It Was Just a Cat

[zankoku_zen]

A flash of amber fur skittering through shadows of opoponax, red labdanum, and myrrh.

[Andalei]

Disclaimer: I'm terrible at reviews because I can never pick out notes, so I'm not the best to be going first!

 

"Amber fur" is so accurate! In the bottle, I smell the same amber from Jacob's Ladder 2016 but with a "fluffy" quality. On my skin the amber takes on a powdery feel, which I personally love. The rest of the notes give it a spicy, incensy feel and keep it from going straight into baby powder territory.

 

Even though I'm terrible at describing it, I really love this one and it really does conjure up the image of a cat skulking through a dark hallway with wooden paneling.

[frizzlechicken]

 

In the decant this was powdery at first; I let it sit a few days because it had a strongly cinnamon smell when it first arrived. That's gone now, and upon application it quickly dries down to the beautiful amber fur note of Inside the Golden Amber of Her Eyeballs. I'm also detecting a little bit of almond, I think? I love it. 

[gamermouse]

Worn on one arm while testing The Small Brown Cat on the other. These two are similar. Not sisters, but cousins maybe. The underlying fur note is warm and the kind of scent that you'd want to spray as an atmo on your blankets then wrap up within them on a cold winter night next to your fireplace. At first, I was concerned—warm and spicy baby powder with myrrh. Myrrh and I sometimes do not get along. But as it dried down, I decided I needed more than a tester of this. 

As an aside, I wore this on a semi-drizzly day once and as I got in my car, I caught a brief, fleeting whiff of wet kitten. It was some of the weirdest nose fuckery I've encountered with a BPAL, but it was a LOVELY whiff, not a eugh wet fur, whiff. 

I test elbow and wrist, and find this smells spiciest in my elbow than on the wrist. 

A bit more than medium throw, long wear. I've woke up in the morning and still caught a whiff of it.

[Penance]

Oh man, I was worried this was going to sound great but not work on me.  I was wrong.  This is so beautiful! 🖤

 

I get predominately amber - soft, golden, gently resinous - over a background of very soft resins and what smells like vanilla.  I have no idea where the vanilla is coming from, but this is just so smooth and nice.  It's a warm, snuggly scent.  This is no scary, spooky cat - it's a soft, fluffy, amber tabby with fluffy toes, who likes to sit on your lap in front of the fire.

 

I was hoping to like this, expecting to be somehow disappointed for reasons unexplainable and ended up loving it so much I'll be getting a backup.

[Casablanca]

So much amber fur! 

 

This is the concept scent of a ginger cat who is, by turns of her mood, elegant or snuggly. The amber-red of her well-groomed coat has picked up some lightly spiced incense scent from her wanderings around the house, but now she just wants to curl up in a study by the fire and pass the rest of the evening in slumber.

[supreme_c0rt]

"Ginger cat" is spot on. This smells like something between civet musk (almost like a cousin of Satyr) and spiced walnut cookie incense. Sweet-spicy, almost foody, fuzzy resins, and a little bit scratchy and animalistic around the edges. This smells much more like a Yule than a Weenie to me. 

[crisz]

I love, love, love this perfume. I get a comforting spicy, resiny mix; super cozy and lovely. No powder or strong musk detected on my skin.

 

The name is PERFECT for this blend and its position in the Haunted House collection, it is just so evocative for me.

 

It's like when it's nighttime, all the lights are off. You're already spooked and you hear a terrifying sound from the other room... your heart pounds and you hold your breath as you round the corner and peer into the darkness to see what made that crashing sound... and your cat jumps off the counter and meows at you.

 

That sigh of relief and the comforting thought that "thank goodness...it was just the cat" LOL. This scent captures that moment of relief and comfort exactly!!!!!

[Poenari]

Initial application is a burst of dry amber. It dries down quickly to a powdery golden amber, and wears very close to my skin. Smells like my big ginger boy asleep on my lap, keeping me warm. Lovely!.

 

[deadlyves]

I get a fuzzy, soft, gently spiced brown. It's powdery in the sense that it comes across dry and, again, soft, but not like smelling baby powdery. Something is combining to smell like a gentle, baked cinnamon or some other warm spice. I wasn't sure about this at first, but it is really nice.

 

Oddly has very little throw on me, but much stronger the next day on the clothes I was wearing and in my scent locket.

 

I keep getting the image of a long haired cat, clean until it knocked over a spice rack and even though it shook most of the spices off, it still has a touch of the smell mixed in it's fur. 

[donkehpoo]

Wet: Amber fur (a little powdery) and opoponax. If you get cola from opoponax like me.. you'll probably be smelling it here as well.  Amber fur and... cola. 

 

Dry: Yep. Still cola and amber fur - but stronger cola now. A cat that had some coke spilled on it, maybe? 

 

It's not terrible, but it's a combination that just isn't working on me.

[zankoku_zen]

Warm amber fur. This one smells furry, ambery, and with a touch of resins. Medium throw, good wear length.

[Juliamon]

I initially was going to FS this smell-unsniffed because the notes were so appealing to me, but something held me back. And true enough to instinct, there's something about this that's not working for me. It's far sweeter than I expected, with the fuzzy discomfort in my nose that I get from honey accords, and it overwhelms the resins and makes me a bit nauseous from how cloying it is. Glad everyone else is loving it, but I'll stick with Inside the Golden Amber of Her Eyeballs.

[Lucchesa]

I’ve worn this twice now and keep neglecting to review it. I get mainly a slightly spicy golden amber, a favorite note of mine, with the warm fuzzy feeling of BPAL “fur.” I should death match it with the GC The Lion. The sweet resins are background players on my skin. The amber is quite long-lasting — very nice.

[rawgirl75]

I'm getting that gorgeous golden amber note from Jacob's Ladder but without the olive note that made JL not work for me. The Lion was also too much for me (caused migraines) but all these lovely deep resins in IWJAC keep everything in check.  I told my boss I "smell like a black cat having a snooze in a sunbeam". 

 

This perfume also triggers a strong scent memory of the smell of a former Wiccan shop that used to be in my city 20 years ago that closed down.  The memory is so strong, I can't bear not to order more of this.  I really wish it didn't fade so fast on me, however.  Freshly applied it's so yummy, then it shortly disappears for awhile, then it comes back faintly hovering around me in an amber and resin cloud for a couple of hours and then it's completely gone again.  It lasts a long time on my clothes though.  I might need to find a locket...

Edited March 10, 2021 by rawgirl75

[theseagrows]

at first i get amber fur, opoponax and something mildly spicy here. in all honesty it's reminding me of a cinnamon roll to an extent. not to say it's sweet and foody but that's what it brings to mind. later on i think i get more of the myrrh and fur. the scent is definitely very evocative of the name! i had high hopes for this one but it's just ok on me, and after the drydown i get a slight rubbery/plastic thing happening. not sure where that's coming from as generally these notes work fine on me.

[LavenderCoffee]

My nose brain may be confused today, I put this on and immediately thought to myself I'd goofed and put on black temple burlesque. They have zero notes in common, but the darker resins in this one are working some magic with the amber to make my brain go "musk!"

As it wears the amber opens up and makes things sweeter and fuzzier. It's another stellar bpal cat scent and I'm glad to have it.