Lenore

[Macha]

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll! - a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear? - weep now or nevermore!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read - the funeral song be sung! -
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young -
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her - that she died!
How shall the ritual, then, be read? - the requiem how be sung
By you - by yours, the evil eye, - by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong.
The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy
bride.
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes
The life still there, upon her hair - the death upon her eyes.

"Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven -
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven -
From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of
Heaven!
Let no bell toll, then, - lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!
And I! - to-night my heart is light! - no dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!"

A dark and bellicose scent that speaks of loss, lament, bitterness and breast-beating woe: thick black vetiver, sharp white musk and lemon peel, smoke and saffron, patchouli, thyme and black plum.

Label:

Ah, how lovely ”” but dark, ever so dark. This is thick, brooding, black: the vetiver and patchouli are strong with my chemistry, with an herbal edge from the thyme and layered all over with the waft of smoke. I didn't pick up any of the lighter notes: the lemon peel, saffron or plum. No, that might have given this a happier air, and on me this perfume is full of tragedy and waste. This is the scent off the fresh grave, the tomb not yet sealed, the funereal pyre cooled to ash, the guilty conscience. It's not unpleasant, just as there can be a certain release in wallowing in melancholy and the macabre, but it certainly is as black as night and strong as death.

Ah, definitely the scent to wear while committing poetry.

[inkmonkeys]

This is only the second DimV scent I've tried, and I'm truly stunned by how gorgeous these have been. Something in the Poe poems triggered something phenomenal for our beloved scentstress, because these scents are astounding.

 

Lenore is strangely like a vital, mature Snake Charmer, without the vanillic voluptuosity, but much deeper, more thoughtful, brooding, dark and beautiful. I definitely get the saffron that is so lovely in Scherezade, as well.

 

Once again, absolutely stunning. Brava.

[coulrophobe]

Preconceived notions: Lenore is a somewhat puzzling jumble of notes for me, as it contains notes that are fantastic on me (white musk, plum), notes that are iffy (patchouli, thyme), and notes that are downright horrid most of the time (lemon, vetiver).

 

In the bottle: All I can smell is the motor oil-like smell of vetiver, with a hint of lemony tang.

 

On: Luckily, the vetiver mellows out after a few minutes on my skin, and the blend softens and sweetens up a bit. It's still quite dark, and a bit oily - Lenore isn't angry or aggressive, but definitely sinister. While I doesn't smell like "earth" per se, that's the mental picture I'm getting - the moist, dark earthen dwelling of something that crawls on its belly like a reptile. Yes. Salamanderesque. An interesting blend, and probably one that will have to be reserved for my quirkier moods.

[nineveh]

Some impressions of Lenore:

 

- So dark! Earthy, but in a disquieting, hot way, like you're digging a hole and getting close to an underground passageway filled with lava (possibly cursed lava). This isn't spicy, but it smells warm to me. I guess that's the saffron.

 

- Surprisingly, the white musk doesn't get covered up by all that darkness. It smells like the musk in Dorian to me. If the perfume Dorian is Dorian Gray's facade, then this is his true nature.

 

- The child of Snake Charmer and King of Clubs? I'm picking up similarities to both (guessing the plum and vetiver) on the drydrown.

 

- Sometimes vetiver smells like a campfire on me. This time it's more subtle; it's not outright burning, but buried and smoldering.

 

- If this were a song, it would be by Lycia.

[inbigtrouble]

This is simply gorgeous. When first applied I get heavy wafts of citrus and patchouli. Shortly thereafter, the vetiver really comes to the forefront. Not so sure what I think about that stage. After about 20 minutes the extreme sharpness of the vetiver fades and the lemon comes back out with the musk becoming more apparent, as well.

 

This is not a sad and mournful blend on me at all. It ends up being sharp and fresh and bright, thanks to the lemon. This one is pretty complex, and I do think it wil be a favorite of mine.

 

ETA: I just wore this all day at work and I really am in love. This could be a top five...

Edited October 18, 2005 by inbigtrouble

[Khaman]

Well, this turned out nicely. I ordered a bottle on description alone and when I first opened it to take a sniff... I got a little concerned. I suspect it was the vetiver that I got a sniff of. Something dark and oily.

 

At first application, there was something... I don't know, off about it. Dark floral that didn't go to soap but still touched me oddly.

 

Then the miracle happened within minutes. A total transformation. It blossomed into gentle, wafting lemon, a hint of smoke, and the warm caress of musk. It's an oddly gentle smell on me. Not exactly 'light,' it earns its descriptor as a dark smell, but nor is it heavy. It's almost a purely feminine Whitechapel, something lonely and brooding but elegant.

 

Yep. It's a keeper.

[shelldoo]

i was dying to get this one. not so much because of the notes but because i am a HUGE fan of roman dirge's lenore. who was inspired by poe. so in a roundabout way it is connected anyway this is one i was so so hoping to love.

 

in the bottle: the most obvious note is the vetiver, which is not bad, several scents i like have vetiver

 

wet: vetiver, patchouli, smokiness.

as it dries it sweetens a tad i get slight wafts of plum, it is still a very resinous scent, but it sweetens and gets a hint of musk. it is indeed a dark, i would even say dreary scent. but for me that is great. i love dark, deep, dreary, melancholy. yippee for beth this is just what i wanted it to be. thank you.

[UltraViolet]

3.5

 

In the bottle

The familiar scent of Vetiver(t) but it's actually nice in this blend, it doesn't scare me. I smell lime (even though it's lemon not lime in here), herbs and a bitterness, and it's nice and quite representative of the description and of the story.

 

On

The patchouli is predominant and the vetiver and lemon is next in majority of what I smell when it's on my skin.

 

30 minutes

More of the smoke smell is there. It's quite even with the patchouli now and the vetiver is still beneath.

The lemon peel is pretty vague now, the saffron is here now but lightly so.

 

Throw:

average

 

Scent category:

Earthy/Herbal/Citrus

 

Summary

I don't smell the musk nor the plum (gah!).

It certainly does connotate darkness and bitterness. This blend is not sweet in the least. But that isn't a negative point with me just an informational fact.

 

Purchase again?

No.

 

1-5 rating (5 being best)

3.5

 

Edited November 28, 2005 by UltraViolet

[cuervosueno]

" Ah, definitely the scent to wear while committing poetry.

 

I had to quote our wonderfully talented Macha here, because I love that phrase "while committing poetry" and I hope it's ok, M., if I adopt it? I want to tell my grad poetry class tomorrow night: be careful when committing poetry!

 

I'd forgotten exactly why I bought this, so I was so pleased to get smell it. In the bottle I get vetiver fairly strongly--which I love. Also pachouli. Very dark in the bottle.

 

On, it becomes lighter, but also complex. It reminds me of a more complex, darker Caterpiller. The musk and lemon give it a bit more brighness. Something adds a velvety dark note that might be the plum.

 

Overall, I love this. It lingers like Caterpiller, but is richer, darker. Very very lovely--my favorite incense scent so far.

[aidenraine]

Oh gorgeous!

 

Ahem, ok... let me collect my thoughts....

Wet I smell the patchouli with a hint of brightness, sweetness. It's delicious. I get the lemon and the smoke. It's rare that all of the notes in a blend dance like this.

 

Mmmm....

I LOVE this.

 

I actually get quite a bit of sweetness on my skin, but the dark ingredients make it wistful. It becomes more sweet and balanced as it dries. Mmmm...

I smell a woodsy cedar, which I imagine is the lemon, saffron and smoke merging.

 

The drydown is a lovely balance between woodsy, musky, and sweet.

A tad mournful, but beautiful.

 

[tempete]

Scentwise, Lenore is like the brooding daughter of the Torture King and Snake Charmer from Carnaval Noir...

 

The vetiver note is definitely strong, almost overpowering when Lenore is wet, but it is tempered a bit by the patchouli. It eventually fades away to reveal a sweetness which seems to be a combination of plum, white musk and to my nose, a resin (such as frankincense) or perhaps an incense note. In the late drydown, some herbal notes (possibly the thyme) peek out underneath the sweetness.

 

For me, Lenore is the undisputed winner of the Demon in my View scents, which, is perhaps completely unsurprising given my love for musky/resiny scents. Definitely one bottle for now, perhaps another one before DimV goes away for good.

[wickedgoddess]

I am not a fan of vetiver, but in the bottle this smells gorgeous! I need to give this a try.

 

Wet - as soon as this touches my skin the vetiver strengthens, yet it's not unappealing. Vetiver and lemon peel are the two notes I worry about the most in this blend, and yet they are the only ones I smell now. I am curious to see where this will take me.

 

Dry -The vetiver fades and this becomes soft and earthy. I can smell the patchouli now, but it blends so well with the vetiver that it's barely noticable. This is a skin scent, as lovely as it is dark. This scent is haunting; I find myself almost obsessing over this. I am sure I will be picking up a bottle before this is gone.

 

On the wickedgoddess scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being best, this rates a 5.

[Northernminx]

Dark musk, smokey incense, this is a dark, forboding scent with a great deal of earthiness and touch of ripe dark plum that suddenly goes...aw crap hello Vetiver. I really hate it when that note takes over a blend but as usual this goes that wierd rotting smell that vetiver tends to create on me. Very grave like - not quite what I wanted. Oh well

[turbojenn]

nineveh mentioned Lenore being the child of snake charmer and king of clubs - both are two of my favorites, and I can definitely see their presence here. In a word, I love Lenore upon first sniff of the bottle.

 

Wet, I get the vetiver and patchouli pretty strong, a slight acridness from smoke.

 

Drying down, the saffron bursts forth with lemon adding a lightness and warmth to the blend....3 hours later, I can't stop sniffing my wrist, and it finishes with just a hint of lemony vanilla. This is a very grown up scent, and I absolutely love it. This is a 2 bottle scent.

[LushNatty]

In the bottle: very vetiver.

Applied: At first it’s all vetiver and smoke, really heavily so, but as it sinks into the skin you can really detect a lot of complexity. I could smell the lemon and thyme, for example, and it really did a lot to make the vetiver and smoke less acrid and more interesting. I can also detect the white musk after a while. Overall, it has a sort of sharp and dusky character, like if you could imagine a smoky, musky mint.

This is a really interesting scent and definitely one of those lovely morphing ones, but I don’t work well with smoky scents so I won’t be wearing it. This would be at the top of my list for scents I would like to smell on a guy, though. This would be a perfect scent for a very stylish and intellectual guy—the kind of guy that would have a lot of money but not care too much about it, and spend a lot of time in his library. I could almost see Mr. Darcy smelling like this—it would have to be a guy that is all of the above and also doesn’t talk unless he has something to say.

On a scale of 1 to 5: 4 (for a man.)

[Little Bird]

I didn't appreciate this scent when I first had a bottle oh so many years ago that I swapped away.  It was something that haunted me in a scent memory, though, so I recently bought a new bottle from Dark Delicacies again.  The vetiver is intensely dark and smoky and smells a lot like burnt rubber and the sweet, rubbery smell of new fishing lures.  The plum adds a thick, dark sweetness underneath the vetiver and the lemon a squish of sour citrus that tries to brighten things up.  It's odd and not as smoky as I remembered (my original bottle definitely smelled like charred mesquite bbq planks).  After an hour, I'm left with mostly sweet plum with hints of rubber, woodsmoke and lemon.  So odd.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Little Bird

[cupide430]

Something wacky is going on here with my decant. I definitely thought this would be totally anti-me as it contains notes that usually don't work for me but tried it anyway in the interest of science. I did get sharp strong vetiver at first from this but it very quickly dried into a sweet smoky scent that almost has a light gardenia overtone without the headiness of gardenia. This is surprisingly wearable for me considering my reaction when I first read the notes (which was something to the effect of )

[AlaskaSnows]

Wet: A very biting wood with a sophisticated men's cologne.

 

Dry: Much more mellow, but IMO still a male scent. This is woody, with some spice, and to me this smells unfinished, like it needs aging in the bottle, which I shall let it do.

[Loligo]

This is somehow damp yet smoky at the same time. It makes me think of really rustic camping, lying huddled & freezing under wool blankets that are permeated with the smoke of years of campfires. Evocative, but not really what I'm looking for in an everyday perfume. I've tried this twice, and each time I get distracted by other things during the middle drydown, so I can't describe how and when this turns from the vetiver/patchouli/smoke of the first stage to the warm thyme/plum of the far drydown hours later.

[PurringPulsar]

Lenore

 

In the imp: slightly lemony, very smoky vetiver with thyme.

Wet on skin: the vetiver is strong here, along with the smoke, patchouli, saffron and lemon…

Dry: whoa, this is intense stuff. It’s along the same lines as Alone and Torture King, but with a very potent vetiver note, dark, slightly green, fuzzy and slightly lemony-this lemony scent enhanced by the actual lemon note here. The patchouli is here too, a bit of saffron and thyme, and smoke too. I can’t really smell the musk yet.

After a while: it’s not long before this smoothes out really nicely. I think the musk has come out to do that…the smoky vetiver and patchouli are still there, but they seem softer now, the musk and the lighter notes coat the scent with something gentler, this is a stage in the scent I really like.

After a few hours, the vetiver comes back, stronger, darker and smokier than ever! I don’t mind, since I like vetiver, but that’s all I get now. I never got plum at all in this scent, which is odd because usually plum really sweetens up scents but this fragrance is anything but sweet.

Verdict: this really is one of the most vetiver-y BPAL oils I’ve smelt. Dark, brooding, moody and smoky, the vetiver is prominent from the word go. I don’t mind vetiver even though it does amp on my skin (living in a household where my mum burns vetiver oil as room scent and buys vetiver scented stuff means I am used to it and I like it) so I don’t mind this scent. It’s also quite smoky, and the patchouli enhances the ‘dirty/earthy’ and dark feel this scent has, and the lemon note heightens the ‘lemony’ aspect that vetiver has on me. At one stage, the scent develops a smooth, almost gentle, coating of soft white musk, mingling nicely with the saffron and lemon, before reverting again to dark vetiver. It’s a very fascinating, evocative scent, it also reminds me of Alone and Torture King, though I do prefer those two oils to this. Lenore is nice, very emotional, melancholic and deep, but I’m unsure if it’s a ‘me’ scent yet. But I will keep the decant for those moody days-it seems an apt smell for those times. I have a feeling my vetiver-loving mum will adore this!

[wolfie13]

In the bottle and initial wear:

Mostly vetiver and lemon peel, some musk. It's okay, but nothing I'm excited about.

 

After an hour or two:

It's mostly the same, though it starts to take on a more perfume/cologne type quality and a touch of an almost floral aspect (maybe from the saffron?) which makes me like it even less.

 

There are just so many bpal scents with a strong vetiver note that I like much more.

Edited November 16, 2005 by wolfie13

[zenvodunista]

Lenore, Lenore, how i have waited for you! and my wait has not been in vain. i was so worried, dear Lenore, that when you arrived at last upon my doorstep, that i would foolishly reject you due to factors beyond my control.

 

today however, is not that day, and when your gorgeous dark complexity, met my picky skin chemistry, you shifted over and over, tubmling through your notes as a leaf tumbles on the wind.

 

first you were smoke, then musk, then a strong hit of vertiver that lasted for a full 5 minutes and now:

 

you are earthy, smoky, spicy and dark. you have a touch of ripe sweetness, never cloying, but rich like wine -- it rolls under the surface of the other notes, much like dessert wine rolls over my tongue. and yet your throw is not overpowering. 2 inches away and i smell the thyme, 1 inch away and i smell spice, half an inch and i smell smoke, and that the skin: i smell everything so smoothly blended that i cannot tell what is what.

 

Lenore, you are mysterious, and complex. you are not for the faint hearted. i cannot even say if you smell "good" or not, but you do smell absolutely compelling.

 

i have no idea where to wear such a scent, i just know that i have to.

 

n.

[k00kaburra]

In bottle: Heavy patchouli is the grounding note, bitter with a woeful sigh. Indeed, this liquid is bitter from tip to toe; not even the plum brings any sweetness to the blend. Ground lemon peel - and it's definitely the peel, not the pulp or the juice - adds a hint of zestiness but doesn't lighten the blend one bit.

 

On me:Although I doubt it's in the blend, something like night-blooming jasmine surfaces on my skin, giving the blend a fresh wash of sadness and adding to the general melancholy. The white musk also appears, but it is depressed by the vetiver and patchouli.

The sad blend vanishes very quickly on my skin - I suppose in a way that almost makes sense, since I am a happy person by nature and my bouts of woe and sorrow rarely last long. This is not a perfume meant for me.

[sookster]

this one is incredibly strong and most decidedly has that "snake oil" component...

after about 30 minutes this warms up to the most heavenly thick, languid yet provocative

scent with me......i actually get a winey or boozy component and after even more time,

a waft of deep, dark cocoa pops up quite unexpectedly....insanely complex and utterly

unique this is a true beauty and most definitely a lab signature scent with me.....

fanfuckingtastic sums it up best for me.....all hail, Beth and Co.

:bowdown:

Edited November 25, 2005 by sookster

[monet]

In the bottle this is lovely. I cannot wait to put it on. Could this really be like Snake Charmer like some people have said?? That would be fantastic. But not to be. On me it's a whole different story. At first it is nice like in the bottle. Then very quickly as it dries I get the smell of pencil shavings. After a bit I smell like diaper rash ointment then it turns to dirty diapers. What a bummer. Off to the shower for me.