The Chapel 2017

[galahad]

You come to a building that seems to have been hastily erected from splintered wood, stone, and plaster. Flickering light from within sparkles out through blood-tinged chunks of glass that have been wedged into the arch entrance. You push open the thick velvet curtain that covers the mouth of the building and look inside. The chapel is small and cramped, and the air is thick with heavy incense, bitter wine, sulphur, and the coppery scent of blood. A massive stained glass window is set against the back wall, glowing brightly.

In the center of the room, a groveling figure is crouched before a woman draped in purple-black clerical robes. The woman's eyes are filled with righteous hellfire, and she extends a hand in benediction to the man who has fallen prostrate at her feet. He murmurs, "Libera Te Ex Caelum", and she gestures for him to rise. As he gets to his knees he winces in pain and moans in a strange expression of ecstasy, and you see small horns growing from his skull.

Black incense, bitter wine, brimstone, bile, and blood.

In the Vial:
Intense sticky sweet wine, incense and the Lab blood note. Gives me chills just smelling it from the vial

On the Skin:
Insanely intense wine and acrid incense with vetiver. Luciously rich and evocative. Thankfully the wine is not grapey. The sweetness tones down over time (and it is initially very thickly sweet)

On the Drydown:
I stayed away from this during the last iteration of Carnival Diabolique and I am so sad that I did. This is gorgeous, multilayered and wearable. A new love for me

[VetchVesper]

This reminds me instantly of Troll, but he's out of his forest, and all up in your face after a heavy bout of wine drinking. Harsh, acrid vetiver, dark charred wood, and a sourness that makes me think of oak aged whiskey. I actually kind of dig it though. It's more along the lines of what I was expecting but didn't get from Mr. Czernobog.

 

After putting it on my skin, it stays pretty intense, but the wine note becomes more prominent. It's where the sourness comes from. There's this off-putting yet intriguing charred wood/sour wine thing, which is indeed very evocative of a black beamed, blood smeared, medieval chapel. After half an hour or so this becomes really nice. It's softer and less sour. Still dark, but the wine has a hint of sweet warmth and spice. This one's not grapey though. The wood has become old and polished vs. rough and black, and it no longer reminds me of Trolls. This is kinda sexy, and I wouldn't mind smelling it on a guy one bit.

 

I will enjoy wearing on dark and moody occasions. Beware though. Vetiver lurks here.

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: So much vetiver, or maybe it's brimstone, but it smells quite like vetiver - smoky/sour/sweet all at the same time. While applying it, I got huge amounts of rich wine, but on my skin, it's all vetiver, all the time. I don't hate vetiver - I like it in the right combinations. Not loving it here though. It's very strong, almost acrid.

 

 

Dry: The wine comes out a bit more as it dries, but the vetiver is still very strong. I'm pretty ambivalent about this scent. Don't like it, don't dislike it. ???

[zankoku_zen]

Sticky wine, incense, and a touch blood on the drydown. This smells like a smoky sweet wine and sort of reminds me to the Madrid blend --- but with smoky vetiver instead. Medium throw and wear length.

[jojocialist]

One of my favorite things about the Lab is that they have this amazing knack for squeezing scenes, settings, characters, and feelings into their bottles, with and without the beautiful descriptive texts. To me, The Chapel is one of the best examples of a perfume oil that writes an instant story.

 

Wet -- OOP, WOW. The metallic and smoky notes were so thick, they were almost repulsive. I instantly thought of congealing blood and old, dilapidated, rotting wood and metal. Based on the description, I was expecting to be hit more with the incense and the wine first, but WOW. Fortunately I bought this one because I wanted something that was brutally evocative if not particularly sexy, so I was really, really impressed by how harsh and intense the first wave was on me.

 

Dry, it's a beautiful, spicy incense/cologne. Very warm, strong, slow. As someone who does a lot of spiritual work, this smells and feels almost exactly like some of the more heavy ritual spaces I've been in - that feeling that comes when everything's finished, but the air is still heavy and thick. 

 

I'm shook. 10/10 would probably never wear this in public unless I wanted to terrify strangers and small children BUT would absolutely wear any time I wanted to write a blasphemous horror short.

[skyturtles]

I'm surprised that this doesn't have more reviews, to be honest. The cover art and the short story tempted me into purchasing a bottle from the lab.

 

This scent is intense and not for everyday or everybody or every environment. I don't think I would like this as a room spray, or a soap, or anything else. I like to wear it when I ~go out~ to a bar or something, never to work. I get to smell enough bile and blood at work tbh, yet the incense and wine turn those otherwise potentially icky factors into something powerful.

 

I think this is actually great for layering, especially with something a little sweet, or red musky. It goes well with Le Lethe, for example.

 

Wear this and be feared for the nightmare goddess that you are.

[Tungerine]

First impression on arrival: wine and bile. Actual bile. Yeah, it's foul. Like hangover vomit. It NEEDS to settle for a while.

A few weeks later there's still a blast of wine vomit and vetiver, but it dries down to a beautiful smoky incense and wine scent, intense but in a good way. The incense note is very similar to Malediction. The wine isn't a sweet and fruity wine like in Nosferatu, it's dark and a little bitter, and with the smoky vetiver I totally get the comparison to whiskey. It's wonderfully dark and sinister, and I love it.