Witchecraft: Consulting a Book of Spells, Performing Various Rites

[Seajewel]

Candlewax, clove leaf, yellowed parchment, a cluster of mosses, incense resin, black pepper, cardamom, black amber, and ylang ylang.

[KittyHamilton]

This is my first review  I am not much of a Scent Understander, but I'll do my best.

 

Bottle: The candlewax gives a creamy feel, but there is also a strong, sticky sweetness, with some spice. Appetizing.

 

Wet: Still creamy, but with a freshness too? Suppose that's the clover. The sticky sweetness from the bottle is gone.

 

Dry: More of the different notes seem to be coming to the foreground. Everything is smoothed by that lovely wax. A little less fresh clover, more of that incense and do forth. Makes me think of a lovely, clean cottage kitchen with a variety of herbs laid out fresh from the garden. But not sharp clean; cozy clean.

 

Overall, I like it! It's the kind of smell I'd like to surround myself with. Fragrant and evocative but not stifling so. The kind of thing that would be great in a bubble bath 

[starbrow]

Those notes look like a witchy booklover's dream. How do they all come together?

 

In the beginning, a wild ride! There's so much going on here. Creamy, waxy candles flicker around a thick green haze of moss. The air is crackly with fierce spices - clove, black pepper, cardamom - leaning into a picture of greenness surrounded by dark. The moss gives a humidity to the air, damp and hot, with ylang ylang a humid floral that's more herbal than heady. It's so interesting to smell the place where fresh damp scent meets the old crackly dust of incense and parchment. Like you can almost picture fresh herbs and foraging baskets full of ingredients, scattered around old spellbooks and dusty relics. That picture is really cool!

 

Later, this turns sweet and creamy, a beeswax so gentle and smooth, deepened by the dark musky glow of black amber. This development is GORGEOUS. While aesthetically I like the fresh stage - cottage core meets dark academia! - for wearing purposes, I looooove the drydown stage. Most beeswax scents seem to have a bite. Witchecraft's bite is all up front with its mosses and sharp greenery. Once it's just the candles flickering in the room, the quiet reediness of old parchment, the mood becomes incredibly gentle and soothing, like Eusapia. The incense and spices transform it from 'just' candle to something mystic, almost ancient.

 

Even fresh, Witchecraft has good presence on me. It seems to warm on the skin beautifully, and I can smell wafts of that beautiful spiced candlewax for hours. Because of the green opening, this does not become a really heavy or winter-dominant scent. I could picture wearing this almost any time of year. If mosses are not your cup of tea, tread with caution, but otherwise, bookish scent-seekers need to give this one a try!

 

I would wear this while: making witchy crafts. Like a spellbook  

 

 

[MamaMoth]

oh hello, lovely... what a pleasant surprise this one is!

i'm gonna be honest:  i felt honor-bound to try this because of some favorite notes, but i was all but certain that ylang-ylang would probably stomp over everything else.  i'm quite pleased to report that i was 100% wrong, and the ylang-ylang is completely absent for me. 

this one is for the candlewax lovers. it opens with oodles of glorious wax. creamy and smooth, sweet and slightly vanillic, a bit smoky.  hot on its heels is the clove.  idk leaf from bud, but this clove has a bit of a scratchy, dry, black-pepper tone.  not the hot sharp bite of "bloody" clove, but neither the woodsy dry spice of clove husk.  there is a whiff of something dry, green, and herbal that i designated as the moss, but it could be the leaf of the clove chiming in for all i know. i find clove a bit sharp at times, but i like this iteration very much, especially as it is being smoothed and sweetened by the candlewax.  i get that parchment note, too.  dusty, rough-made paper that also has a soothing effect on the spice.  there's some tonka to it, maybe?

i couldn't specifically track the black amber until several hours into wear, when the candlewax and clove start to break apart and the amber finds room to expand.  this is also around the time when i got specific hits of mossy green.

this is nicely evocative and witchy, in a scholarly kind of way.  an R&D witch, testing ingredients and scribbling by candlelight

[doomsday_disco]

This one is nice! And in fact, when it arrived, it was one of my Weenie decants that smelled most promising in the vial with a super strong clove note! But I let it rest a few days before testing it, and by then, the clove had calmed down.

 

Still, it's mostly about the yellowed parchment and clove leaf on me, with some creamy sweetness from the candlewax that becomes more prominent over time. I get a touch of the ylang ylang during the wet stage of the scent, and perhaps some moss and cardamom with the clove, but it is mostly a bookish scent on me, cloved up and sans leather!

 

On one hand, I feel like I probably don't need another book or beeswax scent. On the other, the clove with those notes is so nice! So I'm debating whether a decant will be enough.

[DiZZysTARdust]

so consulting almost got the axe because the list of notes was a little intimidating but i ended up throwing it back in my cart and damn am i glad i did. in the bottle and freshly on i get almost a piney note, but looking at the notes and some other reviews i’m guessing that’s maybe a combo of the green mossy notes and the spices. after some dry time the beeswax becomes more present and the spices are more distinguishable. i love cardamom and clove but hate when they get lumped together with cinnamon and ginger to create the generic pie spice vibe. the clove/cardamom combo in this give a lovely spiciness with NO pie spice. i don’t really get any floral from the ylang ylang, i think that’s working with the black pepper to create a lovely, perfumey background for the other notes. very well blended, unique, and stunning

[theseagrows]

this one starts out with mostly spices and moss, with candlewax in the background. that grows stronger and melds with the mosses and spices. i definitely smell clove the strongest. dries down to a candlewax and clove with the yellowed parchment note. i don't seem to get any ylang ylang, at least not that strongly. it must be very faint. this is a solid like but not a love as it fades really fast on me.

 

 

[LavenderCoffee]

I could not resist candlewax and cloves, and that's mainly what I'm getting from this scent. I don't mind a bossy clove, but this is not bossy, it's beautifully blended with pepper and cardamom. Plus I think the beeswax and black amber are doing some nice things together. Very wearable!

[Viiinylflowers]

OooOoO how wonderful.  Normally wax scents are too much like strong honey weird on me, but this one is more subtle.  
 

It smells like melty wax and cloves in the bottle, but upon application it immediately morphs into a very addicting and mystical fresh and zesty soft green mossy scent.  
 

From here the clove starts to slowly return and the more it returns, the more the clove and sparkly mosses both melt down into the wax, which becomes the most prominent note.  
 

The wax is much less sweet, and smells kind of “olden” lol. There is a witchy kind of colonial Williamsburg glowy feel with the melted down other notes blended into the melty candle wax.  
 

And I start to pick up a bit of the parchment peeking through behind it all, maybe helped along by a really delicious bit of black amber which reads to me as being fairly seamless in how it melds into the parchment.  Sort of one in the same ~ or maybe I’d notice it more on another day. 

It continues to get more complicated on my skin, where I can start smelling some of the other notes blend in and lilt the scent in one direction or another as the scent creeps ever forward toward the longest lingering notes  - which seem to be candle wax, parchment, and incensecloveycardemommoss slightly sweetened by ylang. 
 

Overall it’s a gentle and cozy scent that really evokes an antique vibe (but like you’re presently in that time, ya know, just huddled over your book in the dark, with witch things and a melting candle.). It’s not one of those super honey wax scents to me, and not assaulting my migraine sensitivities despite containing some testy notes. 

 

 

 

[Ennikar]

Spicy wax. I was a bit worried about the ylang ylang as I haven't had good experiences with it in the past, but it's all but absent. The wax is somehow but more animalic and less sweet than beeswax, but I'm still getting a sweet something here. The spices have a green edge from the moss and the clove leaf, and they're blending in with the incense resin. Starts off with powerful throw. Of the other BPAL scents I've tried, this one is similar to Mr. Jacquel, but dustier.

[Little Bird]

I get a surprising amount of ylang ylang from this, showing up as a very powdery-creamy, sweet, tropical floral.  It reminds me of the scent of real plumeria flowers.  Then there's the spicy clove, sweet beeswax, and warm amber glowing underneath the floral.  It forms this heady, sweet, floral-oriental fragrance.  I can imagine the scent of aged, yellow, old book paper in this as well, that vanillic, honeyed scent that old books develop.  As it dries down, I keep thinking that I smell a soft black leather note as well (maybe the black pepper and black amber giving off this impression?) and sweet incense smoke.

Not at all what I was expecting, but this is complex, heady, and sensual.  Plumeria flowers melting into beeswax, dusted in sweet clove, and a stack of leather bound old books and burning incense.