Strangler Fig

[Lucchesa]

A glorious parasite! Once the seeds of the Strangler Fig find root in the bark of a tree, snakelike roots erupt and reach graspingly at the sky. The Strangler Fig then sprouts numerous epiphytic vines that strangles and surrounds its unwilling host, and finally snuffs the life from it. Rooty, woody, with deep green tones.

 

In the imp: sweet and fruity (figgy? I love figs!) But when it hit my skin, a resinous note took over, like a snapped tree branch smell - very different from the bottle smell. On drydown I thought for a moment that it had faded away completely after about 30 minutes, but it was just regrouping. It came back with a complex mix of earthy green smells, with the sweetness there in the background. And it lasted longer than most oils do on me, so I could still get hints of it in yoga, and it made me feel flexible and strong. Definitely a keeper.

[lizabelle]

Hm. I love fig scents but this one is a bit odd. There's something kind of soapy in here, which leads me to believe there's some kind of aquatic note clouding things. There is a dark, borderline-chocolatey rootiness that I also smelled in Deadly Nightshade Honey and Oleander Honey. I wouldn't quite call it earthy, but it adds a lot of depth. Overall much sweeter and softer than I expected.

[torikitty]

Finally ordered an imp from the Lab. Part of me is like "Why didn't anyone tell me to order this earlier?", and another part of me is "It smells nice, but you definitely don't need a bottle". I find it interesting that people are matching this up with chocolate or green. I get neither of those. To me, it's sweet, and more like violet powder. This smells like when the sunshine would warm up the freshly-watered violets in my grandmother's window. So, take that smell, mix it with a sweet, fruity bathroom powder. I wouldn't attribute fig to this since I've been making tons of fig jam all week. In a roundabout way, needing to assign a sweet fruit, you could attribute to fig; but I assure you, this is not what green figs smell like.

 

Overall, it's nice. I can see this being too powdery or sweet for some folks. I don't know that the description does it justice. It's definitely worth trying before buying, IMO.

[Lunasariel]

In the imp: I don't have a good scent profile for fig IRL since I absolutely hate how they taste, so I'm afraid I can't speak to that. This is a creamy, sweet, fruity scent - I think this may be the same fig as in Nasty Woman, which I adore. There's something I can't quite put my finger on complicating the scent, cutting the sweetness and giving it some gravitas. I can't say whether it's a woody or green scent like the description says, I just know it's there.

 

Wet: It does almost a complete 180 and becomes an incredibly realistic forest scent (I believe I'm getting pine and/or fir) with a faint but distinct darkly fruity-sweet note winding throughout. Somehow, taken all together, it feels unsettling - a haunted forest with poison fruit ready to drop.

 

Dry: More green-woody than woody-green, still with some ineffable creamy sweetness hanging around. I could do with either less sweetness, or just a different kind, but I am and will always be a sucker for green scents, so I'm calling this one a winner!

[dementia_divine]

This is an old, aged imp.

 

In the imp: Soft fig and a rooty quality that reminds me of Screaming Mandragora.

 

Wet: The fig note is the first to jump out at me, followed by the rooty aspect of the scent. The fig and the roots actually have a bit of a waxy aspect on me, which also happened when I tried Screaming Mandragora. But there's a sweetness present in this that isn't due to the fig. Maybe it's a bit of coconut?

 

Dry: This is a soft, sweet, rooty fig scent. The sweet note is definitely coconut. It's far more prominent than it was before. I still get a somewhat waxy aspect to it on my skin, but it's not as strong as it was before.

 

Verdict: This one is a nice fig and coconut scent, but I don't really think it's for me, due to the waxy quality that I get on my skin.