Pouring Strains of Sacred Song

[Tal Shachar]

Red benzoin and frankincense with honey myrtle, osmanthus blossom, and coconut milk.

In vitro: Warm, creamy coconut smell, hints of resins.

Wet on skin: Frankincense initially has a slightly lemony smell (at least on me) so that comes out first. I get benzoin from the "is there vanilla in this? no?" thought that usually comes to mind when something has benzoin in it. Osmanthus has a honey-like scent in the first place and with the myrtle, it gives the blend a very, very warm and soft-edged floral smell. The coconut milk is definitely strong here, so if you don't like coconut and were hoping it would be way in the background, no such luck. (I love coconut though.)

Drydown: Quite a bit of throw on this one. Besides the psychological effect of calling the benzoin red, this scent does convey red-orange-golden colours, like a sunrise. This is a very lemony frank!

20 min: Lemon custard? This smells tasty but I'm baffled at the lack of resinous business.

30 min: I do love osmanthus, and this is a good blend for it, playing well with the coconut. I like this quite a bit and look forward to really slathering it on once my testing-bottles period is over and I have both arms available. But frankincense stops being lemony and then...disappears? Unacceptable. I thought we were buds.

Verdict: Sweet, almost-but-not-quite gourmand, bright coconut.

[BoneBone24]

Wet: Extra creamy coconut. Frothy.

 

Drydown: Creamy, almost boozy, coconut with a hint of a pale floral and something musky and spicy. Tropical in a very sultry way. Almost indecent. Scratch the almost, this absolutely is indecent. Like a hedonistic romp in the tropics, muttering the mantra “what stays in (insert tropical paradise here), stays in…”

 

Dry: A coconut cocktail teasingly drizzled upon tanned, sweaty skin. Body heat warmth, spicy resins, supple osmanthus, and oh so creamy coconut.

 

 

 

7.5 out of 10 bones

[Lady_Fire]

Very warm scent, a little tropical. The coconut is not suntan lotion coconut, but more of a fresh cracked coconut. The florals are there, but they arent overwhelming. As someone who dislikes most florals, this is OK. I'm not smelling any resins, but maybe they will come out with some age.

[Haltija]

In the decant: Oooh creamy coconut, this is going to be good.

 

Wet on the skin: Nopeee. This smells just like a medicine I used to take and really hated as a child. It almost has a tiny bit of a pineapple smell to my nose. Goodness I can't even handle this. It's making me feel a little sick ):

 

Dry on the skin: That pineapple scent faded thank goodness but there is still something off about it and that I just can't stomach.

 

Not a winner, sadly. I will send this decant off to a better home.

[Minh Scent]

The osmanthus and coconut are the most obvious on my skin, with the resins playing background.Cannot pick out the honey. Pleasant to my nose.

[LiberAmoris]

I've been delaying reviewing Pouring Strains of Sacred Song, because I kept thinking my skin chemistry must be making it wonky...it smells so foody on me! But after a few tests, I'm ready to concede that somehow it smells a bit like coconut cake, honey, flowers, and frankincense on me—and I'm not complaining. There is something almost green in this that pushes it off the foody mark, something that makes me keep going back to it to try to figure it out. I still haven't figured it out and I'm not sure I will...and I'm not sure it's quite me. But there's enough here that I like (coconut!) to merit setting it aside for a bit of aging (and I mean both me and the perfume) to see if it can work itself out.

[elbow]

This smells strongly and pleasantly of lemongrass to me when wet. (I've been trying to figure out what that note is; according to the first reviewer, it's the frankincense. Huh.) Then the other notes sneak up from behind and give that sharper note a long, warm, sweet embrace. The result is a jubilant, yellow-gold, fruity scent: the smell of being so happy you can't help but sing. I love it!

[theseagrows]

oh nooo, this sounded amazing but it starts off as a weird cough syrup scent on me not sure what it is, but it has to be the honey myrtle or maybe the red benzoin...not sure what else it could be. frankincense often doesn't work on me, but i can't even smell it in this. a minute later i get some coconut i think. it's sickeningly cough syrupy on me. a hint of florals come through, and i generally like osmanthus, and have been seeking it out lately, but here it just smells off. my skin chemistry is not liking this scent at ALL unfortunately and it makes me a little queasy.

[zankoku_zen]

Creamy Coconut, RED benzoin, a touch of honey and the frankincense gives a resinous touch on the drydown. To me this smells almost like a coconut and red musk blend, and brings to mind the Red Lantern, minus the caramel. It's very much in that vein though. Stays fairly close to the skin, average wear length.

 

Coconut, musk, incense.

[brilliantcat]

Oh. My. Goodness. On first sniff from the decant, I get the most wonderfully creamy coconut. The benzoin and coconut milk are doing magical things and this doesn't smell a bit like suntan lotion but like silky waves of cream-colored coconut/vanilla sheets billowing around me. Once applied, the most prominent note is the frankincense which rather than being the resinous, incensey frank I normally think of it has a definite lemony tinge that's really quite beautiful and bright. Beneath it is that fantastic coconut/benzoin that I want to roll in like a cat. I'm not getting any overt florals or honey-like sweetness. On the drydown, some sweetness from the honey myrtle appears and the lemony frank smooths out and fades, allowing the creamy coconut/vanilla to really shine. This smells like bottled sunshine. It is what I imagine Felix Felicis might smell like. I utterly adore this and it will be such a perfect scent for summer or even winter when I need some olfactory sunshine. Bottle-worthy and backups, absolutely!

[Magycmyste]

In the imp: Sweet, creamy coconut sugar! Give me that coconut milk!

 

Wet on skin: Still creamy coconut and sugar.

 

Dried down: Have I mentioned that coconut and sugar kind of make me want to dance? A faint bit of incense starts coming out as it dries, the benzoin and frankincense, giving this a little more complexity.

 

Throw: Light, but sweet and pleasant

 

Verdict: ***** I think I may needs me a backup bottle of this. Or two or three.

[blu°]

After finding this way too sweet and foody in the decant, it took me a couple of days until I finally tested this. Since then it won me over, and now I have two bottles coming my way, haha.

 

The point is, it seems to be foody, but then it isn't. I am a little afraid, that if the sweet parts go even sweeter with age, it might end up something like Symmakhia which I liked at first, but which ended up being unwearably sweet for me, but somehow I think it will rather grow more incensey and resinous with age. Which is why I bought two bottles instead of one. I see great potential here.

 

Anyway, it is a bit similar to Symmakhia at the moment. Somehow there is a red fruitiness, probably an illusion by way of the red benzoin, the honey-type florals and the coconut together. I also get a bit of a plasticky Wunderbaum type of coconut, but it goes away during dry-down and I'm hopeful for the blend once it has aged a bit.

 

So, that's how it opens, almost foody, creamy-sweet with fruity red notes. In the course of dry-down, however, I start to get the loveliest whiffs of benzoe-vanillic/amber-y incense. The resinous aspect remains in the forefront during much of the wearlength and lingers on the skin a long time after application and long after the initial sweetness has subsided.

 

I am still not quite sure what to make of this, and hope that it will age to less sweet, more resinous. Really glad I ordered a bottle. I was so intrigued by the name, too.

[thekittenkat]

In the bottle: The notes are blending so beautifully together that I can hardly pick any individual note out; perhaps a coconut juice w/ many flavours to it.

 

Wet: Coconut juice and flesh drenched in all the notes.

 

The dry-down: The benzoin and frank appear, quietly wafting through the coconut, with gentle hits of the osmathus blossom, that peachy/apricot scent so lovely to behold. 'Tis a beautiful scent whose only fault is that it is a skin scent. I'm glad that I have a half-bottle from my decanter.

[topazphoenix]

Pouring Strains of Sacred Songs has quickly shot to my top 10, in fact most days it is in first place. I can't get enough of it. I get the "lemony" vibe at first, which I love, then the coconut deepens while the resin-y goodness of the frankincense and red benzoin comes out. I am not sure that I can distinguish between the honey myrtle and osmanthus blossom. All I know is that the florals in this blend really well with the rest of the notes and add a nice fresh touch without being too distinct. As was mentioned before, the one fault of this is that it is a skin scent. It is seriously a pity that it is so faint after a couple hours. That's the one thing that has stopped me from grabbing more bottles. I wish this was GC, and that I had tried it before it went down. I wish it was a hair gloss and an atmo spray. I am hoping that Startled Toad will be similar to this scent, but stronger.

[milo]

Beeswax rather than honey here. Thos is warm and comforting. Amber, beeswax and light florals. This is quite nice.

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: This is really musty smelling at first, and I did wonder for a second if it had "gone off" which I have never experiences before. But I think it's actually a combo of the coconut milk reading as really sour to my nose in this, and then once of the florals turning icky and chemically. I'm not that familiar with osmanthus or myrtle, so it could be either of them. Altogether, I do not care for this at all so far.

 

 

 

Dry: This is really bad on me. Really bad. Like, I am going to wash it off now, after enduring it for an hour bad. It's one of the florals, mixed with the coconut milk, that creates this awful sour concoction that is just so unpleasant on my skin. Not for me! Glad I got to try it though. Gotta try everything coconut that I can....

[tinyvulture]

Coconut milk and frankincense, and honeyed osmanthus -- what a killer combination.  So unique.  The osmanthus and coconut are made for each other.  The honey has an almost lemony twang.  The frankincense fades immediately. Now I’m left with a straight up tropical paradise vibe. Hedonistic and lush. Love it.