The Lurid Library

[sarada]

The incense-tinged scent of forbidden tomes and the musk-laden remnants of infernal servants.

An incensy library scent?! Are you kidding me?! They didn't even have to ask me to order this, they should have just billed me for it automatically!

Don't be afraid though if incense is not your thing, this is a subtle incense, that has long since settled into the dusty volumes. It has soaked into the parchment, beneath layers of dust. A gentle, warm scent that really doesn't display its full lurid set of papery plumage until you put it on. These sort of scents really warm on my skin and become nuzzle-worthy. Put it on your favorite bookworm and then you'll want to distract him/her from their reading as it heats up on their skin.

I think I catch a glimpse of the incense I loved in Riding the Goat -- a soft, slightly sweet, slightly tobacco-like note, woody and glossy and rich, but muted and distant in this blend. Faint wisps of smoke, and a breath warming on the back of your neck -- but when you turn to face the sweet-smelling spectre, he has vanished and only a faint outline remains traced in the air.

Wear this one when you read at night, or study, or in the library, or a haunted mansion, basement, or haunted forest.

[Bangles]

This one is not for slathering, at least not on me. It's best as a subtle scent. Because having slathered it, I was able to detect a nice light, creamy, musk scent - but the rest of the notes just did this harsh perfume-y thing. Not fun.

 

But as it dried, that harsh perfume-y scent miraculously morphed into the pages of an old book, still with that nice musk as a background. Very pleasant. The incense never made an appearance, alas.

 

Though it's not really a scent I see myself wearing again, I intend to try this one as a room scent.

[wren08]

Hum... this is nice. Wet: it's mostly warm but too well blended for me to pick out any notes. (I'm rotten at notes anyway)

 

Dry: it's reminding me of Miskatonic University although maybe not quite so sweet and a little like Pinched with Four Aces. There's wood and leather and oldish paper and a little spicyness like someone has burned incense in here a long time ago. Maybe a little coffee. This is what I imagine the Restricted section of Hogwart's Library to smell like.

 

Just for fun, I predict that this will be the popular one of the Haunted House series... and I think I want another bottle of this too!

 

Edit: Oh noes! My skin eated it!! By the time I got home from taking the kids to school, I can't smell it. I can still tell I'm wearing a scent... but I can't smell much more than that. Which means that it either works really well on me and just smells like me only better... or it really does vanish in an hour.

[lapetiteflower]

i get no forbidden tomes out of this, much to my sadness, but it is a warm and wonderful incense and skin-musk scent. have you ever held your arm over the smoke coming from your favorite incense and then smelled the skinandsmoke combination you get? that is what this smells like...it's warm and close...like being wrapped in a blanket, reading in an old library by stained-glass lamplight, with a fire burning, snuggled on an old velvet couch with your love...

damn, it's making me want to have wild, passionate le sex on the library floor. not the public library, mind you. the haunted mansion library. *bites lip and heads for cold shower*

 

several weeks later:

 

after ageing a bit and settling down, now when i put it on i get that initial blast of skin musk and incense and as it dries down i'm finally getting dusty books and incense. it's glorious! this has become my default bedtime scent!

Edited October 21, 2007 by lapetiteflower

[Morrea]

In the bottle: Dry floral, with hints of musk and incense

 

Wet on skin: Lovely muskiness, with a touch of incense and floral; fabulously dry and restrained. A very ascetic scent.

 

Drydown: The "paper" scent seems to be some white floral, which is bad news for me, since I amp all white florals. Sure enough, in first test, this went to purely floral as it dried. Wow, that's a flowery library! The second test was even flowerier, and the third time, I could smell the musk and incense more on drydown, but it turned bitter, with a burnt rubber quality to it.

 

I can't decide whether I like this or not. I don't like most florals, and I was hoping for a truly dusty-papery scent, with more emphasis on the musk and incense notes; this seems more akin to paperwhites. The burnt rubber - in a way I won't even try to explain or understand - seems like an improvement over the overwhelming flowers (stupid skin chemistry, grrr!). I'm hanging on to this for now in hopes of it improving with time, but I suspect this will end up on the swap pile.

[aine]

Have you ever looked at a comet in the night sky, and realised that you can see it clearly when you are not looking directly at it, but it seems to disappear when you focus on it?

 

That's what The Lurid Library smells like for me. If I try to smell it I get nuthin'. But all day I found myself trying to pin down that gorgeous scent. I'd catch a sweet musk - and for one weird moment I actually thought I could smell the scented erasers of my childhood - but mostly a sweet musk, the faintest floral, and a room. Not so much books or incense, but a room where time and people have left their mark.

 

A quiet scent, ghostly even......

[jolarocknrolla]

pretty straight up musk and inscence ... no morphing here, it stays true from wet to dry. i know there aren't supposed to be floral notes from the description but i smell faint floral - not a lot, but just a little there at the edges. Reminds me a tiny bit of Cathdreal but more clausterphobic, more dense (even though it doesn't have a very strong throw).

[slittlecrowrussell]

The first blast is incense, incense, incense. Then musk and more musk. Rich, deep, sexy musk - not powdery, sneezy, wussy musk. Black musk smells horrible on me - so I'm guessing this probably a red musk variety (aka - Schezerade, etc.). This reminds me a lot of the particular incense note in my beloved Gypsy Queen...

 

This isn't a complex morphing kind of scent, but its simplicity means that will also be an absolutely fabulous scent for layering. I can probably safely add this as a base note to any scent that I want to make more complex by adding a twinge of incense to (especially anything that's spicy). It would probably work to tone down any scent that's too bitter/sharp/leathery or any scent that's very floral sweet (especially something with rose or lily notes). Not too sure that it would work well with foody notes - the exceptions being cocoa (not chocolate) or vanilla notes which would probably smell pretty darn good with a little of Lurid's musky incense mixed in.

[funkmoppet]

Oh my.

 

Say hello to a world of incense and musk! Delicious, dark and purple. This is not the Library of a studious gent of gentle upbringing - this is a library full of books best hidden, full of things best not known.

 

Delicious and beautiful both. I love this blend!

 

*Fingers the evil books and waits for their tall dark owner to drift around the corner*

[Alchemy21599]

In the bottle: red? musk and slightly spicy.

 

Wet on skin: mostly musk and a hint of tobacco(?) sweetness.

 

Dry: Alas, too masculine for me.

[akw]

I think this blend must include something floral because it instantly goes to dread sharp and bitter soap. I never did get the incense or the books, but it's probably just what my skin does with florals.

 

[Tal Shachar]

Musk and incense both love my skin, so here they are rather drowning out the subtler bookish note. If I really press my nose to my wrist and inhale I can catch the dusty papery smell, but otherwise I will have to be content with the musk--light, but not sharp like the musk in Aziraphale--and the dusty, soft incense. No hard edges in this library, and between this one and Hunter Moon I now have two scents where the musk is actually my favourite thing in the blend.

 

As it dries, the paper note does emerge more, to my delight. It's not as throat-tickly as Aziraphale's dusty Bible accord, but it's just about as dry. (Am I alone in specifically loving the smell of mildewed books? That used-bookshop smell is what I keep hoping for from these scents and I never get it.)

 

A resin/musk scent that's actually subtle, I can get behind that.

[waternight]

In the bottle: Ack. Smells like generic perfume.

Wet/Drydown: Thank god, it smells nothing like it does in the bottle. It's a light yet rich musk. I don't really get incense. The paper quality is "white floral" for a few minutes, then it disappears.

Dry: Musk, musk, musk. On me, this blend is in the same family as Smut, but not nearly as boozy or sugary - it's what I wanted Smut to be. Sexy, rich, and wonderful.

 

ADDED Feb. 20:

 

This must have red musk in it, because my chemistry is reacting the exact same way as it does to red musk. Which is, OW. I was excited for The Lurid Library, but it's off to swaps. ::sigh::

[fortytricks]

It's a soft musk on my skin, subtle, with just a touch of the papery scent making itself known every once in a while. I'm not getting any incense at all.

 

After fifteen minutes or so something in it is causing an itchy rash on my neck-I had to wash it off. Sigh. I like the scent, but I'll probably swap it. I can't imagine what could be causing the reaction.

[Delirium1009]

In bottle/imp: Spices and musk.

 

Immediately on skin: Dry herbs and spices… that’s what I smell on my skin. There’s also some musk, but it isn’t warm at all. There’s a bit of incense smoke at all, but no floral note or sweetness to it.

 

After a few minutes: This truly does smell like incense and that scent you get when you open up a book and smell the pages… it’s very lovely. It’s dry, but just slightly floral (don’t worry you flower-haters… it’s more like slightly floral incense smoke) and there’s a nice musk to the base that’s very dry and deep.

 

Overall Impressions: A lovely incense blend. It really does smell like incense and books! It’s rather dry, so don’t expect anything sweet, but there’s a slight floral edge to it that makes it slightly feminine.

[alicia_stardust]

THE LURID LIBRARY - It's my very own dark, sultry, and mysterious library!

 

Wet: I smell the sweet bite of gummy incense resins and a soft, lilting sweetness.

 

Dry on Skin: I can immediately smell the incense resins. They are very rich and dark. I'm going to take a little guess and say that this has opoponax in spades!! I also smell something that reminds me of champaca and maybe there's even some labdanum and frankincense in there. Beyond those resins, I get a sweet and very sultry and musky essence a la a very, very toned down Smut. The resins warm, then sweeten, then turn dry before fading off into a soft shadow of spent incense and old parchment tomes.

 

I love, love, love The Lurid Library! If you like this, you NEED to try Temple Viper and Lycaon!

Edited September 24, 2007 by alicia_stardust

[khiseer]

This was a very soft scent to me. Even the bottle i had to really sniff to get a good gauge of the scent..

 

Definatley incense and books and a little bit of muskiness.. The book smell is interesting, like when you go into an antique book store but i don't want to smell like that! also I like my musk musky and not like an unopened room so this one isn't for me. It's very dry and i can faintly smell the florals people are talking about.

 

Off to someone who can give it love...

[jade_starlight]

Sadly, I'm not really getting any book-smell from this one, which is very disappointing. It is a nice, warm and smoky incense scent, but no old books.

[porcelina]

this is gorgeous. i don't know if i would call it my One BPAL To Rule Them All but it is definitely up there. it's effing gorgeous. old books and incense! there is one stage, after it's just applied, where it's super strong (odd because i figured this would be a much softer scent) and almost harsh but as it dries it is just beautiful, a smoky skin scent... not much throw but it lasts long... this could actually be my first multiple bottle scent.

[valentina]

Lots of people are getting incense and musk out of Lurid Library, but what I'm getting is a very proper, yet vaugely dark and smoky vintage perfume, circa the 1930's - 1950's. Peeking out underneath is is a dry layer of dustiness, that same dry note that is found is Miskatonic U. This doesn't especially morph scent-wise on me, except to get perhaps a bit darker and a wee bit more floral. Where it does morph is to start out rather faint, and to gather more strength as time moves along. It is tradtional, yet not. I keep getting the mental picture of a librarian in a creepy old library who works late at night, wears her dark hair up in a bun, puts on very dark red lipstick, and when she stands on a ladder to restock books, you can see that under her proper dress, she has on a black garter belt.

[alhbooks]

As a bookseller, I'm pre-conditioned to catch the scent of rare leather bound books printed on rag paper...none of this wood pulp stuff, thank you very much. The musk is subtle and I don't notice any incense, but it's definitely a perfume I could live in. Not overwhelming, but a steady pleasure.

[Koukla]

I adore this scent!! It smells like old, old books - more precisely, it smells just like being in the old town library on rainy, chilly days when I was a very little bookworm, with my books open on the floor in front of me and the dry heat inside making the scent of people's skin come off them like steam as they walked in. My God, talk about an instantaneous sense memory. The only thing missing is the smell of the book glue they used to use. *sighing nostalgically*

 

This is much more like what I'd been hoping Misk U would smell like, but didn't, at least on me. Although it doesn't smell at all like what I want to smell like, I will absolutely be hoarding this for room scent purposes.

 

(No incense for me, BTW.)

[UltraViolet]

The Lurid library is a tad sweet, with prounounced musk, and that musty old "Library" smell.

But not libraryish like Miskatonic U, it's more musky and perfumey, less coffee like and the old books smell, and the musty old library smell is more an underneath not, not a primary note to my nose.

The scent lasts a long time. A medium amount of throw. It's not a shy scent.

It wouldn't be a regular one I'd wear. My nose gives this a "3".

 

 

Edited September 26, 2007 by UltraViolet

[ceej]

A touch harsh when wet, but definitely light parchment. Fades nicely down to faint incense over paper and musk. Definitely exactly what the description says. I don't have the urge to slather, but this one is a subtle scent. It never slaps me in the face, but it persists quietly. I could still detect it on my wrists twelve hours after application.

[hepkitten]

I love Misk U, and wear it often. I've known that there was a dry, dusty book note in it, and I've been reasonably sure that I've smelled it in the background. When I put on The Lurid Library, though, my immediate reaction was, "Oh, THAT'S what that note smells like!"

 

However, this isn't just SN Old Book (though I'd love to get a bottle with that on the label); there's a lovely incense smell that intertwines with the dusty paperiness. This scent is very subtle on me, but it lasts pretty well...and it's WONDERFUL.