Ra

[Dinerdulcinea]

Hail unto Thee who art Ra in Thy rising, even unto Thee who art Ra in Thy strength, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Uprising of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Night!

in imp-

imp: I smell a light wood

on wet: light wood and citrus. Very pleasant.

dry: still light wood and citrus, but it is taking on green and floral notes now. There is also a little sweetness like honey, but it is very light.

Later: WHOAH! All of a sudden I smell something emerging like clove. WEIRD! I am not big on clove (apparently---the clove note seems to have a tendancy to become "burnt stinky candle" on me) so we'll have to see...

Summary: This one has lots of nice notes and is very complex and evolves a great deal. As I hate clove, though, I think it is not a keeper.

[Ajila]

In the bottle - Dark green and bitter.

 

Wet on me - Herby, powdery and slightly sweet.

 

Dry on me - Stays stongly, before fading to a sweet powder, possibly with sage,

 

Overall - I like the dry down, but the blend isn't really me.

[steffanina]

Ra-

 

In Bottle: A little amber-floral.

 

Wet: Musty weedy smell.

 

Dry: This just sort of faded without anything interesting blooming on me. Oh, well.

 

Overall: Uninteresting.

[supremegoddessofall]

I have no idea what I'm smelling, and it's fading fast. It's interesting and not off-putting. I'll need a retest. Other than to say it is "sweet," I have no idea on components.

[lookingglass]

Neroli...bright green and orange. There is a bitter, grapefruity bite as well. Drying out, it warms up to my skin, becomming ambery...there may be frankinsence in there. Definately a sun god scent.

[TrailerTrashPrincess]

amber-y, bitter citrus with sandalwood and possibly frankincense.

 

also, to note, this bottle has the old-style dropper cap, so it is already somewhat aged.

[joojifish]

Ra smells like a fairly generic cologne (yep, men's cologne) on me. Bah humbug.

[The_Merf]

In the imp: Ra was a surprise gift along with my Sol Invictus order, and the two scents smell quite similar in the bottle/imp. Ra is lighter, on my sniff, anyway.

 

Wet: On my skin this is many orders lighter than SI. It is mostly lemon, and there is a light floral backing.

 

Drydown and wear: This remains a predominantly lemon scent and almost reminds me of Come to Me, but not as creamy. However, I have quite a few lemon scents on hand, so off to the swap with this one.

[em_h]

Wow. This is very different on me than it is on many people, it seems.

 

It started out almost violently green and bitter, like chewing on a green plant stem of some inedible kind. After a few minutes, it settled down enough that I could identify the bitter note as grapefruit, which just never does well on me, and continued (as it does) to get more and more bitter for a while.

 

Luckily, it faded into powder reasonably quickly.

 

Definitely not for me.

[cinderfallen]

Wow! Ra is so underappreciated! It started out amber, a little sharp with citrus and sweet with floral, and, like a previous reviewer said, felt like "focused" light. But after an hour, the scent sort of...popped open, exploded to reveal its core.

 

The essence of Ra is that dry sort of cocoa sweetness layered over wood and resin, almost a powdery creaminess. It's still a little bright from the top notes, and the overall effect is simply gorgeous. I'm quite surprised by this one!

[medvssa]

A bit cologney in the imp, with citrus and some florals. On, a citrus, it seems lemon, or lime. Or grapefruit? I am not sure. And then there is some sweetness, and some floral. Heliotrope? and amber.

 

It is certainly sunny, pale golden, radiant, bright and very uplifting (and I don't say that lightly!)

As it dries down, it becomes sweeter, or just deeper and warmer, I should say. I think there is amber in it, and perhaps some resin and wood, although these two go very light on me, if they are there. In fact no element predominates in this blend, it is very balanced.

The scent stays light golden, warm, but not hot. Beautiful! I like this scent very much.

[cranberry]

In the vial, this smells of heliotrope and frankincense.

 

On the skin, this smells sunny and warm. Heliotrope, frankincense, amber, a touch of citrus. There’s warmth here, some kind of spice. I think there’s a touch of lavender here, maybe hyssop too (if that’s a principal scent component of White Light and Anthelion, of which I smell some similarity). Yeah, this smells like a TAL. Maybe that’s not too surprising since it is an Excolo scent. I love Anthelion and White Light, but I only use them when I really need them. But I do enjoy their scent, so this is a good substitute when I only want to enjoy their scent but don’t need their other properties.

 

Anyway, this is a warm, spicy, soothing scent that is just beautiful. The oil I’m testing has a bit of age on it, probably 1.5 yrs or so, so that could be part of it. The citrus only lasted for couple minutes and it dried to this ambery-lavender-spicy-resiny scent. Wow, just wow.

[Em-]

This is a very incensey/resin scent on me, but it is bright sunny resin, not dark church incense. I would guess that there is some light amber and maybe a touch of citrus in here, but I can't really identify specific notes. But I like it.

[waternight]

Aww, there seems to be so little love for Ra! Well, don't worry, my lovely, I'll do you justice...

 

In the imp: Slightly sweet. Oranges with a hint of cinnamon underneath.

Wet/Drydown: Yeah, cinnamon-oranges, but the cinnamon isn’t overwhelming at all, it’s very gentle and supportive, merely adding a touch of warm spice. Now I’m getting something floral, as well as something resinous. Mmm… this is delicious. This is a very clarifying scent, definitely encapsulates that “morning” feel. I’ll admit, I’m a morning person, and this really reminds me of waking up early and stepping out onto the shore of a pond, gazing at the forest on the other side, as bright, warm sunlight streams down onto my skin. A bit drier - more floral, but not overwhelmingly so. The spice really warms this up and gives it a nice gentle bite. Gah! I can’t stop sniffing my arm! Oo! Now I’m getting the very slightest hint of something creamy.

Dry: Delicious, delicious oranges, sprinkled with cinnamon, with a frosty mug of cream on the side and a bouquet of gentle flowers on the table. My goodness, I could smell like this forever and be happy.

[dorothy humbird]

Interesting; the first time I tested Ra I was convinced that it reminded me of Bastet.

 

This time, I'm strongly associating what I smell with Belle Epoque.

 

Regardless, I get a warm, golden vibe from Ra -- certainly citrusy, but it also feels like sweet amber underneath. I can understand why some people have said it smells "green," but that doesn't register right off the bat in my brain.

 

I like this scent a lot; I remember it drying down to a soft, warm powdery version of itself (I've got nothing against a bit of powder). I may yet put Ra in the swaps pile since Belle Epoque is a close match to my mind. Tonight is not the night for making that decision, though.

[AmyAngel]

Ra: (from a swap) In the imp, it's sharply floral mixed with citrus and some sweetness. On, the citrusy sweetness is dominant, but with something sharp behind it. Very good throw when it's wet. After 10 minutes or so it's now smelling green to me, with some powderiness behind it. It makes me think of super-sour powdery candy, though it's not really THAT sweet. This is a fascinating scent. I can't decide if I like it or not! There's a sweetness, yet a bitterness to it – I can understand comparisons to broken plant stems. It's warm, but not in the usual cinnamon fire way. It's candy-like, but not; almost powdery, but not. I think I'll keep this and test it again until I decide whether I like it!

[mrsveteran]

In the imp: It's a rather unpleasant greenish smell. It's not sweet at all. Very bitter. Perhaps neroli? There's a faint bit of citrus, but overall, very strong and bitter.

 

Wet on skin: Still very bitter. There is a faint hint of sweetness coming through, but the bitter, green scent is predominant.

 

Drydown: Goodness, it's fading fast! It's not changing much, but it's getting very faint.

 

After an hour: Very, very faint baby powder.

 

Throw: Very strong when wet, but disappears to almost nothing within about 10 minutes.

 

Verdict: Swap pile. I find this scent very unpleasant when wet, and it disappears extremely fast. Not worth a bottle to me.

[Nimthiriel]

In the vial (initial impression):

To my nose, it's all opium when I open the vial. Warm, sunny opium.

 

Initially on (wet):

Sweet and warm, with little bits of green. It's still opium to me, heh. I'm guessing there's amber in there, too.

 

Wearing it (dry):

10 mins later it has gone from sweet to floral, and from there to oddly bitter! It's weird. Now it's spicy, and it brings my thoughts to burning hot rays of sunlight (how appropriate). I'm fascinated by this!

 

20 mins after application, it reminds me of Swedish glögg (mulled wine) - it's hot and it's spicy. Not unpleasant at all, though.

 

30 mins after application, it has softened a bit, but it's still like hot, spicy wine - but now with the tiniest hint of what I think might be orange.

 

An hour later, it has gone much softer, and I can almost swear that there's some vanilla in there, taming the spicy sunlight contained in this perfume.

 

Finally:

Quite strange, and quite interesting! (Swapped away.)

[impadua@aol.com]

I put this on for the first time yesterday, July 4th. I have had it for a while, just never had the inclination to use it.

I remember sniffing it when I first got it about a year ago and was unimpressed.

I think aging is a good thing for Ra. It smells amazing!

Right out of the bottle, warm, citrusy, not like Phobos though. More red citrus if that makes any sense. And something spicy, but not the regular spicy. No cinnamon, sage, pepper, maybe ginger, I don't know. But for a change, I am liking an odd combo. Is that opium I smell in there? Something a little golden, a little creamy. Definitely not a sharp citrus. Definitely a different smell for me. But it fits the day, and it has excellent lasting power.

It was 112 degrees here today, and I think Ra is the only Sun I am going to get close to for a few days.

Definitely a keeper!

[Naamah_Darling]

Hmm! No notes listed, so my best guess is frankincense, sandalwood, and pepper.

 

On, there is definitely lavender here. And lots of spicy incense. There's a dusty note to this, almost like kaolin clay, and a resinous tang that is citric frankincense. It's pretty, but like the other Stations of the Sun scents, it doesn't really grab me as much as I'd hoped.

 

All of them have a kind of sepulchral, arcane quality to them, which I attribute to the incense.

 

The longer I wear this, the more incensey/spicy it becomes, but it is a very earthy scent, more like sun-baked dirt than like the sun itself. Perhaps that's my skin which likes dirty scents amping the earthy notes in this, and perhaps it was designed into the scent. I can't say. I do like the scent, but it's not something I would wear for fun.

[CrazyPretzel]

Purchased from Wren08.

 

In the imp: pretty faint; ahhh, no, is that sandalwood? Sandalwood gets musty on me...

Wet on me: Very possibly neroli, but it's gentle. This is a surprisingly soft scent, rather powdery. There's a slight candy-like sweetness to it that I think I recognise from Maenad -- orange blossom?

Dry on me: Mmmm so soft and sweet. This is really nice. No hint of the sandalwood that I thought I smelled -- perhaps I imagined it, or it's playing nicely for once. This does still remind me of a toned-down version of Maenad.

 

I'll keep this, and might consider buying a bottle depending how well it fares over the next few hours.

 

ETA: OMG, is that carnation? This just got even better! It smells like Hod now, the lovely discontinued Sephiroth what we can't get anymore. I'm enjoying this one so much.

Edited August 6, 2007 by Baitu

[JenM]

In the imp: orange, without a drop of citrus. Fuzzy warmth of some sort of resin or incense.

 

On the wrist: a warm pine-like resin, which I *believe* is what myrrh is. On drydown, develops—well, this is fanciful, but I hear a fire crackling in the background. I’ve always loved synaethesia.

 

Fading into pretty much the single myrrh note.

 

An hour and a half: Strongly woody (sandalwood?) now, but still resinous. No hint of the spice or floral others say they got. On me it’s very warming and masculine. One for a winter’s day, perhaps—on my skin it seems wrong for summer. One for swaps.

[filigree_shadow]

I'm not sure what I'm smelling in this. At first it seems sporty, like an ozone or aquatic cologne scent. Then as it's drying it turns kind of green, sort of like herbs. It ends up reminding me a lot of Mountain Fresh Dove soap. I'm not saying it smells like soap, because it doesn't, it smells like the fragrance they put in that soap. It's a clean, fresh scent.

 

Not the sort of thing I usually wear, but I certainly don't dislike the scent. It's the sort of fragrance I prefer in bath products rather than perfume.

[Brianne]

I don't know why I'm getting this, but it smells like nail polish with spices. It's very bitter smelling.

 

After wearing it for a while, it settles into a sort of generic cologney smell - Ra just is not working out for me!

[Ningal61]

In the imp, Ra smelled of cloves to me, with a hint of oranges and some other spice.

 

Wet, the spices came alive more. I don't know if it's frankincense or what, but I'm loving it.

 

When it's dried, I smell incense, which I adore, but there's also a hint of something golden. I feel like I'm in a tent somewhere, perhaps in a tropical oasis, and I'm being pampered by a few very buff men. I had to order a full bottle. I love it!