The Mummies of Mexico City

[zankoku_zen]

...notes of church incense, ornate gold, old lace, and dust.

This one smells like a softer more Lace interpretation of Calaveras Catrinas. There's a bit of sugar, but it's mainly lace, incense, and just smells old, Mexican and churchy. Low throw but good wear length.

[brineydeep]

Fresh from the mailbox!

 

This is a resin fest on my skin. I liken it to my favorite Ecclesiastic Excesses but lighter. It's all dust and resiny incense; soft and slight sweet without screaming church (at least to me). I think I might have a new favorite resin scent. It's lovely.

[Bluestblood]

This is incredible. It starts off almost entirely frankincense heavy church incense on me with hints of what seems like copal and amber. As it dries, this dusty brittle vanilla pops out that reminds me of Antique Lace.

[LizziesLuck]

I shouldn't be trying this yet, it's a resin scent and it just arrived in the mail and I should be letting it settle...but I NEED to know if I should be ordering the HG!!

 

Wet: So just in case you didn't know, Frank and I don't get along well. I think he's a bully. And this is a Frankincense scent, for sure. But it's like...VANILLA Frank, and vanilla and I are best mates. Somehow vanilla managed to take Frank in-hand and force him to behave, and this is GORGEOUS so far. Good lord, I love this. I must look ridiculous, the way my face is stuffed into the crook of my elbow. The scent is lighter than I would have anticipated, it doesn't smack you in the face with incense. It smells antique. And expensive.

 

Dry: This is difficult to describe. There's a pale golden Frankincense, light and sweet and beautiful. It's sort of enveloped in this dry, dusty vanilla. It's really gorgeous. Different, and interesting while still being elegant and wearable. Glad I sprung for a bottle. Will be getting at least a decant of the HG.

[Jenjin]

This one was a MUST HAVE even before I read the notes. I have been fortunate enough to have spent much time in the D.F. In fact, it is my favorite place on earth. The people, the food, the celebration, the energy and the history all stole my heart. I am not certain I will ever return back to it, but I hold all sorts of amazing memories from my time there. The resins in Mummies takes me back to standing outside the Zocolo Cathedral. The shaman with their smoking urns and skulls chanting and healing.

Sweet and soft drifting ash, the frankincense glimmers like gold mixed with a laced vanilla. The woodiness really comes through after drydown, and it gets all soothing and sacred like just after the resins hit the sparking charcoal and you know the mummies down below are knocking bones cause it smells like a god's fuzzy blanket . This one is firmly imprinted in my scent memory and I keep longing for it. I must wrap myself in this beautiful shroud once again and again.

Edited November 5, 2019 by Jenjin

[Atrous]

I know I smell Frankincense and, I think, Copal. There are other resins in here too but I can't distinguish them.

They form a light incense. Resins are typically heavy hitters on my skin so I'm not sure what is causing this incense to smell faded and dusty. What I can say is that I love it. This is definitely a resin I can wear to work w/o overpowering my co-workers' noses.

There's a dry vanilla overlaying the resins and something that smells like cloth...the lace note, I guess. There's a bit of wood in this too but I can't pinpoint what kind.

Overall, this is light and dusty, antique and solemn, comforting and slightly sweet. Sorry, I can't do a better job of describing the scent.

Mummies of Mexico City now has a spot on my top ten list. It was love at first sniff.

[theseagrows]

this is super resiny from the start. i think maybe there is myrrh in this? frankincense usually gets more like pencil shavings, and this isn't doing that. it's just very dry and church-y. after a few minutes on the skin, i get that hint of the lace note from the other lace scents. the "gold" part is very subtle and in the background, i think it may be vanilla, but it's difficult to pick out. overall it's a dry resin scent for the first 30 minutes or so. after that it gets really pretty- it's a golden incense scent with hints of vanilla, and i like it very much. definitely keeping my decant of this.

Edited January 7, 2018 by theseagrows

[joyfulgirl]

well wow. i love incense and resin blends, but this is the first one i've smelled that is EXACTLY the same as the incense from the roman catholic church i attended as a girl. so evocative and absolutely lovely. initially the throw was a little overwhelming (almost like i was in church with a censer clanging in front of me) but it's dried down to an almost crystallized version of that experience, with just a tiny bit of dry, crumbling sweetness.

 

it's absolutely stunning. as an incense lover, i may have to snag a backup bottle of this.

Edited January 18, 2018 by joyfulgirl

[milo]

I love the hairgloss, so immediately searched out a bottle of the perfume. On my skin, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Lovely, sweet incense, just a dripping resin fest, but very nice with the added sweetness. I'm not sure if I want the keep the oil, though, maybe it's too strong? It smells desolate, like nothing is living. This is what I'd imagine a museum to smell like, with mummies, and a controlled temperature. A bit unsettling.

[doomsday_disco]

In the bottle: The frankincense is the first note that leaps out at me. It reminds me of Hope and Fear Set Free, which I love, but with a different vanilla. Hope and Fear Set Free has a bourbon vanilla note, and this has that spun sugar vanilla Lace note. I think there may also be some amber behind these notes.

 

Wet: The frankincense is by far the strongest note (and it’s pretty strong). It’s backed by the vanilla, which is lovely. There’s a light spice in this that is warming my skin, maybe a spiced amber in the background that’s representing the gold note?

 

Dry: The vanilla is a lot stronger now, while the frankincense is much softer. It’s a wonderful, vanilla-infused, light resin scent, and I cannot stop huffing my wrist!

 

Verdict: SO GOOD. I am going to need more of this. I am running low on Hope and Fear Set Free, and I was dreading running out of it, but now I have a new vanilla and frankincense blend to love. Thanks to the extremely generous forumite that gave me a partial of this. I will treasure it.

[kscha2017]

In the bottle, and wet on skin: no scent

Dry, a couple min later: faint copal

A few min later: nothing

A few min later: faint dessicated earth and/or dusty stone

A few min later: faint dust and gold with a hint of copal

 

It's extremely faint, almost non-existent, on me which is surprising since incense is usually overwhelming. This smells "quiet" and "underground" which I suppose means it captures the essence of the scene perfectly, while being, perhaps oddly, warm and comforting.

 

[Biocarbons]

This was my first experience with a full bottle of a new resin perfume, and also a lace scent.

 

Within the first week of receiving it it was sharp frankencense and dust. I couldn't fully inhail the smell because the strong dust note tickled my nose too much. I was disappointed that the bottle was very different from the imp which was much more of a smooth copal scent.

 

Fast forward a few months later and my 5ml bottle has settled and now closely resembles my original imp. Wet I get more frankencense, but once it dries down it's a lovely smooth copal scent with a blurred edge of frankencense and a little bit of a dry linen (lace), dry wood and dust. I don't really get anything metallic, but that's okay. There may also be just a touch of cocoa?

 

I quite like it, but if the frankencense mellowed out more over time I wouldn't be mad about it.

[Jeena]

Definitely a sweet, soft incense scent. I don't really get resin (is resin piney? I feel like most resin scents are piney) so much as I get a dry warmth, which I'm assuming is the dust note. Lasts a good few hours on my skin, and at the end of the day, I can still smell it faintly on me and my clothes. This has become my favorite, every day signature scent, I really just love how warm it is! 

 

edit: I bought my original bottle in 2018, and after 5-6 years of ageing, there is an incredible warm/dusty/deepness to this perfume. I bought a replacement in 2023, and noticed that the there is a smokiness in my old bottle that isn't there in there in the new one!  I can't tell if this bottle needs a few years of aging to replicate that, or if the formula may have been changed/altered. I plan on buying a third bottle and the hair gloss to see and also because a girl can never have too many mummies of mexico city!

Edited March 7 by Jeena
second bottle review

[Lucchesa]

Mummies of Mexico City is dusty frankincense and copal on me.  There's a hint of sweetness but more like dusty beeswax candles than the lace note from Antique Lace.  It never gets that sweet on me.  Definitely atmospheric, the near-deserted church of my childhood with a few elderly ladies in mantillas.  A skin scent for most of its wear length, which is pretty long. 

[murqmaid]

a pale frankincense that dries into a soft, warm, resiny lace. i'm not sure what copal smells like, so i can't speak to that. there's a a wisp of sweetness that gets ALOT stronger during the drydown; but the blend as a whole isnt sweet at all, it just has a slightly sweet element.

this is a resiny version of everything i hoped antique lace would be: dusty and elegant. i wish it had more throw, but i'm thrilled to have it in my collection

revised 11/11/20: MOMC is actually "sweet" by comparison; and as a person who is not crazy about sweet perfumes, I LIKE IT.

Edited November 12, 2020 by murqmaid

[rhonorv]

UNF! So lovely. Soft frankincense lace. For being a very light, wispy scent it has good throw. It reminds me of a warmer-softer-glowier version of Midnight Mass, and the dust note here seems the same as the one in Svarta Fönix Bókaflóð. Glad to have a bottle!

 

ETA: This is also quite similar to Coyote! I was messing around with layering, and found that Coyote + Morocco gives a similar vibes, so if you enjoy those I bet you'll enjoy this.

Edited October 4, 2021 by rhonorv

[MamaMoth]

you wander through an abandoned, derelict church.  it feels like centuries, maybe, since this building was put to its purpose, but it still reverberates with a solemn hush.  in your explorations, you find a cloth-wrapped bundle, what used to be fine cotton and lace, gently moldering.  it crumbles at your touch, revealing a precious cache of incense resins: frankincense tears.  copal?  myrrh? even through thick, muffling layers of dust, their scent still resonates.  you leave them where you found them, carrying only the memory of that scent with you. 

[Little Bird]

The Mummies of Mexico City brings up images of walking into an old wood and cobblestone building with decades of resins that have soaked into every part of the structure, standing in a large room with wooden rafters, flickering candles, gold, and dust floating lazily through a beam of sunlight from a stained glass window.

I think this smells like sweet frankincense and slightly lemony, slightly pine-y, slightly smoky copal (very slightly smoky), a golden and lightly powdery amber that conjures up sunshine and dust, old books that have that aged vanillic scent to them, and a hint of beeswax candles.

Very pretty.  I'm happy to have this in my resin/incense collection.

[Amoraexcena]

This scent is a lightning bolt of memory for me. It smells like the Church of Santiago Tlatelolco in Mexico City. 

 

My partner at the time brought me to the Tlatelolco Archaeological Site with some friends, knowing my adoration for all things ruins and history and archaeology. I wasn't expecting the horrifying, sacreligious chimera of a Church - it was clearly made from stolen materials of the temples of the conquered indigenous people. I could practically hear the echoes of the wrath of the old gods and the screams of their worshippers. It was a stark, shocking reminder of the blasphemous destruction wrought by Spanish colonialist evangelism. It gave me chills, in the middle of a hot Mexican summer.

 

When I cautiously entered the Church after exploring the rest of the ruins, I was struck with discordance - the imposing, supposed-to-inspire-awe, ostentacious high ceilings and detailed oil paintings and gold filigree of Catholic tastes, juxtaposed to the rather calming scent of frankincense and cracked stone and dust. I left the accursed place burning with rage, mad at myself for liking the scent of it, trying not to show my turmoil of emotions to my friends or partner, who I appreciated very much for bringing me there. I needed to see it.

 

This is the scent of heavy church resins and colonial gold, failing to completely mask the desecrated dust of precious ancient relics.