A Measurement of the Soul

[Tal Shachar]

If then, man, in every act, leaves the impression, or daguerreotype of his mental being upon the scenes of his life and the subjects of his action, we are by this law furnished with a new clue to the history of our race; and I think it highly probable, that, by the application of this principle, the chasms of history may be supplied, and a glimpse may be obtained of unrecorded ages and nations, whose early history is lost in darkness. The ancient manuscripts, paintings, and other works of art, which still exist – the crucifixes, garments, armor, and other ancient relics, still preserved – are doubtless still instinct with the spirit that produced them, and capable of revealing to psychometric exploration, the living realities with which they were once connected. At present, these relics are barren of significance. Their hidden meaning lies waiting the future explorer, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt awaited the arrival of Champillion to interpret their significance. And why should not the world be filled with the monuments and unwritten records of its past history? It would seem, to the superficial thinker, that man was entirely limited to tradition and written records for his knowledge of the past; but physical science proves, that the world possesses, embodied in enduring monuments, the story of its progressive existence. The geologist finds, in the different strata of the earth, in its curiously mingled and irregular structure, and in the fossil remains which it conceals in its bosom, the history of its various changes of surface, and of the antediluvian races of animals which have long been extinct. The huge Saurian monsters, which he portrays from their fossil relics, rise before the eye as incredible chimeras. And over this fertile region, now occupied by prosperous States, he revives, by the magic power of science, the antediluvian seas and their strange inhabitants, unknown to man.

 

The Past is entombed in the Present! The world is its own enduring monument; and that which is true of its physical, is likewise true of its mental career. The discoveries of Psychometry will enable us to explore the history of man, as those of geology enable us to explore the history of the earth. There are mental fossils for psychologists as well as mineral fossils for the geologists; and I believe that hereafter the psychologist and the geologist will go hand in hand — the one portraying the earth, its animals and its vegetation, while the other portrays the human beings who have roamed over its surface in the shadows, and the darkness of primeval barbarism! Aye, the mental telescope is now discovered which may pierce the depths of the past and bring us in full view of the grand and tragic passages of ancient history! I know that, to many of my readers, unaccustomed to these investigations, and unacquainted with the first experimental facts of this great science, these anticipations must seem a visionary hope – too grand, too romantic, too transcendently beautiful to be true. But observe, that all is based upon familiar experiments, and these results are but legitimate deductions from familiar facts. As surely as the expansive power of steam gives premonition of the ocean steamship, does the power of Psychometry give promise of all the glorious performance to which I have alluded.

 

—Buchanan, 1842

 

A tactile scent, groaning under the weight of aeons: wild fig, cedarwood, venerable ti leaf, and white sage.

 

In vitro: Woody figgy. I love wood and I love figs. Let's do this.

Wet on skin: The cedar and sage predominate, with the fig adding juicy sweetness. The sage contributes a very clean feeling that could strike people as smelling like really nice shampoo (Tabella did the same), but I am cool with that (I have three bottles of Tabella). Delicious, multi-dimensional cedar.

Dry: Sillage is very close to the skin. This actually reminds me quite a bit of a more chilled-out Tabella, less bright and sharp, just fig and cedar and sage hanging out together. There's nothing flashy about this, in fact, but it's still compelling and substantial. It's a classy, calm, and wise scent, like meditating in a forest. Definitely unisex; I wouldn't call it masculine, but nevertheless this would probably be lovely on a guy. The sage gets stronger on drydown and reminds me of one of my favourite places in the world, the Mojave desert in southwestern Utah. Love it.

[unxolve]

Wow, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. I love this! Really good.

Wet: Even though this isn't a yule-yule scent, it reminds me of walking into a really delicious christmas store that makes hand-carved wood things. I had no idea what fig smelled like. The fig is great. Sort of a yummy sweet-spicy layered over faint and good wood.

 

Gradually melts down to a softer, quieter version of itself.

[Ashmedai]

Lots of white sage initially, then the ti leaf really kicks itself front and center for a few minutes, followed by the cedarwood. I can smell the fig, and it smells like fresh fig, sweet and juicy without being overly fruity. Final dry down is a beautiful cedar, lightly sweetened by the fig, and the clean, herbal notes of ti leaf and sage making this a woody-green scent overall. This is really beautiful!

[velvet]

Upon initial application I am extremely optimistic, it smells fruity, but tempered by sage. A couple minutes in I smell.... cumin? Probably, it is the cedarwood but my chemistry has decided I need to smell like fruity cumin.

I can't un-smell the cumin. sigh.

[Dark Alice]

Cedarwood=pencil shavings. That's all I can smell in the imp, cedarwood and figgy pencil shavings. I can't get past the cedar...*sigh* off to the swaps for you!

[zankoku_zen]

Figs, cedar, and a hint of sage. This is a woodsy figgy blend. Good throw, good wear length.

 

UNF. This is actually pretty good. I may have to consider a partial.

[killersandliars]

I'd describe this scent as green and ghostly. It definitely smells woody, as the other reviewers have mentioned, but the ti leaf and the fig make it smell a lot different than your grandma's cedar chest. The sage plays nicely with the cedar, and they both stay close to the skin (and they stick around much longer.) This reminds me a lot of a really fine men's cologne, in a way, but slightly lighter and less citrus-y. I might have to put a dab on my husband, on whom I *adore* cedar and woods in general, to see how it plays on him. This is definitely one of the most interesting BPAL oils I have in my stash, and I'm quite glad that I took the leap on it.

[DrKate]

I adore this, even considering a back-up bottle which I *never* do. I'm pretty useless at reviews but for me the fig is most prominent then the cedar. It's a beautiful companion to the Fig & White Sandalwood hair gloss, which I've been dying for a perfume to match for years and now I have one

[thekittenkat]

In the decant: Fig dusted w/ white sage.

 

Wet: Now the 2 notes have switched places.

 

The dry-down: In the end this is mostly white sage sweetened by the wild fig and given a deeper and woodsy aspect by the cedarwood. Nice, but I was hoping for this to be fig dominant.

[tinyvulture]

Saaaage! I've never come across a perfume that's mostly sage on me, so this is cool. The clean sage entertwines with the woodsy cedar. It reminds me of New Mexico for some reason. It's totally a unisex blend. There's a little bit of figgy sweetness, and greenness of ti leaf, but not much. Mostly sage and cedar.

[milo]

Fresh tea and sage at first. Dries to be more sage than tea, and kind of more like dried sage. Nice, and quite realistic. More so than sn sage to me.

[Little Bird]

Starts off kind of like Intrigue, but with sage instead of chocolate, so I like this a lot less. The herbal, savory sage scent is always off-putting to me. Mixed with sweet, woody fix and a dry, pencil shavings type cedar. As it dries down, it shifts into a clean, light, lemony scent, which must be the ti leaf.

[LizziesLuck]

I can't resist fig!!

 

Wet: LOTS of fresh sandalwood, which is approaching "pencil shavings" territory on me. I am also finding something (maybe the ti leaf?) really lemony. So, lemony pencil shavings.

 

 

Dry: Mmm, this dries down way nicer. The sweet fig emerges, sticky and juicy. The sandalwood settles down and smells ways less like wood savings now. Whatever citrus thing was happening, it's gone now. I think with age the sandalwood might calm down even further, and I know I would like it even more then. I think I will keep this decant and age it and see how that goes. I like it right now, but I may love it enough to own a bottle once it ages.

[Elspethdixon]

In imp/wet - fruity fig and herbal sage, spa-like and non-sweet. Not the epic glory of Amicitia, but no fig/sage combo could ever equal that one.

Freshly applied - why hello lemony white tea, there you are. (I can still detect the other notes if I concentrate, but not easily). I smell like I applied White Tea and Sage Hair Gloss to the inside of my wrists.

Five-ten minutes in: The initial blast of white tea has died down and the fig and cedar base has come forward again. Now it's equal parts fig&cedar and whitetea& sage. Like what I get when I wear both the Fig & Sandalwood and White Tea & Sage HGs layered together as a body spray, but without the insane throw doing that that produces. If it stays like this, I think I might need a bottle so I don't have to do that anymore.

One hour in - It's gradually morphed from a white-tea-and-sage dominant scent to a fig-and-cedar dominant (with fig in the starring role), but with a hint of the tea and herbal sage keeping it from being as sweet and full-bodied-fruity as the F&WS HG. This is the closest thing to a straight-up perfume oil dupe of that HG I've encountered yet, and I love it.

Overall impression: I hoped for an Amicitia scent-twin. I got Fig & White Sandalwood HG and White Tea & Sage HG's perfume oil love child, which is a more-than-acceptable alternative. Like DrKate, I've been searching for a perfume scent-twin for Fig & White Sandalwood HG for ages, and I think A Measurement of the Soul is it.

[Lucchesa]

A Measurement of the Soul is really beautiful. It smells clean and righteous. I know that's a weird thing to say about a perfume, but that's where my brain goes with this one -- strong and upright. I feel like environmentalists of any gender could wear this while proudly battling the oil companies over land rights.

 

It's mostly sage and cedar on me, grounded by the earthy fig - the wild variety must be less sweet than the cultivated, because this is only faintly sweet. If ti leaf is a tea note, it's swallowed by my skin like all its cousins. But I love this. It's quiet, but knowing it was there would give me a little extra backbone.

[Casablanca]

Freshly applied, Measurement brings me a lemony white tea, with a subtle, cool breath of white sage. I don't find any other notes. White Tea and Sage HG is one of my go-to glosses, and this would be a dream pairing so far: fresh, clean, and dreamy. 

 

When the perfume oil is drying, but still shines a bit on the skin, I start to get a little warm fig and cedar, just peeking out. They add some complexity and the combination charms.

 

After drydown, I get more fig and cedar... and sandalwood, it seems like. 

 

Looking back, my experience is similar to ElspethDixon's. I definitely see the likeness of this to the HGs White Tea and Sage, and Fig and Sandalwood.

 

This works for me.

[torischroeder9]

(2018 version)

 

In the decant: Cedar, something like a light pine scent, and a bit of sage. 

 

On my skin:

 

Wet, it's the light pine, cedar, and sage. As it dries, the warmth and roundness of the fig note starts to come out. 

 

Given some time to dry and settle down, the fig warms and comes out as the dominant note on my skin. It's the same sensuous fig as in Carnal. Only this time, instead of being the grounding note, the fig is the top note. At this point, the cedar and sage aren't detectable on me except to know that something earthy is grounding the fig. 

 

About half an hour later, the fig remains the only detectable note. At this point, I could be wearing Carnal (since the mandarin there disappears on me) and never know the difference. I like fig well enough as a scent (in fact, I like fig very well as a scent, and I'd wear it more often if it wasn't such a low-throw note on me), but I don't know that this is distinct enough on me to warrant a separate purchase. 

 

Edit 1/20 -- Fun trivia: I'm wearing this again today, applied approximately 90 minutes ago to both inner elbows and to my cleavage. (Initial test above was on inner elbow or inner forearm.) Cleavage application went figgy very quickly; elbow applications are still cedar-dominant. Going to let this sit in the decant for a month to see if that creates a little more consistency. 

Edited January 20, 2019 by torischroeder9

[mishi-bear]

2018 version.

 

Initially very heavy and bitter, almost entirely a very dirty cedar. It lightens up considerably as it morphs and the sweeter notes come forward. The cedar moves to the background.

 

The fig comes forward and it's a nice fruity note. Very red-purple, dark and tangy. It has an almost pomegranate like undertone.

 

The tea leaf complements it well, sort of bittersweet and clean. Somewhere between a green and black tea.

 

The sage is sweet and herbal but overall very mild.

 

This isn't a bad smell once it dries but it's still not for me. A little more heavy and bitter than I like my scents.

[deadlyves]

In the bottle-  wonderful mixture of all the scent notes, strong on cedar but sweet and herby, too

 

Wet- dusty cedar and nothing else

 

Dry- a crisper sweeter cedar but... still just cedar. 

 

I'm really disappointed in this one because it smells so good in the bottle and I bought it really hoping the fig would come out. By the end of the day, the scents were finally balanced, but it fades so much by that point that you can barely smell it. Really hoping some age will bring it to the balanced scent I love in the bottle.

[Indigo78]

Found an untested decant and I’m not sure of the year. Based on how long I’ve had it, I’ll guess 2014. 🤔

I didn’t read the description and couldn’t get a read on any of the notes at first, but I could have sworn peach was somehow involved. (I wore a peach scent this morning so my brain wanted to read it as that.) Peach turned out to be fig, which became more recognizable once the cedar dialed it down after 10ish minutes. The sage is soft and binds this together well. Medium throw.

 

I’ll be using this up.

Edited March 30, 2019 by Indigo78

[theseagrows]

right off i smell mostly ti leaf and cedarwood. a light woody tea scent with an herbal edge from the white sage. after about 5 minutes the scent changes dramatically and it's primarily fig and woods with a bit of spice. the fig in this turns a bit plasticky on me. it's a sweeter rather than a greener fig. 

[artisjok]

I’ve been craving some good figgy scents, so I was excited to try Measurement of the Soul. 
I am getting primarily cedarwood and white sage, yet there’s a bit of sweet fig bringing a bit of balance to the outdoorsy feel. The ti leaf is apparent while wet, it blends into the sage quickly. The fig does gain some over the other notes with wear, yet the throw is dramatically reduced by this stage I can’t enjoy it as much as desired. 
I’ve been enjoying some fresh scents recently, and this is definitely one to slather when I want to surround myself in a clean aura.