Fox Fires on New Year's Eve at the Garment Nettle Tree at Oji

[nikkoblue]

 

Fox Fires on New Year's Eve at the Garment Nettle Tree at Oji, Hiroshige.

Weeping cherry, watery bamboo pulp, nettle tree bark, green tea incense, soft musk, rice wine, and Japanese tree lilac.

 

This is a nice, light watery green floral. Typically, cherry overpowers anything else on my skin but that is not the case here.

 

My initial impression of the scent is a very light, just-identifiable lilac note which soon gets followed by the bamboo pulp and musk. I'm not getting the rice wine in this one, and the cherry is just barely floating on the other notes. The bark seems to be grounding everything; I can't find the green tea incense but you can tell that this scent is combining many elements together. This almost goes to the realmm of dry/powdery/soapy on me, but thank maude it does not and it just holds together as a nice soft not-overly-floral floral

[Jilara]

This one is hard to qualify. It shifts elusively, perhaps like its foxfires in the painting.

 

Wet, it's very aquatic, with a hinting of something like wet foliage.

 

On drydown, there is a waft of something oriental that comes up, but undefinable, like a vague hinting of scent on the breeze. There is also a vague note of maybe ozone? And something almost like humus--the bark notes? It shifts a lot, at this stage, and just when I think I've identified a note...almost...it's like it was never there. Quite appropriate.

 

Dry, the aquatics drop out and there is something that reminds me of Bakeneko in the background, maybe evoking those freezing fireballs. A slight spiciness with a hint of musk. I don't want to call it "warm," but something definitely ...comfortable? I don't know why I find this scent so comforting. Now and then, there is a vague waft of bamboo, but again, it's phantom-like. I don't get the cherry at all. Maybe that's because this is a winter cherry, no blooms but bare branches. On me, there is no floral in this at all.

 

I like this one a lot, a scent one could wear every day and feel comfortable. Which is wonderful, because "Foxfires on New Year's Eve" is one of my all-time favorite pieces of art, and I love that the print now has a scent based on it.

[Ah Xia]

This is the most evocative of the Salons I bought on the update.

 

It smells like a dream I had once, a vast endless plain of white snow and grey shadowy skies, near a frozen stream. In the middle of this landscape is a beautiful flowering tree unlike any found on earth, some exotic combination of lilac, cherry, wisteria and everything beautiful in spring, delicate blossoms covered with a wet dusting of drippy snow that makes black marks on the trunk of the tree and wet holes in the snow cover beneath, exposing tufts of long buried grass brilliantly, impossibly green.

 

As you sit and wait under this tree, there's a palpable sense of anticipation...a flash in the sky, a sudden light in the distance, and everything will change...carried on the wet, somehow alive breath of wind.

[clover]

It goes on as a very green, very crisp watery floral. Had I not looked at the description, I would have sworn up and down that this had jasmine in it.

 

After a while it goes a bit dirty. I'm not sure what that is, maybe the bark? But it's dirtying it right up, in a really sharp kind of way.

 

This is a very linear, piercing kind of floral. It's not messing around at all. I like it. It's probably not something I'd reach for a lot, as I like my scents softer around the edges, but I do like it.

[supremegoddessofall]

Very tea-like and has a "wet" feel to it. Musk is moderate here. Not getting the florals much. Pretty but somewhat indistinct.

[DangerInRed]

Yay, my first Salon blend!

 

When I first put this on, it smelled very soft and green.

 

After a few minutes, the powdery florals and sweet, musky sweetness came out. The lilac and the musk are both discernable, as well as something nice that reminds me of my grandmother (weeping cherry?). This blend doesn't strike me as being strongly Asian, even though I think there's a note in here that comes up in Hungry Ghost Moon (rice wine, I think it is) and so it reminds me of that, except more floral. Usually I'm not a floral person, but I do like lilac and, once again, I say this is very nice.

[dawndie]

Wet: sharp hairspray alcohol

 

On skin: lots of thick green juice, very fresh. I picture goop oozing out of a broken piece of aloe. Slightly creamy background

 

Half-hour later: the creamy background has gotten stronger, along with a slightly sharp light musk

 

In conclusion: the Salons I have tried so far seem to have a beautiful creamy base in common, very haughty and regal. I do like the fresh green beginning, but the end result is a little too much rich-old-lady. Not a fall-over-dead favorite for me; it seems like it's already done a credit check on me and I'm not worthy. It's pretty, though, and I'm glad I got to try it.

[sarada]

Am I the only Cocteau Twins fan who gets "Frou Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires" going through their head every time they look at the name of this blend? No? Anyway...

 

Without looking at the note list, the first thing this made me think of were little boxes of Japanese incense at Garland of Letters in Philly. That sort of generalized, perfumey incense scent from high quality Japanese incense. So the fact that this includes 'green tea incense' as an ingredient is not too surprising!

 

Although the scent is not overly strong in the imp, the musk basically reacts with my skin like a coal over flames, and every ingredient springs into life as soon as it is warmed a little. I get the slight sourness of rice wine (which bears some similarly to a smoky-sweet-sourness that I like in Hungry Ghost Moon and Tamamo no Mae) and a little bit of a dusty, woody scent but overall it is the soft perfume of many, many sticks of Japanese incense -- some burning, some gathering dust on the shelves.

 

Just like the painting, it's a muted green-grey with glimmers of yellow-white. I don't actually find this to be watery or aquatic at all once it is on my skin, because the green tea incense and musk just steal the show and march around swinging censers of billowing pale green smoke in every direction. This is a good thing.

 

I really like this but I had to wear it around for awhile to get the full effect. For a better idea of the visual aspects of this scent please refer to Ah Xia's beautiful review!

[gwynethr]

I confess that a lot of the Japanese scents smell almost indistinguishable to me -- they are all lovely, and seem to fall into two categories, floral or slightly fruity. Everything is very faint and soft, though, and this one is no exception. I can't distinguish any particular notes here, it's all a very soft, almost floral scent on me, and smells almost the same wet as dry.

 

Not much throw, but of the Japanese-themed scents, this one is one of the nicest, even though it's not a huge standout from the others. I'm kind of embarassed about this inability to distinguish them, but hey, I have the same problem with green teas. The only one I could pick out of a crowd would be genmai cha.

[alicia_stardust]

Wet: I get a cool watery green floral. There is a touch of tea and resin in there as well.

 

On my skin: This warms up very nicely, and I applied too much. This has a very strong throw! As it dries I really get the musk and incense and a soft little touch of the lilac. Overall the notes in this really blend together.

 

After a while: At about the 2 hour mark, this really changes on my skin. The remaining scent is a sharp, woodsy, bitter scent. My best guess is that this is the nettle bark? Or maybe it's just my skin chemistry.

 

This is a beautiful Japanese blend that captures the art beautifully. This is worth the sensory experience and the journey if for nothing else.

[edenssixthday]

Fox Fires on New Year's Eve at the Garment Nettle Tree at Oji - I'll never be able to remember that full name. Wow, that's a biggun! Okay, this is predominantly a rice wine, cherry, incense and musk scent on me. When I first apply it, the wine is really strong, almost sour, way too juicy, and almost unpleasant...but not quite. As it dries down, the wine settles into a nice, sweet-sour, soft scent that provides a perfect backdrop for the cherry and the incense. This is not an IN YO' FACE!!! ultra-sweet cherry at all. It's almost more of a cherry blossom, but again...not quite. I think it's really tempered by the musk in the blend, which I can't smell distinctly, yet I can "feel" how it's softening out the cherry around the edges. The incense is very soft and wispy, and doesn't give the blend an overall smoky scent as incense sometimes does. I may smell the tiniest drop of lilac in this blend, but that could just be the power of suggestion from the scent description. Overall, it's a really pretty blend with an Asian flair, yet it's not nearly as traditionaly Asian-scented as I had anticated from all the notes in this. It's very pretty. The throw and staying power are both below average. This would make a lovely scent locket blend.

[valentina]

What a beautiful painting this scent is based on -- I just love it. And when I sniffed it in the imp, I felt great hope, because I love incense and green tea and musk. I was a little iffy about the florals, but I can wear jasmine in the right blends, and I really want some of the Oriental themed scents to work on me. At first, my hopes were still running high, because what I found on initial application and drydown was a green tea-jasmine incense, with a bit of really pretty, delicate cherry blossom. Just lovely. Then my body decided to take the florals and jackhammer this scent into something that smells sort of traditionally old lady perfumey, and I wanted to cry. I lost all the green tea, incense and bamboo. It's not hideous, but it's not what this scent is supposed to be. I think anyone who can wear delicate florals and Oriental fragrance ingredients would love this, but I'm going to have to be content with admiring the artwork.

[LadyCrow]

In the imp: A delicate tinge of floral; mostly bamboo.

 

Wet: I can just barely pull out that floral as the lilac. Bamboo, then somebody spills the sake absolutely all over the place! Not that I mind.

 

Drydown: It's rather as if the notes are actors in a play. The lilac tree reemerges through all the sake; then I get the green tea incense (very distinctly incense-y) first around the edges, then more strongly; then the musk rises up as a note in itself. The cherry, surprisingly, seems buried in the musk, rather than floating above other notes as it does in many blends.

 

While this is an exceptionally lovely and well-blended scent, I have to agree with a previous reviewer: many of the Salons that are inspired by Asian art seem functionally -- as perfumes -- indistinguishable. They're all beautiful, and this one has far more throw than I would have expected, given most of the listed notes. I would be happy to get my hands on a bottle of any of them. But I'm not sure that, in a blind sniff-test, I could distinguish this from Lantern Ghost of Oiwa. I would put the two on in much the same situations (i.e. don't go into the important meeting/dinner with the husband's boss/etc. reeking of Smut), or to evoke much the same type of mood and presence. This is not to diminish either blend; people still collect every possible variation of Samhain/Halloween scents, for example. It's actually quite interesting -- it's like watching a visual artist work out a concept in different studies.

[crimescenecleanup]

I was really excited to get a bottle of this, and it didn't let me down.

 

This is probably the most complex BPAL scent I've tried. It changes continually throughout the day. I chose to wear it on a day when i had meetings from eight in the morning until six at night, and it seemed to be a different scent every few hours.

 

Straight out of the bottle, this has a very dark, wet, woody scent, almost musty...like moss and lichen covered tree bark after a rain. It's a deep blue-green scent. Like a wetland, only, well, just the pleasant parts, and not the swampy water smell. Just the smell of wet plants and moss and soil.

I wonder if the "musty" dirt note comes form the green tea incense?

 

It also has this kind of biting spiciness to it, but not anything I can really identify. It reminds me of clearing nettles out of the garden. It actually makes my nose and skin tingle, like nettles do. I tend to sneeze when I first put this scent on.

 

The lovely, musty woodsy aquatic smell fades to the background and something very pale and soft comes to the forefront. Maybe the lilac and soft musk? If the first notes formed a dark, earthy nighttime scent, then what takes over at this stage feels very ethereal and luminescent and light glowing green. It's a perfect depiction of shimmering foxfires appearing on a cold, rain-soaked night.

 

but even this faded into the background and I got this really light, amorphous herbal scent.

 

For the first 3-4 hours it was a scent without any definite direction, constantly shifting - I could pick out the earthy, green, aquatic, musk, floral and that nettle note all just swirling together.

 

Towards the middle of the day, the scent was still very strong, but it had dried down into... cherry 7 up? No, really. Exactly like Cherry 7up if it was made with real lemon, lime, and cherry juices. But not overly sweet. Maybe the diet version?

It must have been the rice wine that offered the sour yellow-green citrus note, but there is this soft rich sweetness behind it that probably comes from the drydown of the musk and the floral. It's the sweetness that comes from fresh water and flowers, though, and not the sweetness of sugar.

 

Overall I find this a really fun, comforting scent. Not in a foody way, but in a wet, foresty way. It's very restful and delicate, and Overwhelmingly feminine in the way that it conjures up images of peaceful evenings and green plants and soft rain.

[moon_lemming]

At first, I get cherry backed by a bit of liquid green. It's pretty and light and I love it. Sadly, the Musk Plus Floral Curse bites me in the ass five minutes later, and I've got nothing but detergent.

 

After an hour or so, the crazy dryer sheet scent settles down a bit, but it's still too strongly floral for me.

[PurringPulsar]

Fox Fires on New Year's Eve at the Garment Nettle Tree at Oji

 

In the imp: watery cherry (real fresh cherry, not cherry sauce, maraschino, glace or whatever, but juicy fresh cherry) and lilac.

Wet on skin: rice wine, a floral reminiscent of Tamamo no Mae, bamboo, lilac, bark and cherry.

Dry on skin: oh, this is beautiful, so unusual and fascinating. I get a watery, dewy feel from this scent, like wet cherries (the pale red-yellow ones, not black) and rained-on lilac, as well as bamboo. Something about this reminds me of the unidentified but gorgeous floral in Tamamo, maybe the rice wine and tea also remind me of that scent? The wetness of the scent is contrasted by what might be the nettle bark, which is a dry, green and scrubby note, woodsy but definitely barky too, right down to the greenish powdery lichen you get on bark. I also smell thin smoke from the incense wafting through. It's not a very sweet scent.

After a while: the gritty scrubbiness of the bark has toned down a lot now, letting the graceful notes of bamboo, cherry, a very soft lilac and rice wine show themselves a little more. The notes seem to merge into each other now, but there's still that impression of trees covered in dew on a cool spring night, with the moon shining. The incense is very soft, like Japanese incense sticks burning and letting their subtle smoke drift through the serene landscape. The scent then becomes a little bit more fruity as the wet cherry shows up a little more. And then the rice wine turns to rice milk, the scent becomes a little bit creamy and bamboo-y. The notes change and the blend morphs nicely.

Verdict: this seems to have a similarity to that other Japanese foxy scent, Tamamo No Mae, but it is also very different. The two scents seem almost like sisters, or two sides of the same coin. There's a similar floral-musk feel along with rice wine, tea and gentle incense, but the peach-like scent is replaced with cherry, lilac and bamboo, and this is less sweet than Tamamo. This one is also more complex, more narrative, it changes more. It's an unusual scent, very intriguing and ghostly as well. the cherry note in here is so different to anything I've smelt in BPAL-because it smells like actual pale-coloured cherries should. There's also a dry bark note and a hint of lilac, with a lovely smoky aspect from the incense. this is one of those scents that's also very artistic, almost conceptual, and beautifully done. It's not a favourite-the nettle bark can be a little too scratchy-smelling at times and the lilac sometimes turns bitter, but I'm keeping what I have of this interesting fragrance.

Emoticon rating:

Is it a keeper? the imp, because this is a very unique scent.

If you like this, try: Tamamo No Mae, The Fox Woman Kuzonoha, Hungry Ghost Moon, Lantern Ghost of Oiwa, Kyoto

[Little Bird]

Fox Fires is another Asian-themed blend that just doesn't work on my skin . The notes in this sounded lovely and I wish I got the cherry that others have mtnioned. On me, this is just musky-floral dryer sheets. Soapy and perfumey. I can't pick out any of the listed notes.

[Ajila]

In the bottle – Possibly some of the lilac, but to my nose it’s barely perceptible

 

Wet on me – Sharp heady florals with a lingering burning scent behind them

 

Dry on me – Clean like freshly ironed laundry, with just a hint of sweetness

 

Overall – Nice enough, but not something that I’d ever wear

[Delirium1009]

In bottle: Slightly floral and sweet, with a very crisp green scent underneath. It’s a very bright scent.

 

immediately on skin: The sweet florals are still there, along with a hint of frutiness. Underneath it is a very strong, green note… probably the bamboo.

 

After a few minutes: Lilac with a bright fruity note with a sharp tinge of powder underneath.

 

Later on: This has turned into a slightly sweet lilac scent with an extremely light musky undertone. All the other notes seem to have disappeared completely. It’s pretty, but nothing special.

[CrazyPretzel]

In the imp: sharp, green -- my brain immediately goes 'green tea incense!'

 

Wet on me: Mmmm delicious. Makes me think of the sweets from Minamoto Kitchoan. Sweet and delicate with a little bit of sharpness to it, but not a sharpness that could ever be called soapy. There's something quite cool and almost minty going on here. Refreshing.

 

After a few minutes: Mint and green tea and sugar. Delicate, subdued cherry blossom. Reminds me a *lot* of Gennivre, but with very delicate florals in place of the lemon.

 

Drydown: creamy cherry blossom and a touch of bamboo, lilac. Florals blended with a wet woodsy scent and a little bit of sharpness from the rice wine.

 

Nice! I'll wear the imp more and decide if I want a bottle.

 

ETA: In the long drydown, this turns into the dreamiest soft lilac and green tea incense, no more sharpness. Wonderful throw, too. I absolutely love it!

Edited August 31, 2007 by Baitu

[zankoku_zen]

In the imp: Watery flowery aquatic

 

On Skin: Slight cherry note overtone, again, this is a watery aquatic. And yes, I do get the impressions of damp foliage. This is very ghostly and ethereal. Very pungent.

 

On Drydown: I get more of the incensey vibe underneath, despite it being a watery aquatic. I'm glad that the cherry didn't ultimately dominate, since it can be very sweet on me.

 

Verdict: This is an awesome scent depiction. And part of it does remind me to my japanese grandmother. I don't know why since she wasn't the kind that wore perfume and had incensey on her. She did, however, once a week go to the Japanese Cultural Center... and that also kinda smelled like this. It might be the green tea which makes me think of her. In a sense, this is a very nostalgic blend for me. Wow, now I miss my grandma...

[filigree_shadow]

I thought I'd like this one because I usually like the Asian-themed perfumes, but this smells like extraordinarily perfumey powder on me. I can't pin down why. I wouldn't have thought any of those notes would be powder culprits on me, but something sure is. I can't pick out any individual notes at all, not even the cherry. Just musky, perfumey powder. It seems like it's a little on the sour side, too.

 

It doesn't smell bad perfumey, not like cheap perfume or anything, but it's just not what I was hoping for.

[jolarocknrolla]

*waaaaah* no aquatic here fo me I was hoping with all of these descriptions i would get an aquatic note but either it's too small in proportion or too well blended for me to even smell it. I do get mostly floral here with hint of greenery (not much, it's very subtle), and something does make me think if Night-time ... but i can't put my finger on it. It's almost something inscence-y, somehow you feel like you are catching a wiff of night-blooms in the distance. It's not a strong scent, but it is long lasting and stays pretty true throught.

[hkhm]

imp: musk, incense and light florals.

 

wet: a very musky tea scent. unusual and lovely.

 

dry: still musky tea. this is a lighter, sweeter musk than i'm used to and the tea scent is soft. very nice.

[porcelina]

sweet, watery, a little green, musky and soapy. there is something sharp and green here that i like and the green tea incense... guh. but overall i think it is a little too soapy-smelling for me to want to wear.