Vampire Lace

[VioletChaos]

The civilized, sweet restraint of lily-white sugared vanilla silk gleaming with a glimpse of fang-white musk, smeared with wanton red musk seed, tobacco, red agarwood, and ritual benzoin, and blackened with a depraved miasma of clove husk, drooping oakmoss, black leather, and balsam. 



In The Bottle: a very, very gauzy white musk and an even fainter vanilla silk. the whole experience sniffing in the bottle is that of a dream, it's so light and wispy.

 

Wet On Skin: The lightness of the scent continues in that it has very low throw, even as it warms on my skin. Joining the silk and white musk I get a hint of something slightly sharp, such as ambrette seed, although that's not listed in the notes. It might be the agarwood. 

 

Dry Down: The scent remains very soft and slow throw- try it by small increments at first, but i anticipate this one will require slathering to really get the full force of it. It's extremely well blended, so although I can detect ghosts of benzoin and clove husk now, I wouldn't say that either note dominates, but rather that it's all supporting roles for all players involved. I get no leather at all, which is unusual because my skin generally amps that note, so it might again be a testament to how thoroughly it's been blended.
 

In All: A moody scent appropriate for this coldest time of the year, but definitely something that I'd wear for daytime- it lacks a total intensity but I think that's a good thing, because not all heavy scents should be reserved for nighttime uses  

[zankoku_zen]

A ton of white musk, and lily vanilla. It dries down to a more red-musk tinged blend and the tobacco, agarwood, and hints of black leather and balsam come through. On wet, it's this weirdly white floral aggressive (and I mean super aggressive) and then very slowly changes into this red-musk sexual overtones and everything sexy that you can think of. Good throw and wear length.

[doomsday_disco]

I decided to grab Vampire Lace mainly because it's a Lace scent and I was curious, even though Lycan Lace sounded more up my alley. I am testing this after letting it settle for a few days.

 

In the bottle, the red musk stands out to me the most, followed by the lily and white musk.

 

Those are the notes that dominate on my skin as well. I tend to amp red musk, and the combination of the red musk and the lily makes the scent cloying on me. When the red musk and lily finally end up calming down, I get more of the white musk, oakmoss, and a bit of spicy clove husk. Then the darker notes emerge and join the white musk and oakmoss, and I enjoy this phase more than the cloying red musk and floral one, although there are still traces of those notes on me in the background. Sadly, the vanilla lace aspect of the scent never showed up on my skin. It ends up being mostly white musk, oakmoss, and resins after several hours of wear, with some tobacco and leather as supporting players and a touch of clove husk.

 

Red musk was the note I feared the most, and it was just horribly cloying on me combined with the lily. Normally, I'd give a scent time to age before deciding whether or not I am going to keep it, but I will probably send Vampire Lace off to a new home. I don't want to endure that red musk and lily phase again.

[theseagrows]

i get something floral and animalic. i believe it am getting red musk the strongest, along with lily, balsam, benzoin and oakmoss. after about 10 minutes i get the vanilla and the red musk calms down a bit. at this point it's very pretty and i get some tobacco too. it definitely calls to mind the same mood as earlier vampire scents the lab has done, like lucy westenra, etc. it ends up being primarily lily, vanilla and red musk. it's more subtle than it sounds, and quite pretty! i like this a lot, but i get no leather at all. i was really hoping for more leather.

 

[hazakaza]

In the bottle: this is very sour, almost ammonia-smelling, overtop of incense--which is weird, because this doesn't have incense as a note, and my skin amps any incense note. But I put it on anyway. Annnnnnd... still sour ammonia cat pee incense on my skin. Yikes. I'm in for a wild ride today.

 

As it starts to dry down, the incense takes over and the cat pee does fade. I like so many of the notes in this--red musk is wonderful, white musk is great, and so on--but this just isn't for me.

[AirimirOfGondor]

I sadly am not a fan of Vampire Lace. 😔 Which is a bummer, since I love clove, and all the other earthy/wood/resin notes it has.

 

When wet, I just get a serious sour stank. That note does remind me of Hexennacht, which I love, but Hexennacht dries out to a beautiful smoky, foresty, herbal scent, and the sour stank dies off.

For VL, the sour stank does die off. But it unfortunately dries out to just a bunch of lily on me. Like, a vaguely musky, lilylilylily for days. Now, if you like lily, or even floral notes in general, you would probably love it. But I don't really like many floral notes, so I can't really work with this one.

 

It's probably my skin chemistry that's making it turn out like this, and I suppose it would probably age to better fit my tastes, but I'm not sure if I want to keep it around long enough for it to get there. 😅

[milo]

This one has a 'funk' to it, and I'm sorry, but like unwashed ass.  It does fade into something musky, dry and feral, which isn't bad, but I can't get over the funk at the beginning.  The oil was cloudy from the mail box, but seemed clearer after a day.  I hope it's a matter of aging, (and not a 'mistake'), 

 

ETA:  I'm happy to report that after a couple of weeks, the funk is gone.  This is a 'wild' lace, animalistic as described.  It is nothing like anything I own, and will hang on to it, as I love lilies.  It's a very interesting combination that works.

Edited February 12, 2019 by milo

[archaesophilia]

In the bottle this is a scary, funky, musky lily. On, it rapidly mellows out into a dry, musky, spicy lace. It's actually really nice! I was expecting a lily death note based on what's in the bottle, but this is probably going to turn into one of my favorite laces.

[Vaporeon]

Damn the oud when is this wet is SCARY sour and smelly. But once it chills out a little it blends into the sugary lily. Not too intense and super weird. I really like it, im glad i didnt give in to my urge to immediately wash it off.

[monocainsheresy]

I've been stewing over what this smells like in the bottle since it came out of the mail, and my verdict is freshly opened Satya nag champa incense - musky, a bit floral, weirdly sweet, with that almost-overpowering-dangerously-close-to-goaty oudh undertone. Alternatively, overly-febreezed-bathroom-where-someone-just-took-a-massive-dump. Yeah. It's rough. This one is not for the faint of heart.

 

But if you can get past the nightmare phase, it powders and smooths. The clove, musk, oudh, benzoin, and tobacco team up for a big cloud of incense shop vibe, with an extremely sheer blanket of the lace note, edged by lily. It's still not great, but I actually like this quite a bit if I don't get too close.

 

If there was no lily and the oudh was calmed down a little, this would be superb. The lily-oudh combo smells like goat. It's a problem. Not quite a scrubber, but boy does it come close. I'll be keeping this as an aging experiment. 

 

[follis]

I received a sniffie of this. 

 

It comes off strong, lots of musk and incense (agree with poster hazakaza that although there isn't an incense note, I can definitely smell it).

[Madame Mew]

When I first opened the bottle, I was like Nooooo it smells like feet! Haha!

 

I gave it a few months, and now I can smell the different notes without being blasted. I think age will be great for this one, as I can now pick out the tobacco behind the musk. It smells so much better on the skin. Definitely not for the faint of heart, but hey, I'm self isolating and it's been about 3 weeks of this, so now I can REALLY try on all the ones I'm on the fence about. More soon!

[Lucchesa]

Ugh, Vampire Lace wet is all stinky fecal oudh on me.  And it stays that way for a good half hour.  An hour after application it's beginning to be bearable, with red musk and tobacco and vanilla lilies appreciable under the animalic agarwood.  And at this point I really don't care what kind of beauty this turns into.  I will not go through that opening again. 

[torischroeder9]

In the decant: Mostly soft and powdery sugared vanilla silk. 

 

On my skin:

 

Wet, it's totally different, oudh and tobacco on my skin. As it dries, though, a lot of the oudh funk disappears. It's still present as a grounding note, but it's not so pungent. The vanilla silk comes back, and the clove makes an appearance. So it's soft vanilla tobacco, with a touch of clove and a grounding note of oudh. 

 

Aaaaand then the clove and vanilla fade, and I'm left with tobacco and oudh. This combination isn't necessarily unpleasant, but it's a far cry from the lovely complexity that was the previous stage. (Also, I am not the biggest fan of tobacco, and I admit, this is probably influencing my perception here.) 

 

I'm always pleased to try the Laces, but somehow, they never quite end up working on me. 

[Kanra]

In the bottle: Poop. So much poop. Specifically cat poop. I was so afraid to put this on.

 

Yes, the rumors are true. It goes on very fecal. And I am a lover of all things oud, stanky, and animalic. This, upon first application, is very heavy on the fecal note.

 

An accurate description of my wear would be:
Me: omg why am I putting this on, it smells like cat poop!!!
Also me: slathers it on

 

Against any reservation I had, I slathered it. Do I regret it? No. It dries down wonderfully. Like, really dark and addictive musk and incense. I love it.

But does it take a while to get past the poop phase? Also yes.

 

I am one who cares much more about the overall experience with the fragrance than the initial application and can deal with top notes I don't exactly love, noting to myself to apply like 20-30mins before I see anyone. So that being said, I'll keep this for a while. I hear as it lives on it gets much less poopy at the beginning. I hope so, because the ending is exactly my sort of thing.

 

But I will be very sad if the poop doesn’t fade away as it ages with time.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Kanra

[fairybites]

Sadly, the reviews are correct: this is very stinky.  The oud and tobacco make it smell like a dirty diaper and while it does fade, it takes a pretty long time (about 3 ish hours in my case). Once that stage is finally over, it's a nice vanilla scent. Hoping with some more age, the oud fades considerably because it's not too bad once you get past the initial nastiness.

 

Probably not the best choice for my first Lace perfume all things considered.

[katharina]

In the bottle: Straight up litterbox. Am I actually smelling shit?

Wet: A little less shit, some sweetness underneath it.

Dry: HOLY WOW. It's now incredibly delicious, resinous, spun-sugar goodness.

 

It took a good 15 min for the shit-stench of the oud to calm enough for the other scents to emerge, but once it does, it is heavenly! The trade off is smelling like literal shit for 15 minutes. Is it worth it? time will tell.

 

ETA 9/9/2021: My roommate and good friend fell IN LOVE with this scent. Since she has a birthday coming up, I went ahead and gave it to her. I still have borrowing power though!

Edited September 9, 2021 by katharina

[Threemoons]

Okay, was going through some of my boxen looking for past purchases that I had not tried yet.  Decided to reach for this one.  WOW now I see why I let it rest for a while.  In the bottle:  HOLY CRAP EDNA CLEAN THE CAT BOX ALREADY.  STRONG pooey oudh.  Now, on me, oudh usually wears only one of two ways: Catbox or sex goddess.  I really had fears dabbing this one on because all I was getting out of the bottle was strong, strong oudh/narcissus flowers.  On, wet:  Yup, poudh.  Also, peeking through:  A bit of a dry woody note and definitely lilies.  Drydown:  Oddly enough the oudh retreats and stays very close to the skin; at the end of the day I am left with a sort of corrupted floral with tiny hits of vanilla sweetness and a sort of skin musk tainted with the slightest bit of decaying flowers and wisps of wood.  Funny how this reads SO differently on people.

 

[Riezky]

I just dabbed this on to test, and have discovered the meaning of p'oudh. 

I really hope everyone above is right about this stage being fleeting, because dear lord, this is rough.

 

15 min: Something floralish covered in poop, but I'm getting hints of sugar in the throw. 

 

30 min: Still sharp floralish poo, but a bit less poo-ey

 

1 hour: The poop is faint, but still present. Sharp, resiny, some floral

 

2 hours: No more poop, has smoothed out a little, but still reading as mainly sharp resiny floral to me. Wish I was getting the vanilla sweetness.

 

Need to work up the courage to do a full test and see how it goes. Maybe after a longer rest. This is quite different so far from the other Laces I've tried.

 

Edit: 2nd test, about a month later - 

 

In bottle: poop and flowers

 

On skin: poop and flowers

 

15 min: Still has a fecal quality, but not full-on poop. Kind of dry, floralish, resiny. I haven't gotten any of the sugar I smelled last time.

 

45 min: Sharp white floral, sticky resin. Thankfully the poo has not lasted this time. But I want the sugar-spun, tobacco, incense parts of this, darnit.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Riezky