The Black Tower

[septima_pica]

A sepulchral, desolate scent. Long-dead soldiers, oath-bound; the perfume of their armor, the chill wind that surges through their tower, white bone and blackened steel: white sandalwood, ambergris, wet ozone, galbanum and leather with ebony, teak, burnt grasses, English ivy and a hint of red wine.

Ha. This is like a high-end department-store perfume gone GOTH. It starts out being pleasantly warm, herbal, with the sandalwood and grass and ambergris prominent, plus a strong smack of sweet wine. Then the ozone starts coming in, like a distant high wailing, and the plants catch fire and the leather warms up and everything just goes to hell in the best possible way. Wonderfully complex and evocative; not particularly masculine that I can tell, but YMMV of course. Much more sweet and herbal than I was expecting -- most similar, probably, to Nosferatu, but with warm leather and ozone rather than wet dirt.

Edit: Damn you, black musk. This one ends in powder too, though not so quickly as Dracul. Edited August 4, 2006 by Shollin

[forspecial_plate]

Dang it, lost my review. I'll try again....

 

This is very well balanced, so much so that all I can really pick out of it is the wine, which comes across as fruity or berry-y to me. I can sense some grassiness or green-ness but the rest is so smoothly blended, I can't really detect the notes. There's a sweetness, almost spicy, indeed it is desolate. The lab's description is very accurate as to the feelings evoked by this scent.

 

That said, I just wasn't sure it was for me, but on 2nd try I really found myself enjoying it. Seems very mature and serious to me.

Edited July 30, 2006 by Forspecial Plate

[sofiaviolet]

This is fairly masculine, but I can still pull it off. I can smell a little leather and some wood, sandalwood I suppose. I don't smell the red wine. This has rather little throw. While it smells good on me, I think it might smell even better on my boyfriend.

[Sealgair]

In the bottle:

Red wine with greens... and juuust a hint of musk/sandalwood

 

On wet:

OooOOo! Green wood, musk, a little bit of wine... nummy so far!

 

10 minutes or so...

amber & ivy combining into a leathery scent... with a background of a greeny sandalwood and wine.

 

1 hr-ish:

Ivy + ambergris = leather, add in a little something else sweetly musky/boozey.

 

2 hrs or so:

it's softening into moss-like greenness. Reminds me of Fort Worth, TX for some reason that has to do with vague memories of my grandfather and old books. I think I'll keep this one!

 

 

2 days later, wearing again:

mmmnnn! A sharp greenness wafting around a deep woody/leathery base, and yet not treelike. Think ivy and moss growing over a boiled-leather armor-covered skeleton. Sweet and musky and smoky. Less wine now, more ambergris/sandalwood/ivy. I think I need a bottle!

Edited July 29, 2006 by Sealgair

[WidgetAlley]

I'm coming to the conclusion that leather and I will never be the best of friends; most BPAL leather blends seem to dry down to the exact same thing on me: a weird, round sweetness with a hint of herbs. There are exceptions to the rule, however, which is why I'm trying The Black Tower!

 

In the Imp: Wine! Red wine, dry and sweet, and leather, round and slick, and the tang of ozone. Incense smoke, too, over sharp greenery and wood. It's super-layered, probably much more so than what I'm picking up on, and reminds me a good deal of Blood Kiss, only with leather and herbs rather than honey. Interesting, but my skin almost never plays nice with these really complex scents.

 

Wet: And bam! Just like that: the smell of burning grass. Damn, Beth, you're some kind of crazy genius! It smells exactly like grass, green and sweet, and black smoke, and incense, and leather, and wine. There's ozone, too, white and airy, a touch of sandalwood in the background, and something a bit like a musk... that must be the ambergris. The overall feel is wet and dry at the same time, and very strange, and... okay, yeah, it's actually a bit unnerving!

 

Dry: Much the same, but it's settled and blended now, becoming an amalgamation of everything listed. The overall impression is sweet-round-sharp-green, with leather, wine, smoke and unidentified crushed, wet plants being the most obvious. This is fabulously evocative and the leather doesn't go too crazy on me, either-- I suspect it's not really meant to be as strong as it is, but it doesn't quite manage to overpower everything, so that's all right.

 

Verdict: This isn't the kind of scent I'd wear routinely, but it's the kind of scent I might want to keep around for sniffing purposes. It'd be great for Hallowe'en... I think I'll hang on to it, for now, and see how often I have the urge to smell a... well, some kind of black tower!

[Miseraya]

A caveat, I am still an amateur at reviewing and picking out single notes, and this one was very difficult for me.

 

In the imp: Something sharp and almost soured, not sour, but soured. I think that's the wine. Yeah, red wine and ivy. Someone made an analogy of ivy vines climbing out of a wine goblet. That's very accurate.

 

On the wrist, wet: Sharp green ivy. I like it, it's pretty. The leather comes out pretty quickly.

 

On the wrist, dry: The leather is staying dominant and the wine is coming out, it's getting a bit herby smelling and it feels lonely. It's an airy scent to me, and beginning to be softly sweet, a smell that I attribute to burnt sweetgrass.

 

Final Analysis: This is a wonderfully sexy masculine smell. Fabulous leather and ivy notes. I must make Anubis wear this more often.

[birdiefu]

Unfortunately, the ozone did this one in on me. All I get is ozone with a touch of leather, and ozone gives me a headache and makes me think of department-store perfume. .

[fairy]

I smell cigarette smoke. Once i smell that, it's all over. To me this is spicy smoke :/

[steffanina]

The Black Tower-

 

In Bottle: Sharp and sweet. Not like a body scent, but like...something you'd use to cover up something noxious.

 

Wet: Very lightly musky. And the sharpness is almost wintergreeny.

 

Dry: This has become a very soft, almost powdery fragrance an hour later. I can't say it evokes a mood in me, but it's a simple and nice fragrance. It's definitely not too masculine for a woman. And it never got musty, yay!

 

Overall: I like.

[indicolite]

This is very well blended, although I did get the spicy smoke people spoke of, in some stages.

 

It is a very complex scent.

 

I will give it a chance. But the Black Tower is different from anything I have ever tried before.

[mornatasare]

The ozone, ambergris, and leather come out to play first on me: sweet, round, and sharp. There's something a little herby edging in, which must be the ivy, but I haven't got the tang of the wine at all, unless it's mixing with the ozone. There's a nice roundness to this one with enough of a kick to keep me interested, but little throw to speak of--for a good nostrilful, I've got to get pretty close to my wrist.

 

Edit after an hour of wear: the throw has improved some--it's wafting enough to be noticable, but not overpowering. The perfect throw, IMO. The smell has stayed round, musky, and sweet. Delicious. Maybe a little manly, but that makes it perfect for me. I feel a 5 mL in the works.

Edited September 14, 2006 by McQueen

[Trish]

This was a frimp from the lab.

 

In the Imp: The only note I can pick out is the red wine. It's light and softly fruity, maybe a little floral. Very pleasant.

 

Wet: The wine backs off a bit, and there's a slightly resin/spicy note.

 

Drydown: This isnt nearly as sweet as other red wine blends I've tried. It's quite a hard scent to describe actually - a bit fruity, a bit floral, a bit incensy. As it dries a little more I can detect the leather, but only just and it's soft and worn. The sandalwood is warming up too, which always makes me happy.

 

Dry: This gets more masculine, but not overbearingly so. The leather is more pronounced but it's still soft and worn and I really like it in this whereas I didn't in Wanda. This is very hard to decribe but I'll try. It's warm, smoky woody leather but with a bit of sweetness due to the wine. It's a bit perfumey too, the ambergis I guess.There's just the slightest hint of green if I go sniffing for it, but not enough for me to dislike it (which is saying something!!). There's also a slight spiciness. I have no idea what ozone or galbanum smell like at all so I don't know if they're there or not.

 

Later: This is now quite smokey and burnt. Smokey burnt wood, with soft worn leather and a tiny tinge of red wine dancing around the edges. It's a little incensy too. Definitely masculine now, but not so much that I can't wear it.

 

Later Still: And now it's going back to that initial dry phase, but with more smokiness and none of the green. This is quite the morpher!

 

 

 

I quite like this one and find it warm and comforting and not desolate at all! Maybe that says more about me than the oil though. I don't know how often I'll actually wear it, but for now the imp is a keeper. I think it might be worth getting my partner to try this one too.

 

Another success for the Labbies - this makes 5 from 7 frimps that I'm keeping!

Edited September 21, 2006 by Trishek

[ScrimHazard]

Masculine scents usually turn really brutish on me and I smell like a grimey thug. However, this one is different. This seems to me like it would be a great unisex fragrance.

 

In the bottle I cannot smell the leather at all; on my skin, it jumps right out. But it smells like there are currants being squashed by the leather...yummy and a little kinky, no? This crazy scene seems to be taking place in teh middle of the forrest and it is beggining to drizzle.

 

Yup, that is what The Black Tower smells like to me...

[bettybaker]

Oh my. I'm going to abandon the approach of telling you what this smells like in the imp, wet on my skin, and during the stages of drying. I'm going to tell you the place this takes me.

 

Last night, I participated in an intense pagan ritual. Afterward, we all stayed up, talking, processing, and making quiet jokes. Early in the morning, when everyone else was finally going to sleep, I put on a coat, poured myself some red wine in a pewter chalice, and went for a walk outside.

 

In the early morning hours, the modern day seemed more present than it had during the midnight ritual -the sounds of the freeway rushed over me on the overpass. I walked through the wet field where we had gathered during the night, and found the spot of our campfire, with its dew-damp ashes. Standing there, I sipped my red wine and meditated on all that had gone before.

 

Overall? This is a hypnotic, evocative scent with an almost repellent charge. It's the scent of the end of mourning and the beginning of moving on; it's the breaking down that happens before rebuilding starts, in a very personal way. It isn't a pretty scent, but it might be good for reflective work. Notes that I scented: red wine, green grass, wet, and lots and lots of ozone, with the very tiniest hint of ritual sandalwood and prettyboy leather.

[corvidae]

This is my most favorite scent and I thought it was about darn time I reviewed it!

 

On me, the most prevalent scents are the ozone and the wine, making it smell like a bit of a drunken tryst in the rain. The sandalwood and the smokiness hang out in the background and keep things mysterious; I get the memory of being at Duntulm Castle on the Isle of Skye from this, primarily because of the "rainy" feel. (Only, instead of my camera, I've got a bottle of wine )

 

Anyway, this scent changes every time I put it on - sometimes the smoke or the leather come out more. But it's always amazing.

Edited October 25, 2006 by corvidae

[jasmine]

First impression: a blend of woods with an alcohol mist overtop (not really wine, but the “hi, I’m perfume” alcohol smell) and a rasp of leather somewhere underneath.

 

After waiting a bit, a touch of smoke appears, as well as something that seems like oakmoss. The woodiness in the center remains. It’s a highly complex smell. There’s something in it that I don’t like... a familiar “not right on my skin” scent that appeared in a few other mixtures. I would have blamed it on myrrh until recently, but now I begin to think that my skin funkifies the Lab’s sandalwood mixture. Hmm.

 

The smokiness is taking over, and my patch test now smells like I’ve been standing near a rack of different incenses. The various layers in Black Tower don’t cooperate particularly well on my skin -- they want to, but they wind up arguing over it instead of supporting one another. The throw on this scent is getting pretty good, too.

 

It’s had time to settle, now. From time to time, I catch the throw and don’t mind; it has a nice woody warmth to it. If the application smelled close-up the same way it does at a distance, that would be good. I have no idea what I’m actually detecting in the throw (sorry -- I’m much better with plants!), but the direct scent is much different -- far too brash, and with far too little harmony to be pleasing. I recognize that this is a “masculine” scent, but I doubt I’d like it any more on a man than I do on me.

 

About three hours in, it did finally settle and blend, but... as Queen Elizabeth said to the men of her court, while she swept majestically through the mud puddle, “Too late--!”

[Alchemy21599]

In the imp: ew! This is really unpleasant, cheap red wine. I'm not sure that I even want to put it on my skin.

 

Wet: I wish the wine note would go away. There is something smoky and leathery coming out that is preventing me from washing this off at this moment.

 

Dry: smoky, leathery and herbal. Light throw. The dry down is wonderful, but I don't know that it is worth the first unpleasant thirty minutes. *Really nice*, though somewhat masculine, on the dry down. I will keep my imp, but I am on the fence about ordering a big bottle.

[supremegoddessofall]

Holy ambergris, Batman! This is very raw and animalistic. I get almost pure ambergris with only a touch of the grasses and such underneath. Not pulling sandalwood, ozone, or leather at all. Somehow this is almost foody. Very interesting. Very sexy.

[maijasu]

This one of the most unusual scents I have ever tried. In the imp, it smells like nasty cough drops, but I decided to be brave and put some on my skin. Wet on my skin, it smells of dark, smoky woods. Dry, it sweetens up a lot and smells fresh and green, while still retaining a smoky depth. I am intrigued and will keep my imp around for further experimentation.

[Voleuse]

On first sniff, this is a light musk with a hint of wine. Something slightly floral as well, though the blend leans toward masculine. After a minute, I get a sweet incensey note, smoke and the tiniest hint of leather.

 

After a long while, the leather becomes the dominant note of the blend, dry and soft and aged. There's a hint of sweetness, still, but it's almost an echo.

[Deiicide]

This is a very complicated scent that lasts! At first it's all leather and wine but that stage doesn't last very long as it melds into a deep sensual incense. The notes are hard to pick out. It sticks close to the skin and lasts.

[storme]

In the imp: oh, this is complex. there's warm wood and rich wine and leathers and a tinge of airiness above it all.

 

On me, wet: this is surprisingly butch - spicy and sweaty and boozy - but with a freshness wafted vaguely over the top.

 

On me, dry: hmm, my skin seems to have eaten this. Just the faintest trace of an animalish leathery smokiness left.

 

Verdict: I might try this on the SO, but I'm pleasantly surprised that the red wine was so unobtrusive. If it had a decent throw I might have kept it around for myself.

[tinyvulture]

i can smell the wine and leather at first. the wine’s fruitiness fades as it dries. i could swear there’s patchouli in this, but it’s not listed in the notes. the burnt grasses and mossy galbanum make this scent very dark and earthy. i’m not sure what ebony and teak smell like. overall this makes me think of charred earth. but the sweet wine note keeps it from getting too bleak. a complex, masculine scent.

[puck_nc]

Origin: Frimp from the Lab

 

Initial Thoughts: *eyes leather warily*

 

In the Bottle: Leather and sour wine. Definitely a masculine vibe.

 

Wet: Very smoky leather and airy grass. I feel like I've stepped into a Marlboro cigarette ad.

 

Drydown: Smoke and leather.

 

Verdict: Not a bad scent, but not something I want to wear for myself.

[mirei]

In Bottle: I was suprised by the sweetness of this oil but it was a deathly sweetness. Like a sickness or infection.

 

On Skin: The same sickly sweetness but with a definite male undercurrent. It's hard to explain but it was like a boy who had been exercising or moving. Slightly alcoholic, which I suppose was the red wine. The leather was starting to come through as it dried on my skin and there was a strange pine undercurrent, maybe the english ivy and burnt grasses. Even as I sat there smelling it the teak and ebony started to push through.

 

Wet: The ozone was the first thing that hit me followed by the green of the ivy and grasses. Like the smell after lightning and rain in the forest.

 

Drydown: The sweetness started coming back but it wasn't as sickly this time. Still foresty and definitely male.

 

After Time: Faded to a pale sandalwood scent with a bit of the sweetness of the wine if you got too close.

 

Final Verdict: It would be perfect for a boy but it's far too masculine for me.