Colemanite Phoenix

[zankoku_zen]

A peculiar mineral formed from ulexite and borax. A scent celebrating Furnace Creek in Death Valley, where Colemanite was first found and designated – scorching hot, dry, and dusty. Purple sage, desert dandelion, indigo bush, creosote, and magnificent lupine dusted with sand and borax.

[biggnerd]

Oh sweet desert scent.  This is sage forward at first, with creosote and some light greens and florals.  I think I do smell the borax and it isn't unpleasant at all. It settles down to a powdery sage before it disappears.  It is the smell of the desert in the rain, without the ozone. 

[Follow My Nose]

I'm not familiar with most of these plant scents, but this is exactly what I imagine a perfect desert perfume would be.

Wet on my skin, this start out as slightly floral and green, but dusty herbal notes and dry woods quickly come to the front and make this a deeper and more complex scent. Everything comes together in a smooth, warm balance when it's dry.

Colemanite is the dry sands and rocks of the desert, but also the green life that thrives there.

It is quite lovely and unique, and brings a different note to the foreground every time I sniff it.

[Jenjin]

Walking through soft sands and crushing stone, the purple blooming sage and brittle woods waft upward, while a big, orange dripping sun is melting into the landscape.Spicy, herbal and woody, i'm getting a different experience with each sniff. It is very transformative and literally takes me someplace else that is quiet and humming with beauty. 

[doomsday_disco]

Colemanite Phoenix is stunning. I am not familiar with a lot of these notes, so this review won't be very helpful in that department, but I do get the desert dandelion and a coniferous note that I really love. I am not a big fan of sage, but the sage in this scent is unlike the other sage notes I have come across from the Lab. There's just this wonderful melange of green floral warmth that shifts from sniff to sniff, and I am here for it.

 

I wasn't expecting to love this, but it it's actually my favorite of the Anniversary scents I tried this year. I don't have any desert scents in my collection, so this is a strong contender for a bottle purchase before the phoenixes fly away.

[Casablanca]

Purple-flowering desert sage, sweet dandelion, and dried brush.

 

My first, one-second impression of this was actually just the color purple. Purple and sweetness, then the sage and flowers followed. The dried brush and a little sand appeared in drydown.

 

What this reminds me of? Actually, Carlin... the sage and purple-ish heather and thistle smells I found there. But that was a scent of the moors, and this is a desert.

 

 

 

[zankoku_zen]

Sage, bush, and dusty desert flowers. This smells like desert sage, if you were a desert witch you'd smell like this. Sage, flowers, and the dust of the desert. Low throw, good wear length. Gorgeous and understated.

[Lucchesa]

Colemanite Phoenix is a beauty.  Dry, pure desert scents predominate here.  I recently tried White Sage SN and was astonished by how complex a perfume that single note was; the sage here isn't identical (less perfumey than the white), but it's similarly complicated. It's not your usual dandelion sap either but something more silvery gray than spring green.  In fact, the colors of this scent are the silvery gray-green of sage and dusky purple of lupine lit by a sunset.  Creosote and borax sound nasty, and I don't think of lupine having much scent at all, but don't let that bother you.  If you think you'd like to smell like the tenacious plants that bloom in the desert, don't miss the chance to try this.  

[Deceitfuldescender]

My darned skin chemistry betrays me here. This appears to be a sage single not on me BUT for some reason my skin reads it as pine. So this is pine with like a trace of sand. So disappointing as I had really high hopes for this.

[Meirion]

If you've spent any amount of time in the High Sierras, or anywhere else that sagebrush and creosote grow, you'll recognize this scent immediately. It knocked me flat with nostalgia. It's hard to even write a coherent review; this simply IS the smell of the desert. To my nose, anyway. So I really can't speak to how this will land with someone who's never been to the desert in question, but I can attest that it's a stunning tribute to its inspiration. 

This is a bone-dry and dusty scent, smoothly blended but with a slight crackle to it, like a dry twig snapping under a hiking boot. It's got heat to it, somehow -- not spicy-heat, or sweet-warmth, but the dry sun-baked warmth of a desert stone. We might think of Death Valley as a desolate place, but this is not a desolate scent. It's cozy, like being wrapped in a warm current of dusty air thick with the pollen of hardy desert plants. But again, that could be the nostalgia talking. 

Medium throw, great wear length -- this one lasts, pretty much unchanged, until I wash it off.

[galahad]

In the Bottle:
Creosote and sage.  Herbal, dry and a little nectar-sweet.

 

On the Skin:
Beautiful dusty herbal.  Extremely dry and wild.  If you missed out on The She-Goat this is a very similar especially as it sweetens on drydown.

 

On the Drydown:
I'm so glad I blind bought 2 bottles of it.  It is dry desert scrub in a bottle with a touch of nectar sweetness.

[RoseThornAndOak]

Dude my skin can't handle this. It starts out a nice dry desert sage, then quickly turns to that oud/agarwood note that turns to a screaching acrid inferno that I can't scrub off no matter how hard I try. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume...not with 10,000 men could I do this. It is folly. 

 

Verdict: Cast it into the fire!! ISILDUR!!!!!

 

Try if you like Eau de Smaug, Breath of Nazgul, and Baradur pour le Orc.

 

If your skin doesn't act like Gollum around you this is a pretty rad desert blend similar in vibe to Coyote. I'll stick with Coyote and not die a horrible, horrible death.