For the Joy of It

[SolarEclipse]

In prison Shadow had learned there were two kinds of fights: don’t fuck with me fights, where you made it as showy and impressive as you could, and private fights, real fights, which were fast and hard and nasty, and always over in seconds.

“Hey, Sweeney,” said Shadow, breathless, “why are we fighting?”

“For the joy of it,” said Sweeney, sober now, or at least, no longer visibly drunk. “For the sheer unholy fucken delight of it. Can’t you feel the joy in your own veins, rising like the sap in the springtime?” His lip was bleeding. So was Shadow’s knuckle.

Whiskey, mead, honey, gold, sweat, and blood.

This starts out wonderful. It's one hell of a boozy kick from the bottle, and sweetens up on application. Wet, it's a sweet scent, carrying the scent of drinks along with this. A few hours later on the skin, the scent has darkened to a leathery, coppery scent, the blood note bought out to play. The little I dabbed on the work collar of my shirt aged differently, maturing into a smokey spicy scent, bringing up visions of a smokey bar an hour before closing. Definitely one i'll reach for again and again!

[Soupy Twist]

This is really hard to describe. Wet grains? I guess that's the mead and honey? There's a tang here which I recognize but I can't place. I almost want to say it smells like drying paint, but in a good way. maybe that's the sweat?

Well, it doesn't matter, because a minute later stale whiskey rumbles in with metal clanging along behind it, which turns to blood, and I am so done.

Brilliant morpher. Not my cup of tea.

[Dark Alice]

The smells like a honey old fashioned. I love it!

[sarandipitee]

I like this one. Honey, mead and blood are the notes I can pick out. It's a slightly powdery honey skin scent. I think I'm ok with just a decant, but I'll age it for a bit to see if I'll need more.

[RedAoife]

I was excited for this one. The whole "for the joy of it" fightin' words thing really spoke to me, as I'm the child of Irish immigrants who were the worst/best embodiment of all those stereotypes, and I was raised as a small, scrappy, little ginger girl. Playground fights were my gig. Hell, I started a little recess "fight club" in third grade, which was a blast until it got shut down (pretty fast). Fighting for joy and exhilaration was a part of my childhood, and of course I love Gaiman's work, so I was eager to see how this particular one lined up.

 

This is sweet and heavy, straight from the get-go. I get the whiskey and mead for certain; the whiskey is nice because it operates civilly as a "scent" (as in, it doesn't make me smell like an alcoholic) and the mead is true and syrupy. Like mead, though, I'm feeling that this scent is best enjoyed in small doses. Not so sure how I'd feel about wearing this on my person. However, the "blood" perfume note never worked on my skin at all, and so far I'm not catching any traces of that cough-syrup catastrophe, so things could be worse.

 

As it begins to dry, the incense takes more of a center stage. It's a tad strange, but not unpleasant; it's no headshop incense (a good thing; I like hippies, but don't necessarily want to smell like one), but rather reminds me almost of the holidays...this might be a great winter scent! I detect frankincense and cloves among a mess of other things, but all blended together in a highly sophisticated way such that "incense" may be listed as a single note.

 

Having dried, I've decided I really like this one. The incense has opened up into something soft and more complex, and the whiskey and mead notes are still detectable as a sort of smoky-honey backdrop. It's sweet and deep and quite nice; I get the sensation of burying my nose in dark, warm wool. Not quite sure if this will be a big bottle for me, but I'll definitely be revisiting my decant in the colder seasons! It's a chilly weather scent for certain, and....those are my favorite kind. Hell, I might end up buying it for the name and memory-associations alone.

Edited June 18, 2017 by RedAoife

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: Sweet smoky whisky, with just the hint of "tang" of some blood/sweat. Not particularly compelling or complex, just dead on high-end whiskey. Smells like a good time.

 

 

 

Dry: Leather! I swear there is leather in here, soft and worn and subtle. It's quite nice, but that's what this has dried down to - smooth leather with a hint of smoky whiskey.

[KatyC]

American Gods is full of really great phrases, and 'for the joy of it' is one of my favourites so I had to get this!

 

Wet: Sweet, heady and boozy. Fun, but not wearable for me.

 

Dry: I almost washed it off at the wet stage but I'm glad I persisted. After 30mins or so it developed into a handsome cologne combined with a touch of cinder toffee. Medium throw and wear length, and I couldn't stop sniffing my arm for the duration.

 

I'm not sure I'd get a bottle of this because of the sickly wet stage, but I'll definitely get through my decant.

[zankoku_zen]

Honey, whiskey, sweat and blood. This smells like a bar fight, with whiskey and sweat. Masculine. I get a ton of whiskey from this. Good throw and wear length.

[Little Bird]

Starts off as powdery, kind of bitter honey on my skin, with the whiskey smelling like alcohol spilled over a dark, polished, wood bar. The booze is a bit too sour for me. As it dries down, the 'gold' seems to come through as that soft, amazing, metallic cologne scent that I've enjoyed in a few other bpal blends. It's sort of sweet and cool and makes me think of gold coins glittering in green grass, and sexy man cologne. Still, the whiskey is too much for me here, and I think the blood note might be adding a rusty lilt to the scent in the far drydown.

[Elspethdixon]

Testing this at the same time as Mad Sweeney, because they both have a whiskey note and are thematically linked.

 

In the imp - Pretty much straight whiskey, but a little softer/more perfume-y than Mad Sweeney and not as sharp. This still smells like alcohol, but not as overwhelmingly.

 

Freshly Applied - whisky and honeyed skin musk. Cozy-sexy, like a really nice manly cologne on your boyfriend's collar. (BTW, the combined throw from both this and Mad Sweeney, which I'm testing on my other arm, plus the leftover dregs of the Saw Scaled Viper I put on eight hours ago? Total bananas foster territory. I'm surrounded by a cloud of caramelized sugar and dark rum/rum caramel sauce).

 

Fifteen Minutes in - as it dries it’s gotten softer and less masculine. This is clearly the sort of honey note that goes powdery, because I’m getting baby powder and skin musk, with amber and whiskey. I’m not picking up any sweat or blood at all, unless Leprechauns sweat vintage perfume nitromusks and bleed honey/dark-unsweetened-caramel laced with whiskey. Which they actually might, come to think of it. Actually, the smell reminds me a little of the new Starbucks ultra-caramel frappuccino’s dark caramel flavoring, overlaid by perfume musk. (Combined throw of this plus Mad Sweeney now smells like manly whiskey-laced dessert topping. Like sticky toffee pudding soaked in whiskey.)

 

Half-hour in - The sweat and blood notes have gone all perfume-y synthetic musk with an edge of dryer sheets. A shame, because the opening stage was so good.

 

1 Hour +/Drydown - the honey/mead did its best to turn the whole scent into baby powder and the sweaty musk wanted to morph to dryer sheets, but they don't quite succeed. For The Joy of It gets less sweet and less powdery over time, and by the time we're well into the drydown it's like the manlier version of that Luper from this year that was all wood and sweetened musk, except that was softer/hazier and sweeter than this (a quick check of my perfume notes from this spring tells me I'm thinking of Novel Ideas for Secret Amusements).

[Lucchesa]

One of my favorite American Gods scents -- any scent, really -- is Mithras, with blood, honey, milk and oil, so I hoped this would be a relative.  And sure enough, For the Joy of It is Mithras's ne'er-do-well uncle.  It starts out all whiskey on me, sharp and a little sweet and very alcoholic.  Of course, I knew it wouldn't stay there, and it softened within minutes, with the honey and/or mead sharing center stage with the whiskey.  There's a lovely drydown of coppery, honeyed booze, and it lasts all day.  I don't get sweat, or if I do, it's not unpleasant.  After half an hour or so after application, it's safe for public consumption.  Perfectly unisex, and while it doesn't evoke the same deep emotional connection as Mithras does for me, it's very good. 

[Dancing Raven]

This is definitely one of those 'exactly what it says on the tin' scents.

Wet: Whiskey - like a punch to the nose. It's very realistic. This smells bitter and nutty with no sweetness.

Drydown: It calms down a bit about 10 minutes later. It remains bitter and nutty, like hops with whiskey underneath. 

20 minutes after applying, something that smells like bug spray enters the mix. I'm thinking this might be the gold component. 

45 minutes in: Sweet bug spray

90 minutes in: I get clove and powdery honey, and this is how it stays.

It's definitely evocative, I just don't know if I want to smell like this. I might try layering it with something sweet to see if it can be dialed down a notch. It's perfectly unisex. Throw is good, and wear time is average. 

3 out of 5 stars.

[DigitalCoyote]

Wet: This is the second kind of fight with a fifth of something that could double as rocket fuel immediately upon application.  HIGH PROOF AND VIOLENTLY FLAMMABLE ALCOHOL NEAT WITH NO CHASER in very big letters.  After that burns off,  I'd compare it to red Nyquil: there's the big, boozy, and in your face smell plus a burning syrupy sweetness that probably doesn't mean you well.

 

Semidry: That honey is powdery.  It's riding the line between cloying and chemical.

 

Dry: The bottom of this screams "your favorite dude" smell.  This is sorcery.  It's masculine and cologne-like but sweet--no hard wood edges or deep vetiver smells.  I caught a whiff of clove in there, too.  I could see this as the aftermath of the fight, a body cooled down with the memory of sweat and whatever he put on a few hours ago before he went out.

 

And then my skin ate it.

Edited March 23 by DigitalCoyote