Dawn: Priestess

[bheansidhe]

DAWN: PRIESTESS
Damascus rose, jasmine, myrrh, opoponax, white sage, and patchouli.

Priestess is weighty, complex, and a morpher. I dislike myrrh and rose on my skin as a rule, but I love actual white sage and I liked the concept of the scent. Once on, I liked the feel of the blend, even though individual notes behaved oddly on me.

Sniffed from the wand, the initial top blast is rose; if you figured the blackest burgundy of rose notes, you'd be right. It smells nothing like the rose in Maiden. I waved it back and forth for several seconds and each waft smelled different, spicier, with fruity resins (in the same way that wet tobacco is fruity, and not as in actual fruit). The rose binds everything together, but after the first whiff this isn't a "rose" scent; it's resins and darkness wreathed in the smoky medicinal tang of white sage.

I didn't get jasmine at all except as a sharpness behind the rose. On my skin, this sank down amazingly low and took on a smoky, smouldering quality. This isn't cheap headshop stank; it smells like anointing oils and high-quality ritual incense. I can smell the white sage, which I love, but isn't everyone's cup of tea; it's nothing like cooking sage and more like sharp conifer sap. Smells like magic herbs burning on a dry fire.

After a while this went unpleasantly close to body odor on me, which is the fault of myrrh, and then to dead, dusty roses. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. Edited December 4, 2010 by Shollin

[edenssixthday]

Dawn: Priestess - Priestess is a really beautiful, rich, deep, strong scent. Granted, I love myrrh, patchouli and rose, and jasmine isn't usually a problem for me anymore. I don't really smell the jasmine in this much at all. For the first two hours I wore this scent, I had no idea there was jasmine in it and was surprised when I read the ingredient list. The myrrh and rose are definitely the strongest notes on me. The patchouli gives them both a bit of an earthier grounding. The scent is fairly incense-like, but not in a smoky, hippie kind of way, more of a high church kind of sacred scent. Just as Dawn: Maiden is innocent and Dawn: Mother is mature, I would say that Dawn: Priestess is sacred. Really, really lovely.

 

ETA: It has an above-average level of throw, so no need to slather. Also, the staying power of this one is really phenomenal!

Edited September 22, 2010 by Edens Sixth Day

[zankoku_zen]

Ah, priestess you smell like rose soap, jasmine and patchouli. Underneath the rosy floral smells, you smell like incense.

 

Nope, not for me.

[Dark Alice]

This is red rose with hints of myrrh and patchouli. For a red rose scent it is gorgeous....I just don't think it's for me! But God is it a gorgeous scent.

[Molls]

(I am no good at reviewing this type of scent.) It smells dusty, and when I get too close to my arm, I can feel it in the back of my throat... weird. I am not a jasmine fan, and do not pick up any jasmine in this scent. Just the dusty resins and a deep soft rose in the background.

[greenranger]

I don't smell jasmine in this, but, I do smell rose. Mostly this is an incense scent. This is a deep rose incense. Also, it lasts and lasts.

 

I love myrrh.

[plainjean]

In the vial, it smelled like this Indian temple incense oil I have. Wet, somehow this is mixing to smell like some sort of cooking spice. After it dries, it becomes a soft and powdery rose incense. Nice enough, but not too terribly unique.

[Little Bird]

Everything about this scent smells very dry and sweet to me.

The rose smells dead, sweet, and dry, the patchouli like bone dry earth and needles (makes me think of dead, brown pine needles without smelling like pine, really), and the resins almost dusty and sickly sweet. Like all of the Dawn scents, this one goes slightly to rose soap on me in the drydown (which is really weird, because bpal's rose notes don't often turn soapy on me), but not as soapy as the others.

 

Between the myrrh and opoponax, this is intensely sweet and resinous, and almost goes a bit cloying on me. I can't really pick out jasmine or sage. After about an hour, the dryness is like a mix of baby powder and dust that I'm just hating underneath the super-sweet, resinous rose.

 

None of the Dawn blends are good on me, sadly though Maiden is nice in my scent locket... I much prefer Rose Cross, Parlement of Foules, and Saint Foutin de Varailles for resinous rose blends.

[violetblue]

I love that this one lasts on my skin - 5 hours I still smell it! It reminds me of expensive creamy rose soap lingering on the skin with an Indian vibe to it. I think it's really pretty and seems a bit old fashioned if that makes sense. I don't get a lot of resins, just a gorgeous rose probably due to the excellent combination/blending of the notes.

[angelicruin]

Oddly enough, I don't really get much of the jasmine. I'm smelling mostly rose, sage, and patchouli on my skin.

[grrrlennyl]

Dawn: Priestess

 

On: Patchouli and myrrh with a bit of sage and rose.

1 hour in: Lots of myrrh with a hint of flowers underneath.

8 hours in: Mostly sage with a bit of powdery rose.

Overall: This is nice, but nothing really special on me.

[crebbsgirl]

This was a little harsh when I first applied it. I have to be honest and say I really wasn't a fan. The jasmine and rose were very prominent, and neither play well on my skin. But as it dried, WOW. The myrrh and patchouli came out and really add a wonderful incensey feel to this. It ends up being predominantly resins on my skin, with a hint of floral underneath.

[countessmouse]

Started out as a spicy floral that I really liked, but dried down to nothing but rose after a few hours. Boring.

[stellamaris]

This the the Emperor's New Perfume for me, my husband says it is wonderful, but I can barely smell it. I feel it more than smell it, OK then.

Lucky for me, my BPAL pal says she can't smell Two, Five and Seven (which I surely can) so I am assured that it's a weird chemistry thing not a OMG I am broken thing.

I like this though, it seems quite soft to me, but it tickles the back of my nose and throat, though not unpleasantly.

It was worth it to buy for the bottle art alone, I'll try the Mother next...

 

Edit* OK! So it's been a few days, and now the Priestess and I are getting along much better, and I can smell her. She dries down to a nice medium bodied sweet incense, however I would have thought that she had an opium note, as I smell a similarity between two others that I love, Stormclouds over the Midway, and L'Heure Verte???

 

another Edit* This has become one of my favorites, the rose note is like a sharp tea rose kind of rose. The incense underneath is beautiful.

 

Further Edit, just bought my second bottle of this, it aged into the most wonderful rose and resin.

Edited April 11, 2012 by stellamaris

[LadyMedb]

I finally bought a bottle of this after hanging onto a precious decant of it for almost 4 years.

 

I absolutely love this scent. This is a deep, velvety incense rose, not at all soapy on me, but instead lush and rich. I don't really get more than a hint of the patchouli, but the myrrh is soft and sweet, the sage adds just the right amount of edge and variety, and the overall composition is just so seamlessly blended. Yes, it's a bit like a few of Beth's other incense roses, but I collect that sort of scent from BPAL, and I am fairly sure I like Priestess better than Rose Cross or even my beloved Blasphemare Reliquary. This is not to be missed if you like rose in any way. Actually, even if you don't like rose, Priestess might be worth a try - my rose-wary boyfriend quite liked it on me!

 

Hoping this sticks around, because if it doesn't, I'm going to need at least one backup bottle.

 

Edited April 28, 2014 by LadyMedb

[Teamama]

Dawn: Priestess, fresh from the Lab.

 

This is the kind of sweet incense floral that I love (Caterpillar, I'm looking at you.) It's very complex--all of the notes are playing in the band, but none of them is the bandleader. That said, on my skin, the jasmine is definitely singing backup to the Damascus Rose, and the patch is second fiddle to the myrrh. Sage is a featured player, and it's wonderful.

 

(Sidebar: I love sage when it's sweet, like Eastern Washington desert sages. And I dislike the near-menthol stank of culinary sage. This is the good stuff.)

 

Not a lot of change from wet to dry.

 

Incense, rose, jasmine, sage... All yes, all the time. Glad I bought a bottle.

[cassiejaynebunk]

Smells like department store perfume. Like the rose soaps my grandma kept in the bathroom mixed with her Ermeraude perfume.

Edited February 17, 2018 by cassiejaynebunk