Earth Dog

[Pixie-elf]

A new years blessing! Peony, Chinas national flower, with bamboo for flexibility, plum blossom for perseverance, courage, and hope, tangerine for wealth, red sandalwood and blue lotus for purity, orange for happiness, lychee for household peace, pine resin for constancy, golden kumquat for prosperity, red mandarin for good fortune, peach blossom for longevity, a touch of patchouli to bring it all down to earth, with a splash of blazing red of dragons blood to help you scare away the rampaging Nian.

I'm first? Oh gad. Well bare in mind Ive got botox wearing off, so I hope I do this justice with my head screwed on backwards.

 

I got Earth Dog from Ebay, and I love it. It's a morpher from start to finish! It starts out floral, and fruity, bright, and firey... Then it settles down to a lovely cool incensey scent a few hours later, 3 or 4.

 

It hasn't had a lot of time to settle, and it's so well blended pick out individual notes is hard, but it's lovely.

 

On Nate it's a lovely fruity but earthy scent, masculine enough for him to wear. Gender neutral. I'm glad I have a bottle!

[zankoku_zen]

Earth Dog smells very differently from the previous lunar incarnations. I definitely got lychee, peach blossom, mandarin, and bamboo on wet. There was something almost bitter citrus zesty about this on wet. As it dries, I got more of the sandalwood, peony, and blue lotus. The drydown is much warmer (because of the sandalwood) and warm florals than fruits. Overall, I enjoy this much more and I have to say may be one of my favorite Lunar Year blends, behind Fire Pig (which I adore for utterly sentimental reasons as it is the birth year for both my father and husband). Medium throw and wear length.

[mishi-bear]

In this blend the peony and bamboo are really fleeting top notes. I get them briefly at first but then the bamboo disappears completely and the peony wants to play hide and seek. I get occasional light whiffs of it but it's barely there. I mostly get a fair amount of citrus: the orange, tangerine, mandarin, and even some sweet lychee. I honestly don't know what kumquat smells like so I can't really judge if it's present in this. The pine is actually a really nice note in this, probably because it's resin and not wood. It mostly lends a clean feeling and isn't too astringent. The sandalwood is really the only thing in this blend lending anything truly woodsy. I get only a tiny hint of patchouli, thankfully, adding an earthy green note. With more drying time the fruity-florals come out, plum and peach blossom. Sort of in between fruit and flower. The pine resin + patchouli + dragon's blood combination adds an incensey layer at the base. I get no lotus. This one I actually found pretty interesting and as it dries down it has a very neutral clean scent to it that I did enjoy. Unfortunately this has an incredibly low throw and a very short wear length, the entire scent vanished after about an hour.

[lady_pandora]

This is really pretty, but includes a lot of notes I'm less familiar with, so I probably won't do this justice! The early stages are mostly citrus over pine resin with a hint of smokiness, and then I start getting a beautiful floral blend in the throw while the skin scent stays more fruit/pine. One of the notes I know is peony since it's also in Dormouse, but there are other florals here too. It settles into a sophisticated, well-blended "perfumey" scent where it's hard to pick out any one note. It makes me think of being outdoors in spring while lots of different things are blooming at once.

 

I'm glad I like this, because I would have had a hard time parting with that adorable goodboye (or girl) in the bottle art.

[h_yeti]

This is my first time trying one of the Chinese New Year blends so I don't know how this compares to the others, but this one is absolutely lovely! In the bottle it smells a little woody, very fresh, green, citrusy and slightly sweet. Straight on this is quite fruity and sweet from the peach and lychee, with the citrus in the background. Very quickly these notes calm down and the patchouli comes out. I'm usually not a big fan of patchouli and sadly, also seem to tend to amp it hugely, but in this blend it actually stays really well behaved! It's quite a green woody patchouli, not dirty at all, and is very nice combined with the citrus and sweet fruit on top. After around half an hour the patchouli settles down as well and I'm left with a fresh, clean scent that reminds me a lot of Lush Karma. If I were to compare the two I would say Karma is a bit sweeter and more high-pitched then Earth Dog, and also has bit more of a soapy undertone. Earth Dog is richer, more complex and has a more pronounced woody/ incense base. I do like Earth Dog slightly more, mainly because it is less soapy, but honestly I find them very similar and it's good to know there's an alternative if I ever run out!

I'd say if you like citrus and patchouli scents, or if you like Karma and want a BPAL alternative, definitely give Earth Dog a shot, it's great!

[zazkea]

On my skin, it smells exactly like my first Singapore visit, and it fits the idea of intermingling of cultures and their religions. So when I went back to Singapore to work there for 10 months, I left this at my home, as to be reminded of the city, when I come back

 

I like the idea of having SO many scents in it. It is very complex.

I like how it combines on my skin, as playful scents (i.e. mandarin, bamboo), heavy scents (tangerine, plum blossom, orange), strange scents (i.e., kumquat), and familiar scents (i.e. sandalwood, pine resin). Plus, I just love peach in any form.

I didnt smell patchouli, lychee, dragons blood, and lotus, even not when searching for them (the reason may be that it is very well-blended). Some moments in the drydown phase, orange came a bit too much for my taste, but then it went away again, to leave a perfectly balanced scent to wear, that equals out the individual notes.

 

In sum, I like it mostly because it combines qualities I appreciate: a bit woody, flowerly, and fruity

And I like the theory behind this scent (aka description) with wishing all the best for: flexibility, perseverance, courage, hope, wealth, purity, happiness, household peace, constancy, prosperity, fortune, longevity -- and then even bringing those concepts back down to earth, saying kiss my ass, NianNian (who however wasnt so rampaging when I was in Singapore ).

This mindset very well captures some of the Chinese religious ideas that I encounter here, and it is just SO cool that all of this is in a perfume (if you believe in it).

 

Although to me, earth dog is mainly 1 thing: fun

[ShadowEtienne]

I love the Lunar New Year scents and have at least small quantities of most of them at this point. Earth Dog was one that I was nervous about because patchouli generally does not love me, but I figured in such a complex blend, where the rest of the blend generally is things that work so well for me, I needed to try it (other LNY blends with things I'm iffy on have worked well for me). I was able to get a decant from a forum order (thank you!!!), and I'm so glad that I've managed it because this is indeed lovely, and the patchouli doesn't seem to be causing me problems.

 

Like all of the LNY scents, the overarching scent profile seems to be the dried and candied fruit put out on lacquered trays at LNY with a backing of some soft airy peony, plum blossom, and peach blossom. Citrus is the strongly predominant fruit here, lots of orange/kumquat/mandarin, and the lychee while there is pretty quiet on me. The lotus note is an interesting addition to the floral, but it's not a loud part of the floral mix. The fruit floral combo is warmly backed by the resins and slight woodiness here. This is definitely the woodiest of the LNY scents for me. I suspect that the patchouli is playing supporting note to sandalwood to achieve this, but I'm fortunately not picking up any distinct patchouli.

 

Overall, while this isn't my favorite LNY blend, I'm excited to have it, and glad that the patchouli didn't ruin it for me. I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye out for a bottle!