Scarecrow

[Rheliwen]

An agricultural gargoyle. Though he is the Guardian of the Crops and Keeper of the Fields, his visage is still the stuff of nightmares. The scent of a hot wind blowing through desolate, scorched, barren fields.

This is one of the BPAL blends where the description is dead on. Scarcrow from start to finish was like standing in a scorched desert with the hot, hot air, whipping around your face. It had a lot of oomph to it...so much so that I started to get a bit light headed and needed to wipe some off.

I'm just so blown away by the imagery I get from this. Scarecrow is temperture hot, golden fiery amber color, and scorched and dry all at the same time. It doesn't smell like earth, or dead brush..nothing like that...it's more the emotion you feel when you are in the middle of the desert, stranded, no water or shelter, the air whipping all around and the sun beating down on your burnt skin. It's the panic you feel, the powerlessness of your situation.

While Scarecrow is definitely the most visual BPAL blend I've ever tried, it was a little much for me. I really loved it at first, but the "hotness" of it, really just got to be too much in the end.

[regyt]

Wet: Dry and bitter and actually started to give me a headache.

 

On me: It got sweeter as it dried, but never too sweet, and the headache went away, and suddenly I realized what it reminded me of - going apple-picking in the early fall. Green apples, definitely. This is lovely.

[HappyLoveJoy]

Scarecrow There's something that reminds me of fruit-scented finger nail polish remover. I can picture it being poured over dry straw and set afire. The fruit I think I'm detecting is like a green apple. It becomes lighter, soapier and fresher. Like someone's laundry being dried in the dryer and the scent randomly finding your nose like finding a needle in a haystack. A sweet breeze on a golden hot day with a little earthiness in a good way.

[EvilKitten]

Wow. It smells like hay.. like a hayloft in the summer heat in the south.. like my aunt's stables.

 

I want this on a man, and now.

[sheepzeit]

I wanted very much to like this one, but on me - from start to finish - all I got was the acrid chemical smell of wet nailpolish. I was so intrigued by the images that people here were bringing up when they reviewed it, but I guess my chemistry just doesn't agree with it.

 

It's a shame, because I still have a savage, yellow image in my head of what I wanted it to smell like on me. Very much like the crop duster scene in Hitchcock's North By Northwest!

[kythryne]

I'm fascinated by this scent. I put a tiny bit on the back of my hand to test it, and I keep stopping to sniff it over and over again. Every so often I catch a tiny bit of it as I work, too.

 

My first thought was that this doesn't smell at all like summer to me, because I grew up in Florida and to me, summer = hot and wet. But then I remembered the summer when there was a terrible drought and wildfires every week or so, and was stunned by how vividly this scent sums up that sort of feeling.

 

I can not describe the notes in this at all. It just smells hot and dry and slightly uneasy to me. I don't think I can bear to wear it very often because of the memories it calls up, but I'm hanging on to the imp because I know I WILL wear it every now and then.

[tinyvulture]

in the vial this smells like some kind of furniture cleaner. as it dries, it smells exactly like polo cologne. a clean, masculine scent. after about 1/2 hour, it's like laying on dry grass on a scorching hot summer day.

Edited April 21, 2005 by tinyvulture

[erehwesle]

I have a 5 mil of this, that I bought becuase I liked the imp enough. And I am strange.

 

Scarecrow starts out as burnt cinamon scent, and ends up smelling on me, like wet straw. but with a hint of cloves, and charcoal. I will say it smells sweeter in a 5ml than in an imp, for some reason, but can be almost cloying.

 

Scarecrow always to me smells a bit burnt and charred, and that works, with the strange sweet smell it has, sometimes I do want to smell, well, a bit fieldish or fiendish. I don't want to overemphasize the charred and burnt. It is subtule. Scarecrow is a hard scent to describe, and is why I like it. This is a scent I'd actually, if you even can tolerate an imp, I'd suggest a 5ml of it, as it is hard to understand in an imp.

 

Well, I wear it when I feel very, very, ambivelent.

 

OK, this review is done. turn off the cameras. stop taking notes....

 

*oh tons of changes*

Edited March 19, 2005 by erehwesle

[enigmae]

Scarecrow is one interesting blend. It started out with the nail polish scent others have mentioned, with an almost watery quality. Not bad though. Then it turned into green apples (nice) and then became more floral. And then BAM - the grass and hay scent completely took over. And I like that. The more "nature-y" the scent, the better.

 

With time it dries down and becomes a little more perfumey, and there is a hint of something I recognize from Follow Me Boy. FMB didn't work on me at all, but this does so I'm intrigued by the similary between them.

 

This is something I like to smell, but I'm not sure if I want to smell like it. I'll be pondering that before I give it a final verdict.

Edited March 22, 2005 by enigmae

[amrita]

Wet, I get fresh grass, musk(?), light white appley flowers, like chamomile... warm sunlight. I really like this!

 

Within about 5 minutes, it loses this fresh greenness and the masculine smell (a light musk?) really comes out, along with the fragrance of warm fields. At this point I can't tell if it's too masculine for me or not. I still really like it. I do understand where people get nailpolish remover, but it's not strong.

 

Ten minutes later, nailpolish remover has taken over!

 

I washed it off my arms and tried to wipe it off my neck, but four hours later the acetone fragrance lingers. Weird as hell.

 

I loved the initial grass note before it evaporated!

[requieminblack]

First sniff from the bottle- I smell olive juice and lime so there must be oakmoss in this.

 

After 10 minutes- This has some of the same notes as Jolly Rodger and Bayou. It must be cypress and oakmoss...and the same dead dry leaf note as in Hunter Moon and Samhain.

 

After 30 minutes- Dead leaves and old tree moss. This is very masculine.

 

Summery- No go. Too dry and masculine for me.

[wickedgoddess]

Wet, it smells golden. As it begins to dry, I get smoke. Delicious smoky fields. I worry about my allergies, but I only get a light twinge of a headache and then it goes away. The smoke is coming out stronger. I think I really like this one. But then it starts to fade, not as fast as Sudha Sigara, but still much too soon. Off to reapply....

 

Second application, much the same, although I did catch a quick whiff of green when wet, that quickly faded. Not a strong scent at all, but different and pretty and I can still smell a bit on my wrist 12 hours later.

 

On the wickedgoddess 5 point scale (5 being the best) I give this a 3 .

[anmorata]

Scarecrow:

Wet: Oddly, this is very sweet. It almost smells like freshly baled hay in the summertime.

Drydown: Still maintains the same scent as when wet, but it almost becomes a little bit soapy. I don't get the scorched/burned smell out of this at all. It's just a very light, earthy scent.

Long-term wear: Not for me. After about an hour. Scarecrow morphs into a scent that's vaguely reminiscent of Calvin Klein's Obsession, which has far too many painful memories associated with it.

[loveandprozak]

A friend of mine had sent me Scarecrow some time ago, and after three minutes I was scrubbing it off my skin madly. I talked to him later, and he said that it was a typical reaction, but it got really good if you waited, so I decided to give it another go:

 

In the bottle: This smells like mostly an herbacous, slightly sharp, slightly sweet smell.

 

Wet: Ah yes, this is what I remember quite well. There's something that becomes very strong and harsh on my skin.. it smells almost dusty.

 

10 minutes: Well, the really unpleasant dustiness did fade. In its place it smells distinctly like... Carress brand soap. I actually find this scent quite pleasant, even if it isn't something I'd actively search out.

 

30 minutes all the way until dry down: First of all, this scent lasts a long time on me. A LONG time. It's been over 12 hours since I put it on, and I can smell it quite easily still. The sweet-soapy fragrance has faded, and in its place is a dry, slightly herbal -clean smell. I really am not good at discerning this type of note, but I imagine if you looked at the notes in a clean-smelling gentleman's fougere (I *KNOW* I've smelled similar notes in Chaleur D'Animale Pour Homme, for instance,) you'd have a good clue of what was in it.

 

Overall, after the first ten minutes I would say this a very nice, somewhat masculine scent, even if it really isn't anything I'd ever choose to wear. On the right person, it would definitely work quite well, however. I want to say that this is, conceptually speaking, the more masculine counterpart to Rochas' Mystere.

[shadowsong]

this smells exactly like the "alpine cedar" incense i used to have, even down to the headache i get if i try to smell it too closely. i like this smell enough to ignore the headache, though.

[blu°]

wet: yes to the nail polish remover and lacqueur associations.

 

drying: dry, grassy, woodsy, masculine, cologney, dusty, slightly sweet... I now know what that smell was, that I was smelling yesterday evening sitting hunched over my keyboard. I kept getting whiffs of something without being able to neither localize its source nor origin. I never would have thought it could have been the Scarecrow that I had accidentally spilled on my keyboard after a quick first sniff a week ago. But what I smelled yesterday is exactly what I am smelling now as Scarecrow has dried down a bit. (note: staying power on keyboard is amazingly good)

 

There is a strange sweet dusty note in it, which I think to recognize from Brimstone and The Coiled Serpent, and it does remember me of some shampoo or soap as well. I have been constantly re-sniffing my wrists ever since I applied this, so I could say, I'm pretty much intrigued by it. This is a truely fascinating scent. And yes, my boy lover will have to try this, I'll insist.

[UltraViolet]

~Scarecrow~

 

In the bottle

Fresh floral

 

On

This smells like a light, green, floral, over the counter, expensive, "commercial" perfume. But ...again, there is some note in there that does not play well with my chemistry. It's an acrid sort of animalistic or leathery note way underneath.

 

Throw:

medium

 

Scent category:

Floral/green

 

Summary

If it wasn't for this one mystery note, this would be a 4 star scent in my opion.

 

Purchase again?

No.

 

1-5 rating (5 being best).

2

[olympia301]

This was totally did not work on me. It started out smelling just like nail polish remover and dried down to a volatile, sulky fog. It had to be one of the most clear cut cases of hate at first sight between Scarecrow and me. I did trade it away. I hope the person who got it had a far different experience than I did. The ingredients sounded so very good.

 

The icon is actually a portrait I did of a friend's ex-husband. There was a hideously acrimonious divorce and she commissioned me to do that portrait so that she could attach it to a Straw Man at Halloween and burn it. So, in a way it was part of a scarecrow for a brief time, and I thought it looked pretty scary.

[pekeana]

Scarecrow is the scent of Kansas prairie in August, after the droughts hit, and during wildfire and dust devil season.

 

Unfortunately, this doesn't have pleasant associations in my brain, so the Scarecrow must go bye-bye.

[magikfanfic]

In the bottle: It...I don't know what it smells like, but it did automatically take me back to my childhood. We lived next to these people who rented an apartment in their house to a archetecture student. His models and glue and paint smelled like this. It's nothing I think I'd ever want to wear, though.

 

Wet: Cleaner. It smells like cleaner and industrial strength chemicals to me with a throw that's slightly less industrial and more...I don't know...a wet field. I kinda spilled this all over my desk so the scent is pretty much everywhere. I'm really not a fan.

 

Dry down: It smells a little more...I don't know. I was never really in fields much. It is very masculine, though, and I can see why the boy likes it. To me and on me, it smells like cleaning products.

 

Dry: Calmer now. An outdoor smell with the slightly harsh chemical cleanser in the back.

[Little Bird]

When this was still wet, it reminded me of the seasons... near the end of summer as you're starting to head into fall... it's like green grasses mixed in with a few that have already started to wither and die. It made me think of a field behind my house in Missouri when I was growing up... you can smell the grasses, a bit of dying plant life, and earth. I liked this.

 

Then... it starts to smell like a man's cologne. I don't know what it is, but it very much reminds me of the married man that often gets drunk and hits on me at parties that my family goes to. He's a friend of the family. He's a serious pervert. This is his cologne.

 

For that reason, I cannot seem to like this. The boy wanted so much to wear this and I just couldn't let him because of what I associate the smell with... very creepy... would be a great masculine scent if I weren't already turned off from it.

[Abbie]

In the imp: This is a hot smell. I can pick up Eucalyptus, or maybe pine? Some sort of resinous tree, definitely. And old-fashioned men's shaving soap. This is a very masculine fragrance to me.

 

First on: Okay, is it wrong to find my own smell unspeakably sexy? Because that is how I feel when I put this on. I am totally going to apply this to the bf and rip his clothes off. Ahem. Maybe I was wrong about the eucalyptus, since now I'm not picking up any particular scents. This fragrance is all man. Cowboy man. Actually it reminds me of an ex-lover, all tobacco and sunshine and engine oil and drugstore aftershave. I probably shouldn't mention this to the current bf when I ask him to wear it.

 

Dry: It softens a little but remains much the same.

 

Overall: Yee-hah! This is one of my favorites so far. Definitely a big-bottle choice.

[slugbait]

Sharp hay smell out of the imp, almost like gasoline for a few seconds. On the skin it retains it’s sharpness for awhile. As it dries, it smells like clean, sweet hay. Smells like a hay ride! It’s still going strong, but develops masculine undertones. One of the notes is very similar to Niflheim, the weedy one. Dry this still smells like sweet, clean hay, but it gets warmer. Maybe that’s the scorching wind bit. Scarecrow lasted several hours on me, I like an oil with stamina

 

I really liked this one on me, but I think this would smell fabulous on boys as well. It would be great for autumn, strolling through the leaves and such. I want to test this on my boy and see how it fares on him.

Edited July 7, 2005 by slugbait

[sookster]

good golly!! initial smell when wet on skin is nail polish !!?!?!?!?!

 

ok, now that is has calmed down "considerably" it reminds me of something my grandma used to wear when i was a child......maybe her soap

 

nonetheless, it has dried down and it smells quite womanly to me; all florals and soapy....i can't even imagine a man wearing this scent but you all know how chemistry goes....

 

all said and done, i think i need to give scarecrow a few more chances to see what might develop...esp, for the upcoming fall season

[Caltha]

Scarecrow

 

At first, there's a sharp, poisonous, almost burnt smell, but also something of ripe fields, metal and rubber. As it dries, the artificial, sharp smell sweetens a bit and the smell of ripe fields gets stronger. It's a bit like the "evil twin" of a perfume I once tried that smelled of hay, hay and hay, I think it was "Summer by Kenzo".

 

Edited to add: Perhaps it's the other way around, perhaps "Summer by Kenzo" is more like the "evil twin" of Scarecrow since I recall it as a pretty true, dry single-note hay, while Scarecrow has a juicy, almost peachy, sweet note that reminds me of the musky cloying sweet fruitiness of The Hesperides on my skin. I don't get the sharp or burnt smell anymore, except maybe as a sort of "masculine" touch when I smell my skin. The throw is all ripe fields and that sweet/fruity/juicy note, and while I love that I get ripe fields out of it I'd prefer it to be more of a true and dry and less sweet single-note ripe fields. It's actually the only BPAL my girlfriend has spontaneously said she liked, but neither her nor my sister get any ripe fields or other recognizable notes out of it and my sister even said it smells "perfumey" while I think it's too strange to remind me of any ordinary perfume. I don't think I want to wear a so-so scent just because I get ripe fields out of it if nobody else does, but since my girlfriend liked it I'll either give it to her or if she doesn't want to wear it herself I'll wear it for her until my imp runs out.

 

Oh... wait... as I inhale deeply I suddenly get (vague) florals and I can see the perfumey/soapy association. Weird.

 

Edited yet again to add that I drenched myself in Scarecrow and my girlfriend didn't even notice, at least she didn't comment on it. Since it's pretty pointless to wear it for her if she doesn't notice I gave it to her instead. She's definitely not the perfume type of gal, but at least she doesn't run away screaming when I attack her with my imp wands (or make up or hairdye or skirts...) and since Scarecrow is a pretty unisex scent she could always use it in drag...[/color]

Edited September 6, 2005 by Caltha