The Jersey Devil

[Melantha]

It was about three feet and half high, with a head like a collie dog and a face like a horse. It had a long neck, wings about two feet long, and its back legs were like those of a crane, and it had horse's hooves. It walked on its back legs and held up two short front legs with paws on them. It didn't use the front legs at all while we were watching. My wife and I were scared, I tell you, but I managed to open the window and say, "Shoo", and it turned around barked at me, and flew away.

The scent of the wild, hauntingly beautiful Pine Barrens of New Jersey! Pitch pine with blackberry leaf, cranberry, cedar wood and tomato leaf.

A first review! Ummm.....

In the bottle: Oh, gorgeous! I can smell the cranberry and pine, with the warmth of tomato leaves in the sun.

Wet: The cedar comes out a little to play with the pine and cranberry, and the leaves are in the background, blowing in the breeze.

Dry: I'm not getting much morph here at all. It's a beautiful, complex scent, that reminds me of walking through a garden here in the Garden State. The blackberry gives it just a hint of sweetness, without overpowering the other notes.

I'd rate it a 4.5 out of 5. I'm going to give my bottle lots of lovin'!

ETA: It's a light blend, but with a lot of throw. Edited September 17, 2007 by clover

[The_Witching_Hour]

Let me preface this by saying that this is one of the best newer released GC blends I've tried in a long time!

 

In the bottle: I smell tomato leaf, cranberries and a little earthiness.

 

Wet: This smells just like a mixture of Mistletoe and Skadi....GORGEOUS!

 

On the dry-down: This really didn't change on the drydown and was I really happy about that! A mixture of Skadi and Mistletoe (that are as rare to come by as they are now) are all here for me to wear in a GC scent!!

 

This is a true thumbs up and will be getting a lot of usage out of me all year around!!

[copyshopclerk]

There are only a few concepts that would make me splurge on a bottle unsniffed from the general catalogue before trying an imp. This was one of them!

 

In the bottle: Cranberry above all else, tart and sweet. Under that, I can smell cedar, but not very strong.

 

Wet: Sweetness of cranberry deepens, merges with pine. I'm guessing the blackberry and tomato leaves are coming into play here but I wouldn't know what either of those smell like on their own! Cedar noticeable underneath without smelling like a cedar chest (not that strong) or pencil shavings (not bitter)

 

Dry: Nothing standing out more than anything else, just a very balanced blend. This is gorgeous and I'm so glad I got the bottle!

 

I wanted to compare this with the other woodsy scents I have (Snow Moon & Dublin). I think of the three, this is the most wearable - the other two (Snow Moon especially) evoke a strong feeling of Christmastime, and even though both Snow Moon and Dublin smell lovely they don't always seem seasonably appropriate!

 

Jersey Devil is more balanced with the cranberry and never gets too wintery-feeling.

[neverseenbleu]

in the bottle - cranberry! tart and sharp, with a hint of pine

 

wet - pine! the pine smells so green - very sharp, like being out in the woods. this is how the NJ pine barrens actually do smell. it's not a christmas tree pine - it's sharper and greener and more complex, less sweet.

 

on the dry down - it gets more complex - the cranberry comes back and I get a hint of red.

 

This is definitely a new favorite for me! I also got 5 imps of new GC scents, so I'll have to go through those soon!

[tindome]

okay, I have some of the new scents so time to break my habit of not reviewing and give it a shot.

 

imp: this smells so different than what I thought is would. Christmas and cranberries.

 

Wet: Darn within a minute it's turning all pine on me, granted it is one of the best pines I've ever smelled but the initial blast of cranberry was perfect.

 

drydown: alright here comes the tomato leaf and possibly a little wood with the pine. The tomato leaf is dead on and certainly unique I haven't smelled anything like it before (except on my tomato plants). I am still holding out hope for the cranberry.

 

dry: About an hour in suddenly the cranberry is back! even without the cranberry I would have gotten a bottle but the cranberry with it makes this one of my all time favorites.

 

Definitely on my next order.

[sarada]

I can't believe that I hold in my hands a bottle The Jersey Devil...I have long wished for such a thing. To have it finally here, and have it be so much like I imagined, is beyond description! I should have ordered a 10 ml in the brief window they were available.

 

In the bottle, this is a forest -- bright, crisp pine and cedar, just like the real thing. The dry needles underfoot, the damp branches -- it's got a hint of Mistletoe in it but all in all it seems much darker to me than the other Yule-ish woodsy blends and lacks the snowy note. Sniffing this straight from the bottle, this is the essence of the Pine Barrens.

 

As it dries I do get a lot more of the berry -- specifically cranberry and it gets quite strong at one point before fading and drying down to the dry cedar/pine scent with just a touch of reddish sweetness. I don't specifically smell tomato leaf but I think it is helping to lighten the darker woods and make those notes crest and spike in lighter shades of green.

 

I also tried this on a guy (I try to keep one around for those purposes) and it went magnificently cedary on him. The berry phase might be stronger on some people than others.

 

Living just outside the Pine Barrens and having visited them frequently throughout my life...being caught up in the mythology of this strange place...this is just a dream come true. This perfectly captures the strange, twisted woods and the fresh, dry quality that the air has there as you wander among the dwarf pines and sandy roads, past the ruins of abandoned houses.

 

This will have to be enshrined in my Top Ten, not only because it is a fragrance that I absolutely love but because it feels as though it was made especially for us Jersey folks!

[dorei]

They say you can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can't take the Jersey out of the girl. Oh how true that seems to be, now that I'm holding this lovely bottle in my hand.

 

In the bottle, I smell the campgrounds of Camp Kettle Run, where I spent many a time camping with my fellow girlscouts all those years ago. (We used to tell stories of the Jersey Devil around the campfire -- now I've got a bottle of him!)

 

Wet, dry ... it doesn't seem to morph much. I just get pine barrens. Without the stench of garbage. How lovely!

 

Thank you, Beth, for bringing me back to a part of my childhood that I'd forgotten.

[AliBabble]

hello jersey devil, my old childhood f®iend. in the imp, you smell wild, like cranberries mostly, and the pine of your homeland. on my skin, you smell like pine and cranberry cologne. you waft around powerfully for a while, but when you calm down i can smell your gentler aspects: the fresh tomato leaf, blackberry leaf and cedar. this is indeed a wild, bright and fresh outdoorsy scent, full of evergreen sap. i like it, but the cologne-y phase is a bit too strong on me, and my imp will probably be enough of this oil to last me. a great interpretation of the infamous JD.

[hologhost]

In the bottle: Hemlock and berry.

 

On me: The berry is stronger. Not a swwet berry. Very Christmas-y. I think I'll save this for later in the year.

[filigree_shadow]

This smells Christmasy to me too. I think it's the pine and cranberry combination. The tomato leaf is really strong at first -- a little too strong for my liking. I like it better after it's dry, but overall this blend is too bitter for me. Nothing against this combination because I think it's interesting, I just tend to prefer smooth comfy scents.

 

I'll give the imp to my husband and see how it works on him.

[Heavenlyrabbit]

Initially, I'd expected Jersey Devil to be a sort of novelty blend based on the notes. However, this fantastic perfume is more then the sum of its interesting and evocative parts.

 

The Pitch Pine starts out strong but the cranberry and tomato leaf manage to assert themselves. There is a lovely slightly sweet edge.

 

What a lovely outdoor perfume for fall, winter or spring.

[girliemuse]

[its my first review- only the devil could make me do it]

 

imp: oh piney. oh my brand new piney piney, actual woodsy not pine sol-y friend. it's a crisp smell, very green.

 

wet: pine, but not heavy pine. there's a sweetness behind it that i'm still trying to wrap my head around. and that cedar- not cloying, but definately there- like walking in the woods near my mother in law's house - not the barrens, but definately woodsy new jersey.

 

drydown: it's still green and sweet. the cranberries are out in full force. but the tomato leaf is there, like it's waving.

 

dry: its vaguely christmassy, but not CHRISTMASSY, if that makes sense. it's the berry pine conversation that does it. it's not cold, it's a shiny hiking kind of day.

 

when i told my sister in law i was getting a 'jersey' perfume, she asked if it was going to smell like aquanet, stale beer and rotting trash...

i know what she's getting for christmas.

[hangingfire]

Apparently I have to simply avoid all BPALs with berry notes in them. Which is a shame, because there were a lot of other things about The Jersey Devil that I really liked.

 

In the imp: Cranberry, with earthy, woody notes. Nice.

 

On, wet: BERRIES BERRIES BERRIES. And if I got up close to my wrist and sniffed, there was the pleasant, damp earthiness and touch of pine, but for the most part, BERRIES.

 

Drydown: Husband asks if there's some kind of air freshener in the car. *facepalm* And he's got a point -- all I can smell is BERRIES, and as it dries, it turns into a musty BERRY smell, with none of the sweet damp earth scent.

 

Bah. Stupid skin chemistry, amping the berry scent like that. Off to the swaps. Fortunately, Death Cap has all of the earthiness that I liked, and none of the berries.

Edited September 8, 2006 by hangingfire

[crazyredhead17]

Another Jersey Girl here.

 

My nose is all stuffy, so my note-sniffing abilities (what few I have) are a bit off.

 

In the imp, there's a wonderful real pine forest scent. Wet on me, it's very piney for a few minutes, and then settles into wonderfully warm summer pine forest, with the tall pines overhead, and all the bushes and plants growing along the ground, and the clean air all around. I feel like I should have slept in my tent last night, and swim in the big lake at the Pine Barrens, and cook my dinner over a campfire tonight.

 

And my stuffy nose even detects a whiff of deep woods Off. (which is the only thing, deep woods or not, that keeps those damn Jersey mosquitos from sucking all my blood). It's probably not there for anyone else tho.

 

I think I'll have to pick up a bottle of this before I move to Italy, just so I can smell like home sometimes.

[aessedai]

Mmm. Pine, cedar and berries. A girlhood vacation in Maine, in a vial:)

Edited September 12, 2006 by aessedai

[harmonyfb]

I figured I'd either love this scent or hate it utterly.

 

When I cracked the lid of the bottle, I swooned. Picture me, crossing my fingers, saying, "Oh, please let this smell as good on my skin as it does in the bottle".

 

When I first applied, there was a rush of sweet, sweet pine, almost sugary in tone, but with a darker base underneath. In a few minutes, it had morphed and changed into a wet hillside, full of dark herbs and sharp air. I was afraid it would wind up being too masculine, but it suddenly bloomed into sweet, sharp cranberries, so juicy I can taste them in my mouth.

 

Wow. This is a complex, brilliant scent. ::sniffs wrist:: (The only down side is that it seems to be inflaming my sinuses. Ow. Woe.)

Edited September 13, 2006 by harmonyfb

[indicolite]

Whoa, I need not regret that I swapped away Golden Priapus, because Jersey Devil fills the pine ticket! Golden Priapus was pure pine to me...

 

But this is not sweet pine, like Priapus. It is windblown pine and I can see pine-covered granite ridges. I have never yet been to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, but the boreal forest of the Canadian Shield is a perfect setting for this Jersey Devil as well. Rarely has a scent been so evocative among Beth's huge catalogue of evocative scents.

 

A success!

[Aredhel]

Rating (on skin): 4/5

Summarised in a word or two: Wintery!

 

Pre-review thoughts: I love cranberry and am a huge fan of cedar (even if I can't wear it often), so I'm very intrigued by the Jersey Devil. However, I'm not big on pine, so I'm also a bit wary.

 

In the imp: Cranberry, cedar, and pine. Very cooling pine, which reminds me of Yule/Christmas-time. Hmm.

 

On skin, wet: Berry-ish pine. It does remind me of Skadi, but berry-y instead of citrus-y. Very cool and herbal. I shouldn't, given the strong pine, but I really like this.

 

On skin, dry: This is perfectly wintry. It'd be perfect for the dead of December, but probably not, say, the dead of July. It's a very seasonal scent to me.

 

Conclusion/Notes: I like, but don't love, this. Since I couldn't see myself wearing this year-round, I might just hunt down another imp, or maybe a partial bottle, since I'm the antithesis of a slatherer. Either way, I'll definitely be wearing this when it starts to snow, whether it be from the imp or a bottle.

[sophia_helix]

I've never been to Jersey, but I've always been fascinated by the legend of the "devil" and the evocative name of the "Pine Barrens."

 

I love the progression of this scent. At first it's sharp, foresty pine, nothing like a cleaning product, really evoking trees and stone and dirt. There's a faint hint of sweet cranberry beneath. Over time the cedar and tomato leaf develop, adding a round middle note that's actually almost sweaty on me; a little unnerving at first, but fitting for a forest. As the scent dries the berries take over and sweeten up, which is typical for me and my sugar-skin chemistry, but it doesn't lose the bitter astringency of pine and forest, which I love.

 

It does remind me a bit of Mistletoe (but less herbal) and Skadi (less clean-pine, more dirt-pine), but I almost like it better for being so unusual and well-balanced. I'd definitely like to try this in a burner for the room, but I'm hoping I'll find times to wear it as well.

[Splendid Molerat]

Not much to add -- Jersey Devil is a very natural-smelling, earthy pine, cool, but not piercing.

 

If Golden Priapus was too sweet on you, and Mistletoe gave you a brain freeze, this blend occupies a nice, tart middle ground.

[ajcj213499]

I The Jersey Devil.

 

If Snow Moon is a forest in winter, then The Jersey Devil is a forest in the middle of summer. TJD's notes all mingle together well to form a beautiful, evocative scent.

 

Wonderful!

[edenssixthday]

The Jersey Devil - When I first apply this, the first thing I smell is the tomato leaf -- it smells just like the scent of standing in the garden and picking tomatoes ripe off the vines. In the background, is the scent of pine, but it's not heavy and doesn't have the "car freshener" scent that pine often has on me. After about 2 hours, I smell something in this blend that I'm positive must be the blackberry leaf because even though it's woodsy and leafy, it's got a sweetness reminiscent of blackberries. I don't ever smell the cedar in this blend, which thrills me since cedar usually turns most blends to pencil shavings on me. Overall, I'm very surprised how much I like The Jersey Devil. After first reading the description, I didn't think I'd care for it in the least, but it is quite a unique scent that takes me back in my memories to a day when I was about 10 years old and my mom and I visited a friend who had the most amazing g arden in her back yard. Everything about The Jersey Devil reminds me of standing in her garden, picking fresh tomatoes, looking at the blue sky above, peering over her wooden back fence -- everything. I've already gotten much use out of this blend and will continue to use it. It's fabulous. The wear length and throw vary on me from day to day -- sometimes it's light and disappears quickly and other times (especially if I apply right before exercising) the scent lasts for hours and is fairly strong.

[sookster]

straight sniff from imp is a sweet pine and fruit!!! yum!!

 

once applied i can smell cedar but the fruit in this really amps up!! gorgeous!!

 

another winner from our resident beth!!! bravo!!!

[slave1]

In Bottle: Pine and dirt

 

On Skin: Pine screams from this scent, that sweet pungent feel from a freshly picked pine needle. There is also a very dirty earthy note, maybe the leaves? They are quite crisp and do give it a very planty feel. The cranberry offers a fruity tart note, and the wood softens the sharpness of the pine and leaves. This smells like the woods, and of course when I smell pine and cranberry… I think of Christmas, so I also get a holiday feel from this. Not a scent I’d wear as a perfume since the pine is so string but I’d love to use it as a room scent. After an hour, the pine mellows out and it’s much prettier. I’ve never hung out in New Jersey so I can’t say if it really is New Jerseyish, but it’s quite interesting. Strong throw and long wearlength.

Edited September 21, 2006 by slave1

[wolfie13]

In the bottle: Mmmm, piney, with a bit of the scent of the forest floor thrown in.

 

Wearing: This is just so lovely on me - at first. It really does smell like a summer walk through the pines in Jersey. But nooooo, the cranberry starts to come out and just takes over on me. I just end up with way too much of the "berry" aspect for my taste.