Tal Shachar
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Posts posted by Tal Shachar
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As much as I love resins, I never bought this one in years past, but got it this year to remind me of my late father. My dad was highest of the High Church Anglicans, and he used to train the altar servers--incense was one of his favourite things, and he was way disappointed when his church stopped having it (lots of people are allergic, I guess).
Anyway, does this smell like the classic Three Kings stuff that I remember from childhood, hanging out in the sacristy with him while he tidied up? Not quite, but close. Unlike a lot of the Lab's resinous blends, this one distinctly smells like smoke and not just the raw unburned grains. It's more fruity and less woody than the incense I remember (which almost certainly has cedar or sandalwood in the mix somewhere), and there might be something creamy like beeswax going on in this too.
I like this a whole lot, but it doesn't strike that instant sense memory the way I was hoping.
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Clear water touched by a hint of honeyed pale rose, Sicilian lemon, and lily of the valley.
Wet: Bright, clear water. So bright it bowls me over--not a quiet water scent at all. A sharp aquatic with white florals, the lemon and honey absent for now.
Drydown: The lemon is not very, uh, lemony and more of a clean, cologne-like bitterness.
10 min: Rose, yes. Honeyed rose? LIES.
30 min: Okay, sure, yes, I do get the honey now, but it's very quiet. This stays pretty much as a clean aquatic with floral notes, not unlike Ogygia. Like a lot of aquatics, this is pretty unisex. I like this but I'm not sure it differentiates itself enough from other aquatic BPALs, except in that very striking wet phase, when it does seem exceptionally cool and refreshing, like a mythological fountain. The gentleness of the honey emerges late and it becomes more of a roses-and-seawater scent. -
A celestial nectar redolent of honeysuckle-gilded amber with honeyed fig leaf, golden myrrh, helichrysum, and white cognac.
I made this giant bottle order in a sort of fugue state of mad spending, and I'm not sure what tipped the balance to make me order this one. Like I like all these things, but what made me so sure I needed it? I don't know. Cognac, maybe, since I don't have any good non-wine booze scents.
Wet: Fruity, sweet honey with darkness underneath it. Deep huffing does let me pick up on the cognac...the whole thing smells like a beautiful honeyed liqueur.
20 min: This is really well-blended, and delicious in exactly the way I like. Not like "hey you smell like food" but mysterious and mouth-watering, like something you never knew you wanted to eat. It's definitely a celestial-nectar scent, something that seems golden, lofty, and rare. -
Wild green lotus, orris root, bourbon vanilla, white sandalwood, and Egyptian musk.
Wet: Oh, this is beautiful. The lotus is indeed green, sweet but fresh and dewy, almost melon-like? A bright jewel-green smell.
Drydown: The orris and sandalwood come out with a bit of dryness, although the lotus note is so juicy that it's very much in the background. No sign of the musk.
20 min: I don't always like lotus because it goes to bubble gum so easily, but this is stunning, sweet without being Bubblicious at all. Orris, sandalwood, and musk all remain muted, supporting the luminous green note.
25 min: Spoke too soon! The musk does come out with the orris/sandalwood combo, making the scent a little less juicy and more sophisticated.
Kind of dying over this. Do I need a second bottle? Panic!
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Red benzoin and frankincense with honey myrtle, osmanthus blossom, and coconut milk.
In vitro: Warm, creamy coconut smell, hints of resins.
Wet on skin: Frankincense initially has a slightly lemony smell (at least on me) so that comes out first. I get benzoin from the "is there vanilla in this? no?" thought that usually comes to mind when something has benzoin in it. Osmanthus has a honey-like scent in the first place and with the myrtle, it gives the blend a very, very warm and soft-edged floral smell. The coconut milk is definitely strong here, so if you don't like coconut and were hoping it would be way in the background, no such luck. (I love coconut though.)
Drydown: Quite a bit of throw on this one. Besides the psychological effect of calling the benzoin red, this scent does convey red-orange-golden colours, like a sunrise. This is a very lemony frank!
20 min: Lemon custard? This smells tasty but I'm baffled at the lack of resinous business.
30 min: I do love osmanthus, and this is a good blend for it, playing well with the coconut. I like this quite a bit and look forward to really slathering it on once my testing-bottles period is over and I have both arms available. But frankincense stops being lemony and then...disappears? Unacceptable. I thought we were buds.
Verdict: Sweet, almost-but-not-quite gourmand, bright coconut. -
If then, man, in every act, leaves the impression, or daguerreotype of his mental being upon the scenes of his life and the subjects of his action, we are by this law furnished with a new clue to the history of our race; and I think it highly probable, that, by the application of this principle, the chasms of history may be supplied, and a glimpse may be obtained of unrecorded ages and nations, whose early history is lost in darkness. The ancient manuscripts, paintings, and other works of art, which still exist – the crucifixes, garments, armor, and other ancient relics, still preserved – are doubtless still instinct with the spirit that produced them, and capable of revealing to psychometric exploration, the living realities with which they were once connected. At present, these relics are barren of significance. Their hidden meaning lies waiting the future explorer, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt awaited the arrival of Champillion to interpret their significance. And why should not the world be filled with the monuments and unwritten records of its past history? It would seem, to the superficial thinker, that man was entirely limited to tradition and written records for his knowledge of the past; but physical science proves, that the world possesses, embodied in enduring monuments, the story of its progressive existence. The geologist finds, in the different strata of the earth, in its curiously mingled and irregular structure, and in the fossil remains which it conceals in its bosom, the history of its various changes of surface, and of the antediluvian races of animals which have long been extinct. The huge Saurian monsters, which he portrays from their fossil relics, rise before the eye as incredible chimeras. And over this fertile region, now occupied by prosperous States, he revives, by the magic power of science, the antediluvian seas and their strange inhabitants, unknown to man.The Past is entombed in the Present! The world is its own enduring monument; and that which is true of its physical, is likewise true of its mental career. The discoveries of Psychometry will enable us to explore the history of man, as those of geology enable us to explore the history of the earth. There are mental fossils for psychologists as well as mineral fossils for the geologists; and I believe that hereafter the psychologist and the geologist will go hand in hand — the one portraying the earth, its animals and its vegetation, while the other portrays the human beings who have roamed over its surface in the shadows, and the darkness of primeval barbarism! Aye, the mental telescope is now discovered which may pierce the depths of the past and bring us in full view of the grand and tragic passages of ancient history! I know that, to many of my readers, unaccustomed to these investigations, and unacquainted with the first experimental facts of this great science, these anticipations must seem a visionary hope – too grand, too romantic, too transcendently beautiful to be true. But observe, that all is based upon familiar experiments, and these results are but legitimate deductions from familiar facts. As surely as the expansive power of steam gives premonition of the ocean steamship, does the power of Psychometry give promise of all the glorious performance to which I have alluded.
—Buchanan, 1842
A tactile scent, groaning under the weight of aeons: wild fig, cedarwood, venerable ti leaf, and white sage.
In vitro: Woody figgy. I love wood and I love figs. Let's do this.
Wet on skin: The cedar and sage predominate, with the fig adding juicy sweetness. The sage contributes a very clean feeling that could strike people as smelling like really nice shampoo (Tabella did the same), but I am cool with that (I have three bottles of Tabella). Delicious, multi-dimensional cedar.
Dry: Sillage is very close to the skin. This actually reminds me quite a bit of a more chilled-out Tabella, less bright and sharp, just fig and cedar and sage hanging out together. There's nothing flashy about this, in fact, but it's still compelling and substantial. It's a classy, calm, and wise scent, like meditating in a forest. Definitely unisex; I wouldn't call it masculine, but nevertheless this would probably be lovely on a guy. The sage gets stronger on drydown and reminds me of one of my favourite places in the world, the Mojave desert in southwestern Utah. Love it. -
"The case I allude to is that of an invalid woman who belongs to the humblest class of society. She is nearly thirty years old and very ignorant; her look is neither fascinating nor endowed with the power which modern criminologists call irresistible; but when she wishes, be it by day or by night, she can divert a curious group for an hour or so with the most surprising phenomena. Either bound to a seat or firmly held by the hands of the curious, she attracts to her the articles of furniture which surround her, lifts them up, holds them suspended in the air like Mahomet’s coffin, and makes them come down again with undulatory movements, as if they were obeying her will. She increases their weight or lessens it according to her pleasure. She raps or taps upon the walls, the ceiling, the floor, with fine rhythm and cadence. In response to the requests of the spectators, something like flashes of electricity shoot forth from her body, and envelop her or enwrap the spectators of these marvellous scenes. She draws upon cards that you hold out, everything that you want – figures, signatures, numbers, sentences – by just stretching out her hand toward the indicated place.“If you place in the corner of the room a vessel containing a layer of soft clay, you find after some moments the imprint in it of a small or a large hand, the image of a face (front view or profile) from which a plaster cast can be taken. In this way portraits of a face taken at different angles have been preserved, and those who desire so to do can thus make serious and important studies.
“This woman rises in the air, no matter what bands tie her down. She seems to lie upon the empty air, as on a couch, contrary to all the laws of gravity; she plays on musical instruments – organs, bells, tambourines – as if they had been touched by her hands or moved by the breath of invisible gnomes… This woman at times can increase her stature by more than four inches.
—Chiaia, in a letter to Lombroso
Pale lilacs, white tea, and candle wax.
The Lab's candlewax always starts out with a burst of citrus (to my nose, at least), in this case a light clementine-juice scent that obscures the lilac completely while wet.
10 min: Spicy? Tingly-spicy? I'm not sure where that's coming from, but the white tea comes out too, with the lilacs.
20 min: Lilac gets a bad rap around here sometimes, and I was really rooting for it, but the beeswax is making the floral part smell a bit sour and sweaty. It's a very light and inoffensive scent, but when I get in close to the wrist to go "where my lilacs at" it smells like someone holding a lilac bloom crushed in a sweaty fist.
25 min: Sweaty part over. Soft, light, citrussy floral. Flowery but not distinctively lilac.
Verdict: Not for me.[EDIT: I don't know when I'm going to learn that it really does make a difference to let scents settle after coming here in the post, but this one was pretty different on second test. Way more wax, no weird citrus, a warm and sweet beeswax scent with a distinct high-toned floral. Though it still doesn't really smell like lilacs to me? I have no idea.]
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Wine spilled across freshly pressed table linens, a wilted holiday bouquet, and a furtive hint of whiskey and baked bread.
I was so intrigued by this, and I'm not even sure why! I do love dinner parties and the smell of ironed linen. Wine usually gets too noisy on me and I don't like gourmand stuff...but I bought a bottle untested? Okay.
In the bottle, the cakey/bakey/bread note was quite strong, Eat Me-like with the berryish wine note. I wasn't going to give it the honour of First Tested, but I spilled a couple of drops so I decided to make this Deipnophobia night.
On my skin, the baked goods calm right down and I get barely a whiff of wine--that's really good, since the Lab's wine note often gets cloying on me. The linen dominates, with wisps of subtle whiskey, wine and bread. It's more of a perfumey "linen" note than a photorealistic slightly-scorched smell of ironed linen, but I'm really loving this. Are there florals? I can't pick them out, me. The bread reminds me of the yeasty sufganiyot note in Chanukkiyah (which I also got another bottle of in this order). Nom. -
This was amazing on me, it's the standout of the Yules for me so far. As people have said, the furry musk is similar to Coyote/Ivanushka, and the starry forest resembles the snowy forest of Moon of Small Spirits, a chilly and slightly effervescent note. Same soft pines as in that one too, where they smell like trees rather than pine air fresheners. And yet it's definitely worth having all on its own: the musk is a few ticks more toward the masculine side (still pretty unisex), a little less sweetness and more bite.
This is one of those scents where you go OMG I CAN STILL SMELL IT ON MY SCARF MMMM. I may buy a backup bottle just because I don't think it attracted too many people. The fools! I shall take it all!
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Nobody else said it yet? Garden Path with Chickens. I had to get that one out to compare, and to me they smell very, very close. Garden Path has the rose and verbena making it sharper and more floral, while the musk in Pa-Pow is very soft and sweet, but the grassiness and the "peppery" smell of the flowers is the same to my nose. I love it, so it's nice to have a Garden Path with Puppies version.
I really love this furry musk, which I think is in Faunalia as well (the Coyote/Ivanushka/Hunter Moon sweet-fur-smell), and it's very low-key compared to those ones. Lighter, not as dense and sweet, and it stays close to the skin while the planty notes waft upwards from my wrist. Once the grass goes (grass always goes so fast, sigh) the flowers soften up and it's a quietly sweet outdoorsy-fresh scent, herbal more than floral. I like this a lot.
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Moon of Small Spirits has a strangely fizzy quality to me, I think a combo of the snow and cranberry notes.
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I bought this solely because I love the whole Year-Without-a-Summer cadre, including the hapless Dr Polidori. Also, hope springs eternal concerning the lab's blood accord--I really want it to work instead of smelling like grape juice (Head of Holofernes) or steak sauce (Valentine of Rome and Mort de Cesar).
Lord Ruthven scores because yes indeed, that sullen lurking note does smell like blood. The aqua admirabilis is a very masculine cologne smell in the bottle, but on my skin it quickly gets an oddly sweet and musky-creamy note which I maybe would compare to Hunter Moon--that's the closest thing to leather that I get. (Bear in mind my skin makes a lot of things sweeter than they are.) This note overwhelms the cologne, paper covers rock. It's creamy leather and very subtle blood, the exact metallic-salty smell of blood, and a little strange because of that.
I like masculine scents so I approve.
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The tonka and champaca are very strong in the bottle, creating an almost foody impression that surprised me, but on my skin the pepper and ginger dispel that--penetrating and gifted, yes, with the softness of the sandalwood and florals adding the vulnerability. I'm very pleased because the poppy/opium smoke note doesn't turn plasticky on me the way it usually does; it's quite muted and well-behaved, not too harsh at all. Not a whole lot of staying power or throw (but I'm sure that would change if I wore it out somewhere, since lately that seems to be the only way to make sure my perfume gets aggressive). I like this quite a bit and I think it will become my benchmark for poppy/opium notes. The ginger is also great on me while it lasts.
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I was about to post that I have no idea what people are talking about when they say "tart", because it was initially very smooth and soft when applied to my wrists, but for some reason when I added more on my elbows the ginger and bergamot came right out. So I see it now--in fact when I sniff between the two sites I get two different sides of the blend, the gentle sweetness of the fig and olive blossom on my wrists and the sharper ginger and bergamot on my elbows. Surprisingly I don't pick up frankincense, which is usually not shy on my skin.
Pierre Trudeau said, "Justice is to me a warm spirit, born of tolerance and wisdom, present everywhere, ready to serve the highest purposes of rational man." The golden gentleness and clarity in this really does evoke justice and democracy as a warm spirit as opposed to something cold or harsh or cynical, and that's what I love about it.
It does have very little throw, so I'll save it for occasions when I don't want to be an obnoxious walking scent cloud.
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Small amount frimped by the very generous GoldenRubee.
In the imp the sharp effervescence is really remarkable and very true--until I read the ginger ale comparison and yeah, I can see that. It's been awhile since I smelled champagne in the flesh, unfortunately, but as a boozy note it's a great success. The tobacco is definitely of the not-yet-smoked variety, the cigars still in the box, and for some reason BPAL's tobacco notes are always very subtle on me. It's a nice blend of both fun and sophistication.
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On me this was a very refined orange blossom with a hint of clove and pine.
I distinctly remember a time when musks terrified me because they were all so loud on my skin, but I guess times have changed. Even the mint is nowhere to be found, and mint is usually not shy on me. This feels gentle and warm and not at all masculine, quite pretty, and considering the dangerous orange/clove/pine combo I should be glad it doesn't turn into car air freshener. But...but I wanted the black musk and tobacco! Not fair. -
I'm surprised I didn't review this when I got it, which was months back, but it's my Grassy Scent, a more feminine Ides of March. The grass is sharp, no lie, and the florals have a retiring quality--they're there, doing their thing, but even the heavy hitters like rose and gardenia are hard to pick out if you don't know they're there. The grass, though, THE GRASS is so note-perfect that it just makes my eyes roll up. It softens in short order and yet even so I can understand this grass being just too pointy for some people. The ivy is also a notable player and a note that I just love every time it shows up, like a friend I haven't seen in awhile.
I like all the Salons I've tried so far but this one is just special. It smells like summer. (Yes, summer, spring smells way muddier and snowier around here.)
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First impression: Dammit, Welch's grape juice. I knew it, I knew it, but severed-head/blood/leather/galbanum overcame my good judgement. It was supposed to be musky and resiny, a thing of beauty, not this foul abomination!
It does improve on the skin. The purple-Jell-o quality calms way down and it opens up in a pretty awesome way. Galbanum, yay! The monolithic juicy purple scent opens out, the leather note popping and the dried blood accord coming out. The dried blood is essentially metal but...well, it does smell like blood, although I'm not sure I'd make that association without the description. Onycha appears later, which I recognise from Hades.
Overall, this is much more interesting than I would initially have given it credit for, but I could still live without the fruitiness. The leather-metal-wine-incense combo means it's quite a bit like The Black Tower, and I like the latter better because the wine there just passes in and out on my skin instead of sitting right out in front.
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I loved Chanukkiyah a ton, which is why I bought this, hoping for more of the same mojo even though the listed notes made it look less complex. And it is; the sugar-donut note in Chanukkiyah disappeared as soon as it hit my skin so that blend was all olive oil/beeswax/fig/pomegranate and lo it was good.
Hanerot Halalu does with me what it seems to do with most people: orange stage, followed by beeswax and olive and then smoke. When wet it seems to have what I would label musk, something sharp and...greenish but not planty or sweet (unhelpful description). After a lot of sniffing I think it's just the olive getting off to a loud start. The smoke is present for me but after a bit of promising birthday-candle wispiness it becomes a more familiar and less interesting frankincensey scent. I am not one to complain about olive, beeswax and light frankincense, and if there were wood in there (or fig) I would have bought a second bottle in my Christmas Order Mark II. Note that I have never yet bought a second bottle of anything, I'm too greedy for novelty.
So Hanerot Halalu is rich and warm and comforting like a candlelit front hallway after you come in from the snow, but it falls just short of being a Chanukkah holy grail (wow mixed metaphors).
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I don't know what rhododendron or bellflower smell like, but apparently the answer is "delicate, understated florals." This started out as a gentle aquatic that I really enjoyed, but on the drydown it seemed to...dry up. The impression of water goes away in favour of some odd note that I can't describe--almost scorched. Either that or something's cooking around here somewhere and Danube has just faded so much that that's all I'm picking up. Anything is possible.
Obviously one expects delicate scents not to last, but I liked this one and am somewhat disappointed.
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Holy crap, how can something so sexy smell so classy? The vanilla musk fades quickly on me as it always does, to my annoyance, because it's a fantastic note. The amber and the spicy carnation are what last on me, with the sandalwood lurking underneath (sandalwood is always the last one off the train). Resinous but classic and womanly.
Might be scent locket material since damn, I miss that vanilla musk once it disappears.
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This reminds me a lot of Tzadikim Nistarim, which makes sense given the frankincense and hyssop, but it has the same gentle sweetness--not aggressive resins in the slightest. I can just about get the ylang ylang but not the rose geranium, unless I use a bit of imagination. (I can smell the herbal/floral element just fine in the bottle, mind, but my skin loves resins.) Tzadikim Nistarim is one of my all-time favourites, and this has the same calming, spiritual quality.
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Bizarrely, even though patchouli and red musk are ordinarily not shy at all on my skin, I don't get them at all. This smells like a sweet, innocent floral on me, which fades quite quickly. I don't dislike it at all, but I'm just surprised since I've never had patchouli go MIA before, and ordinarily anything with musk of any colour will last foreeeeeeeever. The florals are well-blended and not at all piercing or hard to wear, and very feminine. I can even smell the patchouli in the bottle just fine! What the hell? Sorry, still hung up on that.
Black currant and orchid had me worried initially, since they can get too sweet and heady for me sometimes, but they're just hanging out in the background. Lotus root is subtle but I always enjoy it, as in Silence and Diwali.
This can easily become a favourite just as it is now, and probably will remain that way when my chemistry goes back to normal in a few days and remembers that it loves patchouli and red musk.
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Musk and incense both love my skin, so here they are rather drowning out the subtler bookish note. If I really press my nose to my wrist and inhale I can catch the dusty papery smell, but otherwise I will have to be content with the musk--light, but not sharp like the musk in Aziraphale--and the dusty, soft incense. No hard edges in this library, and between this one and Hunter Moon I now have two scents where the musk is actually my favourite thing in the blend.
As it dries, the paper note does emerge more, to my delight. It's not as throat-tickly as Aziraphale's dusty Bible accord, but it's just about as dry. (Am I alone in specifically loving the smell of mildewed books? That used-bookshop smell is what I keep hoping for from these scents and I never get it.)
A resin/musk scent that's actually subtle, I can get behind that.
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I was very worried about the lettuce in this being weird on my skin. Fortunately, I get coconut/white chocolate that is indeed very frosty (hint of extremely subtle mint there that adds the cooling effect). The lettuce fades in and out as a dewy, crisp bit of green. I get florals but not any lilac that I'm familiar with--I know it's one of those flowers that can only be approximated with accords, but so far I've had bad luck in getting the perfect lilac, soft and dreamy and spring-like.
But this is lovely, pale, and very strange while still being pretty. The various components settle together into a whole that can't be divvied up into separate notes, something white and velvety-soft but remote.