Yew-Trees

[SarahScent44]

Piercingly sweet berries over evergreen boughs, deepened by the tree’s sacred wood.

In the imp, all I get is pine cleaner.

On my skin: woooo yeah - cleaner. It reminds me of my mom cleaning her linoleum floor. Which is a nice thought, but not necessarily a scent I want to carry around on my wrists with me.

And thirty minutes later ... it's gone. Not meant for me, obviously.

[Magpie]

I love this scent.

 

It's weird, I got it as a freebie and tried it on, not really expecting to like it (I'm very much a floral or fruity girl), but I didn't want another piney scent as I'd recently got Robin Goodfellow. I didn't get pine from it particularly, but wood - not veneered, polished wood, as I got in Anne Bonny and Crowley, but tree trunks and branches. There was a dark green smell like pine needles (though I wouldn't necessarily call that comparable to a typical 'pine fresh' scent) and earth.

 

In the imp, I disliked this, smelling it as acrid, but I got an after-whiff of that beautiful, evocative scent, and I tried it on on the offchance. Luckily, this was what really came out on me and it was subtle and warm, while still interesting and unique. It's really not like anything else I've smelled, which I like. The drydown only became warmer and more complicated.

 

There wasn't much of a throw, but that was OK. I somehow don't really think I want this to be smellable from across the room. It's a private scent.

[ravenfeathers]

in the bottle holy astringency, batman. my eyes are watering. that said, it's kind of a nice scent, if a little menthol-y.

wet on skin it remains astringent, but there's a certain sweet appeal to it. it's not soft and cool like old moon, but dark and sharp and a little... suspicious. isn't that odd? i feel like it's glaring at me.

dry on skin it sweetens more as it dries, drowning out some of the sharp menthol note. it remains dark and chilly and sharp. it's extremely evocative and a wonderful scent for the darkest days of winter. not a bottle purchase, mostly because i've got old moon which i find a bit kinder, but i will absolutely use my imp.

[Torrain]

In bottle: dim and sharp and faintly sweet. On my skin: oh god. It smells like the paint thinner my dad used to use painting miniature soldiers. I am not going to cry.

 

5 min: woody with an acerbic sweetness, if that makes any sense.

 

15 min: sweet and somewhat dusty. It's a pale packed sort of sweetness, almost powdery—like vanilla sugar would smell on me if it went all dusty the way the chocolate note does.

 

30 min: fading pretty fast. Pale and sweet. I can't pick out any wood.

 

45 min: Faint, smells the same.

 

1 hr: Did I mention faint?

 

It's an okay sweet smell, but I think I'd need to slather to get it, and I'm really kind of disappointed that I didn't get any of the lovely sharp or dark notes that were there for the first five minutes—this barely even has the body to be called vanilla. Plus the mental associations with the way the oil smells in the imp are just a little rough on me.

 

A/y, it continues this way for hours. Passed it on to a friend.

 

Love and coffee,

Frances

[Jishin]

I am utterly baffled at my skin chemistry.

 

This does smell like evergreens ... but evergreens that are hidden underneath pineapple and coconut! What the heck? I smell like ninja evergreens are trying to sneak into Hawaii.

 

Bizzare!

[oakmoss]

I got my bottle of Yew Trees when it first came out, but it hasn't really been in rotation among my favorite oils for a while, so it was nice to pull it out again when I was looking for something greenish to honor Brigid on her day. Maybe it softens with age, but I don't get the blast of pine-pine-pine that so many others have reported. To me, pine is a much brighter, more piercing scent than this, which is soft and deeply green, very much a scent of sacred woods, as the description says. This is a Druid perfume, evocative of moist ancient forests and trees that are portals between the worlds. It doesn't last long and doesn't have much throw -- I'm wondering if maybe some of the reviewers got too strong a pine-type blast because they slathered? Dabbed on delicately, this blend is quite beautiful. If you miss Dublin, give Yew Trees a try.

[xoe]

I got my bottle of Yew Trees on Ebay.

In the bottle it is a bit sharp evergreen adn kind of citrussy ... i guess that is the berries.

Wet on my skin at first still kind of sharp, goes through a very brief pine sol stage.

Dries beautifully. Woody. Creamy. Citrussy/berries. Evergreen.

Enervating and comforting at the same time. (eta: ha ha. not ENERVATING. I meant INVIGORATING. Not sure where that came from.)

Edited February 20, 2008 by xoe

[gchris]

In Vial: sweet, green like the smell of pine trees

 

Wet: I think I smell eucalyptus or maybe it is pine and something a little vanilla-y that reminds me of tree sap. I smell something that reminds me of the base smell of chapstick, maybe that is the 'sacred wood', it's not bad. This is the smell of trees that are very much green and alive.

 

Drydown: This has turned into a mild green scent. It is cool because of the eucalyptus and pine too, but the vanilla note warms it. It reminds me of pine trees in the winter time. This is a nice winter scent. It has a hint of sweetness also that balances the rest of the notes. Nice.

[CrazyPretzel]

There's something really weird going on here. I've tried a number of forest scents from BPAL and this just doesn't smell like any of them. I don't really detect pine or berries; what I'm mostly getting is....

 

.......antifreeze?

 

Or maybe it's the pineapple and coconuts that Jishin mentioned. It's sweet and weirdly fake and plasticky smelling. I guess this does not constitute a success.

 

Oh well, win some, lose some.

[GingerGunlock]

When I originally got this imp, it was very pine and very juniper to my nose. Juniper I like, but the pine was mega-amped by my skin and kind of made my eyes water. Since then (about five months?) it seems to have mellowed out and become a bit more like pine sap and less like juniper, and has never been "woody" at all for me.

[blktauna]

I am utterly baffled at my skin chemistry.

 

This does smell like evergreens ... but evergreens that are hidden underneath pineapple and coconut! What the heck? I smell like ninja evergreens are trying to sneak into Hawaii.

 

Bizzare!

 

LOL!

 

This was minty fresh pine in the vial and on first application. As it dried down it faded very quickly and went straight to Hawaiian Tropic suntan oil.

 

Bizarre.

[iheartbooks]

All I'm getting is sweet powdery pine sap. The sap smell is more pronounced in the imp, and goes powdery on my skin. I love berry and pine but unfortunately my skin chemistry does not like Yew Trees.

[zankoku_zen]

There is something here that does not agree with my skin. I did get a very strong wood note from this --- but also that makes me think that there are juniper berries in this. I get that gin-kinda smell but its combined with something else. This is a very strong wood scent on me, and I don't think I like it.

[penemuel]

Another lab frimp, although unlike Pele this is one I would have bought myself, eventually.

 

In the imp it's a lovely sharp, cold pine -- intense and powerful and stimulating

 

On my skin it sweetens up quickly - might be the berries, but it's very Juniper-y, too. Reminds me of the huge Juniper we had at the corner of the house that would scrape against the windows and freak me out at night It's going through a bit of a room freshener phase, but if I had room fresheners that actually smelled like this, I would use them!

 

All in all, I usually like my pine scents a little more spicy/woody/smokey than this, but this is a lovely scent anyway. I don't think I'd get a bottle, but I see more imps in my future

[savage_rose]

Whew, glad I'm not the only one getting coconut! I just checked the notes before posting and I was baffled by that.

 

Anyway, that's the prominent...coconut with an undercurrent of woodsiness, and something sharply ozoney. This is an amazing, strange blend. It reminds of Red Lantern, and I love it!

[lainevierge]

I got this as a frimp with my last order and I never would have chosen it on my own. My mom always said that yew trees smelled like cat pee, and while that's not really the case with this blend, it is doing the medicinal thing oakmoss usually does on me.

 

Off to swaps...

[Czarina]

Lab frimp.

 

In the imp: evergreen.

Wet: evergreen.

Drydown: evergreen with a heavy overlay of sugar.

 

Sorry, this just doesn't seem like that complex a scent to me. Although I like sweet evergreens, don't get me wrong.

[alicia_stardust]

This is deep, dark, and evergreen. It has a dark forest green and blue color-sense to it. There's something that's a bit coconutty and possibly damp in there. It almost seems juniper-like and woodsy as well, but only as an accent. It's still mostly evergreen forest without smelling like a Christmas tree. There's something more mysterious and dark about this.

[djsiberia]

in the imp: very herbal, fruity and pine

 

i can't bring myself to try something with pine - it always turns into pine cleaner.

[Dracoo9]

Pine usually does odd things on me (I dont even get a cleaner scent or anything close to pine) and this time was no different. This soon became a vanilla scent on me that was a bit pleasant before this plasticyness came into being then turned into what Zarita the Doll girl did- a horrid thing of floral plastic that was giving me a headache. Yew, away with you!

[lilirose]

OMG. Love.

 

Sweetness and wood. Clearly not pine wood but yew, which to my nose is much less sharp than pine. There's a sweet, fruity (but inedible) top note.

 

I also get a light coconut note like others have mentioned, but it doesn't put me off in the slightest.

 

This scent captures the immense magical power of the yew tree perfectly. This is, by far, my favourite woody BPAL so far, and I'll be getting a 5ml with my next order.

Edited May 25, 2008 by lilirose

[Indigo78]

Absolute PARSLEY in the imp. The first BPAL I have smelled like this. For the record, Parsley isn't gross - it actually smells ver fresh and nearly piney. But it is probably one of the last herbaceous notes I would expect from this. As if the Parsley weren't weird enough, after about ten minutes on my skin this becomes a sweet, crisp Vanilla which isn't a far cry from what I get in my beloved Black Opal.

 

As someone else mentioned, very magical. It's the most dramatic morpher ever, and I the scent it becomes on my skin.

[tinyvulture]

if you missed out on hexennacht ’08, i’d recommend yew trees as a GC equivalent. this is a soft, powdery pine. there’s a sweet note, but nothing fruity. personally, i’m not smelling any berries. it’s more like a dusting of powdered sugar. there’s also something fizzy and hoppy, like beer. like drinking a beer out in the woods. i like it, but i’ve got a bottle of the hex so i’m all set for pine, for now.

[Coldfire]

Imp: Woodsy & green and PINE! Shine!

Wet on me: Lovely, evergreen. pine. This

so smells like winter to me.

Drying Down: Still lovely crisp evergreen but

wait? Do I detect an underlying sweetness? berries? Mint?

Oh my!

Dry: Christmas/Yule. Sweety snowy evergreens

in the woods. HUZZAH! This is the lurve! Must have bottle!

[GeorgeJr]

Got this as a frimp from the lab ( thanks lab ! ) . This one is very different , isn't it ? On one hand it is very woody , but it is much like a hard , polished wood . Not soft at all . Shiny . And there is just a bit of herb like note there too , I'll assume that's the berries . It's rather sweet this one . I'm not really getting a pine vibe from it at all . Wood yes , pine not so much . As compared to say Black Forest . Now that is some serious pine . But this is quite pleasant in it's way . Not much for hot weather I'd say , which is good as it's supposed to finally cool down here tonight . It'll be good to wear while cuddling with my snooky later this evening .