Mithras

[VioletChaos]

"...You run into Mithras yet? Red cap. Nice kid."

"No, I don't think so."

"Well . . . I've never seen Mithras around here. He was an army brat. Maybe he's back in the Middle East, taking it easy, but I expect he's probably gone by now. It happens. One day every soldier in the empire has to shower in the blood of your sacrificial bull. The next they don't even remember your birthday."

Oblations of milk, oil, honey, and blood.

In The Bottle: LOADS of honey and some milk to cut through the sweetness.

Wet On Skin: Although incense isn't directly named as a note, offerings can be made with them and this is beginning to smell very much like incense to me. Like honey-milk-blood incense to be exact. And I *really* hope it stays this way.

Dry Down: Yup. This is a gorgeous honey, milk, blood incense and I am totally smitten.


I suspect that this secret will eventually get out- better stock up now.

[Nagi Mahe]

Oh yes yes yes. Just perfect, totally agree with the above. I amp honey, but this is well blended and the milk makes it very creamy. I can see this being popular!

[zankoku_zen]

Honey, milk, and blood. Creamy, sweet, and bloody. A milk and honey offering for a god. Good throw and wear length.

[LizziesLuck]

This sounded like it might smell somewhere in the vein of Dana O'Shee, which I really like, and I can't resist honey, so I had to at least try it! I assumed there would be Dragon's Blood in it, but looking at the colour in the vial, I doubt it now.

 

 

Wet: The cream note is strongest at first, and reminds me of the cream note in Boo There's something a bit floral - I wonder if it's the oil note, like an olive sort of floral vibe? It's absolutely lovely. Quite sweet, but I can't really identify the honey. Something is a bit spicy. It totally reminds me of Greece somehow, maybe it's just the imagery of offerings to the Gods, maybe it's this olive oil/flower idea that I now have in my head, I don't know but it's taking me back to Greece and I love it. It's gorgeous and unique, which is not what I was expecting from a milk/honey scent. Smells nothing like Alice minus the florals, as I had half expected it would, nothing like Dana O'Shee. This is one of those "way more than the sum of its parts" scents. American Gods have been knocking my socks off!

 

 

Dry: Cream, something perfumey which I have decided is olive oil, sweetness and a very faint copper tang of blood. I love it way more than I expected and want a bottle.

[Pave.Gurl]

Milk, honey, and blood? This was an OBVIOUS go-to for me, and man alive, this is a keeper for me.

 

Honey is keeping the milk from curdling and turning into butter, and YUM, I want to drink my own self up! Blood often kicks everything else to the curb for me, but in Mithras, it's staying to the back, like blood of the bull spilled on a floor in another room - it's a tang, not the heady top note I'm accustomed to it being, and it's adding a really lovely warmth and depth to the honey and milk. I'm kinda surprised by the wild florals vibe I'm getting, Mithras being SO male-identified, but it's not a "girly" floral in any way (that seems like a weird thing to say, but it's true. It feels like a wild piece of property that dudes hunt on has flowered in spring, with zero regard to how the flowers will interact with each other - there's a sense of leaves warming in the sun and flowers that aren't being tended dropping their petals as the weather turns to summer).

 

Overall, it stays pretty close to the skin on me, and I have no idea where the floral note I'm picking up is coming from, but I'm shocked at how little love this is receiving out here in the wild forums. This is a wonderful body note for me, even with as warm as it's been this summer.

[Little Bird]

Mithras reminds me of the original Chaste Moon. A milky, clean, creamy floral sort of scent. I was expecting dragon's blood and something like Dragon's Milk, but it's nothing like either of those. I keep thinking that I smell dry tea leaf and something like craft store cinnamon potpourri in the drydown, lingering underneath the creamy, sweet, milky white floral. Drydown starts to give me a headache and I'm thinking there's some sort of white musk in this.

Overall, Mithras isn't as foodie or sweet as I was hoping for, and leans towards being clean, musky and white floral on me more than anything.

[DiesMali]

In the bottle: Smells a bit like sweetened condensed milk with a hint of fresh blood.

 

Wet on my skin: It's a soft, delicate, gently-sweet and rather youthful scent. Milky, bit of honey, still that hint of blood. No oil while it's wet.

 

Dry: This is a tiny bit similar to Alice on my skin, at least the milk and honey part of the scent. It's like...smelling sweet offerings from afar, rather than being at the altar where they're given, if that makes any sense. Sweet, creamy milk and a drop of honey, a drop of olive oil, and a drop of blood. It's a very soft, delicate, surprisingly nuanced scent. Sticks very close to the skin. There is a powderiness to this, kept in check by that slight bit of underlying tangy-sweetness from the blood, but I can see how some people might amp "baby powder" if their skin doesn't work with this one. I think the oil is olive oil, and only just a hint until it's been on an hour or two, at which point the oil overtakes the honey and blood to become the second-most prominent note. At this point it becomes a slightly less delicate scent, on my skin, and while it's not quite masculine, it's definitely no longer as 'youthful' as it was when I first put it on.

[sarandipitee]

Thanks to the blood and honey, I can actually wear a milk note!

 

It goes a touch powdery in drydown but overall I really dig this. I may have to get a bottle.

 

This went sour as all milk does, too bad because it's really nice when wet.

 

EDIT: Omg, nearly everyone of my AG oils have become AMAZING with age. Mithras especially has improved - it totally lost the sour aspect. I love wearing this one to bed, its very comforting. I need another bottle.

Edited April 17, 2018 by sarandipitee

[Lucchesa]

I should preface this review by saying that I am Italian-American and cook with a great deal of olive oil. Perhaps that explains the feeling of rightness I get from Mithras. It doesn't even smell like perfume; it simply smells the way I think my skin should naturally smell. Milk and honey, olive oil and blood. It is just perfectly good and right and beautiful.

 

I was intrigued by DiesMali's likening of Mithras to Alice, which was my very first BPAL love affair. If Alice is puppy love, Mithras is all grown up. The scent is unisex, beyond meaningless categories like male and female. It is a skin scent on me, and it is the scent of skin on me. I am almost tempted to give away all my BPAL, buy ten bottles of Mithras and wear nothing else. But if I were that kind of person, I would have just stuck with Alice and would never have discovered Mithras in the first place.

 

I will wear this when I want to give the impression of utter naturalness.

[whisperstilled]

The comparison to sweetened condensed milk is extremely apt. This is a unique scent for BPAL - while it reminds me of some of their other creamy scents, it has a saltiness, probably from the blood note, that makes it stand out. Pretty sure the blood is Dragon's Blood, however. Too sweet for me, but really interesting.

[doomsday_disco]

In the decant: I can smell all of the notes in the order they’re listed, although I’m not sure what kind of oil this is supposed to be. Maybe olive? The blood note is not dragon’s blood, to my nose. It’s actually citrus-y to me (maybe blood orange?) with a bit of a metallic tang to it.

 

Wet: Blood, milk, oil, and a bit of honey. This isn’t as sweet as most milk and honey scents I’ve tried. I do think the blood note consists of a citrus component, maybe blood orange or mandarin, with a bit of a metallic tang to it, but there’s also an incense-y quality to it. As the scent begins its drydown, I get some clove from the blood note.

 

Dry: The spice I was getting from the blood note calms down and ends up disappearing. This is mostly incense-y, still slightly citrus-y blood, oil (I’m still thinking olive oil), and milk on me, although the scent is sweeter now since the honey decided to come out more.

 

After a few hours, the honey note becomes stronger and adds a little more sweetness to the scent. I like this stage of the scent the most.

 

Verdict: I like this! I did not know what to expect from the blood or oil notes, but neither were problematic on me. If this were a tad sweeter, I’d probably want a bottle of it. I am going to hold on to my decant and see how often I reach for it.

[Mister Azure]

Wet: This has a sweet oil scent to it but the honey amps rather hard on me, so this comes out more at first. However, this isn’t so pungent that it is overwhelming, which must be the milk keeping it mellowed. 

 

The throw is large here for me. 

 

Dry: The sweetness of it levels out more and I still get a scent of some sort of specialized oil that gave a sense of comfort. At first I thought machine oil but that didn’t seem right. Thought it hit me, the scent of honing oil and a slight metallic element (perhaps a blade dripping in blood). Then it shifts to a creamy sweet scent with a hint of the honing oil tinging it. The longer is wears (about 4 hours on me), the creamer it becomes like a warm frothed milk and honey; the honing oil scent has faded far into the background and there is no longer a twinge of metallic in there. 

 

I could not help but want to keep smelling this and feeling at ease. The throw for this was medium to large at this stage. 

 

Final thoughts: This is a comforting and embracing scent. My skin would seem to eat this scent up but I am told it is still fairly pronounced on me after several hours. The entire time I couldn’t help but want to smell Mithras and feel good about where I was in that moment. While there is a very subtle sense of malice in it, it’s more protective than anything. Sweet, mellow, soothing, shielding in its own way.

 

Side note: I looked up a bit about Mithras and that was an interesting insight. Haven’t read the American Gods book yet but the faint hint of metallic makes sense given what I read. 

[Estamets]

Bottle straight from the Lab and rested 5 days, though the level was really low so it might be somewhat aged. 

 

In the bottle: Milk! I'm excited! I can glimpse a fragrant oil in there as well, and the faintest tang of copper.

 

On me: Incense! Where TF did that come from?! The milk and blood hold it in check so it's not nauseating... but barely. (I understand how the reviewer above got white florals from this - it's sharp and fragrant.)

 

2.5 hours in: the incense has faded, and the honey has arrived! This is quite lovely! Dominant honey, flavored with oil and blood. 

 

4 hours in:  Similar to above, but less: a honey-dominated skin scent with enough oil and blood to make It feel very grown up and not overly sweet. 

 

Verdict: I really want to love this, and I can smell the potential underneath the incense. For a person who loves fragrant incense, this is a great smell!

[tinyvulture]

Milk/cream sweetened by honey. Now, the honey note is not very strong. It’s just a subtle sweetness. I don't get the florals that others have spoken of. Brings to mind other lovely, creamy blends like Obatala (only, no coconut here!) or OG Chaste Moon.  No “blood” (metallic) that I notice. Maybe a touch of dragon’s blood incense? Nice to have a bottle since I’ll wear this anytime.