The Arrival at the Sabbath and Homage to the Devil

[LittleGreyKitten]

 

The Arrival at the Sabbath and Homage to the Devil, Antoine-François de Saint-Aubert.

Bourbon vanilla, benzoin, caramel, Mysore sandalwood, aged black patchouli, carnation, and iris florentina.

 

Oh my, this is delicious. Foody foody yum! It's mostly caramel and bourbon vanilla on me, with caramel on top. The patchouli is probably in there providing a nice base, but this is definitely one of the Heavy Foodies, like Gluttony or Cockaigne. Incidentally I can't wear either of those; though I'm a huge fan of most of Beth's foodies, those are a little too much even for me. This blend, although heavier and sweeter than the ones I usually adore, must be just a hair lighter, as instead of gagging me I'm loving it.

 

The florals on me are too caramel-overwhelmed to smell. Really this is almost a single note caramel on me, to be honest... not that I mind!

 

5 out of 5.

 

EDITED TO ADD: This has grown on me even more; I get the soft, gorgeous florals, mostly carnation, peeking through now, on dry down, and I LOVE how they harmonize; normally I'm not a floral girl but they are a perfect counterpoint. Also the vanilla and caramel are definitely softer and lighter than I thought at first. I'm finding myself reaching for this one a LOT. Oddly, the patchouli is the only note I barely detect (I'd never guess it was in the blend without knowing to look for it.)

 

After having it for a bit now, I'd no longer say it's one of Beth's Really Heavy Foodies- not sure if it settle down a bit in the bottle already or if I adjusted to it.

 

Edited to add image - clover

Edited September 15, 2007 by Shollin

[cuervosueno]

 

I'm first! So exciting, and so much pressure.... (eta: ok, I thought I was first but littlegreykitten beat me to it. Still, I had the excitement of thinking I was first!)

 

I love vanilla and carnation and patchouli, so this was a natural for me, though I couldn't quite figure out how they would all fit together.

 

And I'm afraid I still can't, because as lovely as this is on me, it is absolutely overwhelmed by the vanilla and caramel.

 

In the bottle: straight up sweet caramel, but if I keep sniffing, I get just a hint of floral from the carnation, and just a touch of patchouli--think Samhain here. But everything is pretty overwhelmed by the caramel.

 

On my skin: Still caramel, with the very faintest spicy floral beneath it (ie. carnation). After a bit, the carnation gets a bit stronger, and some of creamy caramel scent lightens up--but then there is that vanilla. I don't really get anything else.

 

I like this, but it is very much a gourmand scent on me, and mostly caramel/vanilla. I would have been more pleased had some of the other notes made an appearance.

 

I'll try this again, and add to this post if I note any changes, but right now, this is a foody-scent lover's delight, but probably not so appealing for those who don't like these type of scents.

 

I can't quite connect it with the artwork....unless this Devil tempts through candy!

 

eta: after a couple of hours, the caramel fades down enough that the carnation is in evidence. I do always enjoy the way the Salon scents morph. And this stage makes me think I might keep the bottle after all...

Edited January 5, 2007 by cuervosueno

[UploadedLobster]

HEAVY caramel scent. I get caramel corn specifically, hot caramel corn, and no hint of the sandalwood, carnation, or iris. This is a dense and powerful scent; a dab on the hand leaves a scent trail down the hall, and doesn't fade away.

 

Later on, as it dries out, the patchouli comes out a bit stronger and gives it a faintly burnt edge--like the caramel were actually cooking on my skin. It's a neat progression.

 

I like it, but honestly I'm having second thoughts about it. I don't mind the heavy sweetness but from a Salon blend (given the extra expense and all) I was expecting something more complex and apart from a fairly mild morph this is pure caramel. Not sure if I'll keep this one.

 

Lobster Rating

better than: turkey gravy

Edited January 6, 2007 by Uploaded Lobster

[edenssixthday]

The Arrival at the Sabbath and Homage to the Devil - This smells so delectable in the vial, like some sort of decadent booze-drenched dessert developed in the South. However, once it hits my skin, the benzoin and caramel amp up on my skin, and become sickeningly sweet (as those two notes usually do on me). There is a very strong current of sweet booziness running through this blend, and as the blend dries down, I detect the softest touch of a floral note, but can’t identify it for the life of me because it’s just so faint. I never do smell the woody notes in this blend. This is the strongest scent of all the Salons I’ve tried so far, which tend to be exceptionally subtle on my skin. There’s nothing subtle about this one. I tend to not like sweet, gourmand blends, but if you like smelling like hard sauce or sweet whiskey sauce, then this is most definitely the blend for you.

[Heavenlyrabbit]

Perhaps this is the smell of a witch mixing ingredients for a Yule cake.

 

Perhaps this is the smell of unrepentant revelry and long lost inhibitions.

 

My reaction to this confection of a scent? This is a very refined gourmand scent.

 

And I choose the word gourmand rather than 'foody' out of respect for the ingredients. The difference here being the high quality sandalwood. Pretty sure that's what I'm finding/loving.

 

Okay, so this reminds me too of hard sauce one makes for plum or bread pudding.

 

But Cockaigne was heavy duty and way overdone on my skin chemistry. Gluttony lacks the complexity.

 

However, a subtle scent this is not. In fact it's pretty darned asssertive... after trying this on I had to stop testing and reviewing Salon scents cause this demands center stage.

 

Addendum, this lasts a long time and the dry down is a smoother version of Red Lantern.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Heavenlyrabbit

[filigree_shadow]

In the imp: Caramel.

 

Wet: Sweet caramel, but not really sweet like sugar, more like sweet like flower-sweet.

 

Dry: Sweet and foody. A nice grounding to it, not like a completely caramel scent. It seems to be a little bit powdery on my skin for some reason.

 

I'm having some trouble figuring out whether I like the scent or not. Wait, no, I take that back. I do like it. The part I'm not sure of is whether I would want to wear it as a perfume. I tend to like creamy foody scents rather than really sweet or sugary ones, and I think this one's a little too sugary for me.

Edited January 7, 2007 by filigree_shadow

[chrisann]

I have to say, that I LOVE every single one of my Salon II purchases. It has blown my expectations out of the water!!!

 

WET: Warm Caramel, not sickly sweet smelling. I don't care for some of the other foodier sugery scents. i.e Sugar Skull, Athens, Creepy. Those have a thick tooth ache inducing sweetness to them. Not this one. It is a warmer, more of a skinscent caramel.

 

DRY:My oh my! This blends so well. It is edible and yummy, but in a womanly way. On me, the benzion, mysore sandlewood, and Patchouli harmonize in a subtle way, grounding the caramel and vanilla and giving this depth. I agree, that this is a refined gourmand. Foody lovers will want to snag a bottle of this quick! It's taken the top spot away from MB Underpants, as my favorite gourmand scent. I can't wait to see what aging, and mixing with other smellies will do to it.

[AliBabble]

from the bottle, this is crazily rich and deep, more like butterscotch than caramel, to my nose. on my skin it reminds me somewhat of miskatonic u (which also reminded me of butterscotch..) - but there is something more "shining" in the background, which i'm guessing is benzoin - ever so slightly metallic, is the only way i can peg it. a touch of sandalwood? maybe...it's true, as others have noted, it's 90% caramel and vanilla, and damn hard to sort out the carnation or iris...even the patchouli is somewhat drowned out..but i still love it! much in the same way i love sugar skull, or misk. u...but i do think this scent has a certain shining quality, as i said, in the background - esp. as it dries down...from the benzoin, and the iris which appears late in the game - and which elevates it from "just another foody" scent. this one is really royal!

[ivyandpeony]

My skin has amped the caramel note like crazy in the few blends that Beth has used it in, to the detriment of the other gorgeous notes that I knew were lurking. Not that caramel isn't a yummy smell, it's just that I'm not fond of heavy, sweet, "simple" perfumes and that's what my chemistry turned Red Lantern into. (And you should smell what I can do to Miskatonic U - you would think I'd spilled a pint of Bailey's Irish Cream on myself).

 

My first try of The Arrival... sadly (for me) has been the same experience, just a huge, wafting caramel cloud. Like I said, not entirely negative, just not my ideal experience when I look at the incredible components that have gone into this perfume! Since I bought the set of Exhibit II imps, I definitely will keep this one and see if a little age makes a difference.

[shelldoo]

i will agree w/ the others who have said this is a vanilla caramel. almost all caramel on me, but occassional wafts of vanilla. this is so sweet i expect it to leave a sticky spot on my skin. it is going to be huge for those of us who love the uber sweet foody candy scents

[Voleuse]

Oh, yum! This is definitely a foody scent. The caramel note is reminiscent of Red Lantern, just as I'd hoped! The blend isn't as heavy as Red Lantern, however, and as it dries, the differences become more obvious.

 

After a few minutes, this actually reminds me of cake--closer to Eat Me than Red Lantern. The caramel gives way to the vanilla completely, so I end up with something like vanilla cake. Oddly, I don't smell any of the other notes at all, which is weird--my chemistry tends to amp both sandalwood and patchouli, but I get neither of those notes. If I concentrate, I can catch florals, faint in the background, but that's about it.

 

In the end, this is a light and sweet blend, and definitely one I'd recommend to foodies.

[supremegoddessofall]

On me: Foody orgasm! The caramal is definitely the primary scent here - throw like whoa! Bit spicy, which I think is from the benzoin and carnation. Has a bit of a boozy feel, but not as much as some others. Not getting too much of the florals or vanilla, and only a touch of sandalwood or patchouli.

[mmmitchell]

In the vial, I get the super-sweet caramel note, and that's about it.

 

On, however, I get the full range of this one, and I'm so glad. I get the slightly boozy note, but I also get sandalwood and patchouli firmly spicing this whole thing up, and cutting the sweetness from the florals. As it dried down, a vaguely smokey note emerges, and then the whole thing just becomes too well blended to pick out individual notes, except for that luscious sandalwood. As another reviewer said, this has a sweetness from florals, rather than a sugar-rush sort of sweetness, at least on me.

 

I'm reminded of Underpants, but it's different. The long sandalwood drydown on me is very similar, but this has absolutely no cake whatsoever on me....maybe more like Underpants without the cake, just the sweetness and the spices.

 

BPAL foodies are sure to find a new instant love. But, depending on chemistry, I think that some lovers of the "incense-y" scents would love this, too.

 

I guess my best description is that this is a definite "foodiental" .

 

Whatever you call it, it's extremely sniffable. Yup, big bottle for me!

[Little Bird]

The Arrival at the Sabbath & Homage to the Devil is a lovely caramel-sandalwood blend. The caramel is sweet, warm, and buttery-soft. The sandalwood just adds a sort of calming, grounding element to the caramel that also helps to balance out its sweetness. Every once in a while, a sharp floral note pokes its head in to muck things up, but the floral fades in and out.

So far, I think that this blend and the Cloister Graveyard are the only Salon members that I truly enjoy and would find myself wearing a lot, with Chickens being a once in a while wear. I would love this one a lot more without the floral notes, but they're tolerable and fade out most of the time.

Beautifully soft caramel-sandalwood when the florals aren't trying to edge their way in. I'll definitely be keeping my bottle of this one.

ETA: Perhaps I lied when I said I'd keep my bottle. The more I've tried to wear this, the more the sharp floral notes are annoyingly present. I want to enjoy the lovely caramel and the beautiful sandalwood, but the sharp floral seems so out of place and distracting. I wanted this to be my perfect caramel blend, so I let that cloud my first judgment... in reality, this is too much sharp flower oddly paired with the gourmand aspects. Weird and rather unpleasant.

ETA: 2016 Frimp. No caramel or vanilla at all anymore. Sour, sharp, nondescript floral and a really unpleasant, ashy, dry patchouli (and I usually love patch and black patch) with generic soapiness. Carnation comes in soapy and strange, like spices, shaving cream and dried out flowers that someone set on fire.
Nope. Scrubber.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Little Bird

[laochodia]

On me, this is pure caramel made with bourbon vanilla. A slightly foral, almost plastic/playdough note keeps trying to edge its way in, but the vanilla keeps reasserting itself. I want to eat my wrists. It does seem to be fading after about 10 minutes, leaving a sweet vanilla, light caramel and slightly floral scent wafting from my wrists instead of CARAMEL and VANILLA.

 

15 min later- Oh no! It smells like a freshly unwrapped girls toy! That faint vanilla/plastic scent?! I'm going to reapply some, and hope the drydown doesn't do that again. Please, my vanilla caramel scent, don't desert me!

[beetiger]

I seem to love sandalwood + foody.

 

Underpants = vanilla + sandalwood.

Velvet = chocolate + sandalwood.

And now this = caramel+ sandalwood to me.

 

Gourmand, but not super sweet on me, and it's not really getting cloying. I wish I could smell the florals, but overall, I like it.

[gingersnapp]

Mmmm, caramel and vanilla and sandalwood. Very little else is detectable, but this is so lovely that I don't really mind smelling only those notes.

 

This is warming and comforting on a cold Michigan winter day.

[slave1]

In Bottle: Boozy caramel

On Skin: YUM!!! Oh my goddess, this is beyond droolworthy. It is led by the caramel, so swet and delicious but not overwhelming or sickly. It loves my skin and becomes a favorite scent right away. You have a hit here Beth, yum… yum and more yum! It’s like a sexier version of Misk U or a more subtle version of Red Lantern. It’s not as boozy as Red Lantern and seems to be more seductive where Red Lantern is more sleazy (in the most wodnerful way of course… I love Red Lantern). The other notes come out and keeps this from being a foody scent. Yeah that sounds weird, but seriously it doesn’t seem all that foody to me. Yes it’s strong with caramel, but the other notes tame it and give it so many levels. The patchouli gives a dark resinous base with gorgeous sandalwood creating a woody mix. The carnation and iris, two notes which usually don’t work on me, are sweetened up by the caramel, vanilla and benzoin. It is actually a very sexy and exotic scent and makes me want to lean in and smell myself over and over again. The notes seem strong at first, but the blend actually mellows out quite quickly and becomes soft and subtle on me. So I’d say it has average throw and short to average wearlength. I LOVE this scent!!!

[euterpe414]

Add me to the list of people whom all they can think when they smell this is: YUMMMM. This scent is totally delectable- caramel with sandalwood and slight hint of flowers. I smell the iris in the mix particularly when it is still wet on my skin. However once this dries it is pure rich sandalwood and caramel. gorgous. Another great thing about Arrival of the Sabbath is that is has incredible staying power on my skin. I think I only had to slather once the day I wore it and it lasted from 10am til 2am (good since this one is expensive!).

Edited January 30, 2007 by euterpe414

[sookster]

straight sniff from the bottle this is a big girl's caramel...sophisticated...

once applied this gets quite flowery; a touch powdery but in the most extraordinary way possible...

 

the combination of the caramel and floral in this blend gets better and better

and warms up beautifully...after 30 to 40 minutes i sense the sandalwood

and benzoin...incredible...just incredible...my fav of all the salon scents thus

far

 

p.s. this blend lasts and lasts throughout the day and then some...what a delight!!

Edited May 3, 2007 by sookster

[indicolite]

Caramel. More caramel. Still more caramel. There may be some vanilla in there too, but it is generally a candy scent.

 

I am not a foody person, so I will send it off to swaps.

[hepkitten]

Lots of caramel, some bourbon vanilla, and a little bit of sandalwood underneath.

 

YUM!

[Emma2403]

In the bottle: caramel, sweet caramel, and more caramel. And benzoin too. I’m 98% sure it will, again, turn into burnt plastic on me.

 

On my skin: burnt plastic, and, weirdly pepper. It’ so sad that whenever there is caramel (a smell I love), it always goes very very wrong on me.

 

After a couple of hours: only some burnt caramel (yeah now, there’s some caramel back under the smell of burnt).

 

Verdict: unfortunately, no.

[maijasu]

This is the first BPAL caramel scent that I could actually wear! Underneath it, I smell something deep, probably the black patchouli, and it reminds me a little bit of Samhain without the smoke. It stays close to the skin but lasts a long time. I will need to grab a bottle very soon.

[PurringPulsar]

The Arrival at the Sabbath and Homage to the Devil

 

In the imp: smoky caramel, just like Red Lantern, Gluttony, Creepy etc.

Wet on skin: oh wow, now I get an almost boozy vanilla extract appearing, as well as rich sandalwood and flowery notes.

Dry on skin: wow! This is gorgeous! It's foody caramel, that's for sure, but it's more than that. the beautiful Bourbon vanilla adds a rich roundness to the caramel-it is reminiscent of vanilla extract, the iris adds a creamy floral touch, there's a trace of spicy carnation and a delightful sandalwood base. I can just about make out the deep patchouli darkening the scent but for now it's a wonderful rich caramel-vanilla with a hints of flowers and sandalwood. It's like Underpants but with caramelised brown sugar on top.

After a while: the iris gains a fruity aspect, as it has done in some other scents, which swells and adds even more richness and complexity to the caramel. The effect is almost like that of caramelised plums, apricots or cherries, oddly enough, infused with vanilla beans and with a slight splash of dark rum. It now reminds me slightly of this year's Sugar Skull. The sandalwood and patchouli add a delicious warmth and prevents the scent from becoming too foody. But caramelised brown sugar is still the dominant note here.

The iris fades away, and scent does like most of Beth's caramel scents and dries down to pure treacle crossed with maple syrup and with a sprinkling of muscovado sugar, only this time with added vanilla beans and a hint of sandalwood. The covering of caramel is so thick though, that this wood can only just be smelt. After a few hours, the patchouli gives a smoky effect to the caramel, it smells more like boozy treacle now, or maple syrup, with just a scraping of sandalwood. It's still nearly identical to Sugar Skull, especially at this stage.

Verdict: this is the unholy lovechild of Underpants and Sugar Skull. If Sugar Cookie was the 'devil's bake sale', this is the devil's sweet shop. Evil caramel, evil in the best way. It's very, very caramelised, indeed, but there are lovely notes of iris, vanilla, patchouli and sandalwood that pass by and take it in turns to support the sticky cooked sugar scent. It lacks the 'nutty smoke' scent I get from a lot of BPAL's caramelised foodies, this is a purer caramel scent, smeared over sandalwood and patchouli-and there's nothing buttery about it either on me, it's melted, browned sugar. it's sophisticated caramel, deep and dark and delicious, with a fantastic sandalwood-patchouli base and moments when the Bourbon vanilla really shines. I'm not sure if I need a bottle just yet because I have enough caramel scents for now-I like them a great deal but at times they can be too heavy for me-but I'm certainly using the imp up.

Emoticon rating:

Is it a keeper? Oh yes. I might get a bottle once I finish my imp. A great scent for the colder months.

If you like this, try: Red Lantern, Sugar Skull, Gluttony, Cockaigne, Creepy, Monster Bait Underpants (if you can get it!)