Horses

[Seajewel]

Honey, amber, and fire illuminating a dark winter’s night.

[starbrow]

The poem that accompanies this scent is what captured me and led me to buy a bottle the night it was released. Pablo Neruda's Horses sets the tone with imagery of ten horses surging through the winter mist like waves of fire. 

 

I have forgotten that dark Berlin winter.

I will not forget the light of the horses.

 

The scent - which does not smell like horses, by the way - arrives whisper-soft, like the mist itself, so much so that I almost couldn't smell it in the bottle after all the other loud top-notey scents in my Yule haul. I can already tell there's a beautiful amber in there, though. It needs a skin-testing. 

 

Here is where it shines. It begins to warm the way Amber Incense & Honey Cakes does, as if glowing from within. There is a holy moment here, the sight of a hundred candles slowly lit in a sanctuary while singing Silent Night. The honey is gentle and creamy, like the softest beeswax. The fire it brings is a cozy, candle's-flame fire, not the scrapings of a firepit or hearth. These horses gallop in dreamland waves of fire, gentled, beautiful.

 

At the heart of this scent, illuminated in the glow, is the lovely amber from The Grey Columns. It is an elegant resin, poised, amiable rather than sweet. She knows her beauty and doesn't have to flaunt it. Horses projects more than The Grey Columns did for me, but it is still a quiet and subtle blend. 

 

A perfect scent for the new year, for moments of reflection, for reading under thick covers with a well-worn, well-loved book.

[Casablanca]

Horses is a golden honey glowing with deep resinous amber. It's like the concept scent of golden stained-glass windows illuminated from within, or of a Thomas Kinkade painting.

 

I also get a lot of a soft, cushy vanillic note. What is it called, the one with coumarin in it? Aging brain doesn't remember names. Tonka. (Thanks, internet.)

 

Tonka and/or the amber's vanilla amp on me considerably as Horses dries. They suffuse the whole blend with a fluffy, cloud-like creaminess. Perhaps they are the mist, perhaps they are the air that was "white like wet bread." Perhaps they just are.

 

For the fire, there's a warmth that seems to blend into this like distant red cinders, a bit like that in Gingerbread Campfire, without so much strength and smoke. It's gentle and brings depth rather than drama.

 

An artfully balanced golden, honey-vanilla glow of a scent.

[ND¢]

This is Womb Furie-adjacent. It's not just me, right? The honey with that particular spicy deepening reminds me of 2010 Womb Furie, anyway, and this is a lovely scent I'll be getting a couple of bottles of as the aged product will be incredible. It's great right now; warm and sweet and personal without trying to make a too-complicated statement about anything. 

 

Edited to add: two weeks of settling brings the merest hint of fresh wood being fed to the fire.... Mmmm. 

Edited February 6, 2022 by ND¢

[Threemoons]

Oh my oh my oh my.  This is like wearing a piece of the sun.  It's completely freezing here in NYC, and I just unpacked my Yules/Winter 2021 after giving them a wee rest, and I needed this to get motivated to leave my apartment today.  This is NOT a gourmand honey, nor is the "amber" a traditional amber; I think of it as if an actual piece of gemstone amber was being lit from within by golden fire.  The "fire" note here isn't literal fire either; it's more of a mood!  Getting a bit of beeswax in with the honey, something that is ALMOST perfume vanilla or citrus but not quite.  This is warm golden-orange holy flame in a bottle.  LOVE IT.

[dancingchair]

A very pretty amber and honey blend. I was worried that this would be too smoky for me, but the fire note is only the faintest bit smoky. I also get a bit of beeswax, like there are beeswax candles present. It's straightforward, but a solid perfume if you like honey!

[Follow My Nose]

I agree with Threemoons above, this scent makes me think of a glowing amber gem. It's such a warm, sweet, sexy scent, mostly the gorgeous amber and honey notes, but with something else that I can't quite place. It doesn't read as smoky or woody on my skin, but still makes me think of crackling flames, JUST the flames. This is definitely in the running for my favorite Yule this year!

[LavenderCoffee]

This leads with amber for me - a subtly sweet amber with a similarly subtle honey. Some honey blends are quite loud and cloying on my skin and this one is neither. I can't suss out anything like beeswax or vanilla in this blend, but the honey blends so seamlessly with the amber that I can see where both of those notes would fit into the soft warm glow. 

As it dries, the "fire" note emerges, and I also find this part hard to describe. As mentioned above, it's more like a flame than a whole fire: not smoky or spicy - it just smells warm.

Horses remains close to the skin, but creates a perfect memory of honey, amber, and fire. 

 

[she's a carnival]

When I first put this on it reminded me of V'al Hanissim however, Horses dries down to a gorgeous amber finish which is different from V'al. I recognized the amber as the same lovely one from The Grey Columns. I absolutely love this scent, the dry down is magical! V'al had too much beeswax for me personally and The Grey Columns was too light a scent so this is a great option!

Edited June 20, 2022 by she's a carnival

[BoneBone24]

Wet: A soft, honey-sweet amber. Lighter than expected. There's sort of a fuzzy, soft sweater element in there too.

 

Drydown/Dry: This is a very cuddly scent. Not much morphing. It just sort of settles softly into the skin, with an ambery, soot-kissed warmth and a hint of flurries in the background. Understated for sure.

 

 

7.5 out of 10 bones

[wolf_truffles]

I'm getting honey and fire!! Globs of honey on a blazing bonfire. Is it ginger? Smoke? Dark, earthy coals. Only amber in color.

[theseagrows]

wow, this one is warm and pretty-i get a lot of honey with amber backing it up. the 'fire' is a very slight smokiness in the background. this perfume glows warmth through coldness. after a bit longer on the skin, the 'fire' turns subtly spicy, and i feel like a sense a very subtle anise note as well. the honey in here verges on the beeswax note for me, but it's also a kind of creamy honey. i have many BPALs with this exact note and i love it. i will definitely keep my decant but am unsure i need a bigger bottle because i have so many honey scents.

[zankoku_zen]

Soft musky amber and a whiff of honey. This one smelled cozy. Low throw, medium wear length.

[theshapeshifter]

So warm and comforting - and, as BoneBone24 pointed out, cuddly. It's pretty much exactly as described - I got 'fire' immediately in the bottle, and then on skin it's a well-balanced blend of the honey, amber and fire. The fire note here is very... 'clean', for lack of a better descriptor. I don't really get smoke from it at all, just the actual fire. 

[Rayleigh]

I want this fire note in everything. The honey here provides a supporting sweetness, but for me this is mostly about the glowing amber and that phenomenal fire note. It isn't smoky, but it smells like a clean-burning wood fire. Distinct from my other honeyed-amber love, V'al Hanissim. The fire gives it something wild and outdoorsy, while the honey and amber keep it cozy. Like V'al Hanissim, Horses is potent and lasts a long time.

[Something_Diabolical]

This smells like warmth. Like the smell of a lit stove. I didn't know what to expect from the promised "fire" note but it smells like the heat around a fire without any smoke. There is nothing acrid about this. This is honeyed slightly vanillic amber that's super warm and comforting. A keeper so far. 

[tinyvulture]

Honey with candle wax – picture hundreds of candles lighting up the night. It’s creamy, waxy, and there’s also vanilla and a little smoke. As others said, it just GLOWS – warmth, melting beeswax, the flame itself, it’s all there somehow. Pretty dang cool.

[patina]

This is a perfect amber scent on me. The Lights of Men's Lives was somewhat unimpressive wax on me, but this is amazing. It's more than a candle smell, it's also firey and glowng.  It's sweet without smelling like straight up candy, it's spicy without smelling like a spice rack or any spice I can name. It's amber without smelling powdery or overly perfumy. It may change over time but right now it's just about perfect.

[Tamarinda]

This is all powder to me. In the bottle, wet, dry, on a test strip. It's powderpowderpowder and I kinda hate it. Which is nuts cuz I can tell that under the powdery smell is a similar amber to the one in Grey Columns, which I absolutely love. Go figure!

[becca_s]

Honey and Amber are two of my favorite notes so I knew that Horses would work for me even before I tried it and it does! 

 

The initial application reminded me of O without the vanilla but this is scent is also unique. The honey is deep and rich and the amber is sweet and warm. I don't get any beeswax from this.  On me the smoke smells like a hint of incense or a candle just lit. I don't find it smoky. It's a warm and deep scent, it really is perfect as a winter scent, it's quite cozy as someone else described.

[MamaMoth]

i wasn't overly impressed with this when i first put it on,  then 20 minutes later i realized that the most gorgeous scent was wafting off my wrist.  wow! this really does take a minute to bloom on the skin, but it becomes a beautiful, warm,  resiny amber and honey.  the honey is creamy and light, really more like a beeswax.   in fact this reminds me of one of my new favorites: tunisian amber, beeswax, and balsam.  take out the balsam and add a soft kiss of sweet smoke, and you have horses. they're so similar that i really can't justify buying both.  and if you twisted my arm, i'd have to say i prefer it with the punchy balsam kick.  but horses is really beautiful. 

Edited May 28, 2022 by MamaMoth

[theredkilt]

A truly beautiful blend. The amber and honey go so well together and i also sense a light undercurrent of beeswax. This is a bright and uplifting type of honey, not dense or sticky. I don't get the "glowing" accord/ note, as to me the glow translates more into the tone/mood of the perfume rather than it being an individual single note.

[dronzeka]

This scent is so gorgeous. Pretty much does what it says on the tin - honey, amber,  and a hint of smoke. In the bottle, it smells like it’s going to be that really animalic, various-Vulvas-kind of honey that gets a little too funky on me, but on my skin the amber (and maybe some kind of vanilla element) saves it for me. Very warm

and comforting, not too foody. 
 

I’d have probably bought this anyway given the notes but I’d never seen this poem before and it’s so amazingly vivid and glorious, it makes the scent that much better. “Wet bread” is so incredibly accurate. The poem cements this as a winter scent. 

[badseed1980]

This past summer, I was looking for some warm-weather scents, and in the middle of my browsing, I saw Horses listed. It didn't sound like a warm-weather scent, but I knew from the description that I needed to check it out. I've sometimes been disappointed when I've bought scents based on the imagery evoked in the description/inspiration on the website. Sometimes I lean too heavily on that, and don't look closely enough at the notes to think about whether they'd actually create a scent that could work for me. In this case, though, I looked at the notes too. Amber is my absolute go-to. Beeswax? I love it, and love honey notes in the scents where I have them. Fire? Hmm. Could be anything. Could be interesting. I did something unusual for me, committing to a whole bottle of something I'd never smelled because imps weren't available. I'm glad I did. This perfectly matches the description and the scent works so well for me. On me, this scent is hot and dry, lightly sweet and slightly sharp--like woodsmoke even though it doesn't smell like woodsmoke. To me, it's a bonfire on one of those winter nights that's cold and crystalline and dry, breathing in wisps of smoke and feeling the flames warm your skin.