The Lowdown on Incense & Resin - The Best Recommendations

[bluecanary]

The gnome lord hurls a cobalt potion. The jar crashes on your head and breaks into shards. You smell resins. You feel better.

Call a cobalt potion:

 

Off the top of my head, I'd suggest Tombstone, which has cedar and vanilla. It's been a while since I've worn it, but I think you might like it.

 

 

Your humble and obedient Renaissance Man,

 

Bard

 

Holy cow, a Nethack player. Wow. I'm far too busy cheering to respond in vein. Whoever you are, you get a gold star. ;>

[lookingglass]

Hecate, Snake Oil, Velvet, O, and Jacob's Ladder if you can find it. I like my resins nice a sweet, though...

[Seajewel]

Chimera contains myrrh and is a gorgeous scent, quite strong and long-lasting. It's cinnamony. Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but i love the scent, even though i can't wear it because my skin can't take it. :/ (and it's not the cinnamon necessarily.. i can wear Bengal but don't love it nearly as much)

[aedes]

I'm a total myrrh junkie, too, though I like some florals. Hades is my main throb. It's got black narcissus, I think, and stephanotis, which is a particular kind of jasmine, though I don't think it smells like a floral scent.

 

But if anything with petals is a no-go for ya, I should also recommend Danse Macabre, Anubis, Lear for the cedar-y goodness along with the others that have been recommended.

 

There are (thank g-d!) a lot of BPAL scents with myrrh, so I say get sniffing! You know you won't feel satisfied until you've tried them all, anyway.

[RainyDayGrey]

I'm a total myrrh junkie, too, though I like some florals. Hades is my main throb. It's got black narcissus, I think, and stephanotis, which is a particular kind of jasmine, though I don't think it smells like a floral scent.

<snip>

 

Hades didn't smell floral to me either, but then again I like a nice floral scent, so it may just be me, too.

 

As for resinous/cedary scents, without the floral I like: Loviatar, Kweku Anasi (if you can find it, like sticking your nose in a dusty cedar chest full o' pepper), Anubis, and Penitence.

 

I've only recently discovered that I really really like the resins, so I'm not much help.

[velvet]

i say tushnimatay if you love cedar

 

another rec. for Urd. its up your alley

[TroubleDoll]

I love earthy, second-skin scents. I love warmth and mystery, like a room full of heavy drapes, golden light and dripping candles. (I hope that makes sense, I am very visual) I also like churchy scents.

 

Anyway, I am always snapping up scents that are described as containing incense. However, some of it goes really bad on me. The two standout examples are Midnight on the Midway and Gypsy Queen. Both just went dusty. dry and soapy.

 

What is it that is going wrong? Do you all think I should keep away from incense and look for just resin instead? Some favorites that have really worked for me are Penitence and Midnight Mass.

 

Thanks!

[ivyandpeony]

This is definitely advanced BPAL, not for beginners!

 

Penitence is what I would consider nothing but resin, since it's described as containing only frankincense and myrrh. But to me, it smells like incense. And Beth's description for Midnight Mass described it as "a traditional Roman Catholic sacramental incense."

 

I will have to think about what I consider "resin" and what I consider "incense." I think it's like one of those puzzles on the LSAT - the groups aren't mutually exclusive, there's some overlap between the two. For example, many of the churchy incense scents are going to include frankincense and myrrh. I tend to think of the incense scents as a little sharper, possibly wifh floral elements (All Saints, Kostnice)... whereas resinous scents I associate with deep amber notes or similar notes (Jacob's Ladder, Sri Lanka).

 

(Frankincense is a note that always goes sharp and soapy, almost insect-repellent like on me, BTW - maybe there's a particular note common to resin/incense scents that does this with your chemistry.)

 

You may just have to submit yourself to trying everything, TD, if you don't want to miss out on a potential love...

[TroubleDoll]

You may just have to submit yourself to trying everything, TD, if you don't want to miss out on a potential love...

 

Yes, I am definitely working on that!

 

I do love Jacob's Ladder. You also have an interesting point about the frankincence, but I love Penitence, so hmmm... yep, I'll just have to continue trying everything!

[ivyandpeony]

This topic has triggered my Virgo instincts (I have so few, they reside in me like a vestigial tail). So I went through the search engine at spicybrains and made a list of blends that are supposed to be similar to incense, as well as scents that seem to have dominant resinous components (which makes this a little subjective). Don't ask me to do this for rose or something like that - I am not that much of a Virgo. Anyway, I thought it might make it a little easier and/or more fun to have it handy for discussion. And of course, please bring up anything that you all disagree with, or think should be there.

 

Incense or Resin?

 

Al Azif

Al-Sharain

All Saints

Antony

Anubis

Bastet

Cairo

The Caterpillar

Cathedral

The Cracked Bell

Crossroads

Damnation

Dee

Delphi

Dia de los Muertos

Gypsy Queen

Haunted

Hexennacht

Jacob's Ladder

Kathmandu

Kostnice

Les Infortunes de Vertu

Love in the Asylum

Mantis

The Masque

Medea

Midnight Mass

Mystery

Nefertiti

Nuit

Penitence

Penthus

The Pit and the Pendulum

Rose Cross

Seraphim

Shub Niggurath

Sin

Snake Charmer

Sri Lanka

Storm Moon

Tezcatlipoca

Thanatos

Wanda

Xiuhtecuhtli

[sarada]

I tend to think that "incense" could mean just about anything, since incense can contain pretty much anything from florals to vanilla to woods. Though I do tend to think of incense as having a woody base, I don't know if it has to! "Incense" would, I think, be a broad category that could include resins but was not limited to them.

 

Penitence, Cathedral, Anne Bonny, Magus, Pit & the Pendulum, Midnight Mass, and maybe Al Azif are what I think of as the most resiny, off the top of my head.

 

The ones that I think of as "incensy" are ones that specifically have nag champa/champaca in them -- Urd, Hellion, and things that I suspect have it in them like Cracked Bell -- or things that contain Red Musk, like Scherezade, Lust, Fenris Wolf, etc.

 

Then there are the woody or pine scents, which also contain ingredients that crop up in incense a lot...

 

Anyway, may I just suggest Death Cap btw if you like earthy scents? Maybe check out resiny/earthy or perhaps wood blends rather than the vague 'incense' description, since it looks like that could also refer to smoky florals that don't contain strong resin.

 

ETA: nice list, ivyandpeony!! I remember buying bottles unsniffed of The Caterpillar and Crossroads because the word "incense" was in them but it was more of a soapy floral jasmine that gave me a headache, when I tried it on.

Edited September 12, 2006 by sarada

[juniperus]

for me the issue is neither resin nor incense, rather it's what else is present. I can wear about 1/2-2/3 of the above list - and what ruins things are the other players in the blend.

[mimulus]

Oh! This is a very interesting thread!

 

So far I've been avoiding anything that lists incense because scents like Urd and Centzon Totochtin went WHAM! incense on me. So much so that I just stink like an unwashed hippy.

 

However, I've had some luck with 'resins' such as the myrrh in Athens and scents like Snake Oil.

 

What gives, dudes?

[yellowrose]

for me the issue is neither resin nor incense, rather it's what else is present. I can wear about 1/2-2/3 of the above list - and what ruins things are the other players in the blend.

 

 

 

The lovely incense in The Caterpillar couldn't make it through the jasmine, which my skin amps until there are no other notes left.

 

By contrast, how can something like Snake Charmer work wonderfully and Jacob's Ladder cause a very bad allergic reaction? Doesn't make sense without knowing exactly what the components are.

[m13]

And I crave and love incense and resin blends, but one drop of myrhh in an oil transforms into *instant* baby powder on my skin. Happened with Voodoo, happened with Snake Oil, happened with Penitence, etc. Now that I know this for sure, I religiously stay well away from myrhh (get thee behind me, devil's resin). This sucks a bit, because I love the way myrhh smells.

 

Anything else I can wear, though I might not choose to wear some things like heavy florals or most ozones they do stay true on my skin and don't morph into something totally strange and unintended.

[sarada]

So far I've been avoiding anything that lists incense because scents like Urd and Centzon Totochtin went WHAM! incense on me. So much so that I just stink like an unwashed hippy.

 

Hey, that's what some of us are going for! (needs an emoticon of an abashed-looking hippie). I've been burning incense nonstop for 20 years to cultivate that!

[forspecial_plate]

I too am on a quest for the perfect incense/resin blend. So far I've found I like the drier ones better, like Aureus, and Djinn if you want to count that as smelling like incense (more people think of it as just straight up smoke and fire, based on reviews....).

 

I do like Midnight Mass and Pit and the Pendulum, although both were a lot sweeter than what I was hoping for. Midnight Mass has the interesting feature of suddenly smelling 'lit' as it dries. This comes and goes. It's so weird. It's like....sweet and resinous, then boom, it's lit and burning incense, then back to sweet resins. Pretty neat, actually. I hope it's brought back in Yule scents this year.

 

I had high hopes for Gaueko but it just didn't toot my horn unfortunately. Add me to the list of Caterpillar=jasmine with little or no incense, at least not until it dries a lot.

[portalkat]

I am always on a quest for the perfect incense/resin/woodsy blend and some of my favorites are Penitence, Pulcinella & Teresina, Midnight Mass, Cathedral, Anne Bonny, Urd, Tushnamatay, Manila (very woodsy on me), Midnight on the Midway and Fenris Wolf. For more recommendations, I started a thread here. The original title was, "I want to smell like a headshop," but I just noticed that the mods revised it a bit -lol

[mimulus]

So far I've been avoiding anything that lists incense because scents like Urd and Centzon Totochtin went WHAM! incense on me. So much so that I just stink like an unwashed hippy.

 

Hey, that's what some of us are going for! (needs an emoticon of an abashed-looking hippie). I've been burning incense nonstop for 20 years to cultivate that!

Well, I am a hippy really *stands proudly in front of organic garden with doobie*, but yeah, if I really wanted to smell like those perfumes do, which is JUST incense, STRONGLY... I don't know, I feel like a walking headshop. Although... most of the time I smell like a walking candy store... so there you go.

 

The original title was, "I want to smell like a headshop," but I just noticed that the mods revised it a bit -lol

Yeah, that's what I feel like! Ah well, you guys want my skin chemistry? Wanna trade?

[lookingglass]

Hmmmm. I have to agree that incense is often woody and there are many resins that can "go bad" on some people. A lot of the incense blends that I wanted to love were just overpowered by the floral aspect. Look here at Scent of the Earth for specifics on what is considered incense and resin. You will find several BPAL blends with labdanum (very ambery, one of my favorites), galbanum, and oponax(sweet myrrh-still has quite a bite, though). Check out Dragon's Blood in the Ars Draconis series; Depending on what it is blended with it can be very sweet or smoky. It is my favorite resin by far, both in it's solid state and in Beth's hands!

 

My quest for perfect, sweet, smoky, second skin scents brought be to the musk family: Snake Oil, Sed non Sataia, Smut, Haunted, etc. Honey and amber often do a similar "melding" to the skin: O is a favorite of mine, and the Brides of Dracula is on its way (!!).

 

It is not the destination (ok, sometimes it is...) it is the journey to the perfect scent that keeps us all here!

Edited September 12, 2006 by lookingglass

[TroubleDoll]

Ivyandpeony, thanks for the list! From that list, here is what stands out to me:

 

GOOD on me:

Jacob's Ladder

Nefertiti

Penitence

Penthus

Rose Cross

Sin

Snake Charmer

Xiuhtecuhtli

Katmandu

Midnight Mass

 

BAD on me:

All Saints

Bastet

Dia de Los Muertos

Gypsy Queen

Haunted

 

I'm starting to think that whatever works on me needs to have a little vanilla or amber to keep it from being too dry. But then again, i like Penitence, so who knows?

[ivyandpeony]

....

It is not the destination (ok, sometimes it is...) it is the journey to the perfect scent that keeps us all here!

 

That's so true - just look at the way we're geeking out over this topic. And that's the royal "we."

 

....

For more recommendations, I started a thread here. The original title was, "I want to smell like a headshop," but I just noticed that the mods revised it a bit -lol

 

Hi Portalkat - I must have forgotten to make a note in your original post - but sometimes after a thread's gotten a bit older and I stumble upon it, I will edit the title to make it a little more searchable in case someone comes along and is looking for something similar. I do try to retain the OP's original witty personality - often, it's just a matter of putting the more general terms in the title and then the original title in the subtitle ('cuz the search engine won't pick up terms in subtitles, unfortunately).

[sofaking6]

Am I high, or do Queen and Black Phoenix have lots of warm, sexy resin?

[sarada]

Oh yeah, Tushnamatay!

 

I actually want a bottle of that really badly -- a sweet, light resiny scent...but I keep forgetting since it doesn't list notes in the description. Heh.

 

Also who can resist a scent that starts with the word "tush"?

[portalkat]

....

It is not the destination (ok, sometimes it is...) it is the journey to the perfect scent that keeps us all here!

 

Whenever I reach my destination, I somehow find a new quest in order to keep myself amused

 

....

For more recommendations, I started a thread here. The original title was, "I want to smell like a headshop," but I just noticed that the mods revised it a bit -lol

 

Hi Portalkat - I must have forgotten to make a note in your original post - but sometimes after a thread's gotten a bit older and I stumble upon it, I will edit the title to make it a little more searchable in case someone comes along and is looking for something similar. I do try to retain the OP's original witty personality - often, it's just a matter of putting the more general terms in the title and then the original title in the subtitle ('cuz the search engine won't pick up terms in subtitles, unfortunately).

 

Oh, now I understand! I thought that maybe my title was offensive to some and that the desired scent that I was trying to achieve was something else associated with a headshop -

Edited September 12, 2006 by portalkat