Dr. John Seward

[PilotKitten]

Penetrating and gifted, vulnerable, with just a hint of opium-blurred delirium: poppy smoke, champaca flower, tonka, sandalwood, ginger, white pepper.

Ooh poppy smoke!! heavy on that! It almost makes my eyes water like I'm trying to see through a smoke-filled opium den. The white pepper makes a play in this as well along with the ginger. Not really notes I enjoy readily. Good scent, just really not for me.

[yeahbutnobut]

Dr John Seward

 

In the imp: hmm, I can’t really describe it any more than soft and sweet yet smoky, along the lines of Chrysanthemum Moon but without the sourness I got there.

Wet on skin: soft smoky opium spiced with pepper and sweetened by tonka, I think.

Dry: mmm, I like this. This has the same opiate ambiance as Mum Moon did-where the opium hovers in the air and clings to fabric, but here I smell a sweet floral note which I think might be champaca, since it reminds me strongly of Khajuraho. It’s a very sweet, soft flower resting on a pale bed of sandalwood, surrounded by an opium haze, but with a faint undercurrent of spicy pepper, possibly ginger too. There’s a very dusty feel to this scent, dry and old.

After a while: champaca sometimes has a habit of smelling like overripe fruit on me-it did that in Khajuraho but was held back by the other notes, and it does that even more here. I still smell the scent of opium tinged cloth, but the champaca is a little too sickly sweet for me now. Normally I love tonka but it seems to be exaggerating the cloying champaca even more here.

The scent that lingers on my skin afterwards is much more agreeable-it’s sweet parchment. It’s a kind of dusty old books with pale dry petals and leaves from trees scent, infused with poppy smoke and sweet tonka and champaca, the dryness enhanced greatly by sandalwood.

Verdict: I’m not sure what to think of this. I like the just-dry stage and the end drydown but I can’t handle the scent after half an hour of wear for a few hours after…at first it’s a similar ‘fabric infused with poppy smoke and a hint of ginger’ scent to Mum Moon, but with a sweeter floral aspect, sort of like a muted Mum Moon. But then the champaca gets oversweet and takes over for a long time. It seems that champaca might be another one of my problem notes, though it does sometimes work, it depends on the scent…but in here, magnified by sweet tonka, it smells like overripe fruit, almost verging on banana! I agree that there is a certain madness to this scent. The drydown is more like ‘mad opium-addicted librarian’ as I get something like books and parchment creeping into the scent. I really like this stage and if the champaca didn’t go crazy on me I’d keep this but I’m afraid the scent is too cloying and sickly for me to keep.

Emoticon rating:

Is it a keeper? Probably not.

If you like this, try: Chrysanthemum Moon, Khajuraho, Red Lantern, Languor

[blackfelicula]

In the bottle: This is thick and sweet, but with a peppery acrid note that almost scared me off.

 

Wet: The acrid note settle into a smokey, hazy, almost leather-like one. It is surrounded by the rich, languorous sweetness of opium.

 

Drying down: The tonka comes out and does nothing but good. This blend smells druggish and incense-like, but lifted up on a bed of sweetness that wafts around me and wraps me in the warmth of a fire in a wood-panelled room.

 

Dry: This melds beautifully with the chill in the air and the leaves on the ground. It is earthy and rich, yet deliciously sweet. I can see how this would complement the right man, yet it is another one of those "masculine" blends that works well on me.

 

Later: I hadn't reviewed this one yet because I had been wearing it around casually when I did not feel like taking the time to write things down. I think Dr. John Seward is a real winner, a pick-me-up and a comfort scent.

[Alchemy21599]

I acquired an imp of this scent from a decant circle.

 

In the vial: softly floral and sweet. Not what I was expecting.

 

Wet: I am still trying to figure out why this blend is so sweet. And I am waiting for the ginger.

 

Dry: I let this blend dry for over two hours and it mellowed into a sweet, slightly smokey blend. Pleasant, but it lacked the spiciness for which I'd hoped.

[xoe]

Wow Dr. John Seward, you are a soft and smoky fellow indeed.

This blend is a perfect daytime blend for me. It's somehow romantic though too. So I don't get lost in the mundane workaday world, lol.

 

I tried this last night, and it disappeared far too quickly.

 

So this morning I really slathered it on. It's been about 4 hours now and the scent is almost totally gone. If I sniff really closely at my wrist, I can smell it and it still smells lovely. I guess this is one I'll have to carry with me and reapply at lunchtime or something.

[Bagfish]

The champaca in Dr John is very heady and strong and lovely. Champaca and sweet tonka all I smell to start with and I put Dr John down as a sweeter Khajuraho (which is a GOOD thing in my book as I loves me Khaj!)

 

However on drydown after about an hour I get the dryness/bitterness of opium smoke and a little woody-ness (the sandalwood?) that stops Dr John being quite so sweet. I never smell ginger and white pepper directly, but I think they temper the extreme fruitiness of the champaca and stop it from being completely overwhelming.

 

I am so pleased I have a bottle of this (ordered before I got my decant) one the way, it seems that I chose right for once! This one is certainly a winner!

[moon_lemming]

At first, Seward is all smoke, but that clears up after a few minutes on my skin, and the tonka pops up, along with something that's almost kool-aid sweet. Maybe it's the champaca flower -- I'm not sure.

 

It's a leetle too high of a note for me, but it does smell good in moderation, and the sandalwood never even starts up its search-and-destroy mode.

 

eta: about ten minutes after application, a bit of ginger starts to show up, which cuts the sweetness nicely. Still too sweet to wear heavily, but it might be okay if applied lightly.

Edited November 20, 2006 by karen

[jewelbug]

Imp: Something fumey, something creamy (almost almond like creaminess, but I guess it’s the tonka?), really hard to tell in the imp....

 

Wet : Fruity, cherryish (like a lollipop), though this is nothing like jailbait lollipop…There is also a sharp floral that I’m not a huge fan of. This is sweet, and lightly creamy.

 

Drying: Okay, just cheated and looked at the notes--the fruity part and the sharp floral part are both the champaca flower, I think, maybe with some help from ginger which sometimes smells fruitloopy on me. But I happen to know that champaca flower works on me, so I just need to wait for it to dry out. The sandalwood is coming out now, too, nice and woodsy, and the combo is strongly reminireminiscentllion.

 

Dry: Yup, the champaca settled, and the sandalwood and champaca are equals in this blend. I get sweet heady champaca flower, dusty sandalwood (a lighter colored sandalwood, if I had to guess), and the slightest smokiness. Its like a lighter, less scorched hellion (no plum, though, and less spice). This would fall between Hellions grit and Khajuraho's sweetness. After about 2 hrs, the sandalwood backs off and this is a predominately champaca scent, wtih a bit of pepper. It lasts 6-7 hrs on me.

 

Overall: This is really pretty, but I think it would be redundant with my Hellion and Khajuraho. I will do a comparison of all three, but my guess is that the good dr, though wonderful smelling, is something I can pass over.

[sophia_helix]

This smells kind of fruity and alcoholic on me, and almost foody, with a sort of syrupy note. I don't get the smokiness of opium or sandalwood at all, and it reminds me of "red" scents like Midwinter's Night, with maybe just a hint of spice. I'm not wild about it, because I wanted something a little darker and stronger, so I'll pass it along.

[nancybridget]

To my sniffer Dr. John Seward is a light floral blend, contradicting the notes that are listed.

 

It must be the Champaca that takes over the ginger and white pepper.

 

I had thought it would be a spicier blend, alas, tonka comes along and proves me wrong.

 

Not quite for me, though I do have a soft spot in my heart for the dear doctor, because I enjoy champaca.

[slave1]

DR. JOHN SEWARD

 

In Bottle: Foody yum

 

On Skin: This is a very sweet scent! I smell something kind of like cakes at first… quite foody. But then I smell a light fruity floral. I can smell the sweet tonka and ginger and the poppy smoke offers great depth without being “smoky”. I get a nice resinous base with a sandalwood undertone. This is quite a unique scent! I don’t think it’s really masculine or feminine… The white pepper is kept in check as well, just a bit of spice. I do like this scent and the feeling it evokes. It has a fairly light to medium throw and a short to average wearlength.

[lookingglass]

This scent is really throwing me off. Lots of opium and ginger in the bottle, but once I put it on it throws a fakey fruity sweetness. I guess it is fitting, seeing as how this character is a psychiatric Dr.! Dried out the tonka and smoke note is quite creamy and beautiful but I don't think he and I are a good fit.

[Miss Lynx]

Hmmm. Not sure about this one. It comes across as predominantly floral to me, but with a strange sour/bitter herbal undertone keeping it from being too sweet. It's definitely not a women's scent, but doesn't really smell like a men's scent in the normal sense either. There's something almost medicinal about it, appropriately enough for something named for a doctor. It doesn't smell like it was meant to be worn as a scent at all.

 

It's odd, looking at the description after trying it -- this has many things I usually like in it, like sandalwood, ginger, pepper and tonka, but I don't smell any of those. Just the flowers, and that weird sour/bitter medicinal undertone.

 

I don't really get the delerious feel from it that other have mentioned at all... It's just a slightly off-smelling herbal-floral mix. Not too bad, but not something I could see myself wearing on purpose.

 

Grade: C

[eanewsom]

Looking at the notes, I've got no idea how my nose got what it did-

it started out sort of buttery sweet, like Miskatonic University without the coffee, but a little boozier. After a few hours it faded into strawberries, and then it mellowed into caramel apples. After about four hours I can still smell it if I sniff my wrist, but that's it. I didn't like the strawberry smell, but the earlier and later phases were lovely.

[The_Merf]

In the bottle: I swapped for this one because I was afraid it would be too much like Mum Moon, Languor, Opium Poppy and many others in my collection. I think I might be right--it smells very similar to Mum Moon.

 

Wet: Except for a first blast of the tonka, this does smell like the other opium scents I have tried.

 

Drydown and wear: This keeps the tonka base, which distinguishes it, but I don't really like it in combination with the poppy--the tonka goes very nutty and it doesn't jive with the rest of the notes.

[storme]

In the imp: smoky champaca, sort of stale but floral. Not very enticing.

 

On me, wet: poppy and tonka and sandalwood, sort of dusty and plasticky and with a weird fake-fruit tinge to it.

 

On me, dry: oh ew ew ew. The florals and the fruitiness together are sticky and alcoholic, and the poppy smoke over the top too... enh.

 

Verdict: The notes don't play together very well on me, and since even in the bottle it's making me recoil, I don't even want to try it on the SO.

[azhure]

In the bottle: I get mainly the champaca flower (love!) but little whiffs of the poppy smoke as well.

 

Wet: The smoke and sandalwood amp up initially - I despaired of this scent going all to smoke. Luckily there's enough sweetness to counter it, and after a while the smoke fades back, with the florals coming to the foreground.

 

Drydown: On me, this is like a lighter Khajuraho, with a hint more subtlety. Lovely. I'm glad I have a bottle.

[Ajila]

In the bottle - It's very faint, coconut and maybe a hint of ginger, but barely there.

 

Wet on me - Predominantly sandalwood and something slightly unpleasant that I can't quite place

 

Dry on me - Fades quickly to a faint sort of aftershave spice

 

Overall - A little faint, but something I might experiment with

[emzebel]

Reading the description of this, I should love it, as I love almost every note. But the poppy smoke/opium haze will get me almost every time.

 

Dammit. This was one of those blends that I actually had to wash off, because the opium scent futzes with my sinuses so much. I think it might have been really pretty under that murkeiness, too...

[girl_android]

Penetrating and gifted, vulnerable, with just a hint of opium-blurred delirium: poppy smoke, champaca flower, tonka, sandalwood, ginger, white pepper.

 

Reading back on the notes, I have absolutely no idea why I signed up for a decant of this. It was probably the fact that ginger was mentioned, but I think I was just curious, my untrained nose doesn't know what to expect!

 

In the imp, there's this weird buttery nutty thing going on with something smokey. I don't detect anything gingery, but there is definitely something peppery going on. It's not sweeet at all to my nose, at this stage.

 

Wet on skin, there's something vaguely banana-ish going on. From reading the reviews above, I guess that's the champaca flower. Bizarrely, it smells like burnt plastic plus bananas plus nuts plus smoke. Not the smoke that we've been smelling lately with bushfires trying to eat up the whole state, a different kind of smoke.

 

Once it's dry, the banana goes away, but the burnt plastic sticks around a bit. No sign of ginger, there's a little something still about that makes me think pepper, and a teeny bit of sweetness - tonka?

 

I'm not sure this is for me - I didn't give it a test (beyond having a sniff) immediately after receiving the decant, just in case my nose was being silly that day. I'm still not sure if my nose is not just being silly, but I think this decant might do better finding another home ...

[QueenFae]

Wow, I bought this for my husband for Christmas, but gee, it smells awesome on me! It's so much sweeter and lighter than I expected it to be. There's a smoky, floral, sweetened feel to the whole blend. The tonka and the flower notes are on top. The opium and smoky notes are the undertones, and they are so beautifully blended it's really hard for me to pick them out individually. My skin is really pulling out the soft florals, and it actully smells quite feminine on me . This is a lovely, unique blend, and I really love it. A pleasant little surprise, and I hope the boy wears it often.

[Naamah_Darling]

This one has hardly any smell in the bottle, very little throw. It's sweet tonka and smoke with a yummy hint of ginger and a little of the pepper's sweetness. The flower is there, very faintly. All the notes are present, but it's so very quiet and subdued.

 

This is lovely once it warms up. Sweetly smoky, woody incense with ginger spice and creamy tonka. The pepper is lively, as always. You know, I enjoy pepper in perfumes, which I didn't think I would, but its spiky sweetness is always so charming to me. The champaca flower is sweet and damp, and it blends, oddly enough, with the ginger. This is a very rich and actually quite feminine perfume. You know, sexy, drugged stupor and all that.

 

Dry, the flower and the ginger are quite candylike, an odd combination. It gets more floral as it wears on, but it's such a sweet floral, sticky, that it's not powdery at all. I really like this. Girly and candylike, yes, but it's a nice scent, rich and layered and a little overheated, just like I like them.

[oh_the_horror]

I don't understand this one. It's very feminine on me and also my boyfriend. It smells kind of like generic sweet floral perfume. My boyfriend said it smelled like flowery and fruity bath and body works sprays that his sister used to wear.

 

It smells like jasmine(although jasmine usually goes really sharp on me and this is more like jasmine before it hits my skin) and really sweet raspberry. Two smells I just don't like.

[lanablade]

Alright... What I want to know is how the heck this one turns to that generic berry thing my skin does with anything resembling a roundish fruit. There are no berries listed, but from the moment I put it on till the moment it fades, it smells exactly like Lady MacBeth, Montressor, and Urd. Why must the curse of the Generic Berry strike? Where have you hidden the sandalwood and tonka? Why did you abscond with the ginger and pepper? Where are you my beloved opium?? *sigh*

Edited January 23, 2007 by Lana Blade

[baranoouji]

I didn't start out wanting to like Dr. Seward, but I do. It smells like sweet smoke and spicy wood.

 

I really like it, but I wonder if I'll get sick of the sweetness in time.

 

I'll probably wear it for a few more days before I make up my mind about finding more.