Shub-Niggurath

[skylarkza]

The lust incense of a corrupted Astarte. A blend of ritual herbs and dark resins, shot through with three gingers and aphrodisiacal spices.

In the imp: Gingersnaps shot through with lime.

Wet: Freshly cut ginger and lime. Maybe some cloves and nutmeg? Smells like everything is fresh, fresh, fresh!

Dry: Ginger and spicy smoke. Gingersnaps? Yes... but a little darker. Lovely.

After a while: Hmmm... ginger still wafts up occasionally. This lasts amazingly well! But there is also something smoky and beckoning just behind the ginger. This is proving to be a great pick me up on a day where I needed one and I can see this being a very sexy scent too in an odd way. You smell good enough to eat and there is that something beckoning too... mmmmmm...

[NoinHime]

First Impressions: Spices with undertone of something almost refreshing/sharp.

 

 

On me: More of the same with a sweetness starting to emerge.

 

Dry:It seriously smells like a pumpkin pie mix on me. Sweet, spicy with a touch of ginger. I'm not a foody person but I found this to be yummy and quite nice.

[laslibres]

GINGAAAAAAHHH! It's very strong, and it does sting a little bit when it first goes on my skin. O_o However, once the sting wears off, hooooboy is this ever good. It's really cinnamony, and very dark and spicy. It has that same sort of...serpentine quality that Snake Oil has, sort of slithery and dark and sexy.

 

Although it's really gingery and spicy, I wouldn't call it foody, exactly...it's sort of sweet, but it's really not sweet enough to be considered foody...too dark and resinous to fall under that category. If you're a foody hater you might like this anyway.

[ouch!]

Ok so I'm finally trying out Shub-Niggurath

 

First impressions are..whoa..spicy, dark ginger. With..vanilla? There's a foody side to this oil. But this is a dark foody. Like... Gingerbread twisted with darkness. I like it. I can smell the citrussy/lemon element too that you get when you smell fresh ginger root but the spicy side of it that you get from gingerbread/ ginger beer is taking over.

 

I'll let it dry a bit further and see what happens...

 

Hmm..getting more spicy as it dries, I can almost taste that burn you get when you drink fiery ginger beer.

Drier still, some of the spice is dissapearing and I'm smelling something familiar, it's the vanilla that's in things like.. the "Midway" and "Egg Nog" blends. It's almost a custardy light vanilla. It's nice and it's tempering down the fiery spice.

It's much nicer when it's like this.. I won't be getting a bottle of this oil though.

 

 

 

[theandorran]

In the bottle: Very sweet, lots of vanilla with just a hint of ginger. It reminds me of the scent of a country store during autumn.

 

Wet: Very sweet and vanilla even heavier, with just a hint of citrus.

 

Dry: This one dries really nicely on me. I'm new to BPAL and the first few I tried that I really loved in the bottle smelled a little funny on me -- something just didn't agree with my skin. This one, I didn't like in the bottle, it smelled just a little too sweet for me and it smelled exactly like this store that I go to in fall. It was a nice smell but not one I really wanted to smell like. Once it had dried, however, the sweetness turned much more subtle, and all I get his a dark spiciness with a hint of the sweet and just a tinge of citrus.

[Graphica]

in the bottle: Dried baking spices, heavy on the ginger, with a musty, cloying, almost rotted smell, like not-quite-fully-decomposed mulch.

 

on wet: Ginger, ginger, ginger, spices, dirt.

 

drydown: Cinnamon red-hots, ginger, dirt.

 

one hour later: Cinnamon red-hots, ginger.

 

end of day: Didn't make it.

 

compared to official description: I'm guessing the combination of dark resins and ritual herbs gave me the composted plantlife smell. I don't know which spices are considered aphrodisiacal, but nothing in here did a damn thing for me. I got a strong cinnamon component later (not like dried cinnamon powder, but more like cinnamon extract), and I can see someone arguing that cinnamon is an aphrodisiac. Again, not so much.

Edited October 3, 2009 by Graphica

[Sokudo Ningyou]

I've been wanting to try Shub forever, and I finally got an imp!

 

Unfortunately, this is nothing like I hoped. I like spicy scents, but not necessarily "foody" scents, and this is total cookie gingerbread on me right away. I smell like a Christmas bakery, and while I love eating gingerbread, I don't want to stink like them.

 

After a little while, it's beginning to calm down and sharpen into just ginger, but it's not enough to make me like it. Sigh.

[arsenicsauce]

Okay, I can't read 15 pages of reviews so I don't know if I'm crazy or not, but: this smells like popcorn to me. The kind you microwave in a bag, kettle corn that's gone a little stale. I can smell the ginger as it dries when I put my nose close to my skin, but even then the primary smell is "stale kettle corn and lemon rind". It has a medium throw and lasts quite a while on me, or at least it was still pretty strong when I washed it off two hours after I put it on. Not a fan.

[Altaira]

The citrus is very prominent to me. I can smell the ginger underneath, but it reminds me of a gingerbread cake covered in lemon frosting. The ginger is there, but it is obscured by the lemon. Sniffing real hard, I think I can detect the "popcorn" smell others have reported; to me it smells more like butter in the cake/frosting.

 

I like this quite a bit, but it doesn't fit my mood right now. So I'm going to wash it off and try something else. I'll update when I've had a chance to see what it does after a day's wear

 

ETA: I just took a shower and applied a single swipe of the imp wand to see how it settles in. My hubby came into the room and said "Something smells like baby powder." It still smells like frosted ginger cake to me...

 

ETA2: Wore this to the office yesterday and had some issues. While it was wet I kept thinking it reminded me of something that was making me a bit queasy. I realized it was a mental, not physical reaction. This throws the scent of Rose's Lime Juice. What's wrong with that you say? Rose's Lime Juice has been a component of just about every alcoholic beverage that has made me ill.

 

So, unfortunately, when not smelling my wrist directly, the scent Shub floats up to my nose is highly reminiscent of drunk sick. feh. I Liked this so much at first

Edited October 27, 2009 by Altaira

[MamaMoth]

Sharp and slightly citrussy ginger, backed by cinnamon and spice. Try as I might, I can't detect any dark resins.

 

It starts off with the fresh bite of ginger beer, but turns into cookies after about 30 minutes and stubbornly stays that way. It smells very good, but I was hoping that the resins would put in more of an appearance. I'll hang on to the imp for when I want a cozy, lazing-around-the-house kind of scent. But I'm not much of a foodie person, so this will be plenty for me.

Edited November 9, 2009 by MamaMoth

[Xanon]

I was one of the people who had really hoped that Shub would work for me, and then was promptly scared upon first trial. But, like The Girl for me, this got better on the second run.

 

IN the Imp: Ginger, incense and something clean

 

Wet: More clean and ginger, with some smoke in the background.

 

10-15 minutes in: Ginger smokey cookie.

 

1 Hour: starting to fade.

 

I'm glad to have tried this, but I think that I'll stick with my bottle of Gingerbread Poppet for my foodie ginger fix. Would love it more if it had some staying power on my skin.

[cinderfallen]

First off, this is STRONG. Wow strong. I did a couple imp swipes on my wrists and forearms and everyone could smell me coming. Resins love me, but this is serious freakin' adulation.

 

I like this blend for not being so heavy, despite the gingerbread comments. The almost citrus aspect of the spicy gingers ward off the heavy bakery connotations, so it doesn't feel like I smeared buttery pasteries all over myself.

 

But yeap, reminds me of pumpkin spice lattes and fall! This smells like all the stuff you add to pumpkin to make a pie. Perfect for Halloween! =)

[Amaranthus]

I was in a bookstore early this week and a lady asked what perfume I was wearing. I showed her the little imp of this and she shrieked “YAA! SHUB NIGGURATH!!!”

 

What an odd person! I think I’m in love.

 

Anyway…

 

In the imp this has a spicy smell with something greenish black lurking beneath the surface. I can’t place what that smell is- my imagination conjures images of decaying plant life. The smell is unsettling…perfect for a perfume inspired by Lovecraft! I’m not sure I would enjoy feeling that way all day, though.

 

The lurking doom note does not show up on my skin, thankfully. Instead it smells like happy, spicy ginger incense! The ginger scent stays true throughout the wear of the perfume, but the incense smell gradually becomes the scent of cookies. Delicious doom cookies!

 

I wore this when it snowed last week and felt happy and comfortable, like having a fuzzy orange blanket to wrap around myself all day. The Black Goat of the Woods is a nurturing and kind mother.

 

YAAAA!!!

[Stormslegacy]

in the imp: very sharp, with a somewhat "off" note...I have to admit I made a : face

 

Wet: SHARP. The ginger takes a moment to spread out, and at first is a very sharp tang, not very pleasant in those first few moments. The scent spreads quickly though and reveals a spicy undertone.

 

Drydown: The ginger mellows and reveals...nutmeg? Am I smelling cookies? The resins underneath are giving it a sugary, almost frosted feeling. It's actually quite lovely, and it is true that the same spices used in much of fall and winter cooking are aphrodisiacs (hence why pumpkin pie is considered such a powerful one! The more you know...). The ginger fades rather quickly, or if it remains it's pretty well-hidden behind the spices and resins.

 

Dry: Nice, dry, unisex spice with a slightly sweet resin undertone. Not bad.

 

Conclusion: We'll see how long this one lasts. It's funny, for being so reminiscent of cookies I wouldn't put this under "foody." It's a nice winter blend that I imagine would be even better as a room-scent.

 

 

 

 

[hazakaza]

I've been testing out new scents without the notes or fellow reviews to guide me, in an attempt to train my nose.

 

The imp gives me hope! Mostly spice, but nice spice, cooking and baking spices, not insence or summoning spices (which turn to dust, literally, dust and must, on my skin)

 

On: Buttery! Whoa. The goat with a thousand young smells buttery. There's some strong cinnamon in there, and other spices, but over all, very friendly spices. There are some herbs underneath as well; it's not totally food, more like the smell of someone who's been cooking all day. Very subtle, actually, under all that butter and cinnamon.

 

Drying: The herbs are still present as the butter dies off and it turns very nice and spicy-herby without being so sinister-smelling as to put me off of it. (Scales of Deprivation should have been lovely on me, judging by the notes, but it smelled too CREEPY for me!)

 

At the end of the day, cinnamon is front and center on me. Reading the notes, I guess the resins turned to butter on me? Very weird. I don't really consider cinnamon an aphrodisiac, but why not? Judging by the "evil gingersnaps," I'm glad the butter isn't just me exuding what I eat!

 

Very nice. Not sure if I need a full bottle, but we'll see how much I reach for the imp.

[wrestlingentropy]

This is freaking glorious. It's warm and smooth and deep--not plasticky or gimmicky in a seasonal-scented-lotion kind of way. Just yum. I want to sniff myself all day. It's also EXTREMELY long lasting; I put it on in the morning and it stayed present and true all day (until about 9 pm and beyond). I have a full bottle on order already; can't wait for it to arrive.

[Janegodzilla]

Arboretum on livejournal gifted me with an imp of this when I expressed an interest in foodie scents. I’d read all of the reviews exclaiming that Shub-Niggurath smelled like cookies, but I had no idea that they’d be so accurate! Shub is pure gingersnaps, and those gingersnaps have TEETH. It’s a little less sharp when it dries (my usual imp whiff cleared out my sinuses and made my eyes tear up, it’s that biting), but it’s still a bright, snippy, zinging sort of scent. It never struck me as being particularly lusty; rather, the ginger in it feels playful to me. It’s the kind of thing I’d wear when I was feeling cocky and irreverent – not an everyday scent by any means, but fun when I’m in the mood for it.

[Victory]

It has taken me about two years of aging my Shub-Niggurath imp to get the gingerbread part of "evil gingerbread". I think the evil was apparent when it was fresh. Fresh, Shub was really sharp and not to my liking. I think part of the sharpness came from the gingers, which often add bite to blends, but also from the herbs. I had my Gingerbread Poppet, which I loved, so I shelved Shub. Now that GP has passed its prime, I turned back to Shub and- it's nice. It's not at all what I remembered. I still prefer the GP at its peak to the gingerbread of Shub, but now that the gingeriness has left GP, I may get some wear out of Shub. Hurray for aging!

[lunchboxmonkey]

oh yum! if i wasn't a vegetarian, i might be tempted to eat my arm right now, i smell so delicious!ahem, anyway, this is definitely a gingerbread-y type smell, but not a warm cozy bakery smell, more the way i'd imagine the witch's gingerbread house from hansel and gretel smelled - tempting, spicy, and dark.i'm not getting any lemon or lime smells here at all which is fine by me, i love the dark spicy edge and lemon or lime would brighten it up too much.i've always wondered what would possess someone to just start munching on a house they found lurking in a dark mysterious forest, but if this is how it smelled, i can't say i blame them. if it tasted as good as this smells, it might even be worth going through the whole being cooked for dinner thing so glad i have a bottle of this. evil gingerbread indeed

Edited December 31, 2009 by lunchboxmonkey

[voorishsign]

Shub-Niggurath is easily my favourite of Lovecraft's divinities, so I had to try this as a matter of course. It smells a lot like chai tea to me, to be honest. Lots of ginger and spices. I don't get a lot of the darkness or sharpness that some people have complained of, but then my skin chemistry is a bit freakish sometimes It's extremely pleasant and wonderfully wicked to the nose, and I'm keeping the imp around just for that - it's not really something I'd wear but it's definitely something I want to be able to smell every couple of weeks just for the gorgeousness of it.

[Banyangirl]

Oh man, yum. This smells like sweet ginger-lemon tea with a hint of cream on me. Love!

[heathercaley]

Woooooweee!

 

It took me awhile before I decided to bend and give into the Sub temptation. For one, I am not a foodie person at all and the prospect of ginger cookies didn't sound too appealing. However, after I tested it at WCWC, I decided that I might indeed like Shub.

 

As soon as I received my bottle (aged just slightly) I applied it and holy mother it's beautiful! I am happy to report no cookies on my arm, just delicious ginger and spices!!

 

As it starts to dry down, I can smell other things. Like lemon verbena ? I dunno but I like it!! What a match those two make!!

 

On my neck it's ginger and lemon, but what is interesting is that on my wrist, it's amber and spices with ginger... really weird! This is one temperamental perfume, and I bet that the more it's aged, the more temperamental it becomes!

 

I love it!!

 

Verdict? Beautiful!!!!!!!

 

[norskette]

Yum! I love gourmand scents and this is perfect. I got this as a frimp from the lab with some Lupercalia goodies and I am in love! Shub is a sweet, rich, perfectly baked gingerbread house with vanilla creme frosting. I don't get the sharp notes of pure ginger until the dry down. Initially I get something much deeper, yet not at all subtle. There is almost a vervain top note that comes in and out after about 30 minutes, and then I really smell that sharp, pure ginger base note that stays for hours. This is a keeper and another scent I need a big bottle of.

[hmelt004]

This one is a dry, dusty ginger with something sour lurking suspiciously behind the spices. The herbs, maybe? I was really looking forward to this one, since it's so coveted, but there are other spiced blends that I like much better.

[Schmoozy]

 

Love. This is all gingerbread chai, and smoky, dark resins. It's spicy and slightly foody, and I will love wearing this in the winter. The ginger and resins are definitely the stars here.