Single Note: Burning Book

[Dark Alice]

Wet: paper, ink, with a smoky note! Drydown: gorgeous brown leather with paper, a touch of ink and smoke! This is love...true love!

[portalkat]

When I first tried this at the CBLDF party, it smelled a bit cologny. I really wanted to buy it in order to support the CBLDF, so I bought a couple of bottles of it. I tried it again when I got home from the party - I only work 10 minutes away from the Con. It was still strong on the cologne smell, but from the previous application, I could smell the dry paper note and a bit of leather. I tested it more that night and the next day and it seems to have developed in that short period. Now it opens up with that sweet leather note, the paper note follows and then it ends up with the sweet smoke smell. This is actually something that I would wear, but I wasn't sure from the initial testing. I'm glad that I was able to get my hands on a bottle.

[mymymai]

ITB: Parchment, ink, and thick leather. I don't get burning as much as I do wonderfully bound literature.

 

Wet: Ah, now I get the burning part. It does smell like burning parchment and thick, smoldering brown leather. Oh, this is great!

 

Dry: The scent is thick with smoke and leather, although faint impressions of parchment and perhaps a little ink remain.

[virusq]

I wound up doing a group order for this scent and brought all the bottles home to disperse them. My sister opened and sniffed them all, (clean, from the bottle, just smelled, I promise!), and we were shocked to discover that each bottle had an entirely different presence.

 

The first bottle smelled like ozone. The second was chocolate. The third was tobacco. The last two were clever mixes therein.

 

I absolutely adore the BPAL ozone note, so I wound up keeping the most ozone scented one of the batch. I've tried it a few times and have not been disappointed!

 

The ozone is subtle but ever-present. It lasted all afternoon and had a decent throw. There was a warm and smooth note in there, as well, which I would guess was a chocolate or leather note. Overall, it was very warm and smart, which was exactly what I expected.

 

This one is a total keeper!

[absinthetics]

WHOA Leather upon opening the bottle.

 

Leather and dust. There is an industrial side to this SN like the others for CBLDF. The smoke starts poking through in the dry down, and it is REALLY there. Think BBQ without the sauce.

[VioletChaos]

Thank you to the Angel that is GypsyRoseRed for getting me a bottle of this precious elixir Now then, onto the review!

 

In The Bottle: I'm getting leather and french tobacco in equal measure.

 

Wet On Skin: The tobacco is sweetening up a bit, as it likes to do on my skin, and that leather note is warming up nicely. No complaints thus far!

 

Dry Down: The tobacco has now taken a back seat and what's left is a strange and beautiful combination of ink and leather. This is indeed the smell of old books and dusty tomes, a genderless and holy-moly-why-is-this-so-sexy kind of scent. I want my boyfriend to wear this the next time we go out to an Industrial Club so I can attack him in a dark corner when he least expects it. (...And also smelling like books is great)

 

In All: SO SO SO glad I have a bottle, I shall treasure it always!

[sunshinedaisybliss]

Thank you to the beautiful Dark Alice for sending me a tester of this

 

When I first dabbed Burning Book on to my skin, and leaned in for a sniff, I kind of went :ack:because I got this acrid, chemical-ish, sharp nasty burnt smell that was rather unpleasant. It smelled kind of like a combination of burning wet socks and ink that's gone off. Thankfully, that lasted for only about four seconds, and then this lovely leather smell started to emerge - it's the lovely heady intoxicating leather I know from Brom Bones and Quincy Morris - fresh leather, rather than the soft suede-y type. I can see where people are getting the tobacco impression from, because I am definitely picking up something that has that slightly sweet and golden feel that I get from tobacco, so yeah - maybe there's tobacco in here somewhere.

 

Ten minutes in, and that initial richness I got from the leather has subsided and mellowed out a bit, and now I can sense something inky lurking under there - it's not an obvious INK smell (like, say, India Ink which was just too much ink and really quite nasty on me). There's also a lovely smokiness emerging.

 

After a full half-hour on my skin, everything has meshed in together beautifully and it's all very warm and sensuous - it's not giving me a lot of throw, but if I lean in and take a big whiff... it kind of makes my eyes roll back a little This is really quite beautiful, and now I wish I had tried to get a bottle when it was available... I just thought "Burning Book" was probably going to smell like burnt paper, and that didn't appeal to me at all, but here it is - all sexy leather, golden smokey tobacco and murky dusty inkiness and I love it.

 

I'm pretty sure Patrick Stewart has a country manor somewhere, and in that manor is an exquisite library in which a fire crackles quietly in the corner and every wall is packed to the ceiling with olde leather-bound tomes. And somewhere in the sprawling manliness of his library sits a couple of old, well-worn leather chairs that hold the scented remnants of cigars smoked, whiskey sipped, and corduroy trousers warmly pressed against their seats. I imagine Burning Book smells exactly like what would greet you upon throwing open the old oak doors and stepping inside Patrick Stewart's library.

[zankoku_zen]

Brown leather, dust, and ink.

 

Oddly enough, this is the blend I wish I got when I first tried Miskatonic University. There's no coffee component, but its BOOKS + dusty leather covers + INK. I get swirls of tobacco and smoke underneath.

 

Not for me, but very realistic. Again, this is a scent as opposed to a perfume, and I have a hard time thinking of it as something wearable.

[Zii]

This is like SN: India Ink and Black Rider had a beautiful baby. It is very inky, but it's tempered by this amazing deep black leather and hint of the cigar smoke from Herr Drosilmyer I love so much. There is a trace of vanilla parchment hanging around which i hope will amp with age, but this is really just stunning. It's like walking into an ancient library. I was so happy to see it on the SDCC list because it's been a grail of mine and it does not disappoint.

[porcelina]

i was lucky enough to snag several bottles of burning book during my ill-fated, one and only trip to SDCC in 2013. i bought a few because knew i would love it, and i do. it's one of the more complex "single notes" and it really is gorgeous- rich leather, paper and ink and beautiful smoke. it's like sitting in a gorgeous old library with a roaring fire going. it is fantastic for layering with other scents (siberian musk and french tobacco come to mind) but first and foremost is very wearable on its own. this is a beautiful, evocative and sophisticated scent. i really love it.

Edited April 14, 2015 by porcelina

[DevilsCandyCane]

I think this may finally be my Holy Grail book scent! So far I'd tried Buggre Alle This, which seemed all paper and dust to me, not complex enough, and I *almost* love Quintessence of Dust, with the leather and ink and beeswax and smoke, but that bloody metallic note makes me feel a bit nauseous...so the hunt continued, and I finally managed to bag Burning Book!

 

As others have mentioned, this is really complex for a single note - there's the ink, the paper, lovely soft worn leather, and just a faint overlay of smoke, yet somehow it still smells very clean and elegant and wearable. I can't help thinking of that "Where books are burned, they will one day burn people" quote, so I was surprised that Burning Book isn't sinister-smelling!

 

My one complaint would be that it's not as long lasting as I'd like, so I think I'll keep my Quintessence as it packs a far bigger wallop, but for the time Burning Book lingers, it is gorgeous - the notes don't pass through in an arc, they're always all there, the leather, paper, ink, smoke, and that's really fabulously, compulsively huffable

[aylafr]

This is vanillery paper with smoke note, it does have a sort of chemical smell which lingers in the depths...

[violetvorpal]

Whoa this scent is perfect for Fall nights. If you are not a fan of fire smoke, this is not a scent for you. However, I love the smell of smoke from a fireplace so I was very curious about this scent. It is a comforting smell to me. I get major nostalgia being a child and building a fire when the house would be cold at night.

 

In bottle: Very strong, worn leather. It definitely smells like an old leather book cover. It does not have a fresh chemical leather smell.

 

Wet on skin: The smoke overtakes the leather. It smells like a fire that has paper being thrown into it. I smell the ink from the pages.

 

Dry: Gorgeous balance. It is like sitting in an old velvet chair with an old leather bound book by a grand fireplace. The leather is soft. The paper is worn and has a slight sweet vanilla smell. The fire smoke is very light and airy now; like wisps of smoke from a dwindling fire.

 

This scent I would wear at home in the evenings while I read a book, write, or watch a movie (like Crimson Peak). It is definitely an atmospheric perfume, and it makes my imagination run wild. Oh this would be a fabulous atmosphere spray. I definitely recommend this perfume to anyone who loves books and fire smoke!

[dramedy65]

This smells like reading a book by a bonfire. I don't know if my mum will like it, I love it? I don't normally go for smoky or leather scents but this one is just right. Yum.

[lilacea]

Wet, this has a slightly acrid smoke upon leather-bound paper, but on dry down my skin just loves the paper notes, sweet papyrus and ink, while the smoke trails off into the ether. Medium throw. A very light suede-like leather keeps it all bound together. Edit: I take it back about the smoke dissipating, its lingered longer that I initially thought. Still a gorgeous scorched old paper scent.

 

Edited January 6 by lilacea