Magus

[brownbear]

An ancient blend, swollen with arcane power: galangal, high john essence, frankincense, cedar, and sandalwood.

It took a couple tries to decide on this one. In the end I decided that I do like it very much. It's very woody with some dust and sweet incense. mmm It is a warm, comforting scent.
Cute roommate review: "I like that one the best." (I was trying two others at the time.)

[sissa125]

In the cedar-sandalwood trifecta of Kathmandu, Sri Lanka and Magus, this is the damp resiny variant.

 

My favorite of the tree was Kathmandu.

[juniperus]

Bottle: frankincense and the woods on top - hints of something else, but can't pick out the notes.

Wet: masculine and..not dark..deep. cedar is wonderful with the frankincense.

Dry: not too masculine for me to pull off, but this is sexy - power sexy.

Later: when people talk about the intoxication of raw power, this will be what I think of - this is what it smells like.

[filigree_shadow]

Hmm... cedar. A bit too much cedar at first. Cathedral-esque. It smells warm and comforting. Very woody, but after 30 minutes or so the frankincense comes out and makes it sweet. I like it, but it's quite faint, a bit wispy.

 

ADDED August 16:

 

I read frankincense and cedar in the notes and thought I wasn't going to like Magus. I'm surprised to find that I do like it. It's in the same vein as Aureus and Cathedral, but it doesn't smell as much like a pencil box as either of those do. The frankincense doesn't get overly sweet on me like it usually does, and the cedar doesn't smell quite as peppery as usual. This is kind of comforting and soft. I like this one better than Cathedral.

[edenssixthday]

Magus is very woody and on me, quite masculine. I didn’t smell any of the “wet, green” scent that a lot of reviewers notes. Rather, it was predominantly sandalwood with a hint of cedar. I couldn’t detect any of the High John or frankincense notes. It was simply a dry, woody scent on my skin. Not bad, but certainly neither impressive nor memorable. On me, it just smells very common. It smelled the same an hour later as it did when I first applied it. The scent stayed pretty close to my skin, and I was testing it on the back of my hand and fairly sad to discover that it only lasted about an hour and then disappeared with my first hand-washing (whereas the other scent I was testing on the back of my other hand lasted about 8 hours and survived many hand-washings). I’m not impressed.

[sookster]

straight sniff from imp is hugely cedar and sandalwood...

applied this doesn't change much, if at all...perhaps a touch of the frankincense

comes through...lovely but just too similar to my favorite cathedral

[Meg]

In the bottle: a smoky sandalwood.

 

Wet: weird... this smells exactly like old lipstick, very thick and oily. I smell cedar, through that weird smell.

 

Drydown: Cedar drowned out in frankincense and a hint of galangal, I think. After a while, it's an airy and sweet citrus note in the incense, very discreet, wafting above the wood.

 

Overall: I don't think very much of it. I'm not much of an incense person, and while I like cedar, there are many other cedar blends that I like better than this. I'm really quite unimpressed with it, it's not unpleasant but it leaves me very meh.

[yeahbutnobut]

Magus

 

In the imp: woods and incense. I smell cedar and sandalwood very easily, a hint of frankincense, and something sweet.

Wet on skin: sweet sandalwood and cedar with a little bit of frankincense.

Dry on skin: dry, dry, dusty woods. This is so woody! It's like planks of cedar and sandalwood polished with resin-it's a very nice scent, warm and almost like incense. I get a sweetish note to it all-not sure if that's high John or galangal. This is quite a pleasant scent.

After a while: eventually it's a gorgeous cedar scent-pretty much all cedar, which is lovely, with a hint of sandalwood's warmth and frankincense's golden accents glistening through it. There's a slight spicy scent to it-almost like ginger, which may be galangal.

There are times when this reminds me of Shadow, but without the lemon. Then the end drydown is a lovely sweet sandalwood-the two wood notes like to swap places in here, each one showing itself more over time.

Verdict: I really like this scent-it is very, very woody but pleasantly so. It's a warm, dry, dusty scent of cedar and sandalwood and I really like the incense feel of the scent. There's a hint of sweetness to it all-not sure what's causing it, but it's predominantly woody. This is also a good, but non-lemony, substitute for the discontinued Shadow. Not one for a bottle but the imp's a keeper for now. This may be good to wear when reading Harry Potter or other wizardy/magician themed books.

Emoticon rating:

If you like this, try: Arcana, Shadow

Edited September 28, 2006 by yeahbutnobut

[Elrianra]

Wood and smoke, very masculine; sharp high resonating maleness in a vial. On me wet? Oh dear that's too strong... this is cedar and high john with a sharp and very viscious frankincense. As it dries, this loses not a single iota of conviction: masculine and powerful from the very first, this breathes a fiery essence of hard-headed testosterone. Warm, the power of this blend has faded to a musky herbal woods, reminiscent of wood smoke and firelight in inflection. Still very masculine, this is sharp and almost pee-ish. Unfortunately, this is not something I'll be keeping around.

[fairy]

I would consider this one to be another gender neutral scent. Great for a guy, but also great for a girl. It's not entirely my cup of tea, I'm more of a froo-froo girlie scent type gal, but this wasn't bad. At first smell I got bitter smoke and thought "uh-oh" as I'm not a fan of the smoke. Then it settled nicely to a warm, leathery smell.

[PilotKitten]

Whoa CEDAR! Erm, yeah... my skin *really* amplifies that note. I feel like I just walked into some Texas Hill Country store with all the cedar panaling. My grandparents used to have their living room done up in all cedar trim and this reminds me of that... but it's not really a scent I want to WEAR. I catch a faint spicy hint of the frankincense, but naught else.

[TrailerTrashPrincess]

cedar and sandalwood. simple and straightforward.

[blackfelicula]

In the bottle: I smell sweet resin and wood. It smells a lot sweeter than I thought it would.

 

Wet: These are lovely woods, and the sweetness tones down somewhat when it is wet on my skin.

 

Drying down: A sharper resinous scent is coming out now. It is really quite lovely in the mix. It’s still rich with fragrant woods and sweetness, but the scent is fuller, more complex.

 

Dry: I smell some of the frankincense now. I am not quite sure what high john essence and galangal smell like. I will have to look them up sometime. I would describe Magus as profound and powerful.

 

Later: This faded rather quickly, but once in a while a waft of it will hit my nose. It is a lovely scent. I wish it would stick around longer!

[Diva Urd]

I am not quite sure what galangal and high john essence smell like, but they must be what hit me first when I sniffed on the imp. It's very hard for me to describe just what they smelled like - there was a freshness to the notes I'm talking about, something very slightly sweet and maybe a bit of a wood I don't recall smelling before, all on top of a gorgeous sandalwood note.

 

On me, it smells quite nice - and not really all that masculine. It really has a "magical" feel to it, at least for me.

 

Sadly, my husband, who tried it after me, amped something in it in a really weird way (I must assume again that it's the galangal and high john essence) and the notes started to scream on him, overbearing the woody base. Too bad - then again, my husband's skin tends to do a lot of weird things to BPAL oils, and I'm still on a crusade to find more wearable scents for him.

 

I will definitely use up the imp and see then if I want more.

[tinyvulture]

woodsy and spicy. deep sandalwood (pencil shavings!) and cedar at first, and then the umistakable scent of sweet frankincense creeps in and takes over. very dry and slightly smoky. seems like something a wise and powerful old man would wear. one who is still physically strong, just getting on in years. there’s something aged and familiar about it, like a cedar chest in the attic filled with mysterious old artifacts.

[grifyn_whiffs]

I don't let that whole "masculine" thing scare me. I LOVE cedar and sandalwood, and though I don't recognize the other notes, they seemed intriguing.

 

IN THE BOTTLE: Would you believe… sweet? We walked into a cigar bar once, though not to have a cigar, and the scent of this reminds me of it. It does smell ancient and male. My husband says "like an old man?" and I tell him to shut up.

 

WET: The cedar and the sandalwood seem to be prominent notes. Again, I don't know the actual smells of galangal, high john essence or frankincense, so I can't tell you if they're in this or not. That's sort of sad to me, actually. I would like to be able to identify the various notes. Maybe I'm only smelling the cedar and sandalwood because I know those smells? Hmmm.

 

30 MINUTES LATER: Nice! Still very male. I smell a library with dark mahogany shelves and tables, and lots of leather-bound books. Who knew something could smell "arcane"?

 

ONE HOUR LATER: This has dried to a sort of smoky caramel scent, pipe smoke in the dustiest of old libraries. I love it! Then again, I love old libraries. "And old men," my husband interjects.

 

"Shut UP," I gently explain.

 

THROW: Medium, mostly. It smells more like some place you've been than something you've put on.

 

NEEDED TO BE REFRESHED: Quasi-frequently. The smell seemed to fade after about two hours (faint at arm's length) to three hours (faint even directly at the wrist).

 

Comments: I found this one soothing. It seemed to calm me down.

 

PURCHASING: goes on my Maybe list. I like it, but I can see it being for a certain mood only, so I might not go beyond my imp. The nicest thing about this one is that I can hug the husband and give him "scent-by-proxy" without compromising his masculinity. Hee!

[fiddledragon]

This was my introduction to the fact that I cannot wear cedar. On me, it goes entirely to #2 Pencils, compromising eventually in the drydown to smelling like #2 pencils which had been used recently to stab galangal root with. (Boyfriend's comment: "Well, I suppose students of the arcane might use a lot of pencils in their research..."

[mermaiden]

I almost didn't even try this imp because the description seemed too masculine to me, but I'm glad I did. I received a frImp of this with my last order.

 

I can see wearing this on a crisp, cloudy fall day, or on a snowy day in early winter. It reminds me of the smell of a fireplace burning in an old house, in a room filled with a lot of old books and tapestries. Goes with my big baggy sweaters, baggy khaki pants, boots, and a long scarf.

 

In the imp, it's a bit sharp / acrid, and not at all what it morphs into later.

 

Wet, I smell the cedar, which begins to gently morph into this amazing smokey smell. The FIREPLACE smell.. it reminds me of the small chimnea (fireplace) a B&B I once visited.

 

There is this middle ground where it kind of smells like.. dare I say.. Polo (Ralph Lauren's creation that just about every teenager and 20-something wore back in the 80s). I didn't much care for this transition, and perhaps it was my chemistry that brought this on (not sure even which element was creating this phenomena) but it changed once again to this earthy, smokey sweetness that (like others have said) had me sniffing my wrist for hours.

 

Sandalwood is one of my favorite scents - if not my absolute favorite. I'm guessing that the sandalwood in this blend may not be a synthetic variety and/or is some really lovely stuff from India.

 

I may have to order a full bottle of this at some point - but I'm going to try Cathedral first before I decide.

[Kitrona]

This was really good on me, and even better on my husband. I can't identify actual notes, but I like it enough to consider a bottle.

[steffanina]

Magus-

 

In Bottle: Peanut butter. I am not making this up.

 

Wet: Peanut butter and wood sandwich. A very nice wood, not sandalwood nor cedar in my opinion, but more like...the wood you're building a house with.

 

Dry: This smells like I'm standing in the middle of a house that's being built, with only the skeleton of the wood around me. A tiny bit of cedar--a little like pencil shavings--arises, but it's mostly a neutral wood. Fascinating! Not a frequent-wearer, I don't think, but one I'll definitely keep around for a sniff now and then.

 

Overall: Neat!

[supremegoddessofall]

Strong cedar! Very yummy, although it's pretty much drowning out everything else. Getting a little light sandalwood in the background, but that's pretty much it.

[sterlingspider]

bottle: very hard to pin, Very sweet cedary sandalwoody scent

wet: very woody but with a really sweet, juicy, almost bubblegum undertone, not cloying though, I'm guessing that's the frankincense (reads other posts) or maybe the galangal

drying: a bit more cedar coming out, the scent is definitely drying out and softening.

A bit later: somehow this has morphed into something that doesn't smell quite like wood anymore, but yet somehow still does (I know that makes NO sense) it's all sandalwood sweetness and ozone.

About 2 hours after application: It's gotten very sweet again and there's a LOT of ozone to it now, almost no wood, all just sharp and very fruity. I smell like a jar of jellybeans, and not in the good way.

 

As usual it seems it started out great but lost me in the long haul. I just amp everything up to cloyingly sweet it seems.

Though my pet hedgehog seems to like it.

 

Magus gets a 4 out of 5 while wet, but unfortunately drops to a 2 on drydown. Ahh well, the search continues.

[space girl lost]

i got a frimp w/ cedar in it w/ my last lab order and now another. i think i can safely say that cedar and my skin do some intense stuff as all i can smell is the exact same thing i smelled with the last - cedar wood chips.

 

i now have a sworn scent enemy. i do not dig the cedar. and sadly i already knew sandalwood was right there too.

[Ciircee]

Got this as a frimp in the last order (yay the Labbies love me and I love them!).

 

This is a very sweet, smoky, resinous blend on me. It smells deep and warm and not powerful, but strong. It lies fairly close to the skin and lasts middling-long on me. Lasts longer on Mr. Circe, and damn does he smell good in it.

 

It does smell woody, but it's not a dry scent--there's something to (probalby the High John) that keeps it from being dry.

[Mountaingrrl00]

When I sniff this in the container, it's almost entirely cedar. But on, it blooms into this deliciously complex and unusual woodsy-resinous-spicy-herbal, just slightly juicy blend. It does smell "swollen with arcane power". I've worn it to bed before and had especially interesting dreams.