Midnight Mass

[maribouquet]

... This perfume is a traditional Roman Catholic sacramental incense, most often used during a Solemn Mass. Traditionally, five tears of this incense, each encased individually in wax that has been fashioned into the shape of a nail, are inserted into the paschal candle. This is, of course, represents the Five Wounds of Our Risen Savior. Symbolically, the burning of the incense signifies spiritual fervor, the fragrance itself inspires virtue, and the rising smoke carries our prayers to God.

imp & wet: strong resin
dry: something sweet and waxy emerges

This reminds me of playing in the undercroft at my childhood church. It is a comforting yet slightly intimidating scent.

ETA: The further drydown is magnificent. The sweet note that was verging on sickly has fallen back to reveal more of the myrrh and something woody and nearly cedar-like. Mmm, I like this a lot & will keep my bottle.

[maijasu]

This is a surprise winner for me. I don't usually gravitate toward incense scents, but this is just perfect, smoky but clean (if that makes any sense at all) and slightly woodsy. I'll definitely keep my decant and consider a bottle.

[valentina]

Midnight Mass is exactly what the description states that it is -- it's a classic sacremental incense smell, with maybe a hint of pine or juniper. It evokes perfectly the scent of incense burning in a church on Christmas Eve, and the fragrance of the incense comingles with the scent of the greenery decorating the church. I love incense, and to me it's a classic dark, contemplative, quiet, calming scent. I am planning to put this scent on when I meditate, because the long, deep, dark nights of December are a time of deep contemplation and this scent alone helps take me to a quieter place.

 

(I'm reviewing the 2006 release of this scent.)

[talula_fairie]

In the bottle: heavy incense and wood

 

On my skin: Strong pine and cedar with incense. Makes my eyes burn a little. This baby has some throw! I often found Penitence to be too strong for me and this is WAY too strong. It mellows quite a bit in the drydown, but still isn't a perfume I'd like to wear. It would be nice for a room scent, and anyone who loves resins and incense is going to LOVE this.

[Em-]

The 2005 version of Midnight Mass was the scent that changed my entire view of incense blends - this is a sweet, soft comforting incense, the incense of hope and life. I really like this.

[Gale]

This review is for 2006.

 

Wet: Incense! I can smell patchouli and frankincense above all.

 

Dry: Oh beating heart be still. This is so incredible (here I go with the adjectives, again!) It's a beautiful, warm, soft, dry incense. Gorgeous. No single note predominates--it's so perfectly and seamlessly blended.

 

This joins Al-Azif as a favorite incense blend, and I think I'm going to need another bottle.....sigh.

[medvssa]

Midnight Mass (another one I have been wanting to try for a long time!) is very deep incense in the imp, well, what did I expect! On, it is a warm, a little dark, blend of resins and woods. It is... very serious, somehow. It is very, very good, and those incense sticks feel like a parody of this, a very bad imitation. It is, just perfect, although it certainly seems more fitting for room scent than for perfume (and weird that I say that) but what a room scent! Amazing.

[flyingpizza]

Ooh, I really really like this, but it goes away so quickly! Perhaps I will try it again and SLATHER it and see what happens.

 

The olfactory memory is truly astounding: sitting in St. Joesphat's Church in Philadelphia listening to a Polish/Latin mass while dozing on my Grandma's shoulder. Yummy, yummy church incense. So soothing and and quiet.

[PurringPulsar]

Midnight Mass 06

 

In the imp: mmm, the same, gorgeous, resinous frank n' myrrh based incense as last year's.

Wet on skin: mmm, here comes the myrrh, lovely and rich, with the golden, sharper frankincense.

Dry on skin: beautiful stuff. This is almost identical to last year's when it was fresh. Gorgeous frankincense and myrrh with some other resins, but here I think I can smell woods too, maybe red sandalwood and rosewood. Possibly some rose as well? It reminds me of All Souls without the sugary cake. Maybe a little bit more myrrh than last time.

After a while: the myrrh becomes honeyed and greenish-gold and rich. It reminds me of the myrrh in Anubis, there could be some balsam fir here too (I got this impression with fresh MM05), and at times the myrrh is like the one in Great Cry in Egypt. I also get a definite deep wooden note at the back, either a rich sandalwood like the one in Anne Bonny, or a cedar note. It's deep and dark and lovely. It's very much like the 05 version, but a bit more woody-it leans towards resembling Cathedral.

The drydown at the end is a soft, muted, powdery wood and a hint of sweet resin, maybe amber. It makes me think of the ashes of incense after they've burnt fully and the scent just lingers gently.

Verdict: this reminds me of what MM05 smelt like when fresh-wearing them side by side, it seems the 05 version has become smokier and more 'smouldering' in scent with a hint of something almost peppery to it. One of the myrrh notes has come out a lot more, the frankincense has developed a more piquant quality to it and there seems to be a rosy note at the base. MM06 on the other hand is drier, smoother, less 'spicy', with a stronger woodsy backing, with a softer, deeper myrrh note, almost along similar lines to All Souls and Cathedral. It's like there's a soft, gently ashy fragrant wood like sandalwood or cedar wood to this. It's similar to 05 but has it's own character to it, which makes it worth another bottle purchase.

Emoticon rating:

Is it a keeper? Yes, I'm getting a bottle because both 05 and 06 are gorgeous for their own merits and I'm a big incense/resins whore anyway!

If you like this, try: Midnight Mass 05, All Souls, Cathedral, Penitence, Anubis, Pit and the Pendulum, Haloa, Aureus

[azhure]

In the vial: Incense!

Wet: This has a very bitter phase when I first put it on. It's actually quite faint on me, with little throw.

Drydown: Soft incense. And then a headache. Oh dear.

[keltic]

i have this thing about incense. especially high church expensive incense. it’s a scent-memory woven in there, along with too many a year as an acolyte, sacristan. i used to love going home from high mass with the smell of the incense still lingering in my hair. i’d feel seductive and sexy all day and night as the faint cloud of the incense floated around me. “if they could just make this a perfume!” i would say as i would shove my nose into the tin of extra fine blend. . .

 

alas, i have yet to have it in oil form work on my skin. in the imp, this is perfection – incense without the coal smoke. but on my skin, it turns acrid, losing it’s sweetness, and then rancid.

 

i fear my true heathen nature as i posed all those years as a solemn, dutiful believer has been found out, and this is some kind of punishment. i guess one shouldn't feel sexy and naughty when smelling like church. . . .

[urbanruralferal]

I got the opportunity to try this at a friend's, and at first, I was sad I hadn't ordered any. It was such lovely incense, without turning under to the waxy sandalwood that hates my skin. I was in heaven, or at least kneeling before the altar, but I think I got lost in dreams cause when I cam back to, it was gone. Completely gone!

I would order some right now but for it's short-lived quality. Oh well.

[Poenari]

It evokes perfectly the scent of incense burning in a church on Christmas Eve, and the fragrance of the incense comingles with the scent of the greenery decorating the church.

 

Someone on another thread was asking if a scent smelled like Catholic church incense, and I responded that it had been too many years since I was at Mass to really remember that scent. (I know, I'm in trouble )

 

But I just received my order of Midnight Mass 2006, and that memory rushed back into my brain! valentina's description captures it perfectly! This smells exactly like the Catholic church where I grew up and spent so many Catholic school girl days!

[phedre]

In vial: sweet frankincense and resins

 

wet: pure incense. it's quite nice!

 

Drydown: sweet, lovely, and pure. I'm an incense fanatic and this is just wonderful!

[baranoouji]

Midnight Mass is less woody and more sweet than Cathedral, but not foody sweet like All Soul's.

[asciident]

I have a wee partial imp of this (edit: I have the 2006 version!).

 

Wet: Gentle, smoky Church incense.

 

First on: Warm cedar, frankincense, and myrrh. Maybe a touch of rose or something else floral.

 

Dry: Smoky but calming. It's gotten a little woodier, but it's warm and comforting, with a resinous background.

 

My next imp pack from the Lab will have Cathedral for sure, since it's supposed to be quite similar!

Edited February 16, 2007 by Melissa Della

[dawndie]

This is a 2005 bottle.

 

In bottle: sharp perfumey alcohol

 

On skin: lots of sticky thick resins

 

Half-hour later: not much change, other than a smoky incense appearing that melds with the resins

 

In conclusion: this is a favorite incense blend of mine, without being too hippie head-shoppy. Others mention Cathedral which ended up pencil-shaving woody on me, while this stays true to the description. Serene and beautiful!

[lightgatherer]

(This is the 2006 version.)

 

Yup, that's incense. This isn't a floral incense - it's very resiny with perhaps a suggestion of fruit. This is nice, and it works well on me, but there's nothing that really separates it from other incense blends that also work well on me. I'll be keeping my imp, but I don't think I'll be needing more.

[argylexsoul]

Wonderful. My ultimate resin blend. Beautiful mix of churchy resins with a woodsy drydown that reminds me of Miskatonic University (without the coffee of course.)

[eleventhousand]

Brown, waxy, and overly sweet...not entirely unlike a Tootsie Roll.

[vylit]

This scent is beautiful.

 

Wet it smells strongly of resin and wood. It's like church in that there's the smell of candles and incense and the wood from the pews.

 

Once it dries, the smoke and incense is still there, but it seems more... herbal as well. It reminds me a little of a new age store and a little of church. Gorgeous.

[Browneyes]

Midnight Mass 2005

 

Bottle: Why does my nose smell Strangler Fig from this? I do a side by side comparison, and they are different after all, but there is something about the sweet woodiness of MM that reminds me of Strangler Fig.

Wet: Still sweet woods, but developing a smoky-incensy edge. Very nice at this point, but not at all what I am expecting.

Dry: More incense, more smokiness, and yet still those sweet woods/resins, which give an almost fruity impression. Very different from other resin/incense blends that I have tried so far, so I quite like that this is so individual. It does smell very beautiful, very holy. But it is really different from what I was expecting, and different from my church memories as well.

I'll be keeping the bottle though, and getting myself more aquainted with it!

[Naamah_Darling]

In the bottle, a sweet and hazy pure incense in crystalline form. On, it's redolent of frankincense, myrrh, and a lick of sweet wood – pine, perhaps, or cedar. It's a thick, soft scent, not too heavy, and without too much throw. As lovely as it is on my skin, I'm thinking this would probably be even more beautiful as a room scent.

 

As it dries, this becomes very woody and smooth, not very much like incense at all. I like it, but I don't think it's a big-bottle purchase. What I wanted from this was basically more Jacob's Ladder, and in retrospect, that is pretty silly.

[LadyCrow]

In the imp: Fresh, bright resins -- a cleaner smell than I would have expected from the dark brown oil.

 

Wet: Frankincense, myrrh, and oh, bloody hell. This may have to go to swaps, because there's juuust enough of something coniferous to sting my skin and eyes a bit. In fact, maybe that's what was giving it that clean smell in the imp.

 

Drydown: Here's another oil, like Aureus, that's difficult to call "dry" because it lies stickily on top of my skin for a relatively long time. I get a real depth, and a different kind of wood, like the wood of pews. Not having been raised in a churchy tradition, I don't have the scent memories of Yule and incense and whatnot that everybody else has, but I can definitely see where this would evoke an ecclesiastical setting with... unfortunately for me, greenery. Okay, I'm running for the soap and adding this to my swap pile, but I must make clear that that's just MY allergy; if you can pass by a conifer without sneezing, and you're an incense fan, you'll love what seems to be a beautifully-blended scent.

[Trish]

I knew I needed Midnight Mass when I first read about it soon after I discovered Bpal - I'm not Catholic but I adore incense, resins and old churches. Unfortunately I then missed last year's version due to moving and being offline. Since then I've been trying to get my hands on some, but kept missing out as it never seemed to come up when I had the money or if I did someone else got in before me. But now thanks to Chaos the Crazy I have a bottle (2006) in my hot little hands! And I'm almost scared to try it in case it doesn't live up to my expectations.

 

In the bottle: Omigod. Sweet woody incense, and exactly how I hoped it would! This has allayed my fears that it would be too like Cathedral for me (it was just way too much fresh cedar for me). This is a keeper already since if it doesn't work on my skin I will definitely wear it in my scent locket.

 

Wet: A little sharper and less sweet than in the bottle, but otherwise very similiar.

 

Drydown: The cedar is becoming a little sharper, but nowhere near Cathedral's level. It's much softer and smoother. There's also definite myrrh here and some frankincense as well. Maybe some sandalwood too. Warm and dry, calming and soothing. It's gaining some good throw too, which is very true to the skin scent.

 

Dry: Oh God. This is everything I hoped it would be. The frankincense has really starting to make it's presence felt, reminding me of Penitance (which I like a lot) but it's more complex than it. I can detect the cedar - which has softened -, sandalwood and myrrh too, but it's far better just enjoying the scent as a whole rather than trying to pick out individual notes.

 

After 45 minutes or so the myrrh takes it's turn on centre stage. Sometimes myrrh can be a bit bitter on me and this is slightly so, but only when I put my nose right up to my wrist thankfully. The throw has subdued a little but it's still softly wafting around me, and whereas myrrh is definitely dominant on my wrist the throw is more cedar and frankincense which makes me able to ignore that slight bitterness on my skin. In any case after another 30 minutes or so the bitterness starts to fade.

 

Finally after 2 hours it has turned into a deep warm semi-sweet resin. All the bitterness has gone, and the frankincense is mingling with the myrrh perfectly. It's fading, but it's still definitely there (and I didn't put that much on to start with) so I think this will have average last on me.

 

 

Lately I've found a number of Bpal incense blends that I've fallen for, and this is another to add to the list! In fact this may be my favourite of all the incenses since this has more noticeable frankincense than the others. I'm really hoping it reappears this Christmas!