This is Your Wilderness

[ReallyZeb]

Honeyed patchouli with cypress, black pine, and tobacco absolute.

Both wet and dry I get a deep dark patchouli with a hint of forest greenery and a little sweetness from the honey. I dont detect the tobacco. The throw is massive and it stays around quite a while too. I love it, and if you love patchouli you'll love it too!

[poofie]

Very piney wet, almost sinus-clearingly so, but not unpleasant. Drying down it calms and warms to a nice cedar forest scent, with faint honey in the background and patchouli adding an earthy smell. No sign of tobacco, unfortunately. At first it had a very masculine feel, but now it's fresh and a little sweet and lovely, it reminds me of warm, deep evergreen forest.

[kakiphony]

First, a general observation: Pine can be a really tricky scent. Because it's such a strong (and beautiful!) natural scent, it is often used in commercial fragrances meant to mask really bad odors. Sadly, many people have come to associate pine, especially strong or slightly artificial pine, with things like urinal cakes, car deodorizers, and Pine-Sol. I'm a huge fan of real pine -- and love having pine boughs in my house and using good (i.e. not fake smelling) pine candles. But all pine products run the risk of turning from lovely natural scents into horrible, men's bathroom smelling scents.

In the bottle: Pine, pine, pine. But a natural, deep, resinous pine. More like fresh sap than fresh pine needles.

Wet on skin: Straight-up pine sap. This is like taking a blob of sap off a pine tree and smearing it on my skin, only less sticky.

Early dry down (less than an hour): This is still very pine dominant. So far, it's mostly a very natural, sappy and resinous pine. Occasional whiffs are sharp and spiky like crushed green needles (which may actually be the cypress rather than the pine), but overall it is a rounded, sticky scent. I get a little bit of tobacco, which serves to dry the blend out. When I catch that note, it's like a big dried out tub of Drum, mixed with the resinous pine. I'm not getting much sweet from honey, and not much patchouli either as funk or as a spicy grounding note. This is taking a long time to mellow and blend on me.

Late dry down (hour +): This blend had an unusually long dry-down time period on me, and has quite a lot of staying power, although the throw is not huge and stays fairly close to the body. After a couple of hours it has finally really blended itself out on my skin, and most of the spikes of jagged pine/cypress I got wet and early in the application have evened out. The patchouli finally came out to play, and it has combined with the pine to form a deep, resinous, slightly spicy, slightly herbal, and very woody heart. It's more a funky, head-shop style patchouli than a soft or spicy version -- and I get some hippie/incense notes from it. Paired with the pine and tobacco, I'm left with something the reminds me of Fred Soll or piñon pine incense.

The pine is interesting because it serves as both a base and a top note here. The base is the all sap and wood -- like standing in the cave formed by low hanging branches of a pine. Meanwhile, the top still gives a few bursts of fresh, green pine needles. (Again, this top might be the cypress. I don't know that my sniffer is talented enough to distinguish between the two.)

I'm not sure I'm getting any honey from the blend. I'm sure it's there, I just can't pick it out. Instead, it helps bind and blend the other components. I suspect that, as this ages, the honey will combine with the deep resins to round and slightly sweeten things.

Final verdict: This is gorgeous and, I suspect, will just get more gorgeous with age. It's a very masculine, woodsy and outdoorsy scent and would smell divine on male hiker types. On me (a 5'2" fairly feminine woman) this is clean, outdoorsy, strong, and sensuous. It's a little bit hippie, but with some elegance. It's like the aging hippie woman who styles her snow white hair in a bun and looks like a former ballerina, wears all black Eileen Fisher, keeps bees, and sanded and refinished the hard wood floors in her house by hand. Or the older hippie man who has traded in his dreads/pony for a buzz cut that flatters his bald spot, and now dresses almost entirely in expensive denim and flannel, bakes bread for his grandkids, raises prize winning lily hybrids, and chops the wood for his wood burner himself. Both of them still have a daily yoga practice and like to camp, but also have memberships to local art museums and attend the symphony.

Reminds me of: Illustrated Women (but no old-man turning musk!!!!)

[OctoberGwen]

I wanted to love this, but something turned very funky on my skin - it had to have been the 'honeyed' quality of the patchouli, despite the fact that honeyed patch has worked for me in other blends. Color me sad, because every note here seemed made of win.

[Atrous]

I am in love with all the notes in this blend but the first time I tried this (right outta the shipping box) I hated it. It was very sweet...toooo sweet and knock-you-over-and-render-you-unconscious pine.

 

So, I put it away for a few weeks and now I've retested.

 

I can say that after a few weeks of settling this is a completely different blend. Honey and pine have both turned down their sound quite a bit. As a patch lover, I'm head over heels for this scent.

This is a dirty patch with honey lending sweetness and tobacco lending smokiness. So, the patch itself smells slightly sweet and smokey. Pine and cypress have combined to create a lovely woodsy base. I'm so glad that after a few weeks of leaving this scent alone it's turned from a sweet pine blend into a patchouli dominant blend.

[zankoku_zen]

My experience with Wilderness is slightly different. I get a mentholic pine and patchouli blend that dries down to straight up patchouli.

 

If you love patchouli, and are looking for something that smells like a male hiker, I'd give this a whirl.

[tinyvulture]

Kind of a cough drop vibe, at first. I think it's the interaction of the honey plus the herbaceous/woodsy cypress and pine notes.

After a few minutes, the patchouli and tobacco come forward, making things heavier, darker, uncertain.

I see how it can represent Detroit, the parts of they city that are as uninhabited and wild as a forest. I really like it, but not quite enough for a bottle.

[hieromante]

I'll have to try this again, but what it made me think of pretty quickly was an ashtray--like from back in the day when everyone smoked (like the 60s). Tobacco perhaps, but really burnt down. But that's not all bad. It smelled very dark, almost black, and it made me think that it would be great for darkening down very bright scents. This strategy totally worked under a unisex grapefruit-bergamot scent I have called McClendon, and I'll be trying that again.

 

Imma let this age a bit and give it another shot to see what it does.

[alyelle]

In the imp: Cypress and pine, with dark undercurrents of patchouli.

 

Wet: Overwhelmingly pine, yes, but the honey soon kicks off too, and results in a vaguely eucaplyptus scent. More than anything, it reminds me of Vicks Vapor Rub, which I don't actually find unpleasant, but it's slightly weird and not at all what I was expecting to happen here.

 

Dry: much, much better. The patchouli and honey sweeten up as this warms on my skin, and the pine settles into a dry, dark forest floor. There's an odd sensation in that the honey and patchouli never really blend - I keep catching whiffs of one, then the other, like I'm wearing two different perfumes on each wrist. Over the top of it all is a soft hay-like note which I know is the tobacco, and it's the exact tobacco note I always want, but rarely get.

 

The throw for me is very strong, and life 10+ hrs. A lovely blend, and I want to echo what kakiphony said about the pine - it is a tricky scent, but one I personally happen to love. This is my latest in a long line of BPAL pine-based scents and definitely one of my favourites. (Probably still beaten by Black Forest, which might be for the best, given that it's not a limited release...)

 

Stars: ★★★★

[Jangzonrice]

when first applied, super resiny pine punches you in the face. When dried, pine is still there, but more subtle and the honeyed patchouli takes over. There is a little bit of tobacco in there along with something similar to eucalyptus. I actually like this after the dry down and it is extremely complex.

[somacat]

I love this. It's like a forest filled with beeswax candles. Sexy comforting and very earthy. This is my type of patchouli and is going to be perfect for autumn.

[milo]

Strong cypress at first. After a bit, the patchouli comes out, and the cypress is more muted. In fact it smells like the African patchouli single note now. I like this, but it is a bit too gritty and masculine for me to wear.

[seussala]

I LOVE this one!!! As soon as you stick it on, its very strong cypress and pine, grounded in a black patchouli and a mellow tobacco. Its like a forrest of pine trees and chewy patch. I happen to love more unusual, more difficult scents and I love love this one though it could be slightly astringent as the pine and cypress are pretty strong. As it dries down, its all honey-patchouli. I like this phase a lot more than I did Tricksy, which I felt was slightly too sweet and too much honey. This is more of a patchouli drizzled in honey and it doesn't go plastics on me at least. The honey-patch lasts all day, but I have drier skin that tends not to throw very far. On my bf it could fill a room. If you put lotion on first it helps.

Can't stop smelling my arrrrrrrm!! Almost has a eucalyptus vibe, and quite masculine at first. Its a lois and clark kind of smell, with the tobacco and patch being kind of a body smell.

10 pts!

[stellamaris]

I got this for my son as a gift, and I liked it but wasn't heartbroken to see it go.

It has that Fuzzy thing, if you loved Sylvia or Shiny Furball Hair Gloss, you will love this. It's furry and lush. Very nice but not totally me.

[fiddlehead]

After a loud flurry of pine and cypress notes this settles into a patchouli single note. I can sort of catch a bit of tobacco but mostly it's the patchouli. Perhaps it will become more complex with age.

[Ryan Hemphill]

This is Your Wilderness is such a unique experience in a scent. I don't have anything else quite like it. It is a dark, woodsy smell. I keep flipping on what is stronger--the patchouli or the cypress. I didn't pick out the tobacco or the honey, though. I actually kept catching like a menthol/camphor smell. This is my favorite "green" scent that I've tried yet. It has some nice throw, too.

[Greenwoodtree]

I'm getting all the notes! YAY! It started out a VERY green, fresh evergreen/herbal scent...and now it has mellowed to green, but with tinges of tobacco and a slight touch of patchouli. This is great because usually BPAL's patchouli amps on me and turns to something unpleasant when the essential oil is one of my favorites to wear.

 

This is the scent I should wear hiking or camping. It's earthy and comforting.

[Little Bird]

Starts off as a honeyed pine for about an hour, and the menthol edge to the pine mixed with the honey has a sort of cough syrup impression on my skin. After the first hour, starts settling into a soft, earthy, slightly gritty smelling patchouli. I love patchouli and am enjoying honey scents lately, but I don't like This nearly as much as I thought I would. The patchouli has an ashy quality to it that I don't care for, and I don't love the menthol pine and honey opening stage either.

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: Omg, so much pine. Pine and I don't get along, but I adore the other notes in this, so I wanted to try it. This pine is so strong, almost minty, the way pine can be. Very much pine cleaner at first, but then the honeyed notes come forward and tone things down a bit. Interested to see how this dries. Sometimes pine burns off on my skin and becomes tolerable.

 

 

Dry: The pine does burn off, leaving a slightly sweet, but very very dry patchouli note. There is none of the sticky honey and tobacco I was hoping for, This one isn't for me.

[theshapeshifter]

Wet: Aggressively pine. Staying *just* this side of 'pine cleaner'. Can't really make out any other notes.

 

Drydown: About half an hour in, it went through a cedar shavings phase where it reminded me a fair bit of Disappointing Pencil. However, further on the patchouli started coming out and now it's a lovely dry earthy evergreen forest smell, like being in a sun-warmed cabin in the woods. If I really huff my wrist I get just a hint of the honey. I'm not getting the tobacco at all - which is okay with me, as tobacco is usually a note that gives me pause about ordering a scent.

[Lucchesa]

This is Your Wilderness (decant from the original release) is a real morpher on me, and fricking beautiful. It starts out sharp evergreens, so much evergreen, pine and cypress. Golden Priapus is a favorite GC of mine; I love the pine note. But there is nothing soft about it here. In your face pine, no honey, no patch, no tobacco. In a couple of hours (this is a long lasting scent) the balance is shifting, and the patchouli comes to the forefront. It's a dry patchouli tempered by a dry and not particularly sweet honey. The tobacco must be perfectly melded with the patch; I can't make it out. You're still in the woods, but in a clearing, so the evergreens have receded. (I love kakiphony's evocation of the hip aging hippies wearing this.)

 

There's an elegant austerity to this scent, which is a quality it shares with the only OLLA I'm lucky enough to have a bottle of, In Templum Dei. It's strong and forthright, not lush and beguiling. It would be an excellent confidence-boosting scent.

[windbourne]

Cool, mentholic, green, foresty with a soft, sweetened patchouli that shows up as it dries and a mild tobacco underlying it all. Holy mackerel, this is lovely. It was a little sharp when it was newer, but it's aged into something truly glorious. It shifts gently once it's fully dry, with the pine and patchouli taking turns to be the dominant note. It has a good, solid throw and lasted for about six hours before fading away cleanly. I consider this a bit of a trilogy with In Templum Dei and Our Hearts Condemn us (and maybe Spooky Action), all are woody and contemplative. Wear this one for hiking, meditation, calming, or reminding yourself that the world is large, but not that large, and you can find wilderness anywhere.

[Llanval]

Thanks to rivetted, (again, lol) i got to test a genrous sniffie of this scent. AND HOLY FUCKIN' WOW this is an absolutely banger honeyed patchouli and black pine forest. This is absolutely incredible.  Just the right balance between earthy, rich chewy patchouli and cool, gently mentholic pine forests. The honeyed patchouli stays strong and bright, only walking back a little bit as the scent dries down. The pine stays clear, clean and gorgeous, with a slight ghost of honey dust and that special cypress green smell, the softer, fuzzier impression sap leaves on your hands after you crush cypress greens. YAAAAAAAAAS, I love this to death this is so much better than I thought it would be. I don't get a strong rush of tobacco as it dries, but it's there, playing a little "spice it up" game with the patchouli.

 

This is SUPERB patchouli and pine, with a sweetening slash of honey. LOVE LOVE LOVE this one, bottle is on the list for a 2021 purchase! Seriously, I need my bottle of Silkybat to show up like yesterday so I can compare these two patch notes!

 

If you like patchouli and pine, this is a MUST. Do yourself a favour and check this out if the slightly higher price tag and 500 bottle run limit doesn't put you off.