strahlend

There's something about the combination of musk and a foody feeling (pie/vanilla) that's kind of making me feel not so great. I'm getting quite a bit of pepper with the musk and sweet foody vanilla too, so this ends up smelling like a weird mash-up of wildly incompatable notes. It's reminding me Now Winter Nights Enlarge. I just checked the notes on that and it's also a red-musk, foody, vanilla blend - I guess that's why. Glad other people are enjoying it.

2010 version

 

This smells mostly like jasmine to me. Floral, heady, sweet. It's very pretty and totally NOT what I was expecting. Nice enough but I wanted something darker, muskier and a bit more unusual.

I'm surprised there aren't more reviews of this scent since people seem to go kind of crazy for book and paper blends. Huh.

I've had trouble with other leather blends because they come across as sharp and kind of chemically - such is not the case here. This leather note makes me think of supple, soft, brown leather, very well aged. It's soft and sweet and warm. I never seem to interpret tobacco notes the way other people do, pretty much all I'm getting here is the smell of the lovely leather and something sweet and wonderful... it's what I imagine an aged and fancy home library would smell like. I've tried other book and paper scents and like this one the very best.

Loads of amber and black musk backing it up. It's reminding me a lot of Brisingamen. It's very musky and warm with a lighter sort of sparkle element and a slightly spiced feel to it as well. Mainly though, it's a whole lot of amber. Right now it's working on my skin and I'm loving it.

I don't usually hear people talking about this scent, which kind of surprises me because it's amazing.
In the bottle there's a somewhat sharp green element that I'm assuming is the pine, but it doesn't smell like how pine usually does (aka cleaner). Ok, ok, not a ringing endorcement - but as soon as this stuff hits my skin and forever after it is reminding me of the love child of Samhain and Black Temple Burlesque Troupe. Musky, lightly foresty and warm. I feel silly for taking so long to try such a wonderful scent.

I've ended up with about 4 imps of Ogun and I re-test every time I get one. On me this scent is all melon and what equates to musk for my nose. It's not just any melon, I'm reminded specifically of cantaloupe. I love it on initial application but I get kind of burned out on the scent quickly and regret putting it on.

I recently got this scent as a frimp and quickly purchased a bottle. I love putting dabs of this oil in my hair, it smells musky and woodsy but not heavy - it smells clean and light but not super floral or in any way soapy. After wearing it for a while it mellows into this fantastic musky, woodsy, vanilla with the nicest hint of oranges and spices. I can't stop slathering this stuff all over myself . I'm so glad this is a GC scent, it's really working for me. Ravenous has a secure place in my top 10 favorites.

I totally agree with the gingerbread with orange reviews. I smell like a cookie.

MM&SHR goes on strongly foresty, like a cold forest - then the most wonderful dried leaf smell comes in and it's the most perfect dried leaf scent I've ever had the pleasure to smell. After a couple minutes though the chestnut comes in and kind of takes over as the main element and while I would normally be fine with that (it really smells great) I'm a little sad about the leaf smell disappearing into the background. This blend is mildly earthy, but mostly chestnutty in a sweet - but not knock you over the head sugary sweet - kind of way. I get no sense of tuberose at any point, I'm not a fan of rose in any form. I kind of wish the forest and leaves would come forward to balance the chestnut, the wet stage was fantastic. This scent isn't as earthy as I hoped. I do like this scent, it will get the most use during fall and winter months I think.

 

EDIT 1 YEAR LATER:

This scent has changed (for the better!) over time.

Now it's all dry leaves with a healthy dose of forest with just the slightest bit of sweet nuttiness. This was on my swap list for a long time and now I'm really glad that it didn't go.

Many thanks to the person who picked up this bottle for me

I'm in love with this scent! There is a prominant red musk component with this fantastic sweetness that is very noticable but not overwhelming. I can see how the sweet element could be root beer but it doesn't distinctively register as such to my nose. I don't get any particular sense of pipeweed. I wouldn't classify this as foody at all, it seems more like something that would be in the musky/woodsy family to me. I love how this is wafting up from my wrists, every time it catches my attention I feel delighted.

 

Two months later:

The longer this ages the quicker the sweetish candy notes blend into the musk. Now the sweetness comes in a hit upon first application but within minutes it has backed off and blended in. What remains is a red musk blend with a beautiful depth to it, very sensual. Since The Soldier has come out I would say that these two are for sure in a similar family, but where The Soldier has an obvious root beer component Elephantine Colossus has more of a suggestion of root beer as well as a sort of salty-musky element to it - which I think is what gives it the sexy flair. I'm still not getting any feeling of tobacco or smoke from the pipeweed, but I kind of wish I were.

 

 

Four months after last update:

I must have been kidding myself. This is totally a foody-sweet blend in the bottle and for the first half hour or so on my skin. After that the red musk becomes more apparent but it's combined with the popcorn and hint of rootbeer - so it's still pretty foody. I'm not a foody person, but I desperately wanted to like this blend. After six months and three tests, I guess I have to admit that this one probably isn't for me. Sad.

When I first sniffed this for a second I thought it had chocolate in it, but now I think that it's probably the effect of the really sweet vanilla. On my skin this smells like cedar on a warm vanilla patchouli base. The effect is impressive. I'm don't usually go after vanilla scents because no matter how lovely they are the usually end up seeming kind of generic to me - such is not the case here. This particular vanilla blended with these particular woods is a completely unique experience and it is heavenly.

Samhain '10 - this is my first Samhain sniffing experience and I've fallen in love. Make that... LOVE. This feels like a combination of musky incense, spice and just a hint of something sweet - I'm assuming the pumpkin and apple, but I wouldn't have guessed those particular things without knowing. I love how warm and spiced this smells without smelling foody or like a candle. This really is a fantastic blend and I know I'm going to wear it a lot during this fall.

When I sniff this on my skin I smell pine, I mean pine wood as opposed to pine cleaner. I'm getting a similar feeling from this as I do from Nocnitsa in the GC. After some dry down time the pine impression has faded and now it's sort of blended together and gives me a general sense of aged wood and slightly menthol-esque green herbs. Unfortunately I never get the smell of booze. My overall impression is very much Dark Green, I think it will be a great scent for winter.

 

*review above was from testing a decant, now I have a bottle and my impressions are pretty much the same except for that now I notice in the drydown I get an almost soapy sort of feeling. The only booze I can imagine being associated with this scent might be gin because juniper might be part of the weeds and forest greenery. It's kind of weird to smell soapy after putting on a scent called unsavory grave diggers.... not at all what I expected. This must be a personal chemistry issue though.

 

*another edit: My interpretation of this scent has changed dramatically. I don't know if it's a matter of the scent aging, chemistry, or my nose perceiving things differently after being exposed to more scents.

 

Most recent testing experience: it goes on kind reminding me of wood and chocolate (of all things) and almost goes into metallic/soapy dirt territory but then shifts wildly into a different direction and becomes a gorgeous slightly sweet evergreen resin blend, frankincense? I'm still not good at identifying specific resins, but that's what this is. Like Midnight Mass out in the forest. There's a warm and familiar spice in the dry down too, maybe the booze was bay rum?

This scent reminds me so much of a clay facial mask I once had that I just can't think of anything else. It has a sort of mineral earthy feeling with a high pitched floral tang to it. I've tested this three or four times now and I still can't decide how I feel about it.

In the imp my first impression is of eucalyptus. Maybe eucalyptus and pine. Smells pretty interesting.

On my skin I still get a eucalyptus vibe but now there's other things going on too. A general feeling of woods, some soft florals and a little something piercing that might be the pine. It ends up being a very mellow sort of soft floral - all the notes are mixed so well that after a short while it's hard to pick out individual components. This feels like a gentle green floral, drastically different than what I smelled in the imp. It's a pretty scent, but not what I'm looking for.

In the imp I love it. It reminds me of during the fall when it rains and the smell of damp pavement and wood blends with the smell of the leaves. It's beautiful. I can even smell that on my skin for a few minutes but as it dries down a strong soapy aquatic comes to the front and won't budge. I'm reminded of soapy, clean, typically masculine types of colognes. I can still smell the initial impression of the scent that I liked way in the background but the soap overwhelms it. I'm kind of sad about this because in the imp this is so wonderful. @!# my chemistry.

I love the idea of the scent of leaves but it seems like the scents don't usually evoke that feeling for me. This one kind of reminds me of pears, honeysuckle and hairspray.

The initial coffee scent is very strong. On my skin, however, it only takes a few minutes for the coffee to fade into the background. The duration is spent with a nose prickling blend of nutmeg and cinnamon.

This is a very appealing sandalwood scent. It reminds me of the sandalwood fans I sometimes see in import stores. Along with that there's a floral that feels clean and bright to me, or maybe it's how the floral interacts with the cloth note which seems maybe like linen. I'm not sure what's in the bridal bouquet but it doesn't seem to be roses or lilies - I get the feeling of a sort of pleasant sweet kind of flower, but I can't put my finger on exactly what. This scent is unusual enough to hold my interest but I think it's also innocuous enough to fit a variety of moods and occasions.
~edit for spelling

For about five minutes I thought this was going to be the one blend containing rose that I would love. In my imp and wet on my skin this is dark and smokey and incensey, lovely amber incense. Musky, dusky and wow all over. At this point I'm not getting any rose at all. It is heavenly. A short time later, however, a sharp rosey tang shows up and takes over and the amber is going a little powdery. It's still nice but not for me.

 

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I ended up getting a partial bottle anyway. It's so dark and musky in such a sophisticated sexy way that I kept sniffing it and sniffing it and finally realized it had won me over. This really is a lovely scent.

This is one of the scents I was looking forward to the most out of the Weenies. It's a much lighter scent than I was anticipating from the list of fairly heavy or strong notes. I agree with the reviewer who described it as a "sweet translucent black musk". I don't smell anything that makes me think of bay leaves and I'm not sure what galangal smells like but the rum is subtle and stays far in the background, I get a little of the current in the imp but not on my skin, but the vetiver plays very quietly with the gentle black musk. It feels like a close to the skin sort of scent. I like it quite well even though I was anticipating something a bit more intense.

I randomly pulled this out of my imps to test last night before bed and discovered that I really like it. I enjoy the idea of aquatics but very few of them work for me. Most of them seem soapy and that's not something I particularly like. R'Lyeh is different though. It really does come across as a dark aquatic. This isn't soapy at all. Most soapy aquatics remind me of a kind of aqua blue sort of greenish color, R'Lyeh though reminds me more of a deep marine blue with swirls of black and dark green. On my skin there's something that's reminding me of standing on a river bank and smelling just a hint of pine sap in the air. Oddly enough after a bit of dry down I start getting a sort of light warmth of spice or woods coming through. I'm surprised how much I like this scent, it's another to add to the bottle list.

This is mainly honey with a hint of the patchouli musk I associate with snake oil. For the first couple hours I really enjoy getting wafts of this up from my wrists. After that my skin eats it up and there's only a faint trace left and it smells mostly of honey by itself. It's very nice but it doesn't send me over the moon.

This is one of the first blends listing tea as a component where I can actually smell tea. On my skin it reminds me of soggy biscuits with a bit of pepper and honey. I like pepper, honey and tea... but since the main general impression is of soggy biscuits I would say this one doesn't work for me.

I had hoped that the carrot seed and orange blossom would be more noticable. This is a flowery, powdery, forgettable scent that reminds me very much of laundry soap.