Death Cap

[Syzygy]

A lethal poison bundled up in a dainty, innocent little package that was oft times found in ancient witches’ flying ointments and astral projection balms. A warm, soft, ruddy scent, earthy and mild.

Death Cap. Baby.

Why you wanna treat me so bad, baby? Why can't you love me the way I wanna love you? I knew from the very first that you were the one for me, the one I'd been looking for. I knew it even before I met you. I could tell just by the things people were saying about you, baby: warm, sweet, earthy, named after a poisonous mushroom...baby, we were made for each other, don't you see?

Didn't I place that order all because of you? Didn't I go crazy waiting for the day you'd come to me? And when that day finally came, didn't I jump for joy right there in the Post Office? Out of all those imps, weren't you the first one I reached for?

I want to love you, baby. But you just won't give me a chance. You stick around for a little while, show me a little of that earthy sweetness, and then you fade away before I can get close, and all I'm left with is a whisper of vanilla. Why, baby? I thought maybe you needed some space, a little time alone. So I backed off for a couple weeks. But it didn't make a difference. You just won't stay with me.

Baby, was it something I said? Something I did? Come on, baby, tell me. I know we can make this work. It has to work. It's our destiny. I'll change, baby, I swear I will. I'll do whatever you want me to. Would you like me better if I wore a scent locket? OK, then.

[LiberAmoris]

Wow, Death Cap really does smell like a mushroom, it's amazing. I get soft woods, something a smidge minty, vanilla, and the tiniest bit of black coconut...? The oil itself is really viscous and a beautiful pale gold.

 

I can see why this has been raved over, it's very unusual and earthy without being overwhelming. I'm not sure it's quite 'me,' but I'll be keeping my imp to try a few more times before I pass it on.

[emzebel]

Death Cap grows like its namesake, starting with an earthy push of soil, and developing into a colorful, resinous, almost sweet warm umbrella of scent.

 

There is just enough earthen scent here to make the soil lovers happy, I think, but not so much as to be overly scary for those of use who like a warmer spicy scent. This is definitely the smell of something flora and natural though. I am falling maddly in love with it, and it is definitely on the big bottle list.

[Mary Mayhem]

Definitely some dirt going on here, and something sweet.. I'm assuming vanilla. Which is just *odd* to me.. Spicey on dry down. I smell a bit of mulch too.

 

I had high hopes for Death Cap, and it's pretty keen, but not my ideal dirt scent. I think I like more of a herbal floral in my dirt than a sweet underlay.

 

Very nice, though!

 

*covets Premature Burial*

[Eunice]

In the bottle: This is like freshly turned black dirt. Rich, moist, black dirt. The kind you want to plant wonderful greenery in.

 

Wet: All I get is dirt.

 

Dry: There we go! Still a wonderful dirty smell but now there is a slightly biting green scent. Dark green. And a touch of a wood scent, maybe cedar?

 

Overall: I don't know what to say about this. I adore the scent but can't pick out any individual notes. This is a bottle must have for me. Love this!!

[Aredhel]

Rating (on skin): 0/5

Summarised in a word or two: Dirt and mushrooms.

 

In the imp: Wet dirt and mushrooms.

 

On skin, wet: The very scent of a mushroom growing in earth. Nothing more, nothing less, and not a fan of earth/dirt, this is making me a tad queasy.

 

On skin, dry: I'd have loved for Death Cap to turn out on me as it has on others, and become a rich, warm, spicy and mildly earthy scent, but on me? It's all mushrooms and dirt. It reminds me very much of Graveyard Dirt, but with, of course, the addition of mushrooms!

 

Conclusion/Notes: I'm not the kind of girl that digs smelling as though she's just taken a dive under a pile of dirt-covered mushrooms, so Death Cap will be finding a new home.

Edited May 3, 2006 by Aredhel

[Merlu]

In the imp: Damp dirt.

 

Wet, on skin: Still damp dirt, but it becomes much more wearable in a few minutes, as it starts drying. It becomes warm and sweet. It reminds me of Premature Burial, but sweeter, more comforting and inviting.

 

Dry: Mudpie! You know the ones you used to make outside, after it had rained, and your parents would tell you to stop playing in the mud?

This is what, in your mind, they smelled like.

Earthy, but creamy, sweet and musky.

I can smell soil, amber and sandalwood, and maybe light vanilla... it's like eating cake after doing some gardening, and dropping your piece of cake on the dirt.

Not that it happens to me all that often.

 

It's unusual and gorgeous... I love it.

 

ETA: There's something sickenly sweet in this... almost intoxicating. That note became stronger with time, to the point where I barely ever feel like wearing Death Cap anymore.

Edited November 19, 2006 by Merlu

[desu]

In the imp: Dry, grey, mushroomy dirt. I've been hearing wonderful things about this, though, so I wanted to try it anyway despite De=dirt not really being a note I like.

 

On my skin: I would become an earthworm and eat dirt if it smelled this delicious. Bottle, definately.

[Astburygrrl]

Why yes, this smells like a mushroom sprouting in some very musky/dusty soil..I'd have to say its a bit too sharp on my skin but would make a lovely room scent indeed.

[fiddlehead]

When this is wet it smells delicious. An unusual blend of soil and something very much like Vanilla. I would have loved it had it stayed at this stage but it dries down into a fairly strong vanilla on me with no dirt note at all. Another oil I will have to try a few more times to see if it changes in the imp.

 

 

ETA: After wearing it a couple more times I've decided that what I'm smelling with the dirt note seems to be a vanilla/coconut sort of smell. Not really working for me...

Edited August 1, 2006 by fiddlehead

[Memnet]

Strangely enough, on me Death Cap sort of morphs into a kind of musty, earthy coconut. Strange, but not unpleasant.

[Rhowan]

In the vial and wet on my skin, Death Cap is pure damp earth - exactly how the dirt smells after a summer rain.

 

Drying down, Death Cap begins to take on a bit of a woodsy note on top of the dirt. It's not soft like sandal wood but more of a cedar. Sweet, woody damp earth.

 

Completely dried down, Death Cap is absolutely gorgeous! It is still damp, woodsy earth but not so intense as Zombie or Graveyard Dirt. It almost has a perfume like end note to it that I can't quite put my finger on.

 

Conclusion? Death Cap is a thicker oil in the same vein as Mandrake, but not as thick. Death Cap is the perfect scent if you want to feel in touch with the earth itself. I love this so much that I could wear it every day. This is definitely a 5ml must have!

[astridclaire]

In the Imp: Really strong and sharp-- it smells like a commercial perfume one of my grandmothers had.

 

On Wet: Oh that's much better. Damp musty dirt but... perfumey. Sophisticated and elegant somehow.

 

5 Minutes Later: It's much lighter now... like it's expanded. I know that sounds strange but I don't know how else to explain it. There's some sweetness coming out too and it makes this blend a little rounder. The original sharpness is gone.

 

I imagine a strong, 30 year old woman from old money wearing this while wearing a little black dress and pearls. Heh. I also imagine a hippie chick smelling like this after dancing all night at a concert. It's sweet and dirty.

 

10 Minutes Later: Hmmm... it's a little powdery, but in a really good way.

 

1 Hour Later: Boy do I love this stuff! It's so different that I keep smelling myself to try and figure it out.

 

Just gorgeous. Perfect for any time of year. 10 ml bottle a must.

[grrrlennyl]

at first: sweet, but with a fresh, dirt scent.

on: very light. definitely dirt, but with something almost like pennyroyal. interesting. this also has the same sort of vibe as black opal, so i'm wondering if it has something in common with that.

3.5 hours later: light, clean, and sweet.

overall: this is definitely a dirtier version of black opal on me. lovely!

[septima_pica]

O dirt, how I love thee...::rhapsodizes::

 

Really, Death Cap is almost too sweet for me, though. I lovelovelove the dirt note, of course, as I expected, but vanilla dirt -- wtf? I think I'll keep this imp for layering purposes, but I may or may not end up wearing it on its own. Maybe with Sri Lanka or Dee?

 

ADDED 12/5/07:

 

I've had this for a year now, and it's another one that got better as it aged. Just so you know. The dirt got more clayey (it weathered out! haha! /geogeek) and the vanilla smell is mellower and less over-sweet. It's a really warm, dry, comforting smell, and somehow mushroomier than it was before. I may actually start wearing this on its own, or maybe combined with Dee...hmm.

 

Added 3/19/08:

 

This is SO the best stuff ever. Muddy clayey mellow sweetness that has this amazing ability to damp out horrible powderiness that I always get from black musks, and all it adds is dirt -- never a bad thing. :-D

Edited March 19, 2008 by septima_pica

[Miss Lynx]

I was a little apprehensive of trying this after hearing Kettu say it smelled like dirt. I have a history of really hating anything with that "graveyard dirt" note, like Zombi and Penny Dreadful. But as it turns out, this one isn't so bad.

 

The earth here smells more natural, less rotten and decaying. There are similarities to Penny Dreadful -- the earth note combined with something softer and lighter -- but it's much nicer. An improved PD, if you will. The scent over the earth is light and creamy, sort of a milk-and-honey type of scent, and they blend together more harmoniously than the different notes in Zombi or PD. Looking at some of the other reviews, a number of people have mentioned vanilla, so maybe that's it, but if so, it's a decidedly non-Play-Dohy vanilla, which is rare on me.

 

It doesn't have much throw -- I can't smell it if my nose if more than a few inches from my wrist -- and it seems to be fading down fairly quickly, but what there is of it is not bad, and gets decidedly nicer as it settles in over time. It's got a bit of that same deep woodsy/incensey scent that's so lovely in Strangler Fig, though it's much lighter. Not yet sure if I'll keep it or swap it, but at least it's nowhere near as scary as I'd feared it would be.

 

Grade: B+/A-

 

ETA (about an hour later): Wow, I posted the above too soon. This just gets better and better the longer it stays on my skin, and the dirt note has almost entirely faded now, with the woody/incensey/sweet note becoming deeper and richer and really lovely. Definite resemblance to Strangler Fig (though that one's nice from moment one), and a definite keeper -- I'm bumping it up from the B I initially gave it to B+/A-.

Edited June 27, 2006 by Miss Lynx

[Rusalka]

This is so unusual; I really can't pin down anything individual in it at all.

 

In the vial: the scent is sharp, piercing, and astonishingly sweet, for what I'd thought was a scent heavy with dirt and earth notes.

 

Wet: my skin tends to amplify those earthy scents; Penny Dreadful is all loam, and nothing else, for instance. But Death Cap is a revelation; there's just the faintest background hint of earth -- and it's the clean, pleasant, freshly-tilled sort. The dominant note is that piercing sweetness -- which isn't the vanilla that people have described. I don't know what it is.

 

Drydown: Hellooo coconut! For all of several minutes. And I can't tell one coconut from another, but this is the mature, complex cousin to the light coconut of Elegba. Eventually though, this evens out into subtle white florals and just the tiniest trace of the vanilla I'd been hoping for, with that touch of faint earth lingering in the background still. Pleasant, and I'll keep the imp, but not really what I'd been hoping for.

[Diana]

I'm so excited to try this. I'm a nerd, I know.

 

Wet: dirt, with almost a sweet chocolately-carob type of note to it.

 

Drydown: slightly earthy, but it's really mild. There is still an incredibly nice sweetness to it, almost like a light musk. This is so very lovely! I might need a 10mL of this to roll around in. This is a bit lighter than what I usually go for, and it doesn't seem to be very long-lasting, but the combination of the soil notes with the sweetness is just too nice to pass up.

[edenssixthday]

Death Cap - I don't think any BPAL scent has ever surprised me more than this one. I read the scent description and I was convinced this was going to smell like dirt. And it does. When I apply it, all I smell is dirt, so I just put the tiniest bit on to test out. But then....!!!! Oh my!!! So I was sitting there, minding my own business about 2 minutes after I applied the tiniest bit of Death Cap to my arm to test it out. All of a sudden, I realize that I am surrounded by the gorgeous, sweet scent of coconut, and I'm trying to figure out where it's coming from. As I follow my nose, my nose leads me right back to my arm and to the spot on it where I applied the Death Cap! Sure enough, blended in with the dirt scent in perfect balance is something that smells to me exactly like coconut. The best part is the dirt scent (which I don't like) sticks close to my skin, but the coconut (which I loooove) wafts all around me when I've only applied the tiniest bit. I decide later to slather it, and I find the dirt scent has a lot more throw when I’ve applied it heavily, but the coconut is also extra-strong when slathering it. Even so, the dirt note doesn’t make me recoil and think of worms as dirt notes usually do. Rather, I enjoy the scent, oddly enough and for the first time, have an understanding of how some people can love their dirt scents. After about an hour, the dirt is sticking close to my skin again, but I’m still swathed in a veil of sweet, creamy coconut for several more hours. Even when the throw begins to fade, my skin up close is still fragrant with the scent of sweet, creamy coconut. This is a stunningly gorgeous scent, and I'm going to have to layer this one over my Ocean Mountain Skin Trip and/or any number of my Coconut Hut lotions/body butters and see if that helps suppress the dirt scent and if I don't get even more coconut scent that way. I'm buying more of this. I never thought I'd say that about a dirt scent, but wow, this one completely blows me out of the water.

Edited July 8, 2006 by edenssixthday

[mudtusk]

Ok, this is going to be one of those reviews that's all heart and no head.

 

Deap Cap is amazing.

It's amazing in the bottle.

It's amazing on yer skin.

It morphs only very slightly, in amazing ways.

 

It's kind of deep and a bit light too. An even man/woman split on the scent category.

It's a bit sweet, in a soft, maddening way.

 

There's something in here that reminds me Scales of Deprivation, maybe someone who knows what the ingredients are could help me out here!

 

Amazing.

[gangstaknitta]

Death Cap is amazing. A mildy sweet earthiness greets the nostrils, with a note that smells similar to almond to me in the bottle. On my skin, it turns into lovely sweet, sweet earth with a touch of...that almondy note, but almond normally turns to play doh on me, so I dont' know. It's very warm and earthy, yet light.

[Caltha]

Death Cap

Mushroom and earth, pretty much like Destroyng Angel. I think this is a slightly milder, sweeter, more perfumey mushroom scent though. It's funny, when I tried them on my skin earlier I didn't get mushroom out of either of them, and I thought they were much more artificial. When retrying them in my hair, they're very dirty and musty and natural.

According to my notes from when I tried Death Cap on my skin I thought it smelled strongly of plastic or wax or crayon, with a little earth underneath in a weird clash of artificial and natural. I can still see which note I was referring to as plastic or waxy, only now I find it very mushroomy instead. But yes, perhaps a slightly perfumed and sugared mushroom. A tad powdery too, maybe.

As with Destroying Angel I'd like to keep it because of the spot-on mushroom and earth note, but I don't really see myself wearing it. Dirty mushrooms don't smell that good, at least not when not mixed with other foresty odours. And it might certainly make people wonder when you go out in public....

I seem to recall from the description that this is supposed to be a lush and dark green scent, but I clearly find it brownish or rather beige-ish.

 

Well I was wrong about the description, I must have mixed it up with something else from Rappacini's garden. The actual description is rather spot-on.

 

But is it a keeper? I already have Destroying Angel for "unwearable mushroomy note".... And Demeter's slimy Mushroom. Death Cap gets more artificial and powdery and waxy as it dries so maybe I won't keep it.... The musty sweetness is a bit offputting, actually....

Edited July 11, 2006 by Caltha

[aidenraine]

I really am not a dirt scent fan... generally. However, there is something about Death Cap that I am enjoying. It's got an overtone of dirt, but is much more interesting than that. It's also sweet and musky. Indeed a great summertime scent.

 

It also has a really decent throw. I am sitting here smelling dirty and spice with my arms a fair distance from my nose. Most BPAL gets eaten by my skin immediately, so this is good It's dirt with hippie woods and incense.

 

I actually just made this into a little spray to carry around in my handbag.

[UploadedLobster]

Oh HOT damn. Dirt dirt dirt DIRTY DIRTY DIRT! WOOO!

 

I loves me some Death Cap. There's no dirtier dirt scent, ever, and it's touched with just a little hint of sweetness to keep it from smelling too much like a compost heap. This is loam, man--gorgeous black fertile earth. It's moist, too. I can't tell if the faint sweetness is vanilla, mint, or both, but it's so subtle it hardly matters what particular note it is.

 

Stays pretty true from first slather to dry-down, which I like very much. There's a green note that's a little less prominent as time goes on but the OMG DIRT stays just the way it is. I smile!

 

Lobster Rating

Better than: new combat boots

Edited July 16, 2006 by Uploaded Lobster

[empi girl]

I like dirt scents, and I like vanilla, so I thought this might be my thing.

 

Wet it is strong dirt, with coconut??? Yep, I get coconutty dirt.

 

The coconut softens, the dirt soften, yet they linger for 30-45 minutes. Then the coconut fades, the dirt remains, and there becomes a little more incense to it. This lasts a while, as the incense strengthens and the dirt diminishes, until it is a very soft, slightly sweet (vanillla?) incense. I'm not a huge incense fan, but this is gorgeous. Not a lot of throw, staying power seems to be about 3 hours.

 

Really nice scent. I'm not dissapointed!