Columns of the Temple of Neptune at Paestum

[Seajewel]

Cypress wood and dry grasses, sun-baked stone, faded incense, and olive leaves.

[HerbGirl]

I bought two bottles...

They arrived today and I KNOW they need time to recover from travel but...

I just smell grass. Green grass. Strong. Fresh. Green. Grass. I literally hate that smell and am holding on to hope that in a week or two some of the other notes will come forward. Dry grasses are fine but I was so excited about the other notes and am disappointed that none of them are present. That'll teach me to blind bottle anything with any type of grass note. If you have trouble with grass taking over, you have been warned.

 

The headache is fierce.

I will update here if anything changes.

Edited September 16, 2022 by HerbGirl

[Little Bird]

First on, all of the notes meld together into a scent that reminds me of a freshly mown lawn on a hot summer's day, including the warm, woody dustiness of the earth and the honeyed floral scent that green grass has when it's cut.   After about ten minutes, the green and fresh aspects disappear and I'm left with dried, honeyed grass, a sweet and warm incense (myrrh and powdery, sweet incense cones), and the warmth and clay-like character of the sunbaked stone.  It smells so cuddly, earthy, and warm, but with a rich sweetness.  It does cling close to the skin, but I'm really enjoying it.  The drydown reminds me of scents like Cathedral and Midnight Mass, like it could be in the same family, but Columns is warmer and more full of sunshine.

[LavenderCoffee]

Truly a warm, dry, sun-baked scent. I was curious how the incense and olive leaves would factor in, and they are subtle, but they seem to lend a hint of sweetness to the wood and grass. It is indeed a bit dusty but somehow comforting. 

[Casablanca]

Columns is smooth and atmospheric: dried and drying grasses around sun-baked stone. Probably one of the more prominent stony scents I've tried in a while.

 

During drying, I notice a little swampiness from the cypress, the Mediterranean vibe of olive leaves, and dry, powdery incense.

 

This does evoke an ancient Greek temple. 

[Diesis]

I’ve been wearing this scent so much. It might sound strange but I had a cat. Well, two but only one ever had a scent to him. In a line up of cats, by smell I could find him. It wasn’t a bad smell. It was this one. Almost perfect recreation & I cried when I smelled the bottle. It’s changed a little since settling but it still smells like him, only the original scent note I thought was  maybe rosemary might be the grasses or the olive leaves. 
 

Since I had the Coves (August was no fun), my smelling ability has been a been off, so my review is simply what it invoked since explaining what I smell may lead someone astray in buying. But the sun-baked stone & the grass/foliage scents mix so well to me that it FEELS like what laying in my lawn on a hot day smells like. It smells like the sun & the plants (we have two rosemary bushes the size of cars, so if you’re outside, you smell it. Along with our “four” pachouli plants that none of us acknowledge had kiddo’s & we have around 200 patchouli plants). So that warm, herb scent mixed with grasses is just… so amazing. The incense comes out after a while on dry down but doesn’t do what resin/incense blends usually do on my skin. It doesn’t amp. It just mingles with what was already there in this soft sort of smokey pepper scent (it’s probably meant to be a sort of frankincense, that one is usually a nice soft black pepper type scent to me).

 

Overall, this is such a well blended scent to my nose that I frequently just smell it as a sort of aromatherapy experience. I’ll treasure it & cant wait, what? To see how it ages.  

[crystaltongue]

This was the scent that made me realize I love olive notes. It is, as others have said, someone warm and atmospheric. Sun warmed stone is definitely the dominant note, with the grasses coming second. The longer I wear it, though, the stronger the olive leaves become. There is something oddly almost aquatic about the combination, that puts me in mind of Sea Foams Milk in spite of not actually having any notes in common. Fitting, I think, for the temple of Neptune.

[zankoku_zen]

Warm summer grass, stone and a whiff of olive. Medium throw and wear length.