Then I finally went, the sinister man and the old spinning woman before me. Crossing the threshold into that swarming temple of unknown darkness, I turned once to look at the outside world as the churchyard phosphorescence cast a sickly glow on the hill-top pavement. And as I did so I shuddered. For though the wind had not left much snow, a few patches did remain on the path near the door; and in that fleeting backward look it seemed to my troubled eyes that they bore no mark of passing feet, not even mine. 
Icicles and stone illuminated by unholy fire. In the bottle: Snow and ice, as portrayed by camphor and mint. Wet: Minty camphor and a bit of something dusty and stale, like crumbling gravestones. Dry: Light, pale mint, with still just that hint of dustiness. I didn't get any fire at all.

No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. Bourbon vetiver with opoponax, Italian bergamot, and hay absolute. In the bottle: Vetiver and bergamot, an unlikely combination to my nose. Wet: The bergamot comes out a little more, and ... something else sweet which might be the hay. Dry: Sweet vetiver... this really mellows out into a nice classical men's perfume scent. I like it!

Beside the road at its crest a still higher summit rose, bleak and windswept, and I saw that it was a burying-ground where black gravestones stuck ghoulishly through the snow like the decayed fingernails of a gigantic corpse. The printless road was very lonely, and sometimes I thought I heard a distant horrible creaking as of a gibbet in the wind. They had hanged four kinsmen of mine for witchcraft in 1692, but I did not know just where.
 Despair and desolation in a potter's field: black soil and memories of screams on the pyre.
 In the bottle: a hint of dirt, a bit of snow. Wet: Dirt and vetiver alternating with that burned meat smell that's in Gore-Shock. Ick. Dry: No longer smells like meat... mostly. It's actually fairly pleasant now. Not sure if I'd want a second bottle, though.

He beckoned me into a low, candle-lit room with massive exposed rafters and dark, stiff, sparse furniture of the seventeenth century. The past was vivid there, for not an attribute was missing. There was a cavernous fireplace and a spinning-wheel at which a bent old woman in loose wrapper and deep poke-bonnet sat back toward me, silently spinning despite the festive season. An indefinite dampness seemed upon the place, and I marvelled that no fire should be blazing. The high-backed settle faced the row of curtained windows at the left, and seemed to be occupied, though I was not sure. I did not like everything about what I saw, and felt again the fear I had had. This fear grew stronger from what had before lessened it, for the more I looked at the old man's bland face the more its very blandness terrified me. The eyes never moved, and the skin was too like wax. Finally I was sure it was not a face at all, but a fiendishly cunning mask. But the flabby hands, curiously gloved, wrote genially on the tablet and told me I must wait a while before I could be led to the place of festival.
 Candle wax and waxen "skin," rotting leather and reeking damp wood, and the ashes of a yawning, cold fireplace. In the bottle: What an odd smell... it's almost like sweetened condensed milk? Wet: Similar, but more stale. I think what I smell may be the candle wax, the staleness is the ashes from the fireplace. It's the same sort of 'stale' I smelled in Death-Fires Dancing Over the Tombs - I think it might be the Lab's stone note? Dry: Rather pleasant. The candle wax is definitely predominant. I don't really get much of anything else. It's a warm, sweet, waxy pleasantness.

In the bottle: Spicy... cookies?? Oh, this is the Scottish tablet. Wet: More of the same. Dry: Foody spices, and just a faint breath of flowers. Sadly, no leather for me.

In the bottle: Apples and graveyard dirt. Wet: Strong dirt/moss blended with the slightly spicy and very sweet apple. Drydown: The dirt is all but gone - it's mellow sweet apple with a hint of autumn leaves. Beautiful!

In the bottle this smells really spicy. The decant I had previously smelled a little more leathery in the bottle. Wet: mostly spicy clove, with just a little patchouli or sandalwood or both, with just a hint of the iron. A nice scent, but not really what I expected. Dry: Ah, there, the leather is coming out a little. Good. Spicy clove-leather. Overall, I like this, but it sits really close to the skin. I can't even smell it as I'm typing this the way I can with some scents - I have to get close to my wrist to smell it at all.

Oh, boy. Silas Ruthyn. This scent is unlike any other BPAL I've ever smelled. I had to have it, since vetiver, tonka, musk, frankincense, and patchouli are all usually love notes for me, and I always want to love opium (even though it often dislikes my skin chemistry). I was unsure about the mandarin, but I don't get any mandarin anyway, so it doesn't matter, hahahaha. In the bottle: sweet musky opium. Wet: Opium and swirls of frankincense and patchouli, with a hint of vanilla-tonka sweetening it. On the drydown: Basically the same as wet, deepening and sweetening and darkening. I never get any of the vetiver, which is a shame as it's one of my top favourites, but all in all I am NOT sad that I own two bottles of this! It's really unique among my scents.

In the bottle: Spicy-woodsy, with just a hint of leather. Wet: Immediately turns to spicy cinnamon and soft, brown, well-worn leather. No balsam at all on me. Dry: Nothing but perfect leather and the barest hint if cinnamon, like a spiced-up Quincy Morris. I love it! And this is the second cinnamon smell I've tried today.

In the bottle: Pale amber, not the deep, dark amber like in The Lion but much more light and pleasant. Wet: Toasted coconut and amber with something else I think may be the green cardamom pod. Dry: There's the patchouli. Patchouli, musk, and copal, I think, but I also get a hint of something that smells like leather, which isn't in this blend. edit: About a minute later: Ah, and the amber returns!

In the bottle: Cherry licorice - which is the almond. It's all I can smell. Wet: Almond almond almond, just as in the bottle. 5 seconds later: Jasmine, full force. Drydown: Pale leather with a breath of almond and jasmine.

In the bottle: dirt & moss with a hint of something sharp on top. Wet: Reminds me a lot of Zombi, but without the strong rose scent. Wet upturned earth and green moss. Dry: Still a sweet wet soil with just a hint of funereal flowers laid against a rain-soaked gravestone. This is definitely my favourite of the Phobias, but I am a huge sucker for dirt scents!

Wet, this had a distinctly bergamot/lemon scent to it, as a few other people have mentioned. It went through several stages of interesting, for a while all I could say was "It smells like a TAL!" On the drydown, it's nothing but amber for me, very similar to The Lion. I don't think I really smelled the lavender at all.

I haven't smelled Tombeur, but the thing I think might come closest note-wise is Typhon: Our own blend of Earth and Hell: red patchouli, sandalwood, black musk and vetiver. (Snake Oil is obvious, since it mentions it having a trickle of Snake Oil in it already, too.) For things that are not DC, I might say The Scales of Deprivation (lemon peel, white sage, frankincense, lavender fougere, sandalwood, vetiver and labdanum) and Death on a Pale Horse (The End of All Things: empty white musk and mint seeped with solemn lavender, doleful patchouli and vetiver, scythe-sharp yuzu and lime, with geranium bourbon, white sandalwood and calla lily).

I did in fact acquire a bottle of Lindworm, but it's currently very bitter on me and I am aging it in the hopes that this issue clears up. Leather Phoenix is also very much on my wishlist. Lindworm does mellow some, but it's one the more intense end of leather. It just had a weird chemically throw to it. Lindworm, to me, doesn't smell remotely like leather - more like "inside of a beach ball". I didn't dare to put it on.

It's strange to me that so many of us are smelling vetiver in this blend when it isn't even in the list of ingredients. It really does smell like vetiver, though. In the bottle: deep, dark vetiver with a hint of dark alcohol. Wet: A little brighter, almost aquatic. The tobacco comes out just a little. After a bit: Mellows back out into what I like to call "evil vetiver" - vetiver tempered by dark musk and dark patchouli. Overall, I really love this scent and I'm glad I have a backup bottle of it.