Death and Life Completed

[hkhm]

Grey amber, carnation, lemon balm, hydrangea, Chinese peony, white sandalwood, cypress, juniper, cedar, hibiscus, and African daisy.

 

imp: carnations and lots of woods, this is lovely!

 

wet: the woods are incredible in this blend, smelling very like sweetened, myrrh resin while the amber and florals are giving this a nice sweet creaminess. this is a very beautiful scent.

dry: this dries to a soft amber with hints of woods and florals. very soft and pretty.

[porcelina]

love the painting, but this is too sharp and floral for me. it makes me want to sneeze... very unpleasant.

[theseagrows]

in the imp, this smells like a bouquet of fresh cut flowers. on my skin the amber and lemon balm come through and soften the florals. once it dries, it turns into a slightly powdery musky-floral, which i am thinking is the grey amber + carnation. i wish the carnation was a bit stronger than this, as it is my favorite floral, but i still really like this one. definitely keeping my imp.

[fairnymph]

In the bottle: Sharp and green, almost minty.

 

Wet: Much more floral, a hint of sweetness. The sandalwood and amber provide nice warmth. As usual the peony is taking over on my skin. I like the amber in this because it's not too overwhelming.

 

Dry: Stays pretty true, although the floral fades a bit with time. I'm pleasantly surprised, though this isn't really something I'll wear.

[greenranger]

Carnation...peony?....maybe the hibiscus....There are definitely flowers there, and they aren't the ones I am accustomed to. I can smell the woods and juniper as well. It's still very flowery on me.

 

Very flowery isn't usually my thing, though for carnations I can make an exception. The woods are promising as well.

 

I'll have to give it a few hours to see.

[sqwook]

Wet: Bright, "perfumey" but in a way that I somehow like.

 

Dry: Over a long period of time (3-4 hours) the brightness slowly, slowly, fades back, leaving a wonderful carnation / amber / sandalwood spice. A HUGE change from when wet, that takes hours to fully develop.

 

I agree w/clover's review - all the notes are blended so seamlessly, it's hard to describe, and hard to categorise as even floral, resiny, or sweet. As she mentioned, "golden, smooth and a bit bright".

 

I sometimes need a scent for work that says, 'I am "professional" and can run with the suit-and-briefcase crowd, but I am still myself, and I'm awesome.' In the past, I turned to Manhattan for that, or possibly Mag Mell. Now I think it'll be "Death and life" all the way. Will need a bottle when my imp run out. Or maybe sooner.... I love this.

[rayvn1]

Very nice! I really like the grey amber I've been trying in some of these salons like Bat. Sweet and lovely, not alot of throw but I'm glad I tried this

[stellans]

a whole lot of nothin’ -- indiscriminate floral-type notes, with a hint of the Orient, but nothing really jumps out at me, and the combination is unremarkable. At least, that’s how it is today. This will be another ‘put up and test again sometime’ bottle. What IS it with the Salon’s imp/bottle differentiation?

Edited July 14, 2011 by stellans

[parrot_suspect]

I'm kind of at a loss for how to describe this. It doesn't seem really flowery. I can detect the carnation, yes, but none of the other notes stand out particularly. Like many other Salon scents, this is very well-blended and smooth, with a sophisticated feeling. Sort of an ambery/fresh/green/dusky floral blend. It smells clean without being the least bit soapy. This would be a great fragrance for just about any occasion, I think. You could definitely wear this to the office or out for a nice dinner, but it would be just as much at home at an outdoor cookout or hike in the woods. I don't know what to compare this with, but it's gorgeous, and I'm going to get a big bottle.

[crebbsgirl]

This is a warm and enticing skin scent. It sort of envelopes you and hovers pretty close, but hints of it will catch you and others close by off guard. The grey amber is familliar from Sapphics, and the carnation note here is a total standout. It is a little floral-y at first, which I blame on the peony and hyrdangea. As this dries though, the cypress and juniper come out, lending a bit of a green woodsy feel. Smooth and quietly sexy. I quite like this.

[voodoocatwoman]

Carnation and sandalwood FTW. I can't describe this blend beyond this except that it is mildly powdery but gorgeous. I have a feeling that amber is contributing to the gorgeosity but I can't specifically pinpoint it. The longer it stays on, the more powdery it turns. I would LOVE to have a dusting powder that smelled like this. YUM.

 

 

[tailoredshirt]

Wet, this is beautiful. Floral with sharp and soft notes, and a bit of bite...from the lemon balm, I think. I agree that it is a bright scent. There is also a slight coolness to the blend overall. A bit perfume-y, but not in a generic way. It is slightly sweet from the amber and the cedar, and I really love that cedar/carnation combination, which reminds me of The Bow and Crown of Conquest, one of my favorites.

 

As it dries, it gets sharper and more perfume-y on me. I have tried this in the past, and at times it has given me a headache and made me a bit nauseous. I think it must be the florals, since I don't have that problem with any of the other notes.

 

Lasts for a few hours, but the best part is the first hour for me. A very pretty scent, but I'll have to think about a bottle...

[Dybael]

Wet: Sandalwood times a million. I'm new to perfume and still learning my skin chemistry, but this is the third scent I've tried that had sandalwood in it that turned into sneezy nasal assault, so I guess it's a note that refuses to play nice on my skin. (Along with sage, and stargazer lily, and orris root... when do I start finding notes my skin actually likes?) There's something peppery alongside this particular sneezy nasal assault - is that carnation?

 

Dry: Oh, there are the flowers! They're hiding behind a lot of woods, but since I'm no longer sneezing it has to be the evergreens coming out to play? Whatever they are, they make the floral notes very dry. I'm smelling dried rose petals even though rose isn't listed as a note. This is a Good Thing, because the lab's actual 'dried rose' note doesn't like my skin either, and this actually smells really good.

 

Wow. This is a lot nicer after I've given it some time to dry down! I'm glad I didn't wash it off right away.

[Ghost of a Rose]

In the imp: Oil is clear and a light beige-yellow in color. It smells like a bright, classic perfume with plenty of florals and some lemon.

 

On me, wet: Same as in the bottle right at first. But within a couple of minutes, the balsamic woods come out to change the entire character, making it a little sharper, less girly (yet still very feminine - womanly rather than girly), and more unique. But the woods aren't too strong or astringent. The florals are still the main game, which keeps me loving this. Fairly light and delicate; very formal and elegant.

 

After 10 minutes: Same as above. The lemon is very subtle and flowery rather than fruity - definitely lemon balm rather than lemon fruit. I like that. The woods help to ground the scent. The grey amber is a gorgeous overtone floating above everything else.

 

After 20 minutes: A little drier, but no less beautiful, and still very bright and joyous.

 

After 30 minutes: The amber is going a bit powdery, like it always does on my skin. But I don't consider that a bad thing - it's not baby powder but a shockingly expensive luxury body powder. (I'd LOVE to have some of that.) Otherwise, much the same.

 

After 1 hour: Same as above, but significantly weaker.

 

After 2 hours: The same beautiful scent, but now quite faint.

 

After 3 hours: As light as it was to begin with, and as quickly as it began to fade, I am pleasantly surprised to find that the fragrance still lingers. It is now all powdery - but lovely - amber.

 

After 5 hours: I'm surprised again! I thought it would all be gone by now, and the amber is. But with the amber gone, a faint trace of the classic perfume fragrance still lingers on.

 

 

Verdict: Very sophisticated and formal for a floral perfume, like an exclusive designer scent but without the chemical whang. The fragrance stays pretty consistent after the first few minutes. Utterly, drop-dead gorgeous. Damn, I wish I'd gotten a full bottle before it went down. There were just too many imps to try, I didn't get to it in time.

Note to self: Do wear this in the scent locket, to make it last as long as possible.

 

My rating: 5 stars

Edited August 15, 2012 by Ghost of a Rose

[Convallaria]

The opening is a lovely blend of woods, sandalwood and something very much like a smooth resin/candlewax (lemon balm?). Sadly, sweet mix of sandalwood and amber overpowers everything once it starts going dry, and is pretty much all that's left eventually.

 

Not sure if it's worth the effort of procuring the full bottle. If there was something more to amber/sandalwood blend in latter stages, definitely, but it's pretty much generic once it arrives to drydown, and that's relatively fast for Lab, too...