Mag Mell

[Veronica]

The Plane of Joy, eternal reward for a lifetime of valor and glory. A place of eternal youth and beauty, strength and honor, music and revelry. The warmth of amber, the puissance of white ginger and the clarity of verbena, with fresh green grass, lush sage and cleansing droplets of summer rain.

 

This smells sweet, fresh and clean, very similar (but better) than Embalming Fluid. Ginger always smells citrus-y to me, so this is a sugared lemon over a sweet floral background. Has commonalities with B&BW's lemon verbena scent. Floral, citrus, sweet. Not something I would often wear though.

[tallan]

When I put it on, I get an immediate blast of ginger and citrus. The grass and the sage follow a few feet behind, like sedate parents with their bright and bubbly children running ahead. It's summery and pretty and not particularly what I want to smell like. I want the amber to show up.

It doesn't oblige. This dries down into grass and verbena. It's a lot softer than Embalming Fluid on me, more snuggly, and it disappears a lot quicker. No amber. Boo.

[FeralFae]

I just received this from a lovely swapper and I have to post this review right now because this is one of the most ~me~ scents I've ever smelled. It's so lovely when you get a strong emotional (positive) response from a perfume and I nearly teared up smelling this for the first time.

It reminds me of a pagan folk festival I go to during the summer and it's so, so beautiful. I smell fresh green grass with verbena at first, and then follows the golden, comforting amber and the smallest hint of summer rain. But when I think about the scent overall, it's just a perfect, fresh northern summer captured in a bottle <3

 

I'll return later to review the dry down.

 

-edit-

 

ok, I need a big bottle. It still smells beautifully clean and crisp, but both the grass and the amber begin getting stronger (than the verbena, which is still there, just not as overpowering). The amber really rounds this out and makes it warmer and more comforting. Lovely dry down.

Edited February 25, 2016 by FeralFae

[freyasfae]

Ginger and verbana makes for a sharp scent, but actually not as sharp as some other heavy gingers I like such as White Rabbit, I think the grass and rain curbs that. This is a beautiful scent that I will have to revisit in Summer - it's up there with Pele, and may even surpass her.

[LizziesLuck]

Verbena is so iffy on me, but I love amber and grass and ginger, so I'm giving this a go.

 

In the imp, it's very grassy and sweet, which I love.

 

Wet: Ugh, verbena. With freshly cut grass. Which turns out so weird on me. Very bitter. Blah.

 

Dry: It loses the bitterness, but just becomes sort of generically citrusy on me. Sadly this one is not meant for my chemistry, or tastes.

[Casablanca]

I ordered this one because I love most of the notes. I'm only cautious about the verbena. I like lemon verbena -- I used to grow it. It just has a way of taking over, and it's not something I look to wear.

On the wand, Mag Mell is a sweetened, gingery lemon verbena. The ginger-lemon is high-pitched and whiny. Uh oh.

Wet on my skin, the ginger-lemon calms down some, smoothed out by amber... and also by the green grass and rain. Yay green grass and rain! I don't pick out any sage, which is a surprise -- sage usually jumps out.

By the time this has dried, the ginger-lemon has mostly integrated with the whole. It was a screechy handful of minutes, but the blend is pleasant enough now. It goes great with my summer cold, since I want to drink hot ginger-lemon tea right about now.

I can't tell if this will be a bottle, but I'll enjoy the sample.

[ShunnerOfHugs]

Wet: This smells exactly like lemon drops.

Dry: I'm getting baby powder, but my skin does that to certain scents. (Seriously, even Nosferatu smelled sweet and powdery on me.) I also smell something just a tiny bit spicy. Maybe that's the ginger?

 

This is a nice scent, and it lasts a while on me. And by "a while" I mean it lasted through twelve hours, and then I took a shower and I could still smell it a little afterwards. I'm not sure if I'll buy a bottle, but I'll definitely use the imp.

[Coldfire]

Imp: Green Aquatic
Wet on Me: definite green aquatic
Drying Down: starting to get the white ginger with the green. and that slight baby powder scent of the amber
Dry: The wet green is tempered by the amber. It dries down to very very faint powdery pale green.

 

Probably will put in the trade pile.

[achildoftime]

Ginger and herbs with a touch of citrus. It smells very fresh and almost spa-like when it's freshly applied. The ginger is a little spicy which offsets the very strong sage. I don't get any rain, which is usually pretty cooling, as this scent is pretty warm. Between the ginger and the amber that comes out when it dries, this does become much cozier.

[Lunasariel]

In the imp: Mainly a bright, clean aquatic. I've noticed that if a scent is described as having a "touch" of this or a "drop" of that, for some reason that's pretty much all I can smell, so it kinda makes sense that the "cleansing droplets of summer rain" are front and center here. Otherwise, some determined sniffing might reveal some very vague greenery, but they're not strong enough for me to distinguish sage vs. verbena vs. grass.

 

Wet: An initial, worrying blast of soapy ginger settles down into... mildly soapy ginger, sweetened and smoothed out by verbena. It's still a light and clean scent, but an artificial rather than a natural one. Still no sage or amber, which are the two I was really hoping for.

 

Dry: After a few hours, the soap fades entirely and it becomes a subtle, lovely herbal blend with just a faint hint of amber for resinous warmth, and a surprisingly long-lasting ginger/verbena kick. I hope some aging helps this phase develop, because it really is gorgeous. It wears very close to the body and feels like a secret.

[donkehpoo]

Wet: Verbena and grass. Strong on the verbena!

 

Dry: Ginger, verbena, and grass, oh my! Refreshing! The throw on this is fairly light, though, so I can't see myself reaching for it. Very much a close to the skin scent.

[spookyumbrella]

On me, this is pure lemon and grass, with the teeniest bit of aquatic. It's very fresh and happy-smelling. Normally fresh scents bore me, but I find myself really enjoying this!

[Lucchesa]

I didn't think I'd ever gotten my hands on Mag Mell, but I looked through my untested imps and there it was.  It looks to be a very well-aged imp.  In the imp, it's bright lemon verbena and ginger mellowed by amber.  The amber doesn't show up much on my skin, though.  It starts out verbena and ginger, then the ginger cedes place to the grass.  And then we have the cleansing droplets of summer rain, the bit that worried me, the bit that takes this into aquatic territory, which on my skin means soap.  So it ends up a mildly soapy, grassy verbena, kind of a high-end spa scent.  I wish I got some sage here.  This is really nice until it is highjacked by the aquatic note.  

[roseus]

Really gorgeous, mind-clearing fresh ginger and grass scent. Soft freshwater aquatic with the fresh, clean elements of lemon verbena and ginger. Soothing and restoring, like the new growth of spring. 

[a_bear]

Wet, this reminds me of A Vigilant Eye at Heaven's Center without the apple. I think my brain is interpreting the sage as minty? For a split second I get the grass, and it quickly becomes rain with a hint of verbena. If I really inhale, I get a bit of ginger. At this stage it reminds me of Leanan Sidhe without the florals (to me this is a good thing). After about 40 min I get the amber. Lasted longer than I thought it would. It has hardly any throw, but I'll be curious to see if that changes as the bottle ages a little.

[Honey]

The notes sound like a big win, so I was eager to test!

Now, this is very default perfumey on my skin - a bit sweet, a bit resinous, a bit musky, a bit herbal.

I guess the rain note adds a bit of a citrus aquatic vibe here that's usually not so good on me, maybe that's where the fruity quality comes from.

 

It's hard to pick out any notes. I was expecting a stronger ginger or verbena, but both are really dull - maybe that's also due to ageing?

My skin eats it up, it's very faint after a while.

I mostly get amber/musk with some other hard-to-pick qualities, but it's not very complex or interesting on me.

[torischroeder9]

In the imp: Ginger, grass, and sage, with a little brightness I could attribute to verbena, though I can't distinguish it as a note. 

 

On my skin:

 

Wet, it's mostly white ginger, though with a lightness and airiness that probably comes from the amber. As it dries, the grass comes out, though it goes back and forth a bit with the ginger as the starring note. Settled, it's very gingery but also grassy, backed strongly by the sage. Amber, as it often does on me, is acting as a strong base from which to feature these other notes. 

 

I like it a fair bit, though I feel it's maybe a touch more herbal than I'd want as a regular wear perfume. 

[Biocarbons]

I love white ginger! 

 

Wet: I get a burst of sweet green grass, white ginger, and something that smells like the best fruit gummy candy (sage + ginger?).

 

Dry down: now it smells like a fruity chapstick or candle. Synthetic fruits and wax. A bit powdery. Yeah, I've definitely had a lip balm this flavor and it wasn't my favorite.

[bellumed]

Pure grass and a sunny blast of verbena! What a wonderful scent. It's aged about ten years and divine.  I get more amber and sage on my skin, not quite as good for me, but that's what scent lockets are for.

[ShadowEtienne]

I'm not a huge fan of grass, and sometimes it is prone to amping on my skin, so I was nervous about this just based on description. My sister got an imp before I did, so I was able to pre-test it and it was lovely from a short test, so I was happy to get my hands on it and get a chance to give it a longer test (I got a lovely imp from a forumite, and actually have another on the way from the lab now amusingly).

 

Amazingly for me, the grass never showed up! It's young fresh ginger, sage, and verbena in a gently falling rain. It's a soft, fresh but also tart and a tiny bit spicy with the herbs sort of scent. The only hint that the amber is in there on my skin is that this is a slightly warmed scent, like sun is starting to consider burning off the cloud cover.

 

Overall, this is lovely, and a nice change of pace on grass not taking out a scent for me.

[gentle-twig]

From an aged imp:

 

Opens with a dew note reminiscent of the lab’s rain note in The Storm (not a great reference point, but the only thing comparable in my collection)—I’ve always been puzzled by this note, which doesn’t really smell watery to me at all but instead vaguely fruity and ozonic. It dissipates quickly and I’m left with verbena, ginger, and amber. The verbena is much softer than an actual citrus note might be, with a geranium nuance. The ginger is not in your face, but heightens the brightness of the verbena. There might be some grass in there, too, disguised among the bright ginger and somewhat green verbena. And this is all a top a soft, golden amber. Sadly, I’m not getting sage.

 

 The overall composition reminds me a lot of Brisingamen, both are big ambers paired with unexpected botanical accords. Mag Mell is broad, hazy, and bright, where Brisingamen is more defined, round, and slightly bitter. 

 

This is not for me, but more intriguing than I had imagined. The rarest of things, an amber “freshie.”