German Expressionist Horror

[twilighteyes]

Highly stylized, stark, and filled with vivid, dark symbolism, these films employed bizarre, striking geometry and mise en scène to convey mood and tell their tale. Examples: Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, M, Der Golem, Schatten - Eine nächtliche Halluzination.

Casket dust, black musk and khus, musty velvet, black pine needle, patchouli, myrrh, and black pepper.

Sniffing from the bottle, the first whiff was pine needle. I also picked up the black musk and a teeny bit of Patchouli. Very dark!

[GoldenRubee]

This is very strong in the bottle and wet on the skin. The black musk and patchoulli are the first scents I smell. Khus is vetiver but is it a very light vetiver that seems to soften the other strong notes in this scents. When it dries down, all the notes meld into each other and it is a really beautiful oil.

[angelicruin]

Sniffing the bottle, it's pine needle, black pepper, and very musty. Exactly what you would expect from a Nosferatu inspired scent.

 

Wet on my skin, it's myrrh, black musk, dust, and patchouli. But not overpowering patchouli. This blend is actually much softer on my skin than it was sniffing the bottle. On my skin, I'm not getting the pine needle note, nor the strong black pepper I sniffed from the bottle.

 

The myrrh seems to be softening and even kind of sweetening the blend on my skin.

 

As it dries, it becomes mostly musty, dusty, myrrth and musk on my skin. Nice, in a creepy sort of way.

[AmandaArcana]

HEEEYYYY! Who stuffed my coffin with pine needles?

In the bottle all I smell is pine.

On my skin....more pine (I'm starting to smell like a christmas candle)!

Now I smell kinda musty....ok the scent has faded a bit but it's like someone's packed me away for a while.

All in all not too bad.

[TheOneTheyCallLuna]

This one smells absolutely amazing on both my boyfriend and myself - it's completely unisex! It's totally reminding me of another BPAL blend that I own but can't quite place, and it's clearly going to drive me crazy until I go resniff all of my decants to figure it out now...

 

Damn. I'll update this if I figure it out...

 

Anyway, this is whispy lemon musk and crunchy pine needles with a soft, almost imperceptible undertone of patchouli. Very understated and classy. Sophisticated and complex. I really love this and so does my boyfriend so we will be nabbing a bottle while we can!

 

[crebbsgirl]

I think this might be my favourite of the Summer Blockbusters. At first blush, this is sharp pine and khus. There is a bit of a musty vibe here too that just smells disconcerting. A little aftershave-y, a little cologne-y. However, given some time to settle on my skin, this is GORGEOUS! The myrrh really is a standout here, and the patchouli and black musk are just perfection. The pepper is really understated, adding a bit of a kick. It's pure lurve.

[Lamia]

I had such incredibly high hopes for this!

 

In the bottle, it smells a bit like sweat. Not bad stale ew sweat, but sweat that has certainly been well-earned. Fresh, it's got a bit of a dry sharpness which I am thinking is the khus. Dry, it's back to sharp sweat and sharp dead branches.

 

This is my sad face

 

EDITED TO ADD:

 

After almost 2 months of letting the bottle sit, I tested again. THIS is exactly what I was expecting! Musk, myrrh, patchouli LOVE

Edited July 26, 2009 by Lamia

[stellans]

From the first sniff of the decant, I knew this would be a bottle-worthy keeper. This blend has all the elements of a guaranteed favorite: patchouli, dark musk, black pepper; with the addition of pine needle and myrrh...well, what can I say? I love this blend so much! It is by far my favorite of the B-Movie Summer Blockbuster blends, so I'm very, very grateful a fellow forumite decided to sell her bottle. Yum!

 

On first application, the patchouli shouts a big hello, but the myrrh and musk catch up quickly. The khus, pine needle, and pepper are more subtle in their greetings, so much so that all the notes mix smoothly on my skin for a perfect blend which reminds me a bit of the original 2006 Schwarzer Mond. 5 of 5 stars!

Edited August 12, 2010 by stellans

[rayvn1]

Another win from the Horror series! This is not nearly as overwhelming as I assumed it would be with such strong notes. Instead it's a pretty well-mannered scent with a hint of pine that didn't set my husband's allergies off (yesssss!) Dust and musk and pine, oh my!

[zankoku_zen]

Oh god, this ends up smelling like talcum powder on a sweaty male.

 

EW!

 

The talcum like powder is probably the patchouli. The sweaty male I blame on black musk.

 

EW.

[lilacea]

Wet, this is a coolish pine, not too high or heavy, with a sweet Myrrh kick behind it. It is a little reminiscent of Schwarzer Mond with it's soft musky patchouli and slight spice once it hits my skin, there's a familiar resin sweetness. Dry, this turns into absolute musky warm goodness that most BPAL cloth/cotton/linen scents do on my skin, very sexy. Soft patchouli accents this beautifully, with just a touch of a grassy element on the way to the dry down. There may even be a touch of honey in here. Lovely.

[Monster]

I have a silver-colored goldfish named "Nosferatu". I will think of this as his scent.

 

In the vial: Sharp pine! Oh my!

 

Wet: Ohhh! Wonderful khus and that strange "dust" note (dunno how she does it but it's dead on) with pine needles. Wow! Sniffing this even has a cooling effect on my nose. How neat!

 

Dry: Wowowow gorgeous! This smells like the breeze blowing in from a spooky forest...through a large set of gothic windows into an old, dusty library. I always associate khus with the smell of old library books. I just LOVE the way this smells. Thre's a nice base of myrrh and patchouli on my skin.

 

Overall: Such a sexy vampire scent. I've gotta pick up a bottle ASAP. Wowza.

[Little Bird]

In the bottle, this smells dark, foresty and awesome.

 

Bpal's pine notes can often be too sharp/sour and overpowering for me, but the pine here is sweet and resinous, almost like needles caught in sweet pine sap. I get lots of pine at first, but it quickly dries down to a point where the pine moves far into the background & just adds a hint of dark forest to the whole blend. I'm getting lots of sweet, resinous myrrh. I usually hate black musk, because my skin chemistry amps it up and makes me smell like cheap cologne, but there's just a sexy hint of it here.

 

Lots of resinous, smooth, sweet myrrh with hints of sexy black musk, pine needles trapped in sap, and just a little earthiness from the patchouli. I'd wear this and love it, but it's even better on my hubby.

 

 

ETA: This is another one that hasn't aged well. The pine has gotten overwhelming while the other notes seem to have disappeared. It reminds me of PineSol with a hint of woodsmoke

Edited November 12, 2012 by Little Bird

[violetgrimm4]

At first this smells of fresh pine not the nasty fake smell u get in air fresheners but the beautiful bpal pine like in yule 06 (I think that the year I have) but that all I get to begin with and I love it! As it dries I get a peppery musk and something dark I think its the myrrh I can just about smell the patchouli and khus in this blend but neither are over powering I think they are adding to the dustyness.

 

Io very much like this smell its sexy but in a dark way its perfect for the subject. Its like laying in a pine coffin wraped in black velvet in a church crypt...

Edited July 22, 2009 by violetgrimm4

[tragedy]

I had huge hopes for this because the notes all seem like something I would love.

At first all I'm getting is a musty pine, this is giving me a definate masculine vibe.

On drydown, more of the same. Nothing but musty pine.

Passing on to hubby.

 

Or, scanning over the past reviews, ageing to see if I love it later!

[hlinspjalda]

In the vial: Musky patchouli with deep pine. This smells dark all right, dark and a bit sharp, very evocative of those types of movies for which it's named.

 

Wet: Piney vetiver patchouli myrrh with a perversely sweet touch. I wonder if that's the vetiver signaling which way it's going to turn on me? Or maybe that's the black pepper note. Anyway, I quite like this one so far.

 

Hour and a half: Delicious warm musk with some gentle black woody spicy notes. At one hour this was very fabulous, although it's quieter now.

 

Three hours: There's some very charming note in this that I can't quite identify. It's definitely a musk-first scent on me, but it's very well tempered with the other dark notes. It doesn't smell sharp or scary now, it smells somehow comforting, warm and familiar and well-loved like a vintage black silk velvet dress that stays in the back of the closet because there's never any occasion quite right for you to wear it, but you can't bear to ever think of parting with it. It's almost, but not quite sweet.

 

Four and a half hours: Not much change. Musk stays true on me for many, many hours, so I expect this one will do the same.

 

[edenssixthday]

German Expressionist Horror - I tend to really like dark and heavy scents along the lines of this one, but unfortunately, black musk and dust are both notes I just can't stand, and sadly, while the resins and other dark, heavy notes are absolutely amazing in this blend, the black musk and dust combine to create an awful scent overtone that I just can't get past. I also smell something slightly menthol-like far beneath the other notes in this blend, and that adds to the overall unpleasantness. I have a feeling people who don't mind black musk and/or dust and who lean toward the darker, heavier, more masculine blends could potentially really dig this one. It has great potential for the right skin chemistry.

[medvssa]

Black Forest + Schwarzer Mond... I LOVE this one very dark, yet soft, enveloping and velvety-smooth. As good as it gets :D

[patina]

The pine does indeed smell lovely and delicate. Everything else does indeed smell dark and dusty. I get old velvet theater curtains.

 

However, in warm temperatures, this scent resembles the mildew from an air-conditoning filter.

 

I wanted to love this one based on name alone, but for me it works only in cold weather and my skin EATS it until there's almost nothing left.

Edited January 27, 2010 by patina

[fairnymph]

Walnut brown coloured oil. Very dark, intense, masculine. Woodsy - lots of pitch-like, resinous pine, heavy vetiver and dark earthy patchouli, and some pretty darn intensely spicy black pepper, sweetened by heavy black musk. Eek, I'm scared!

 

A bit lighter and fresher, the pine is not the lab's typical Pine-Sol but a deeper more pitch-pine note, but on my skin it's much greener and more evocative, like trampling through the woods - I strongly suspect some Cypress bc I get a bit of its citrusy tang, and quite possibly other evergreens too. Very woodsy. The vetiver and black pepper are the next strongest notes, and while the former is dark and strong, it's not gritty or too oppressing - just earthy and manly and rather sexy. The black pepper on the other hand is well, peppery, and it reminds me of those packets of preground pepper - blech. Oh, still plenty of almost-cloying sweet black musk. The patchoulit's a bit dirty and rooty, and the myrrh dusty and bitter and dark, but these are the lightest notes, although the sense of DUST generally is quite strong.

 

This was slightly sour when it first went on, and it's still quite sour if not more so - I strongly suspect some elemi, which could be that citrusy note I initially interpreted as Cypress. But this note is so bright and so citrusy and now so sour, I think it MUST be elemi. The pine and patchouli and vetiver have settled down into a beautiful dark, earthy backdrop that's deliciously manly and sexy. Unfortunately, the dusty myrrh and black pepper are totally ruining my buzz - as is the sour elemi top note. The musk has amped and deepened as usual on me, and is a bit too sweet and heavy, but would be bearable were it the only less-than-lovely note.

 

This becomes more and more seamless over time, and for what it is, what it's meant to evoke - it's very well done. The black musk really takes hold in the later stages, slightly powdery and sweet and indeed velvety feeling, with the incensey, dusty myrrh to add to the powdery feel. The vetiver, patchouli, and pine pitch continue to be beautifully dark and earthy-woodsy, with only a touch of rootiness from the patchouli remaining. And only a hint of sneezy black pepper remains - it's less cheap preground pepper packet, but it still nags at me. Not a blend I'd wear, but well done. Good throw and great longevity.

[glitterlips]

I just received German Expressionist Horror - my favorite genre of all time, so I felt compelled to get it - and I LOVE IT!!

 

In the bottle, I smell the pine needle and musk. After having it on a while, it smells mostly of musk and myrrh (love myrrh).

I was worried that the patchouli would drown out the other notes, but it's very subtly blended and quite nice.

 

This is definitely my go to scent for when I'm feeling dark and moody.

 

-Melanie

[voodoocatwoman]

This starts out as pine sprinkled over musk... and turns to talcum powder. It's a dark, sinister talcum powder. I like it.

[hkhm]

imp: deliciously dark. black musk, pine, patchouli, myrrh...

 

wet: this is the darkest, most resinous pine over patchouli scent ever. the black musk makes this just perfect. this is as stark as the genre it's named for.

 

dry: this is gorgeous! so dark and rich. the notes have blended so well i'm having a difficult time separating them. i think i may need a bottle.

[voorishsign]

Another gift from the outstanding rawgirl75. When she told me that khus is another word for vetiver, I started kicking myself for not trying this sooner, as I am vetiver fiend

 

In the imp - really nice - dust, vetiver, velvet and pine needle. Distant myrrh.

 

On wet - Oh, this is perfect. This is exactly what I imagined when I read the description, and when I think back on movies like Nosferatu and Caligari. Dusty, velvety, with myrrh and pine adding spice, and vetiver adding depth. Am loving this.

 

Drydown - sweet mother of God, what a drydown. Myrrh, vetiver, musk, black pepper, and just a bit pine needle leftover. Delightful

[occurs]

Holy grail of unusual. First of all i am obsessed with german cinema in general. This does have a dark, cold, bleakness to the blend, like a lot of german cinema.

 

the pine is sharp in the beginning, but it wears soft on me in 10 minutes or so.

 

The Dusty casket is a prominent note here for me.

 

Honestly, this is so nostalgic, it reminds me of a burned down house in piney woods, i really am smelling murky burnt wood.

 

I actually quite like smelling like this, it reminds me of some of the favorite towns and places in which i have photographed.

 

the patchouli and myrrh really are what makes this beautiful, but i love the burning feeling i am getting! This is evil...so odd...

 

It is also reminds me of twin peaks, when they are in the woods and find the place that smells like burning in which the black lodge lies, this is the scent i imagine they were smelling.

 

nice! 5 out of 5!