One Thousand Words

Fire Witch: Burning leaves, gunpowder, leather, cardamom, clove.

I don't like this in the bottle.

When I apply it, it smells gross at first. Several of the scents do but then temper down to something pleasant or even enjoyable.

I can kind of smell the cardamom in this but it's lost in the other scents, or is tangled with them. The leaves don't just smell burning, there's a bit of (pleasant) decay as well. The clove becomes more forward over time without smelling like medicine or ham.

I don't like this one. I don't hate it. There's scents that have repulsed me, that have been wild NOs, and this isn't that. But I wouldn't choose to wear this again.


Perfume Master List

Sleep Paralysis: Patchouli, ripe figs covered in dark chocolate, a cabinet full of imported spices behind a bouquet of brightly blooming flowers.

I'm not a fan of this in the bottle, really, and the initial application on my wrist was A Bit Too Much. Muddled, and fruity (figgy?), and funeral-floral, and kind of decaying... but not decaying in a romantic goth way, decaying in a "how long has THIS been here? get me my mop bucket and a priest" way.

I set it off to the side with "you're in a cult."

It didn't smell bad enough to remove with alcohol, and a few hours in I like it. It smells like incense, a lovely warm smell, not at all over bearing. I can smell my skin through it, too, if that makes sense.

I used to wear patchouli a lot. I know it has a bad reputation, but on some people it plays with their skin chemistry really well and just smells NICE. I'm one of those people. Folks would compliment me on my scent, ask about it, then look weird when I said patchouli. It took me a while to realize it, but the naggingly familiar note I was getting from this perfume is patchouli.

So far there's only one scent I dislike, and this is one of three that's going to be going in rotation.

Blood + Bone: A dark forest at night. Moss and cypress, blood and warm fur. A whisper of gunsmoke, and a drop of sweet resins.

I didn't grow up in pine forests. I grew up with oak forests and wetlands and prairie grass that grew tall and dry and very possibly had spiders in it so sometimes you got a face full of spider webs and you had to wipe that away and then when you got home you had to pull all the little burs and the baby ticks that lived in the grass off of you. "Pine" scents are linked to some pretty specific things for me: Christmas trees, floor cleaner, and building things out of (pine) lumber. Pine trees aren't hooked into the whole of my childhood, the being of my childhood, the way that the whispering sound of wind in oak leaves is - the way that oak leaves will whisper and rustle in breezes that don't reach you, that don't exist for you. The feel of oak bark and the crunch of acorns under foot is a different feel than the thick springy needles of pine trees, the way that pine cones roll underfoot. The sloshy squish of mud, the slick squish of saturated clay, the way your shoes can get sucked off your feet... that's different from the dry scuff of feet through dry shed pine needles.

I'm going into detail about pine because this scent smells like pine, but not like Christmas trees or Mr. Clean or that smoky hot scent of sawing two by fours. It smells like the thick of a forest.

Scent is so primal, so linked to our emotions and our memories. I spent a few hours today at a museum at a mold-a-rama exhibit. They had machines with molds I haven't had access to before and we tromped around the whole museum hunting them down. It was great. And the smell of the hot plastic injecting into the molds slams me back into childhood. That's what smell does. It acts directly on the brain. This particular plastic, when heated, smells like childhood and unlike a lot of my childhood it's just... pleasant. A pleasant and excited childhood. A treasured childhood.

"Blood + Bone" smells like someone else's memory. That someone could have been me if my family had stayed in Southern Illinois, had drifted to Kentucky like some of my dad's family did instead of drifting north to Indiana and the general Chicago area.

This scent reminds me of night. It just has a "night" feeling, like standing near a fire and looking into the darkness. I primarily picked up a complex resin-y scent at first, along with something that smelled/felt warm and furry. Smoke twists through it like a bay leaf in broth. This is another complex, round scent that tells a story and conveys an emotion and also smells great on my skin.

I've worn it for several hours, walked around wearing it, and there's something that's kind of... tickling a part deep in my brain. The gun smoke smell is stronger, but not overwhelming, and it's less furry. But it still feels deep and full and coiled.

This is inspired by the podcast "Old Gods of Appalachia" and it absolutely suits that podcast.

I wore "Here's the Thing: Fuck Everyone" again today and it was a much different experience. The smell is full bodied and far more complex, the amber playing more of a supporting role. The chocolate smell is good but more interesting than just, like, a square of milk chocolate. The amber is there, of course, and the dirt deepens the scent and adds complexity, makes it darker. The bourbon kind of laces through it all. I really like this after all.

"You're In A Cult, Call Your Dad": "Flannel, Sedona trees, bergamot tea, snickerdoodle cookies."

No.

No, absolutely not.

NO.

This scent is a resounding no.

This isn't an "ehhh, not really my thing" scent, it's a NO scent.

I was really excited for this because I've been actively looking for a bergamot scent and I enjoy the smell of bergamot tea. (One of my favorite scents is a beard wash that Nesko has that's bergamot, grapefruit, and black pepper.) I was wary of the "snickerdoodle cookies" part because cookie-related things can be SO sweet smelling. I have no experience with "flannel" or "sedona trees" as scents so I'm not sure if either of those are specifically to blame.

I've washed my arm three times and the scent lingers. I'll give these perfume oils that - they are tenacious.

This has a warm smell, but suffocating warmth instead of a rich full bodied warmth like "amber." There's kind of a toasty smell... not like toast. Not like char. But it makes me think "toasty" or "toasted," something that's been near fire. It's a VERY familiar smell and it took me about an hour but it smells a bit like female gingko biloba trees maybe? Or one of the other trees that emits a smell that's more funky than it is floral or green.

Ugh, this scent is oppressing me. Depending on how long ago Nesko ordered it I might be able to return it. But even if I can't these were only like $8 each.

I want to go someplace and spend a few hours sniffing individual scents and taking notes about them. That'd be really cool.

Update:

I used some rubbing alcohol to wash this off. It's still very slightly present but not much at all. I think some rubbed onto my laptop. Scents tend to... I don't know if they linger in my nose or I just smell certain things and keep remembering having smelled them. So the faint presence might be that, too. I'm not sure.

Anyway, on to the next scent.

One of my Christmas gifts was a small sampling of perfume from sucreabeille.com. Today I'm trying out Here's the Thing: Fuck Everyone and it's not really working on me.

The scent notes are "Bourbon, rich chocolate, dark amber, and a touch of dirt."

The amber is coming through IN SPADES. Just spade-fulls. Spades of amber tossed into my face. I haven't noticed any bourbon or chocolate. It's sweet, but not sugary. Maybe a little bit of honey? I'm able to detect a bit of dirt if I got my nose right up in the site I applied it (inner wrist) but I need to jam my nose against my skin. I can allllllmost smell petrichor, perhaps?

There really is no complexity to this on me. It's just HELLO YES AMBER, full and warm and round and taking up space that other scents could be in. It's not BAD, it just doesn't play well with my chemistry I think.

I'm going to work my way through the other vials and see what works better. When I come back to this I might find I like it after all.

Edited:
I had worn this under my watch, which has a plastic band, and that MUST have impacted the smell. I used to always wear scent on my left wrist, but habitual watch wearing is very recent so I hadn't considered it before applying it and putting my watch on yesterday morning.

I scrubbed my hands/wrists very well before eating dinner and noticed the smell was different... more chocolate notes. The smell is still present after sleeping all night, and after washing 2 loads of dishes by hand, although it's faded. I'd like to remove it entirely so I can try it again, or try a new one.

After time and a lot of hot soapy water the smell is primarily a soft, smooth chocolate and a very slight trace of earth. Not very dark chocolate - very dark chocolate can smell (and taste) like dirt and has some sharp jaggy notes that this doesn't have. The chocolate and the earth smell are different... not quite distinct, but melded together while still being separate if that makes sense.

I'm looking forward to trying this again, and will be sure to apply it to my RIGHT wrist, like I should have done initially.