Arachnina, The Spider Girl (2016)

[zankoku_zen]

You move towards the first stage on your right, and as you walk, you feel something brush across your cheek. Something about the softness of the phantom caress makes your skin crawl, and you flinch involuntarily. At that moment, the Spider Girl strides haughtily onto the platform, her stiletto heels clicking a strange staccato as she walks. Her body is wrapped in skin-tight strips of black PVC, and the gleaming vinyl glistens in stark contrast to the alabaster skin on her six pale, white arms. She gestures to the rafters above with a graceful flick of her blood-red nails. In dread, your eyes are drawn skyward: above her, in a gossamer snare, web-shrouded bodies twist and struggle.

A swirling, hypnotic perfume of black currant, poppy, red and black musk, lilies, nicotiana, tobacco tar, and patchouli.

Okay, I get black currant, lots of musk, a touch of tobacco. This one is muskier and fruitier than the original Arachnina. For me, it feels more gleaming shiny carapace than feral. The previous one definitely felt like a feral, hairy prickle. This is more the shiny dome of the abdomen of a black widow. Stays fairly close to the skin, medium wear length. There's something here that reminds me to red wine.

I also had the serendipitous swab on a spot that I was re-testing Imperfect Enjoyment and it really smells fantastic to combine those two. IE brings out a different musk on Arachnina, tames some of the white floral aspects and brings out the patchouli. At the end it ends up like a more slinky type of blend. Sort of like when Black Widow is doing an incognito mission and is posing in a slinky Hollywood siren dress. You know she's deadly and can probably kill you with those thighs, but its just classy all the way.

[patina]

I tried the original, and I seem to remember it was heavily opium and floral, very perfumy. This one immediately starts out smelling like dirty hippie patchouli, tobacco and red berries. Somehow it smells like spicy red berries.

 

After the drydown, the patchouli starts behaving itself and quiets down to a whisper. There really isn't a lot of throw with this one, but occasionally I get a lovely waft of florals.

 

Slinky, feminine, close to the skin.

[Little Bird]

Similar to the original, with lots of sharp, perfumey, floral-musk-opium-poppy. White department store floral perfume type of feel. I can actually pick out a gritty earthiness from the patch & tobacco and a bit of sweet fruitiness from the red musk and currant in this version, though. However, the opium poppy still ruins the whole thing for me.

[WinterSong]

At first, I get lots of poppy, lillies, tobacco and patchouli. It's strong, but as it dries down, the patchouli and tobacco fade, and the musks and black current come out to sweeten everything. On me, the black current becomes quite strong, and so does the red and black musk. There isn't a lot of throw, but this is absolutely lovely! I may need another bottle!

[stellamaris]

This is beautiful, and the patchouli is very wearable. I like it just as well as the original, and the bottle art is glorious.

[doomsday_disco]

This is mostly a musky floral on me (more black musk than red), dirtied up by some tobacco and patchouli. The tobacco and patchouli are most prominent earlier on in wear, as the black musk really asserts itself throughout the day, along with the sweetness of the poppy. Strangely enough, I didn't get a ton of currant from this, but the bottle I swapped for contains less than a decant, so it could just be how this one aged (as I usually tend to amp currant).

 

I'm glad I got to try this, but I know it is not something I would reach for. I'd recommend it to those that love musk and poppy notes.

[MolyH]

This is a lot of musk, a lot of tobacco, and a lot of patchouli. It's dirty, smoky, and got a lot of power. A little dab goes a long way. We'll see how long it lasts.