Doleful Pipe Organ

[zankoku_zen]

A dramatic and doleful scent: black oud and vetiver with burgundy pitch, guiac wood, opoponax, velvet black cacao absolute, and incense smoke.

[DiesMali]

Fresh-ish from the mailbox, but want to get a review in! May edit later!

 

In the bottle: Soft, leathery-woody oudh and incense. 

 

Wet on my skin: A perfect combination of every listed note, velvety and resinous and smooth. Oh man, this is nice. The burgundy pitch and incense smoke are probably the most forward notes at this stage, but not by much. 

 

Dry: This is *really* really nice. It's not super strong, but as it just came off the mail truck earlier today, it may strengthen later. As it is, this is a gentle but present scent that is a perfectly blended combination of all the listed notes. Everything is there and accounted for when you pick it apart, but as a whole, it's a dark, deep, velvety smoke and wood/resin forward scent. The vetiver and oud aren't super strong, for those concerned about those notes. The incense smoke, burgundy pitch, and wood are most forward, with the velvety cacao and opoponax under that, and then the oud and vetiver deepen and darken everything. This scent isn't that strong, as I said, but it's definitely dramatic and doleful, and very very nice on my skin. If you like darkly resinous/woody scents and your skin likes vetiver/oud, this is a must-try! I have a feeling this will enter into my common-wear rotation. 

[patina]

On sniffing: deep, a little spicy. i get swirls of incense, cacao and pine pitch.

 

Application: Pine comes out strong, a fog slowly creeps in, incense spirals up from a burner, Sixteen second intro from This Corrosion begins playing, lots of unspecified depth and sweetness from incense. This is both heady and deep on me, I can see how it represents pipe organ music. Also the incense almost smells cherry-like. Weird. Dark, smoky, sweet, smooth, deep,

 

EDIT: Bottle has settled, there's less of a whoomph! of incense on first applying. still settles down to be quite heavily cherry on my skin. Dragon's blood?

 

EDIT EDIT: Further aging, there's no longer a dragon's blood stage. Instead this starts off as cheap chocolate and wax plus incense and settles into a musty vetiver and incense smoke. Not bad.

Edited December 29, 2020 by patina

[groovyrooby]

I might have found a vetiver that doesn't work for me with this one. Tested from a decant that's been resting a few days.

 

Starts out spicy and herbaceous, almost like cinnamon but without the burn, sharper and greener. This one fits the haunted house vibe best of all those I've tried so far. Settled dust in a cluttered old mansion. The incense comes through later, smoky and high. I'm afraid I like my vetiver with a hit of something sweet, and this doesn't have it. I'm not getting any of that from the burgundy or cacao, and nothing velvety smooth. This precise combo is giving me all the bitter version of the notes. Doleful, yes. But more bitter incense plume coming though on me than I enjoy. Not for me, this one. 

[VetchVesper]

This one is a crazy fun time, and I swear there's a champagne note in it.  

 

At first, I get non-sweet cocoa from this, with a dark, rusty metal vibe and something that reads oddly fizzy to my nose.  (As the hours pass, this fizzy note becomes more prominent and blatantly champagnish to my nose.  And yes, "champagnish" is totally a word.) Then some incense starts swirling around in the mix along with hits of gear lubricant.  The vetiver is in there, but it's not prominent for me, and there's a lot going on.  The chocolate starts to back off and everything swirls chaotically, like notes from a crescendoing calliope.  I end up with a somewhat sweet, somewhat tart, somewhat fizzy, somewhat incensey blend of something-or-other that I find quite appealing.   

 

I like dark, bitter chocolate, but I have quite a few perfumes with that note already.  This one's stands out as quite different.

 

[Dark Alice]

This is such an accurately odd scent. I grew up in churches with a pipe organ and this smells like it's a freshly oiled organ. It has a light metallic sweetness to it. And it is lovely. I would like a couple of more decants to fill my bottle, but I will reach for this one when I want something completely different.

 

 

[Penance]

I couldn't imagine this one going wrong since there's nothing I don't like here.  And yet, I'm the bottle, it's nice but unremarkable.  Wet on me, though?  Bitter, acrid, burnt leaves/rubber mixed.  

 

This one is a wild ride on me, though.  I went from this smells good to "Of, God, get this off me and away from my house!" and then right back to yum! 

 

It ends up a dark, slightly deep cocoa-scented dark wood with a want of incense.  Sounds weird, but it's dark and lovely.

 

To be honest, I've got several scents that are more or less in the same vein and I'm not sure I need it, but I do like it in the end!

[SophieCedar]

Chocolate musky Cocacola? That's all I get!

This started out strong but something fizzy like labdanum took over and its way lower throw than I expected... It could be bc I'm cooking beef stew atm and its suppressing the oomph. Will retest later.

[zankoku_zen]

Musky chocolate metal. There's some pitch and oudh, and this is dark. Good throw and wear length.

[starfish327]

My mod team for the Halloween group I modmin for asked me to review this one

 

it’s clear with black blobs

 

in the imp: almost minty with woods and smoke. It smells like cork grease

 

wet: cork grease with smoke 

 

dry: cork grease with woods and a distinct motor oil note. It settles into an incense with the oily woods and cork grease

 

it smells like the inside of my old clarinet case and Halloween. I wouldn’t call it pretty but it’s very wearable and I really like it

[starbrow]

Doleful Pipe Organ is one I blind-bottled partly because of the name and artwork (I am a pianist) and partly because the notes looked awesome. Alas, I have decided that the patchouli or something in here is a little too rooty-patooty for me and ends up kind of smelling like root beer or something really odd in that realm.

 

The oud is smooth but also not too prominent, nor the vetiver specifically, overwhelmed as they are by whatever that root-centric note is (I've experienced it in patchouli and labdanum before). I get no incense smoke from it, no cacao, and no recognizable pings from the 'burgundy pitch', guiac, or opoponax. Altogether, It's dark and very interesting, not too heavy or oppressive, with some rich woods backing the zinginess of the roots, but also just an odd duck, like the kid who has to take organ lessons when his friends are at baseball practice.

 

I don't really enjoy wearing this one that much, but I think someone will get a kick out of it!

[LavenderCoffee]

This is my favorite of the Haunted House scents. Maybe a top ten, although my top ten has like 25 in it 😅

 

When you really get in and smell this, it smells like a pipe organ. It's impossible and perfect. I grin every time I open this bottle. I'm not sure someone walking past you at the store would get pipe organ, since there's more incense in the throw, but it is absolutely dark and dramatic. Leads with oud and pitch, vetiver and incense emerge with wear, and cacao only peeks out after drydown, but it is *very* dark and dry.