Riding the Goat

[Naamah_Darling]

A rich Masonic incense coupled with mahogany wood, ebony, and pipe smoke.

Incense and wood are dominant here, with an afterodor of sweet tobacco. I am so tickled by this painting that I'm predisposed to like this, but it's genuinely quite nice. The incense has a very sharp edge, almost like lavender, so it's hardly what I was expecting.

I'm pretty sure that this is frankincense, since it has an almost lemony edge to it.

It progresses through a steady series of stately incense notes, in fact; the drydown is a smooth sandalwood/amber, and the sharpness at this point is totally nonexistent. Edited September 28, 2007 by Shollin

[slave1]

RIDING THE GOAT

 

In Bottle: Smoky wood

 

On Skin: This is a very dark, heavy, smoky wood scent with an even darker spicy incense. Wow, I can almost cut through the smoke with a knife. The scent is dry and powdery with a dark red, almost black tone… like a black baby powder instead of white. It is sweet and actually begins to lighten up quite a bit as it develops on my skin. At first it was overwhelming, but now it settles down and gets cozy and comfortable with me. Very pretty, and unisex in my opinion. I like pipe smoke better than cigar or cigarette smoke, it’s much sweeter and doesn’t coat my lungs. A warm deep scent, perfect for anyone who likes incense or smoky blends. Starts with a strong throw but actually quickly fades to a moderate throw with average to long wearlength.

[The_Merf]

This is one of the strangest BPAL experiences that I've ever had. If ever there was a scent tailored for me and me alone, at least by the description, it was this one. Yet, when I tried it on, what happened? Lemons!? I saw people mentioning lemons here in the reviews, and I couldn't fathom it; I've never had a resinous blend do this to me before, except for Nyaralathotep, and I thought that was because of the ozone notes involved in that blend.. The wood behind the resin is a very polished wood, and I didn't get any pipe smoke at all. I think I'm going to have to swap this one out--I'm really stunned at the way my chemistry interacted with this one.

Edited October 8, 2007 by The_Merf

[lanablade]

Ah... My old foe Incense. I received this as an addition to a Switch Witch package along with a note that it hadn't worked for her. Sorry, Witchy, it didn't work for me either. In the bottle, it smelled kind of like a really interesting liquor. Once on, the incense rose up and attacked me, smelling (and tasting with every breath, bleh) of really bad, cloud-o-death perfume. I had to wash it off and I couldn't stand it long enough to pick out any subtleties.

 

One bottle now up for adoption to a good home.

[ceiswyn]

In the imp: Oooooooooohhhhhh . This smells of distilled gorgeous. Smooth, dark and woody/resinous, and cigar-smoky, with just a trace of something dry-floral, or maybe citrussy to sharpen it. It lies on a scale somewhere between Red Lantern and The Pit And The Pendulum, but has a quality to it that distinguishes it as a scent in its own right.

 

On the wrist: On the wrist this becomes a little dryer, but still; this is an old-style men's smoking room, with leather sofas and leather-bound books, late at night with heavy curtains drawn over the windows and a haze of white smoke lazily drifting and whorling about the ceiling. There may be no whisky in the ingredients but I can smell it anyway, just because it has to be there.

 

One hour later: It seems to have faded quite quickly. Close to the wrist it's still incense and tobacco, with a hint of wood, but no longer quite the glorious scent it was. 8/10

[tartchef]

Woof! Wet, Riding the Goat is heavy library furniture in deep dark mahogany wood, with generations of pipe smoke permeating the leather upholstry... someone's been in to give things a good polish, and there's a sharp, lemon/lavender edge to things that sets my teeth slightly on edge. At it dries, the sharpness dulls a bit, revealing the dark woods again. There's an odd vegetal note lurking in the background, akin to the weirdness I got from Christmas Rose... This needs more incense for me, I think... would it be sacrelidge to layer it with a bit of Anne Bonny?

[lilacea]

This is amber heaven! Rich, resinous, piqued with stunning frankincense and dry woods. It is lacking a little that super sweet note most of BPAL's incense blends seem to have on me, but there's a soft sweetness nonetheless. It's a little powdery on the dry down. There may be some lemon in this (or it's the frankincense amping) and there's possibly a touch of beeswax.

 

Deep and sexy, but lifted.

 

Edited to add that the tabacco rears it's head in the dry down, and the faintest ever hint of leather is present.

Edited May 17, 2008 by lilacea

[Wwindy]

Many years ago I was spending a weekend at a rural campsite, and late one night I was out in the woods when I started catching whiffs of the most incredible smell. I couldn't figure out what it was! I kept trying to track down the elusive smell, and eventually I wound up walking all the way around the lake to discover a pipe-smoking friend indulging in his most treasured "for special occasions" pipe tobacco!

 

Riding the Goat smells exactly like the pipesmoke that was so good I followed it all the way around the lake, except smoked in an old-fashioned den with wood panelling instead of by the lake.

 

I do get the odd sour note mentioned by some reviewers near the beginning, but on me it's more like a pimiento sort of sharpness; that fades quickly, and after that it's all sweet woody pipesmoke. Yum.

[thomasblackthorne]

I am almost at a loss for words on this one...

 

Imp: Very incensey and resinous, do I detect amber?

 

Wet: WOW! ICK! No offense, just very high floral incense, no tobacco yet, no woods either

 

 

Drydown: No more ick, what a morpher, now I am getting a very nice boozy scent, reminds me of a nice shot of Jack Daniels. Maybe whiskey flavored tobacco? Still no woods, unless I don't know what they should smell like

 

Overall: Very interesting, I will wear it to the opera I think, even though I don't go to operas...just formal events.

[nightbiscuit]

A distinctly tiger orange colored oil.

Wet: Holy Crap! Grandpa, Is that you? I am seriously transported to childhood and tap-dancing with my woodsy smelling grandfather. Wow!

Dry: Excellent astringent pipe tobacco smokiness, and the richness of ancient polished wood. Damn if I am not even getting a hint of Murphy's oil soap! Actually I believe that is some citronella in the Masonic incense that I am smelling.

Somehow, this scent is redolent of my past, and I appreciate the well of memories....

 

This is a very dark incense perfume, definitely unisex.

[Gwydion]

In bottle: Rich sweet insense over pipe smoke. Peculiar and fascinating. Wet: The woods come out to play when warmed by skin. The think is enticing, yet vaguely alarming. It goes almost cocoanut shell for a spell. I am thinking that’s one of the woods, possibly the ebony, as I’m more familiar with mahogany and it doesn’t do this. It morphs a lot as various insence strains periodically rise above the would and pipe smoke to change the effect. This is too odd to be an unqualified success, but in aggregate, I love it for it’s fascinating convolutions. Dry: Okay, that’s a little weird in a borderline funk sort of way. It still has the nice woods, but something turned in the sense that milk turns. I can’t track down the note and it’s not that strong, but I’m less excited than I was.

[zankoku_zen]

Again, sweet incense over pipe tobacco. It's a sweet smoke, much sweeter than I expected actually, with an odd note of leather polish. Not leather, but leather polish.

 

Yeah, smoky leather? Good. Smoky leather polish? Not so much.

[crebbsgirl]

This is a wonderfully smooth and smoky incense scent. The woods here offer a tempering effect on the smoke and incense notes and the resulting scent is deep and rich. Commanding but not overly in-your-face. I was worried this might be a little masculine for my tastes but I think I can pull this one off. Overall, I really like this.

[asciident]

Wet: It smells like root beer...wtf?

 

First on: Still root beer on my skin.

 

Dry: This is really strange; it's like I bathed in root beer and forgot to wash it off. No incense, no smoke, no wood.

[Ondine]

This seems to have a heavy cedar or cedar-like note on me--maybe that's the ebony?--coupled with some thick incense. Not bad, but not really my thing either. A very thick oil, too--it makes my wrist somewhat tacky/sticky.

[CynicalPink]

Imp: Cologne

 

Wet: Manly man cologne

 

Drydown: Eh. There's some interesting incense in there, but it's not worth sniffing through the smokey/sour unpleasantness to get to it

[fairnymph]

Sniffed: Slightly soapy/powdery/cologney incense, deep dark and surprisingly sweet woods, lovely, sweet & mild pipe smoke.

 

Wet: More incense; even darker and spicier, though still oddly soapy-powdery in a masculine cologney way. The woods are more individually distinct; the mahogany is a bit overly heavy (much like a dark oak note, but sort of sickly sweet), but the ebony is dark and rich and smooth, like good tobacco. The pipe smoke is lighter, but still very mild and very lovely.

 

Dry: Sweeter and sweeter, to the point of nausea - there is definitely some tonka in this, and I'm not liking it at all. The sweet-spicy-heavy woodiness with the smoke and incense is very intense, and this has amped on me to epic proportions. Also more soapy and powdery. I almost suspect leather, as well as a type of soapy cologney floral.

 

[donnatron]

Bottle: Woods and smoky. Quite bracing and masculine. Very gentleman's club-y.

 

Wet: On wet this is all pipe smoke and I am okay with that. There's an almost marshmallow-y quality to it which is a little offputting but it's still lovely. Very, very masculine but also a little stuffy and dressy. Like a dapper older man in a suit. The incense unfolds slowly and the woods are really just a backing base.

 

Dry: The incense and woods strengthen considerably and there is definitely a boys club feeling here. It's an elegant and refined and probably slightly wicked gentleman's club. Skull and Bones wicked. The woods are the base and what I smell in the wrist close sniff. The throw is all tobacco and incense and a little touch of... musk, maybe? Something that makes this a proper cologne rather than smelling like I've been hanging out in an antique chest and smoking a pipe (kind of like extreme sports for agoraphobics or something). I really like it but also know it's not really appropriate for every day.

 

Throw: Good.

 

Overall: I really like this. It's a slightly wicked man's scent. Overall just very elegant and refined with a hint of roughness that makes it that much more interesting. I think this is a weekend sort of scent. It's so evocative and masculine that I think I would feel really uncomfortable wearing it to work or to a more formal occasion. Love it, however. I think I just need to cede that there are woods and tobacco scents for me out there, they just don't have coffee.

[starfish327]

this reminds me a lot of tavern of hell but woodier. i guess that's a good thing because toh is easier to find. this is heavy wood, leather and smoke all the way through. i'd like some more incense out of it actually, but i do think that there's a touch of frankincense in this blend because it's getting sweeter (though not extremely so) as it goes on.

[Penance]

Origin:

 

5mL from paperrose.

 

Preconceived notions:

 

This is one of those blends that sounds custom made just for me. Every single note in this screams my name. I love incense. I love deep, dark woods like mahogany and ebony. And I love pipe smoke. On the other hand, I haven't had the best luck possible with the Dogs Playing Poker series for some reason. There seems to be something ever-so-slightly "off" in all the ones I've tried that keeps them from being phenomenal on me. I have extremely high hopes for Riding the Goat, though. Fingers crossed!

 

First sniff:

 

Okay, so I first opened this when it arrived in the mail and figured it needed to rest, because it didn't smell like I expected. Not at all, although it didn't smell bad. So I set it aside for a week or so to recover from its (no doubt traumatic) journey through the postal system. It helped, but not as much as I'd like. Instead of the rich, deep wood, incense and pipe smoke I expected, I get...powder. A lot of powder. It could be a particularly strong musk, because my nose interprets some musks that way, but there's no musk listed in the ingredients. But (as I've mentioned a million times) I don't give up on a scent just because it smells off in the bottle. Onto the skin it goes!

 

Wet on skin:

 

Slightly better, but I'm still getting predominately powder. A really strong powder. It's musky, too, but not animal musky...more like old lady's dusting powder musky. I don't smell any wood in here, no incense and no pipe smoke. And I'm so completely confused because apparently I'm the only one getting this sort of scent from Riding the Goat. Is my nose broken? Is my brain?

 

Dry down:

 

Again, a little better. I get the lightest touch of dark wood now, but still no incense and no pipe smoke. All I can think is that there's some sort of very strong musk in here that's not listed in the notes and that that's all I can smell. It's very powdery. This is seriously heartbreaking for me. I lusted after Riding the Goat to the point of madness and I love, love, love the artwork. But apparently we just weren't meant to be.

 

The bottom line:

 

I wanted to love this. Oh, how I wanted to love this. And I thought maybe it would turn out alright when it was new and I could almost convince myself that I liked it even though it wasn't what I was imagining. But it's not alright. My bottle found a new home with someone who can hopefully love it more than I did.

[Cali]

This is just something i can only pin down as 'pleasantly sweet' and a soft tobacco note in the background. Doesn't change on application. Nice, but not for me.