strahlend

To my nose this comes across as a very, very strong lilac blend. It smells just like sticking my nose in a bouquet of very fragrant lilacs. Although I love lilacs, this is just too heady for me.

On my skin - I think it's labdanum that always reminds me of the inside of a spice cupboard. It kind of strikes me as sickingly sweet and gives me an unpleasant feeling. So, initially on my skin that seems to be mostly what I'm detecting. After a bit something much more floral and green comes out but with that cloying spice still in the background. I'm not a fan.

I never would have guessed that dragon's blood and lavender would have mixed so nicely. I love lavender and amber but the only dragon's blood that's worked for me was in dragon's milk. In this blend I can detect all the components and I love the result, they work together beautifully. This one initially caught my attention because after I was testing some decants I kept smelling something fantastic, eventually I narrowed it down to Pyramus. Scents don't normally stick around for long on my skin but this one not only stuck around it was strong enough to get my attention, and I appreciate that. Great scent, long lasting and good throw. Glad I was able to get a bottle.

Oh this one is fun! The initial blast out of my decant is COCONUT and BLACK PEPPER and they come charging out with enthusiasm. On my skin this is reminding me of coconut meat, not the sugared and shredded stuff or suntan lotion... this has a lightly green feel to it that makes it fresh. The pepper lays pretty low and manages to just give an interesting background spice instead of overwhelming the blend. I really like this one and hope to find a bottle some time.

I recognize orris from Staged Moon Landing and Silver Phoenix and in the imp that's all I can detect. On my skin things turn kind of lemony and sweet - like orris lemonade. It fades down into lightly lemon scented baby powder. Not for me.

Looking at the notes and sniffing I feel like I can detect each thing listed. Mandarin, ginger, sugar, mango, pumpkin... maybe not the amber specificaly. On my skin it turns mostly into pumpkin and ginger. Lightly spiced and not at all the buttery pumpkin I've encountered before. This one is a surprise favorite out of the butterflies.

This is a whole bunch of burned brown sugar in the imp. On my skin it mellows out a bit but remains an intense brown sugar scent reminiscent of candles and other scented products.

At first sniff this smells like some sort of sweet and pungent spice and nothing else. It was quite a surprise. I went ahead and put a dab on to test and then it turned into a lightly spiced plastic vanilla that just doesn't work for me. I'm not having much luck with the moths or butterflys.

I get mostly the sweet lime with the pear coming in just a little later. If I sniff hard and look at the notes I feel like I get a bit of the thyme giving it an interesting green twist. It's quite sweet, a hint of green, a bit of fruit. Nice, but a bit too sweet for my taste.

This smells like so much candy it could make my teeth ache. Big poofy clouds of cotton candy and a vanilla haze with just a hint of sweet tarts underneath - much like walking into a candy store. I love sweet pea and sadly I'm not getting any of it here.

I like vetiver but not mixed with sweet fruits like apricot or peach, somehow that combination ends up smelling sort of sickly sweet to me. I didn't expect to like this blend and unfortunately I don't. I love the name though.

I'm really surprised this isn't a more popular scent. I don't normally even like fruits, but this one is a favorite.

Starts out with a dry and musky sort of feeling - like the feeling of dry autumn leaves inhaled at the same time as a crisp apple. Dries down to a warm fig/pom/apple scent that is neither too cloyingly fruity or too heavy. I think I would enjoy this scent most in the fall, but it could easily be a year round scent.

I get mainly mildew and something sweet and creamy. For some reason, that totally works for me. I would never guess that mildew would be a note I would enjoy - and I did try to talk myself out of buying this one for quite a while - but it gives this scent an unusual edge that I haven't found anywhere else. I love it ♥

 

So, I have this bottle of Shadwell and sometimes I just open it up and sniff it and am amazed that it's part of my collection because, frankly, it smells so, So, VERY much like mildew in the bottle and for the first couple minutes on my skin. I really like weird scents, I'm a fan of vetiver and lavender and smokey burnt smells... weird is my friend. But THIS scent is just so weirdly, wrongly, stinky at first that it's just awful. AFTER THAT though is the most unusual sweet sort of vanilla, sort of musky scent... and that weird sweet smell is worth the initial funk. Shadwell just baffles me, I can't believe this scent exists. For the record, I never do get any tobacco or tea out of this, to my nose this is all mildew and condensed milk... but at no time does this blend actually make me think of any kind of dairy product.

 

Oh, and this is probably the scent with the most throw and staying power that I've encountered. I've tried hundreds of scents and this one stands out as being exceptionally long lasting.

I love this scent. It's cool and slushie with unexpected flowers and slight hint of mint. Sometimes snow scents are too soapy or too pine heavy for me - but this one hits the spot. Cool, refreshing, and lovely.

 

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I went through a period this summer when this was the only thing I wanted to wear. I now realize that Macabray has a spot in my heart and in my top 10 favorites. It's clean but not soapy, cool, refreshing... it clears my head and helps me feel more at peace. I only realized how much I had fallen in love with it when I noticed that I started comparing all other snow scents to it and found them inferior. I could let Snowball Fracas and Tulzscha go and just get more bottles of Macabray now that I realize that it's the perfect cold scent for me.

I'm getting a lot of coconut and what feels like an oddly synthetic sweetness - perhaps the orchid with the vanilla. Although I do enjoy many coconut blends and I don't say this lightly, this ends up smelling a lot like suntan lotion to me.

Starts out kind of sharp and unpleasant. After a couple minutes though Odin turns into a slightly herbal amber scent with a background of black musk. I love all of those elements and on me they come together beautifully. Another for the bottle list.

Fresh, greeen, mildly soapy. I initially get an impression of lemon-ish citrus with something sweet behind it. After a few minutes a musky dimension comes in as well and the soapy aspect has mellowed out. At no point in time do I have any impression of wasabi at all. A pleasant scent with interesting phases but it doesn't do anything that really calls to me either.

I really love lavender, and so I love this scent. It's lavender-lavender-lavender for me... riding that line between the high sharp lavender and the super sweet.... this is the middle ground. I bought a bottle after I realized I had almost used up my imp, when the bottle got here it was so strong and piercing that I was kind of sad - it's wasn't what I had previously experienced at all. I stuck it in a drawer for six months though and now it's just as perfect as I remembered. Love!

This is a fascinating scent. More pungent than I had anticipated, very effectively evocative of stone walls, an old library or a deep cellar. At first the sharp resins are the most noticable, and after a little while it softens up and feels a bit more woodsy. This is perhaps the most unique scent I've come across - and I LOVE it. The feeling of this blend is dark, heavy and cool.

In the bottle - lots of wonderful lavender. Reminds me somewhat of the lavender in TKO.
On my skin - very much lavender warmed with amber. Soft, sweet and comforting. Subtly in the background is a whiff of tea that's reminding me of Dorian perhaps, I wouldn't be able to identify it as jasmine tea I don't think. This is a beautiful scent, lavender lovers like myself will be very happy.

In the bottle I'm getting mostly the earth and a feeling of sweet and rich red fruit, which must be the wine and pomegranate.
On my skin the woods and moss come forward much more and this turns into a beautiful dark forest scent. Very lovely and exactly what I was hoping for.

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It's been about four months and I wanted to update my review to add that this blend is aging beautifully. It's developed into a very rich earthy (but not dirty) scent with a rich depth to it. The pom and the wine have really mellowed out and lost the superficial red fruit and boozy wine vibe and taken on more of a velvet burgundy feeling. There's a bit of soft spice and woods here as well. I think that once people catch on to how well this ages it will become more sought after.

I tested several dirt scents looking for the perfect one. I love Death Cap and Yorick but Graveyard Dirt is The One. There's no extra stuff that gets in the way, it's just pure, perfect dirt. Fantastic for layering or wearing on its own.

I loooooooove Twisted Oak Tree. I'm searching the sales and swaps, but in the mean time - and if I just can't find it - I'm looking for scents that might be similar. Does anyone have recommendations?

 

Thanks!

I had a bottle of Rumpelstilzchen and then I traded it away thinking that I had several other smokey woodsy scents and that I wouldn't miss it. But I did. I recently bought another bottle and I'm so happy that I did. Vetiver is what I notice most but it really does have something in it that gives the feeling of a campfire. It's funny to think that there's tonka in here because I don't get any feeling of sweetness at all. To me, Rumpelstilzchen and Salome are both reminiscent of bonfires but Rumpelstilzchen is more woodsy in the places where Salome is a bit floral. They're both great and I'm never trading away Rumpelstilzchen again.

Lemon, lemon, lemon, grapefruit, lemon, lemon, lemon, lemon... (20 minutes later)... light lemony musk.

That's a whole lot of lemon. I love lemon juice on food, I love lemonade, I'm just not sure I'm ready to smell like all lemons all the time - but this would be a great scent for people who do!

And it has pretty great staying power, it's still around long after I would have expected it to go.