The Death of Autumn

[requieminblack]

When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,
Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,
Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek , --
Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes
My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die,
And will be born again, -- but ah, to see
Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!
Oh, Autumn! Autumn! -- What is the Spring to me?

Dark amber, dead leaves, khus, saffron, bitter clove, chrysanthemum, camellia, galangal, and a drop of oud.

At first sniff out of the bottle I get a that 'greenhouse' smell of plants, not flowers, but plants. Which is probably the chrysanthemum talking. Then the Khus comes out to play which to my nose smells just like Vetiver. Once on my skin right away it becomes the smell of dead leaves all the way. *sniff sniff* Yep, dead leaves/dying plants with a very slight hint of smoke.

After a few minutes it begines to morph and I start to smell a hint of the amber, clove and saffron. This amber is not as sweet as other amber blends, it is indeed 'dark'. The clove in the is very mild and on the back burner. I want to say it is slightly similar to Baghdad at dry down, but much darker and complex.

After 20 minutes it morphs again and becomes sweeter and a little spicier. As it fades is is now all amber on me. I love sweet/spicy scents and this phase is my favorite so far. This one is such a morpher and all the phases are wonderful. It's such an exotic dark and sexy blend, I love it! So yea, dead leaves on a crisp day in autumn and a faint whiff of Halloween spiced amber. Yep, I'd say this IS the smell of the girls perfume from the Type O' Negative song 'Black #1' fer sure.

[Rosaleen Dhu]

Death of Autumn hates me. It's my own fault, really, for missing the key ingredient my skin hates. Khus, or vetivert.

 

As soon as I sniffed from the bottle, the back of my throat said "uh-uh nope", but I ignored it and applied anyway. Within minutes I was beginning to be headachy, Spooky was sneezing, and he said I smelled like his aunt after a hair appointment. My chemistry turns something in this to hairspray, and since all the notes but khus work well on me, I'm blaming that, and myself for not noticing it, and googling it, before I ordered.

 

So now I stash the bottle in a very very dark place for like 3 years, and hope that aging makes this something I can wear, because I had such high hopes for it!

[fountaingrl]

OOoooh yes! In the bottle it smells dank and kind of spooky, cold and imposing. The minute it hits the skin: BAM! Walking in a wood at twilight in fall. Dirt, wetness, leaves that are rotting.

 

Then it dries down and it is like walking in a wood but smelling the smoke from a distant fire, and there is something sweet waaaaaay in the background. Almost like a sweet-haunt, like a shadow of sweetness that when you sniff your wrist you wonder: was it really there?

 

Amazing, gentle, complex scent, so glad I got a bottle!

[miss apple]

Yep, I'd say this IS the smell of the girls perfume from the Type O' Negative song 'Black #1' fer sure.

 

Oh, now that's a good comparison! Yes, I think that the girl in Black #1 would definitely wear this. It's dark and elegant with a touch of the exotic. I can't really pick out one note over another with the exception of a strong impression of vetiver at first (which does fade and play nicely with the others after it dries down) but the blend is delightfully mournful and spooky all at once. A perfect autumn scent and another one that I think would smell wonderful on a man.

[Lucretia]

I'm so silly, this was nothing like what I was expecting. Teach me to assume that spices will be the dominant note. lol.

 

This scent is amazingly evocative. It really does smell like a dark night with a big smoky bonfire to me. It smells like a dark autumn. It's a dark, wet, smoky, and did I say dark, scent. It's perfect for what it is, but ultimately I can't wear scents this smoky or dark. I think for someone who enjoys the scents evocative of bonfires this would be lovely though.

 

edit to add that the final dry down, like 6 hours later, is really pleasant. The spices are prominent now and the bonfire has died down. It smells like a nice autumn day. I don't think I can wait that long though for it to be mellow though. On me at least, it lasts for hours but has morphed a great deal.

Edited September 10, 2007 by Lucretia

[monsteralice]

Death of Autumn is very evocative of walking through a magic wood with dead leaves underfoot. The dead leaf note floats, slightly bitter, under the spices for a very nice effect. The spices are loose incense in the hand, not burning incense. The total effect is warm brown velvet.

 

Duration was not very long; it was gone by 4 hours. But it's worth applying more than once a day.

 

I only allowed myself one of the Halloweenies. I'm glad I chose Death of Autumn.

[AliBabble]

it's dark and bitter, and at first it reminds me of Lex Talionis, which i sold off recently, but enjoyed occasionally when i didn't want to smell real sweet. this one reminds me of medicine show too, another one i got rid of, but had that deep, dark medicinal smell. i get the bonfire thing from this, and dead, dark leaves. something reminds me of tar or rubber tires. the clove is there, thankfully, to lend the tiniest hint of dry sweetness. somehow, this smells like leather to me too. i'm on the fence - it smells good to me, but i think i wanted a little more richness, spiciness, or sweetness from it. it's a bit "blah" on my skin, considering all the lovely things that are in it.

 

ETA: ok. i tested it some more, cause today was a cool fall-like day. it turns sweeter than i initially thought - the amber, perhaps? the color i get from this is "root beer brown". in other words, there's something vaguely sarsparilla-ish. on me, this scent has a lot of lasting power - the few times i tried it, it lingered through-out the entire day or night. unfortunately though, the ultimate dry-down smell is a sort of men's cologne/perfumey smell. but this is indeed a scent that lasts.

Edited September 15, 2007 by AliBabble

[naeelah]

I've been searching for the perfect "walking through the woods in autumn" scent for a long time. The scent of dead leaves and the vaguely spicy quality that comes with that. So I was really looking forward to this one.

 

For the most part, it doesn't disappoint. It hasn't morphed much over the last two hours. Like many scents, it's a little sharp starting out but quickly mellows.

 

The qualities of this are dead leaves, wood, spice, and vetiver. It's rich and organic without smelling dirty. It's light but it's not overly airy. The vetiver adds a slightly sharp quality, but it isn't strong enough to give me a headache (as it often does). I generally hate vetiver, and its presence does kind of ruin the scent for me (it's the ONLY down side) but I will say, the vetiver (khus) here is way better than any other vetiver I've ever smelled in BPAL.

 

Apparently, Khus is a rarer and smoother type of vetiver. This is a more subtle vetiver, and it lacks the burnt grass quality I get from vetiver in other blends. I look forward to seeing how this ages, because iirc, vetiver is a note that's supposed to age well.

 

So, this does smell like you'd expect -- dead leaves. If I look for the individual notes I can pick them out, but they all blend really well. Nothing jumps out at me at all. The overall effect is walking through the woods in fall. Bravo!

 

Throw is a little light, and wear life seems to be average to shorter than average.

 

--

 

I was so looking forward to seeing how this ages. The leafy, decayed quality has become even richer and better. Instead of a walk through the woods, it's like diving into a pile of leaves. The khus was pretty agreeable when the scent was young, and I really hoped it would become smoother with time.

 

I guess it has. Because now, instead of smelling sharp, it smells like fucking BARBECUE. Ugh. I'll try it another few times, but it looks like it has become completely unwearable for me. I can only hope the retail only Autumn will fare better for me.

Edited February 18, 2008 by naeelah

[eanewsom]

I love amber, saffron, clove, and camellias, so I had to order a bottle of this. And it smelled exactly like dead leaves, mostly dry but with a few hints of decay. No saffron at all. I didn't notice much morphing besides the scent getting drier. It's kind of intriguing to sniff in the bottle, but not enough to keep it. It definitely smells like walking in the woods in October at night, which I love to do, but apparently I don't love to smell like it.

[dronzeka]

Okay, I'm totally confused by this. I had really high hopes - I thought it might be a kind of amber-spicy scent a bit like Faiza, except brown rather than green. And, well, it's not. But oh well, that's my own fault for assuming things, I think.

 

I really don't know what to think, though. In the bottle, and wet, I get VETIVER, which doesn't go bad on me or anything, but just isn't my favorite scent. It's too dark and bitter. At this point, I'm ready to because it's not what I hoped.

 

Pretty quickly, though, as it dries, the vetiver backs WAY off. And at this point I get a little bit of amber and a little bit of what I think is saffron, maybe a little galangal. It's much nicer at this point, but it's also almost entirely gone - it just vanishes, and I put a fair amount on. It could be a kind of nice autumnal skin scent - but really, I think it just doesn't work for me. It's a little too savory (what I can smell of it if I huff like mad). So sad!!

 

(Though I agree that it would smell really good on a man. Mmmm, actually, I would really like to smell this on my husband... too bad he only wears scent when I smear it on him, to humor me, so it's not really worth keeping the bottle just for that. )

[wren08]

fountaingirl has raved about Death of Autumn so much that I need to try that and see if I need more so it goes first.

 

In the bottle, I'm not crazy about it. Wet, it smells like a pile of wet leaves... appropriate, I guess but maybe not the way I want to smell walking down the street.

 

Hey.. wait a minute... somebody set fire to these leaves! There's smoke and it's warming up... not so cold and rainy.

 

Dry: Yep, this is a lovely bonfire now... it's still wet leaves but crackling merrily with fire and just enough smoke. The night is still cold but the fire is lovely and warm. I do indeed need more!

[lapetiteflower]

at first i'm getting vetiver. vetiver generally scares everything else away when it hits my skin, though this is a more mellow than normal vetiver. as it dries down it turns into glorious golden spices and dry crushed leaves...there is something subtle underneath that brings to mind scherezade...it must be the saffron. this is a light gold scent, definately the clear winner out of the bunch that i ordered...i may have to spring for a backup bottle on this one. oh, and as it's transitioning from sorta- scary vetiver to glorious spices there is a brief period of bonfire smoke....

[Wench457]

I weep.

 

Autumn is my favorite time of year, and I love the crisp, dying leaves scent in the air. Alas, on me, the Death of Autumn is all VETI-whodafuckyoulookinatcuzI'llkickyourass-VER. I have a visceral reaction to vertiver, which, let's just say, isn't the good kind. How I hoped my all time favorite note - oud - would trump the dreaded vetiver, but it was not to be.

 

And it never got any better.

[hipslike___cinderella]

Death of Autumn is an example of my amp-tastic skin throwing two main components in my face and not allowing for any other morphing to happen.

 

In the bottle itself I perceive this as thickly resinous; sticky, and somehow "muddy", but without a dirt note. There's something familiar here- maybe the galangal? I"m not sure. I can't see any hint of clove or saffron right now. This is a deep, dank autumn night, like further into autumn, before winter's cloak.

After reading other reviews saying khus is something like a sophisticated vetiver, this blend makes more sense to me. That is vetiver that I'm smelling! And I do love vetiver, even though it rip-roars all over my skin. DofA is no exception. The khus is overwhelming initially, nearly to the point of single-note strength. This wears on this stage for QUITE a long time, but eventually amber starts to spread out and match khus's strength. It's a murker, sticky amber, but not sweet. This is sort of like the dark amber in The Emathides.

 

...Sadly, I start to get bored with the khus and amber show no signs of yeilding. I want to whiff the clove, saffron, and chrysanthemum! This isn't a bad blend, by no means, but I don't get the chance to see the complexity it had the potential of containing. I won't purchase any more than what I have.

[oakmoss]

I have a severe case of vetiverphobia, so I was rather daunted when I sniffed this in the bottle, but tried it on anyway. Perfumes that morph tend to morph on me very quickly, for better or worse. This one went through the vetiveresque phase into a sort of spiked sarsparilla, like someone threw a handful of cloves into the root beer brew and mulled it for a while. I'm not getting any smoke or a particularly woodsy feeling about it. It's warm and, I would say, masculine. More masculine than I like to wear, anyway, alas.

[eleventhousand]

This sounded so awesome that I did no research.

Apparently khus=vetiver...

...or if you're me VETTUH-VUUURRRRRHHHHHH.

 

'Nuff said.

[tartchef]

Now see, here's the freaky part - by all rights this should have sent me screaming for the hills, as I am She Who Amps Vetivert. I, too, neglected my research until after ordering, and was convinced this would be a total write-off. But.

 

O frabjous day! Calloo! Callay! A vetivert I can wear! Wet, Death of Autumn is disturbingly close to the slimy water dumped out of a forgotten vase of flowers - slick, rotting vegetation. Thankfully, it transitions quickly into spicy mums with a deep earthy backnote. The amber pokes its head out now & then, with a puff of sweet powdery resin. As it develops, more of the clove comes to the front.

 

This is a silky, velvet brown powder of a scent - less dark & disturbing & more dark & mysterious... a woman cloaked in brown velvet, lurking in the shade of an ancient tree with leaves swirling around her feet...

[jolarocknrolla]

oh, finally! I can wear one of these leafy autumn scents. Samhain and Samhainphobia struck out for me but Death of Autumn is a winner it smells totally of falling leaves, not the mildewy rotten ones but freshly fallen leaves. This is a lighter, fresher scent than i expected. there's something woody and spicy too, but mostly lovely lovely leaves, the amber comes out only much later.

[Brianne]

In the bottle:

smells like a bbq to me, I swear lol

 

On me:

Oh vetiver. You tricked me, I really thought you would not be so demanding here This is VERY dark and bitter, and vetiver lovers will enjoy it, because - it's mostly vetiver. It does have a sort of smokey Autumn quality, and it is sort of evocative of the season, it's just too dark for me.

 

Once it settles a bit, I detect something green in the background - kind of an ivy-ish smell, and the vetiver backs off a bit. It becomes slightly sweeter (just a tad, this isn't a sweet scent) and it becomes more like smoke now and less like a vetiver attack.

 

Final note:

That vetiver is a little off putting, but once it settles in it's not too bad. It reminds me of Samhainophobia, it's similar in vibe and darkness. I enjoy it more in it's later stages, but I'm just not certain if I need to keep it or not. I'll have to try this again another day.

[clover]

Sniffing from the bottle: woah, that's sharp.

 

Upon application: Completely different from how it smells in the bottle. It smells exactly, EXACTLY, like dry and barren corn fields. (Trust me, I'm from corn country, I know. How does a Califonia girl like Beth know? I have no idea? ) Actually, when I first applied this I sort of didn't remember what the poem was all about, and I was all "Huh? Dead fields?"...and then I remembered. Really amazing.

 

But the best part is that scent is fleeting, and after a few minutes it settles down into a gorgeous, lightly spicy, warm, traditional perfume. Which is great, because while the scent of barren fields is extremely evocative, who want to smell like that all of the time. The clove is really strong on me, and it's set against a backdrop that is dry and lovely, like leaves rustling in the wind. I will wear this a lot this fall.

 

Conclusion: Besides being beautiful and really wearable, I think this a very smart perfume. Big thumbs up!

[hellomoonglow]

Arrrgghhhh! Clove! Chrysanthemum! What was I thinking?!?!?!? I don't like clove. And I've never met a clove that liked me! Off to the swap pile with you, Death of Autumn!

[alicia_stardust]

THE DEATH OF AUTUMN - Beautiful, atmospheric, and the khus behaves itself!

 

Wet: It's sharp. I smell dark green grass and a touch of saffron and clove.

 

Dry on Skin: The khus is very strong here, but at the same time I get a nice bite of sweet, warm saffron and clove. The chrysanthemum and amber remain present but in the background. As time passes, the khus really calms down and I get more and more of the dead leaves. These are the brightly colored fall leaves, the kind that crunch as you walk on them and that scrape across the pavement when the wind gusts. The scent is very distinctive and reminds me of jumping into a leaf pile. You have your face right up with the dead, dry leaves, the decay, and the earth. It's all there.

 

This is a very evocative and atmospheric autumn blend. It is something I will enjoy wearing, but I also cannot wait to put this in an oil burner.

Edited September 23, 2007 by alicia_stardust

[Tal Shachar]

When I first tried this, I hated it so much I was already composing my "take this off my hands pls" LJ post. Thick, dark smoke like burning tires, and NONE of the other notes were coming out. Ordinarily I can wear vetiver without any problems, but this was simply unpleasant.

 

Then, about fifteen minutes later, the scent very suddenly morphed and the smoke dissipated. The khus is now like ordinary vetiver on its best behaviour: dark and earthy but not overpowering. I can smell the amber, the saffron, the galangal, and yes, even the oud--the oud being the note I bought this blend for. It's spicy, wild-smelling, smooth and dark. I don't get a leafy note at this point unless I really use my imagination.

 

It's also somewhat faint, and the thought of applying more and going through that "stuck in a burning warehouse" phase again is a bit off-putting. The spicy stage is definitely good enough to save this one from swapdom, though.

[Medici]

In the bottle: Wet earth, vetiver, overturned roots. Decidedly dark, and very masculine.

 

Wet: Earthy patchouli, a forest floor, and oud jump out first. The combination really does remind me of wet leaves on the ground.

 

Drydown: Bonfire smoke on top of everything. It’s a dusky, dark scent that still manages to evoke the idea of night in the forest. The vetiver by this time is just a suggestion, as finally, the blend warms to that great, dark amber note that will make this blend wearable. For whatever reason, it takes the masculine edge off for me. So while the blend is still heavy and mysterious, it’s not outright boyish which I can appreciate.

[Delirium1009]

In bottle/imp: Dark amber and bitter spices.

 

Immediately on skin: Dry, dark, and somewhat powdery. The amber and leaves are the main note, plus some bitter spices that don’t quite smell like clove. There’s also some woodsmoke tickling my nose, or it might be the oud mixing with the dry, bitter notes. It has a sweetness, but it’s very slight and overshadowed by the dark scents of the other notes. It’s unusual, but this blend seems like a mix of smoke, dead leaves, dry and bitter spices, and dusty fall flowers… in that order.

 

After a few minutes: The wood note has kind of faded, and been replaced with more of an incense type of smoke. The amber is still very prominent, filling out the scent quite a bit, and blends nicely with the saffron and clove. The khus smells like smoky vetiver, and not as bitter as it usually seems to me. The slight sweetness of the saffron and fall florals lurk under everything else and round out the blend. It’s very pretty, but still very dry, murky, and dark.

 

Overall Impressions: I’m torn on this scent, just because it really does turn very nice after an hour or so. At first it starts rather bitter and smoky, but it settles down to something dark, deep, slightly sweet and completely reminiscent of autumn to me. If you’re looking for something that just smells like fall, try this one for sure.