Arkham

[dreadeddragon]

A shadowy, unapproachable forest of maple, birch, dogwood, cypress and pine softened by a garland of New England wildflowers: bergamot, columbine, rue anemone, blue violet, creeping phlox, bloodroot, toadflax, and pixie moss.

In the bottle: Um... my imp smells like the blackberry in Glasgow without the heather. It's very berry like, and honestly I can't smell much else.

First on: Ok, Now I can also smell some florals, but I can't distinguish which ones. It's overall a very spring scent, I don't get woods yet at all.

Drydown: There's a hint of some light wood, like birch or something. It's not overly woodsy, still mostly berries and florals, but with a slight addition of something different, which is the wood. I really like it.

[slugbait]

This is my first LE I spilled.

 

Right out of the bottle my intital impression is berries. But this isn't overly fruity, it has some flowers in this as well. On my skin the berries and florals mix together very nicely. This is very pink, happy and girly smelling. Very pleasant but not overpowering. ON clothing this lasts forever and has pretty good throw.

[wickedgoddess]

Wet - a light, pretty, floral blend.

 

Dry - more of the same, not much change. I wish I got more woods out of this, because this is straight floral on me. Very pretty, but a bit too floral for my taste.

 

On the wickedgoddess scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being best, this rates a 3.

[cranberry]

Arkham Revisited was one of the first oils I'd encountered that made me think I can do florals. I'd been convinced that florals were my mortal enemy for a long long time.

 

In the bottle: AR smells bright pink, sweet, berry-like, floral and almost edible.

 

On the skin, wet: AR comes across as very stong. Still the color pink - a strong vibrant hot pink is what comes across to me, and a strong blast of berries/fruit. Flowers are underneath (but thankfully not jasmine or roses). A very pretty, happy, spring scent.

As it dries & dry: As it dries, I get more florals but the fruitiness remains. There's a hint of woods way below, providing a good base for the florals and fruit and toning down the sweetness so it's not too sweet.

Overall impression: I really like it and I'm glad that I have a bottle. I've read that as it ages it may get a bit more berry-ish. This bottle is a few months old but I don't really remember if it's changed any. But I certainly like it now. It's a very lush, strong scent and lasts for a long time. It's very well blended and a very positive, cheery scent. It certainly changed my mind on florals and for that I'll always treasure it!

[emzebel]

Wow, this is really extremely pretty.

 

It was not one of my must tries in SIA, but I swapped for an imp, figuring I might as well try to check them all out if I could.

 

It is floral, without being overwhelming, and there is just enough wild grass/berry/other stuff to keep the flowers from being overwhelming.

 

As with the other SIA scents, Beth really did a fabulous job of capturing the scents and feel of a New England spring and summer - in this case, a field of wildflowers on the edge of a dark wood...

 

I wouldn't wear this every day, but I will definitely play with my imp...

[yeahbutnobut]

Arkham Revisited

 

In the imp: a soft greenish spring floral. Has a gentle perfume like aspect that I swear I've smelt somewhere else…

Wet on skin: mmm, this is really nice, a sweet floral-green scent with something gently tangy which must be bergamot.

Dry on skin: this is surprisingly lovely, a very pretty, soft scent of fresh watery greens and woods and sweet flowers. I'm not familiar with most of the notes apart from the bergamot, violet, cypress, pine and possibly the moss, but this is gorgeous. It really reminds me of a perfume I smelt before, it does have something 'department store' reminiscent about it, but that's no bad thing at all. It also reminds me slightly of something from BNever.

After a while: this gets sweeter and sweeter, and slightly fruity as well. I'm wondering if this is the phlox? There's something Pink Moon-ish about that aspect of the scent. The moss and violet adds a velvety powdery background and I can make out the pine and possibly cypress, and lots of sweet, pretty flowers.

Verdict: I know nothing about Lovecraft, but this scent seems to me to epitomise the name 'Springtime in Arkham', as this is a very spring-like scent. It's got hints of green and pink, woody and floral, and it's a very pretty and pleasant scent to wear. It's sweet, almost fruity, and gentle, and would make a great everyday scent. it has a slight 'perfume' aspect to it-but that's no bad thing-I just wish I could remember what perfume it reminds me of! It's a lovely soft spring scent though and I'm glad to have an imp of it.

[Nightgaunt]

This is my second favorite SIA scent (Yog-Sothoth being first.) It's bright, fresh, and joyful, with just a touch of the exotic. It's as if you were hiking in the hills beyond Arkham and wandered into the Dreamlands by accident.

[thefaeriegirl]

It is utter bliss in a bottle; on my skin, glorious. I think Heaven smells like this. A Heaven where H.P Lovecraft is God? Maybe. Can you tell I'm smitten?

 

Soft, bright, florals. Immediately evokes the mood of spring. Uber-girly scent.

[SeaMonkey]

In the bottle, this is a very soft, subtle floral. I don't like florals, but this is a very soft scent and I like it. On my skin, I'm not really sure what notes are coming out, but its a very subtle scent, and a little sweet.

 

This is a very soft, subtle floral, good for spring or summer. It reminds me of Easter for some reason

[malanna]

This is really hard to describe and pick out individual notes. There's definitely bergamot, which I tend to think of as a note that turns a group of individual notes into one seamless bouquet. Arkham revisited is a floral, a really sweet floral. This is so sweet, it took me a while to think, "Oh, floral." It seemed very sugary. Perhaps there are fruits in this. Over time, it smells a bit green and a bit spicy. I can detect the woods now, but this is only after seven hours, when it's barely lingering on my skin.

[iriedanym]

I'm happy to say I enabled a friend with this scent. Plus, the SO loves this scent. In the bottle, it smells floral and a tad bit sugary. It reminded me a little of Pink Moon. Definately can smell the wildflowers and a mossy like scent, but the woodsy smell isn't really apparant. It remains floral on the skin, very soft and not squamous (I had to say that). After a hour on the skin, there is a faint woodsy smell that mingles with the florals so well. This has become my favorite oil out of the Springtime in Arkham series.

[elonweis]

When I read the description for the scent, I decided I needed to a bottle because it sounded like something that would suit me (florals and woods). But I was highly disappointed.

 

In the bottle: Sweet, smells of berries. Can't detect florals or woods. Reminds me of dimetap (sp?). Very put off, did not try it.

 

Wet: Still like dimetap... something about it makes me uncomfortable. Sickly sweet. Still no woods or florals.

 

Drydown: Still very sweet. Very little change. Unpleasent, sniff memory? Don't know but something makes me twitchy. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized it reminded me of this horrible stuff that my mum use to make me take when I was sick. It was supposed taste like cherries (but didn't) and smelled almost exactly like this. I'm afraid I won't be keeping this one at all.

 

Few minutes: Turns soapy. Saddness.

Edited December 28, 2005 by elonweis

[harmonyfb]

This doesn't smell like your normal floral blend. It's all dry woods and herbs, kind of a shy, retiring scent. It does remind me of Arkham - the quiet, unassuming facade that hides all sorts of interesting secrets. I don't know if I'll wear it often, but it is wonderfully different kind of perfume.

 

ETA: A half-hour later, it has become sickly sweet, and I really really really do not like it. ::sigh::

Edited December 30, 2005 by harmonyfb

[Voleuse]

This is sweet and fresh on first application, a forest garnished with fruity notes. As it dries, I start to get light floral notes, bright and delicate. This is beautiful!

 

Truth be told, however, the florals made me sneeze on first appearance. I really like this scent, but sinuses don't.

[grrrlennyl]

at first: a sweet floral, followed quickly by a ton of different woods.

on: sweet, wet flowers. beautiful. almost candy-like.

1 hour later: more woodsy, but still mostlyl sweet flowers, this is very pretty.

2 hours later: powdery and sweet. i adore this.

3 hours later: lovely sweet flowers.

overall: i'm sort of sad i didn't get a bottle of this, but i didn't think it would really do anything for me when i read the notes. if i manage to use up the small bit i have, i may end up trying to hunt down some more.

[brownbear]

mmm This is really nice. It's a little bit sweet, light, and floral. There's a teeny hint of berry. It's pretty.

[Nachtwulf]

Bottle: Well, without checking the notes ahead of time, my impression was 'woody floral'. Sure enough, it is, though there's so much in it, none of the notes really jump out except for a bit of pine.

 

Wet: Nnnnn. Well, it's very sweet, but I don't get fruit from it at all. It's some odd kind of back-of-the-nose sweetness, carrying with it a definite pine-ish scent and the undeniable soapy cloud of violet. (I should really learn to avoid violets.) Although it's very sweet, I can't get over the feeling that it's some kind of body-bath product.

 

The throw is less offensive than up-close snurfling, since the violet doesn't carry well.

 

Dry: Thankfully, the soap seems to go away completely once it's dry. What it leaves behind is...hmmm. Well, that sweetness is still there, and a bit of the pineyness. It reminds me of Loup Garou quite a bit, although that sweetness is more like... *dredges brain* Manila. That's it... it's like Manila with pine in it.

 

I do like the throw, but it's not wristsnifferly...the closer I get to it, the less I like it. (It is, however, better than Holiday Moon, which is what I'd swapped for it...) I suppose I'll keep it and see if it grows on me. (Like a fungus?)

 

Rating 1-5 --> 3.75

[smallvoice]

Oh, wow. This is amazing. The wonderful Kmasden included an imp of this in one of her mystery packs, and I am just blown away by this.

 

In the imp: It's sweet, pretty, light and fresh. Nice stuff.

 

On: More of the same. Complex and sugary and there's some fruit in with the blossomy florals and fresh herbal smells... it's delightful, and sort of perfumey.

 

I get distracted by my cat, and then catch a whiff of my hand, and it hits me with dizzying clarity that this reminds me so very much of Jailbait, of all things. It's spicy and sweet and warm, but it has all this extra roundness to the scent, and suddenly I can smell the woods, and then I'm wondering how I could find a bottle of this stuff, because it's an orgasm and a half. Mmm. All the best parts of Jailbait and Hamadryad in one scent, plus bonus features... it's the collector's edition dvd of my favourite blends... I'll have to test this out another day to be sure I'm just not excruciatingly tired, but I'm fairly certain that I must find a bottle of this. Wow. Just, wow. I am so very much Arkham Revisited's bitch at this moment. I cannot stress to you how much I LOVE this blend. I lust after it. If it were a person (Or even resembled a person; or anything sentient, at this point) I would be on my knees, begging it to let me please just lick its toes (or whatever). MMM. Really. It's THAT good.

[Meg]

In the bottle: A herby mix that smells pretty sweet but also rather weedy - there's the classical "forest" scent that I find smells a bit like sweaty feet.

 

Wet: One of the flowers dominates - I don't know which, but it smells very pink. There's a very fresh side to this scent and a very sickly sweet one at the same time.

 

Drydown: The flower scent is still going strong, now I can smell violet added to the mix, and the bouquet smells a bit richer, deeper. There is definitely something of a bunch of wildflowers in this scent. I think I can smell the orangey scent of bergamot, and the scent of birch in the background. There's also a slightly aquatic note in there, that adds freshness to the scent. It develops quite a strong throw.

 

Overall: It's a weird scent, a mix that doesn't smell like nature at all in the end, even though it tries to give all the scents of a wood and its flowers. It's very flowery, but the flowers aren't traditional scents, so they're hard to pinpoint. Their smell is both very sweet and a bit tart at the same time, and some of the woods smell very resinous and medicinal, like turpentine. For me the scent isn't very evocative, and it actually ends up smelling a bit perfumy. Weird, definitely not me.

[Reedsong]

This is beautiful! I'll try to soften my usual biting sarcasm to do this scent justice.

 

I definitely smell the maple and wildflowers right away. It's sweet in the bottle and sweet on my skin, very richly sweet without being syrupy or cloying. As I wear it longer, the cypress and pine start to emerge, and the scent fades away very gracefully. And when I say "longer," I mean hours on end - ten hours later, I could still get a lingering scent as my wrist migrated to my nose for the eight zillionth time.

 

Aside from that whole Cthulhu mess, I want to go live in Arkham if this is how it smells in spring. It would sure beat the scent of teenage desperation exuding thickly from the Campustown bar scene.

 

Arkham Revisited: Continuing my undefeated Springtime in Arkham streak!

[purrbox]

I really love this one, but I can't distinguish any notes. Mostly because I don't know what toad flax, pixie moss, creeping phlox... well, anything other than bergamot, which I can't detect in this blend, is supposed to smell like! But I do know that this is a surprisingly fruity, berry-ish smell on me. The person that said it smells like a forest where Smurfs would live hit it right on the head- this has got to be the exact smell of the Smurf village.

 

It's oddly 'purple' smelling to me, and it stays pretty true on my skin to what it smells like in the bottle. In the bottle it is a little sharper, but on the dry down it gets a bit sweeter and softer.

 

It's a lot different than what I was expecting. From the description, and the maple, birch, cypress and pine notes, I really expected it to be a lot more woody and earthy. I was pleasantly surprised, because it does still conjure up a 'foresty' image, but "unapproachable?" Nah, I don't think so. You'd expect to run into not only Smurfs, but fairies, elves, sprites, talking frogs, and any number of other fairytale creatures. It's lovely imagery, but I was expecting something dark and brooding, more fundamentally Lovecraftian. But I'm not disappointed with the smell, in fact, this is one of my favorites! It's nice and light, summery. But it lasts a long time and has a fairly decent throw as well, which really pleased me because a lot of bpals fade very fast, or stay very close to my skin and I have to really hold my wrist *right* up to my nose to smell them. And i look like a real freak doing that every few seconds. Hee.

 

*edited to say: The only bad thing I can think of about this is that I can see where some people's chemistry would quarrell with this one. I was just raving about it last night and my mom tried it on and immediately made a disgusted grimace and pronounced it vile. Her description was "berries and industrial strength cleaning fluid." And on her, that's exactly what it smelled like. Go figure!

 

 

*runs off singing Fa La La La La Laaaaaa, La La La La Laaaaaa!* <---- smurf theme song for those of not such an advanced age as myself

Edited June 22, 2006 by purrbox

[misfitroxy]

There's some kind of cologne/alcoholic tinge to Arkham Revisited in the imp. And the oil smells kinda chemical on my skin. I'd describe this as ozone floral by my nose. It's really sharp and something in it does not agree with me.

 

It seems to sweeten as it dries and turns a bit more woodsy. But it's still far too potent for me to properly appreciate. I'm pleased that I was able to try it out, and would highly recommend this blend to bright floral fans. It's simply not for me, though.

[karengypsy]

In the vial: Green, clean, woods.

 

On me: Same as in the vial, but even more spicy/woody/green and lots more clean. There's a bit of creaminess in here, too, but I have no idea what could cause that - perhaps the maple or dogwood. This is an incredible blend.

 

Verdict: Would love to get my hands on a bottle of this. It really is too bad that it was discontinued.

 

Rating: 5/5

[Eunice]

This is incredibly delicious! I can't make out any one scent at all, this is perfectly blended, pink, slightly sweet and incensy.. The scent reminds me of the second floor of an old record store we used to shop at, part headshop, part music shop.

[edenssixthday]

Arkham Revisited - I have put off reviewing this scent for several months because it is just so complex that I don’t know how I can possibly describe it. It is one of my very favorite BPAL blends. This scent is woody and floral, yet it doesn’t have the typical fragrance of a floral scent. Rather than smelling like flowers, it smells like scattered flower petals. It’s got a soft bit of kick to it, that I’m guessing may be some combination of the wood notes, which otherwise don’t smell woody in the least. In fact, none of the notes smell like what I thought they would. There’s a distinct level of sunshine in this blend, but it’s not direct sun – it’s more the indirect rays that make their way through the top of a forest of trees that are full of new, green leaves. This is just so incredibly complex and beautifully blended, that the notes work so well with each other that instead of creating a scent that smells like many different things, they work together to create one entirely gorgeous and altogether unique scent. Sadly, the scent doesn’t last worth a hill of beans, meaning I have to apply and reapply and reapply throughout the day, and no amount of putting it in my hair or layering it with body butter, etc. helps in the least. The scent has a lovely level of throw, but as soon as it dries down, it goes away completely. Still, I’ll enjoy my bottle until there’s none left to enjoy – which won’t be that far down the road considering how often I have to reapply!