Basil

[ipb]

immediately when i smelled this i thought of italian and french cooking and fresh basil. yummy. good enough to eat! totally reminds me of the herbs that come up with the steam when you're making homemade red marinara-type sauces, or when you're making pesto.

[jj_j]

Oh, my, yes! This isn't the watered-down version you find in a Williams-Sonoma cleaning product, this is the real thing. Grab a handful of fresh basil, crush it in your hands, and you've got the same glorious herbal bliss that Beth's distilled.

 

Not foody, but crisp and green and spicily sweet, this true basil is the kind of scent you'd wear to celebrate strength, charisma, and summertime all at once; I certainly will be!

[grrrlennyl]

at first: a light, licorice-y, herbal scent.

on: a very smooth licorice scent.

45 minutes later: more truly basil-like to my nose. it has a bit of a sharp edge to it. very green and fresh. lovely and kitcheny.

overall: this did end up fading pretty quickly on me. i'm glad i got to try it, but i'm sure i won't be using it.

[Blood onmy hands]

I was so excited to finally get a wee drop of this single note (I love odd perfume notes, lol).

 

I'm not really sure what fresh basil smells like; I was comparing this to the smell of the dried basil that I cook with. The single note has more of a crisp, green vibrancy to it than the dry spice that I'm used to. But it's still that wonderful herbal-ish smell... a slightly sweet & slightly peppery sort of spice. I love it.

 

Antony is the only blend that I remember trying that had basil in it, but I liked the herbal-spice tone that it gave that fragrance (until the leather devoured it). I wish that basil were used in more blends, actually. I think that it would smell especially yummy on a man.

[supremegoddessofall]

My skin completely ate this, but what I do get is definitely a cooking herb. Smells like anise mixed with mint. Not me, at all.

[emzebel]

Very very basil - fresh clean fresh basil - the good stuff, not dried. I can see how this might be interesting as a drop in a blend, but I cannot imagine actually wearing it.

[yeahbutnobut]

Basil

 

In the imp: mmm, this smells like real basil, but oddly, it also smells slightly anise-like. Almost like liquorice. Interesting.

Wet on skin: anise and herbs…this smells like liquorice and basil!

Dry: oh no…I was hoping for basil but this smells like anise and fennel. It also smells just like Bonjela! I was hoping this would smell like Italian herbs, even pesto…but I get mouth ulcer gel from this! Slightly herbal but a little too anise like for me.

After a while: ah, after about 30-45 minutes, the anise like scent dies down and a more characteristically herbal scent appears. Now this begins to smell like pesto! But in a good way-it doesn’t smell too savoury-in fact, I smell something almost fruity-sweet to it. It smells like a blend of herbs as opposed to pure basil, or like dry basil leaves. It then becomes dry basil leaves and starts to become fainter and fainter.

Verdict: I was hoping this would smell just like the fresh basil that grows on my mum’s kitchen windowsill. The stuff that smells so Italian, so much like pesto and delicious pasta dishes (but without the tomato sauce and garlic and mozzarella etc). But this smelt predominantly like anise to start with. That really surprised me. It smelt like ouzo and Bonjela and I wasn’t expecting that. This anise note fades away though and is replaced by some rich herbal green scents (basil with other herbs like oregano and a little thyme or tarragon), which then fades into dry basil, which smells much more true to the basil scent I was expecting than it did when wet-that’s when it gains it’s pesto like scent. It’s an unusual, intriguing herbal scent but I don’t think I’d wear it much as a perfume-though it may work better in blends.

Emoticon rating:

Is it a keeper? I might swap this.

[edenssixthday]

Oooh... this is amazing! There's nothing artificial about it in the least. Initially, it smells very much like anise or like sucking on a strong, barely-sweet, rope of black licorice. As it dries down, the anise aspect is still very strong, but fades enough that I can also smell the dark green, herbal aspect of this blend. I can't imagine wanting to wear this as a perfume by itself, but it does make me want to run home and start growing fresh basil!

[zankoku_zen]

Basil SN smells like barely sweet, herby, between fresh and dried basil. It has almost no throw, but considering that this SN is over 10+ years old, I'm surprised it smells as much as it does. It smells dark green, slightly anisey basil.

 

And then, its gone.

 

ETA: I wish more of Beth's current blends had a "basil" component that was more predominant. But hey, maybe creating a Basil SN is a pain, and just not worth it.

Edited January 12, 2015 by zankoku_zen