Desert scents, including Southwestern scents

[toomuch]

51 has the smell of desert dust in it. Perhaps if you layered it with a light aquatic. Though it's more of desert cactus flowers in bloom than sage brush.

[Wisteria]

Thanks for your suggestions.

 

I've been looking for a scent reminiscent of rain on the desert for a long time. I once met a woman in a restaurant in Springdale, Utah, outside Zion National Park, who smelled like that exactly, and I thought that she was wearing the most fabulous perfume. Then it occurred to me that she probably had some wet dirt left on her shoes from hiking and must have put some sagebrush and possibly other plants in her pocket. (I've been known to do that myself, just to carry the smell with me.) It occurred to me that a perfume that smelled even a little bit like that would be divine. I've sniffed every commercial scent that seemed like it might come close to that, but to no avail. Most smell so strongly of sage--the cooking herb, not sagebrush--that they completely miss the mark.

 

Anyway, I'm thinking I may try coyote layered with an aquatic. I haven't tried the lab's aquatics. Which one is most rain-like?

 

I'll also thinking of getting some of that Visiting the Temple of Auspicious Fortune Alone on the Winter Solstice while I still can. It sounds wonderful. The smell of So Cal rain, though not the same as Utah desert rain (different vegetation), is an amazing smell indeed. Of course no perfume can truly capture the smells of nature, but those that actually remind me of nature are to die for.

Edited January 10, 2009 by Wisteria

[sqwook]

Have you tried Coyote yet? (It's not clear from your comments.) I'd try it on its own, too, because I don't think it's particularly dry-smelling, and I have sometimes sensed a watery-ness. (Or I could just be weird. It's been known to happen.) It doesn't have sagebrush / real high-desert, but it's definitely nice.

[sqwook]

I'm trying Antony again today, and I HIGHLY recommend it. At first I was dubious. But if I clear my mind of all my pre-conceptions, it is really like the southwest, perhaps better even than Coyote.

[donnatron]

They're wildly disparate regions temperature/climate-wise, but The Caterpillar reminds me of both Vancouver Island and Santa Fe NM. I think it's the common link of hippies? It also kind of reminds me of Oregon. The Caterpillar smells like shopping in Santa Fe to me and it is just a drop dead gorgeous scent. Definitely recommend it if you're looking for a slightly lusher desert scent.

 

Santa Muerte is a great cactus blooms pick.

[Avery]

Another Nevada native here, but I feel I can chime in on the whole Southwest Vibe: Western Diamondback! I got a mental panorama of desert canyons with this one. Well above and beyond what I got with anything else, ever. Coyote doesn´t even come close to this for me (although I like it).

[sqwook]

Helios is great for high desert.

[Wwindy]

Helios is great for high desert.

 

Agreed! I don't know about the Southwest (never been there, have to fix that sometime!), but Helios smells like golden sunlight pouring down over a spicy imaginary Arabian desert -- it's what I hoped for but didn't get with Sunbird.

[Vega]

Ah, Sunbird for me was sandy desert under punishing noonday sun and a scorching wind. It actually smelled HOT.

 

I also find Baghdad quite desert-like, but it's more like a desert cooling at dusk, with an exotic Arabian city nearby, the smell of spices and commerce wafting in the evening breeze.

 

Neither are scents that literally smell like the desert, but they definitely evoke the atmosphere of a vast, ancient, sandy desert in the Middle East. At least it does for me!

[Ghost of a Rose]

Yes! (from a lifelong Arizonan.) And the rain scent would have to have the creosote scent that makes the desert smell so beautiful after a rain. I've been wishing that Beth would do the desert creosote bush scent. One of my kids' teachers used to make and sell a refreshing body spritzer that was a simple tincture of creosote in water. It was fabulous - smelled just like desert rain. She doesn't make it anymore. I wish I knew how, I'd make it myself, because I really miss it. An essential oil would be even better, because the water tincture scent only lasted until it dried. The BPAL creosote is something else entirely, the nasty black tarry stuff that clogs chimneys.

 

And some mesquite, and acacia blossoms . . .

[Cactus]

Another Arizona person here!

 

This might be a little late... But Juniper Hairstreak smells like the juniper/grassland you get in the Arizona foothills. Not a Desert scent, but a very familiar, southwestern one to me.

Juniper, and grass, herbs, sage and dry-ish soil.

 

Now, mixed in with that is a hint of cucumber and some musk - but it's a sun-warmed-skin musk, not a harsh, chemically musk.

 

Juniper Hairstreak is an LE, and I don't know if it's on sale anymore. But if you could snag some, you might like it.

 

EDIT: @A Ghost of a Rose - that Creosote/Rain smell is lovely! <3 <3 <3

Edited September 22, 2012 by Cactus

[RiverPoet]

As a former Phoenix resident, I'd give just about anything for that low-desert-in-a-monsoon smell: creosote and mesquite, ozone, ocotillo cactus, yucca. There's something so intoxicating about that scent.

[patina]

Halloween: Los Angeles comes to mind though that has woodsmoke and might be hard to find.

 

Otherwise, I don't know, Tombstone? Admittedly that's more vanilla/ sassafrass, but it's got a very dry feel to it and has cedar (I think.)

[Wren12]

Djinn has a very desert vibe to it.

[Wren12]

Oh, did anyone mention Ifrit? Cuz that one is SUPER desert-y.

[urbantravels]

I have sentimental reasons for wanting to capture some desert scent in a bottle - after many years in Los Angeles, I'll be relocating back East in the near future.

 

This seems like the topic for it, even though Coastal California is really its own thing, Mediterranean and semi-desert, not desert, but the basic dry/aromatic character is there, and of course some plants like sagebrush and purple sage range into the "real" deserts of the Southwest...

 

I'm intrigued by the description here of Visting the Temple of Auspicious Fortune etc as being "like Los Angeles rain." Unfortunately as a Limited Edition it might be hard to find, but if it really smells like that, it would be worth having.

 

What I'm really obsessed with are coastal sage scrub (sometimes it's just coastal scrub because the sages are absent), chaparral, and the massive poppy fields of the Antelope Valley.

 

For sage scrub, someone somewhere recommended Lear which is heavy on sage, but I assume that would be culinary sage and not wild California sages! Nevertheless, the difference might not be too important.

 

For chaparral, I'm at a loss. There is a perfume maker (IlluminatedPerfume on Etsy who makes a "chaparral" scent, and I got a sample, but my jury's out on that one. It seems to have some of the right woodsiness/earthiness of chaparral, but she put a smoke note in there to suggest wildfires, and to me it just dominates everything else, so it doesn't feel like a chaparral landscape - more like a vacation cabin that's saturated with old woodsmoke. Which isn't horrible or anything, but not what I'm after.

 

The Southern California poppy fields are pretty much one of the Wonders of the World. Besides the incredible intensity and expanse of color, there's a fairly impossible-to-describe scent. The poppies themselves don't smell like much, but a lot of other flowers are in the mix, and probably the most fragrant is goldfields, with is the paler yellow, ground-hugging stuff you see in the pictures. That would probably be hard to get right in a fragrance, since even in their totally natural state they smell a little too much - "like air freshener" is one description you hear a lot. Anyway...has BPAL ever done a California wildflower themed scent?

[Cactus]

@ Urbantravels -

 

I suggest looking for blends that contain a "sagebrush" note, the ones that come to mind are Coyote and Pumpkin IV (2007) - but neither one has the chapparral.

 

I suggest checking out this thread, though - it seems to have lots of good discussion:

http://www.bpal.org/topic/72074-sage-scents-white-clary-and-others/

[urbantravels]

@ Urbantravels -

 

I suggest looking for blends that contain a "sagebrush" note, the ones that come to mind are Coyote and Pumpkin IV (2007) - but neither one has the chapparral.

 

I suggest checking out this thread, though - it seems to have lots of good discussion:

http://www.bpal.org/topic/72074-sage-scents-white-clary-and-others/

 

Well, it's looking as though I will need to try Coyote regardless since so many have recommended it in different topics. In that thread you linked, I'm intrigued by Corazon which says it has a purple sage note (though it is listed last.) I don't think I've seen a purple sage note listed elsewhere. Of course it appears that Corazon is an LE from so long ago that I'd never find some.

 

Here's my favorite native plant nursery website on California sages (they are rather harsh on those who harvest white sage in the while irresponsibly...I trust, however, that the firms that sell smudge sticks and claim sustainable wildcrafting are living up to their labels.)

 

http://www.laspilitas.com/garden/sages.htm

 

Purple sage on the hillsides is great, black sage is even better. White sage, with no disrespect to its ritual uses, is the stank, so I'd never want it to be a dominant note!

[Dark Alice]

I know this sounds odd...but the old Arabian Nights (non TAL) perfume...smells just like a desert to me. It's amazing and I don't know how hard it is find but if you do...don't ever let it go. It smells just like the desert in Las Vegas. Warm, dry, dusty and slight sweet.