Ronin

[Balame]

White sandalwood, rice flower, honey, black pepper, and oakmoss.

In the Imp: I'm so worried about the pepper in this. I just got off of reviewing Rhinotoros which was PEPPERDEATHPEPPER so I'm a little leery. Thankfully it doesn't smell too strong. It's actually rather hard to pick out particular notes - I guess it's mostly the sandalwood and rice flower, though I'm surprised the sandalwood doesn't smell stronger off the bat.

Wet: So far so good, I can tolerate this. This is... pretty nice, actually. It smells like a real honeycomb, which is pretty amazing since almost everything with honey in it from the lab has been a miss for me (save for Lights of Men's Lives). Which is sad, because I love honey in the real world. But this is even better than Lights, it's stronger and richer and everything I've wanted in a honey note. Wow. I also get the delicately sweet rice wine, and the sandalwood makes it a little "wild" around the edges, in a pleasant way.

Dry: Oh-! NO. Now the pepper is coming, there it bloody is. The wet stage of this was actually good to the point that I would be hunting down a bottle, but as usual pepper has ruined everything. I don't like it at all plus it amps on my skin like crazy. It's essentially the same otherwise, but I just can't take the ashy/obnoxious pepper rampaging around all the other lovely notes.

Verdict: Could have been so good! I guess my experience was almost exactly like Windbourne's - started out fantastic, ended up funky.

[rayvn1]

This is all honey and black pepper on me, the oakmoss (usually a death note) gave a harsher edge to the honey to keep it from going to sweet. Intense, but not something I'll use very often.

[childoftime]

This has aged into a gorgeous rice flower honey scent with hints of sandalwood and pepper. The oakmoss grounds it without being strong at all. I'm definitely going to be wearing this more often!

[mymymai]

ITI: It’s warm, exotic and spicy. I can get the black pepper clearly paired with the white sandalwood and the greenness of the oakmoss, while just a touch of the sandalwood sweetens the scent ever so slightly.

 

Wet: Honey, sandalwood, oakmoss, and pepper.

 

Dry: I get pepper that tickles my nose embedded in soft honey musk and sandalwood.

[ND¢]

Took me a while to appreciate how unusual this scent is (or to appreciate it at all, for that matter... it sat neglected, beautifully aging, in my BPAL box for literally a year and a half if it was a day. Then I dug it out one day when I was bored and stuck at home after surgery and smeared a shitton on my neck and the back of my ear.

 

Honey was not a scent I thought I liked, but the pepper blends cleanly with it to sharpen it up (I think this is how I avoid the artificial/play-doh smell on me, to some extent, because some floral honeys smell weirdly fake on me.) And this is a strong, dominant honey instead of a girly light honey. I am sure the 'strong dominant' perception comes not only from the, well, dominance of the honey note but also from the slightly muddying oakmoss. And then it dries down to a beautiful perfect sandalwood that's so crisp and simple that it's like brushstrokes on white paper. This reminds me of Mum Moon, which I also love.