To Hope

[zankoku_zen]

A luminescent perfume of silver fir needle, mugwort, frankincense, hawthorn wood, yellow tobacco flower, orris concrete, and bois de rose.

[Casablanca]

Fresh on my skin, To Hope brings a lot of woody silver fir. Silver fir surrounded by brambles of other woods, dried needles, and a whiff of herbs. To me, this is the scent of unfamiliar woods, like I'm on a road trip and stopped for an unplanned, whimsical hike.

 

After drydown, this grows more gummy with forest resin. Green, woody sap, a little cool.

 

This would be how I'd smell if I lost the trail and blundered through impeding woods for long enough.

 

[zankoku_zen]

Fir, woods, and a whiff of yellow flowers. This smells like a forest in an early spring day. When its still chilly and you need a windbreaker at least. But it smells like outside. Oh god, now  I want to go on a hike. But it smells like you're in the middle of a forest, and its so peaceful and quiet, and beautiful, and reminds you to your connection to nature.

 

Medium throw and wear length.

[starbrow]

How fickle skin is! Here's our wild ride for the night:

 

Silver fir needle trickling in as....tinsel! Oh how fun. Sparkly Christmas tree. Maybe something herbal in the form of the mugwort, but it's a sheen of a background. This is really bright and almost nostalgic. It's not as intense as pine usually is. I'm not getting individual notes like I usually do. Maybe frankincense is contributing to the holiday feel, but there's no tobacco flower,  hawthorn wood (I smell forest, but who knows what hawthorn actually smells like?), orris (powder oof), or distinguishable rose wood. Just a twinkly evergreen, party-ready.

 

I let it drydown, moving on to other scent-testing.

 

What is that I'm smelling? The scent of....laundry day, circa 2000. Dumping Costco powder by the scoop into a top-loading washer? Oh yes. That is the smell. Of my To Hope. Oh gosh.

 

It's laundry soap. Like that's it. The sparkly tree has left the building, and we are just washing a million holiday linens with some old Kirkland brand powder. I am sorry, my friends. I wanted more. 

[puellacaerulea]

In the decant and after applying, the fir is definitely the most dominant note on me. The mugwort and tobacco flower eventually start to push through the fir a bit, adding a faint but distinct yellow floral note to the fir and woods. Very much a forest scent, evocative of late winter (which is probably when I'd most want to wear a scent like this). 

[artisjok]

To Hope is fresh fir needles entwined with sweet gentle flowers. The scent is very yellow, and reminds me of a heavily forested version of Raccoon Moon.
It does lean more and more soapy. Though, not one that turns me off as much as some aquatic soapy ones will do, probably the help of some flower.
 

I don’t think I’ll keep the decant, as I already have Raccoon Moon and other forest scents I enjoy more (not soapy). 
 

[Threemoons]

Opened this one today to deal with a stress attack, and it was the right move.  On me, I get a really fresh fir forest/wetlands thing going on at first, followed by lots of damp golden florals.  Low wear length. and throw alas; wish it lasted longer on me.  Something about it reminds me of my very early childhood visits to the Pine Barrens in NJ.

[HerbGirl]

All fresh fir, all the time. I love this. I just spent my morning hiking through fresh snow, hemlock and spruce trees at 2000 ft in AK and when the sun hits evergreens in 20 degree weather, it is magical. Very similar to this perfume oil. I knew I would put this on when I got home. 🙂

[groovyrooby]

I was drawn by the latter half of the description, but I mostly get the front half. Tested from a bottle after sitting a few days.

 

This reminds me very specifically of a black pepper bar of soap I once loved. Sharp, dry, bitter black peppercorns, which I love, and a soapy, not powdery background. A little pine comes eventually comes through. It is like a cool gust of refreshing air. Husband said it smelled "clean". I told him I thought it was the incense smoke from across the room, but nope - it me.

 

Really pleasant, not what I usually go for, not what I expected, but nice. Definitely silver, cool, refreshing, calming.