The Raven

[AmethystDahlia]

Sleek, dark, and ominous. Violet and neroli mingled with iris, white sandalwood and dark musk.

In Bottle: I can smell it from a considerable distance. I have a feeling this one will have some throw. I think I smell more of the sandalwood and neroli than the floral notes.

On Skin: The first whiff smelled strange and kind of unpleasant (reminded me of a wet dog or something), but luckily that only lasted for about a split second before becoming a nice floral with a hint of the sandalwood. For some reason I keep wanting to describe wood notes as smelling "spicy", even though they're not spice notes. In any case, I like it. Also it actually doesn't have as much throw as I expected it to.

Dry-Down: This one lasts several hours on me and continues to smell absolutely lovely the whole way through. It's a sweet scent that isn't overly sweet. The floral notes are definitely the most prominent as it fades.

[Vaudevillain]

In the bottle: çlear, light floral. Beautiful.

 

On the skin: Still a soft, white floral, but less clear- it blends together a bit more to be something more solid.

 

final impressions: I like this. Won't wear it every day, but definitely worth keeping.

[MCS4096]

I get a lot of iris and black musk, with violets not far behind. The effect is certainly inky and soft. I don't really get any neroli that I can tell. I'm a huge black musk lover, and I just don't like it as much when mixed with the violets.

 

This blend has a similar (although darker) feel as Une Folle Enterprise.

[calivianya]

BPAL's violet note goes to weird plasticky playdoh violet candy on my skin, and this blend is no exception. The nasty violet candy playdoh has reared its awful head, and now I am having trouble washing it off.

[WidgetAlley]

Imp: Strong, sweet violet and a deep musk (but not, I think, black musk, since it doesn't have that weird powdery-lemony-animal smell I associate with black musk.) Maybe a bit of iris, and some nutty, dry sandalwood.

 

Wet: VIOOOOLET and powdery iris soap with that sandalwood that turns particularly gritty on me (almost like I'm rolling incense grains over my skin), and then just a brief hint of bitter, bright neroli. The musk is quite strong as well. It's very, um.... mature. It doesn't smell like old lady perfume per se, but it does sort of smell like something... Sybil Ramkin might wear it, we'll say.

 

Dry: Lovely, gritty soap. Not for me.

[Opulence]

I did not have problems with this going powdery the way some of the other reviewers have. However, The Raven is just too melancholy for me.

[damonkitty]

I was going through some of my untested imps today and came across The Raven. I skin tested it the first time and without looking at the notes I would have put money on it having skin musk or a powdery note in it. I then got a touch of floral that I thought for a moment was gardenia so I washed the scent off. Later, I decided to put a touch more on to give the scent a fair chance. I fell in love with the musk note again, bu this time I got only a small amount of floral. I wrote the name of the scent on paper so I can pick up a bottle later. When I went on to write a review I was shocked to see the actual notes. They are all my usual death notes rolled into one . I usually can not do sandalwood, iris, or neroli. This blend made a believer out of me to at least give some of the florals and sandalwood blends a shot. If I would have read the notes first I may not have even given this one a skin test. I think I amp the dark musk and it is amazing!!

[Teaker]

I can't believe I haven't written a review for this yet- it's my favorite bpal! A lovely juicy-purple scent. Has spectacular throw on me, which is very unusual. This isn't a scent where I can smell all the individual notes, the only one I can pick out clearly is violet. The neroli gives maybe a hint of bitterness, just enough to keep it from being overly sweet. And I get kind of a creaminess that I associate with iris (which always smells very smooth and silky to me). I absolutely adore it, which kind of surprised me since I'm not usually wild about florals.

5/5!

 

Edit: Aging for a year has changed this a bit. I can clearly pick out the sandalwood. I like sandalwood in certain scents but generally not with florals. I'm also sorry to say it's gone a touch soapy. I still love the violet in this, though.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Teaker

[JuliskaMarie]

In the imp: Iris, sandalwood & dark musk with a tiny bit of neroli & even less violet. Something in it does make me think of a bird with sleek, black, glossy feathers. Definitely something a raven in a dark poem (or a fairytale) would smell like!

Wet on skin: Woah, there's the violet! It's not a clean, fresh violet though. It's a dirty, musky crushed violet. The neroli is there too & the iris & sandalwood have merged into the background. The kind of perfume an ominous fictional raven would wear if he were turned into a man (masculine, but not excessively so). I imagine the raven's human-form as very pale, with dark hair & dressed solely in black & grey, in a Victorian-style suit. That's who would smell like this.

Dry on skin: Violety-irisy-sandalwoody-musk! Mmmmm! More masculine than most of my usual favourites (I'm still getting the Raven-turned-man vibe), but not so masculine that I would feel strange wearing it.

After a few hours: Soft, fuzzy, sandalwoody, musky violet! Lovely! It's a little darker & more masculine than the scents I usually wear on a daily basis (most of my favourites are ultra-girly smelling), but I still really love it!

Verdict: I can definitely see this making it's way into my regular rotation! I tried it on my husband & it smelled pretty nice on him too (though not quite as lovely as it did on me & it's faded a lot faster on him than it has on me), so I'll probably have to upgrade to a bottle at some point, especially if both of us will be using it!

[Veronica]

Lovely violet wrapped in a warm, dark musk. The neroli warms it up as well. Deep, warm and mysterious. Lovely, but not bottle-worthy for me.

[petrichorandleather]

in the bottle: IRIS! Wow, hitting me right in the nose again and again. It's overpowering every other note.

 

wet on the skin: Iris with neroli bravely trying to fight for its place. Neroli is losing and still all I get is IRIS,

very harsh.

 

dry down: And just like that, the iris recedes and violet sashays to the front, dancing with quiet neroli.

The iris never leaves though, she just broods in the back.

 

final thoughts: Though it's nice I am extremely particular about florals and this one just doesn't do it for me.

It's a tart floral with a powdery finish that I'm not fond of. Off to swaps.

[Bassmastadroog]

I wanted to like it for its name... It is not a terrible blend...its just off for me...but I hope somebody else enjoys it!

 

In bottle: Soapy violets.

 

On skin: Violets! Probably iris too...its a purply dark flower smell with green striking through. Very fresh and pretty at this point. Powdery slightly...but not too much. I can smell the sandalwood.

 

Dry: Very much like candied violets...I wish the original wet violet/iris scent stayed...now its just sandalwood and candy violets...which makes a sweet purply candy baby powder.

 

Its not terrible...and I may keep trying. I liked the wet stage best!

[dementia_divine]

In the imp: I'm smelling the violet, bitter neroli, and iris. I'm not fond of violet and iris, and neroli has a history of being horrible on my skin. But mostly, I smell the violet.

 

Wet: Violet, neroli, and iris reign, with the violet being the strongest.

 

Dry: This is still VIOLET LIKE WHOA on me, but the dark musk has emerged, and there is a hint of sandalwood in the background now. Violet and iris are the main players, though.

 

Verdict: I'm not a violet fan, and this one has plenty of it, so it's not my cup of tea.

[Cali]

Here I was, expecting something dark and broody, I'm getting a very fresh sandalwood. It goes even sweeter on my skin!

To be fair, there's a bitterness in it, and a whisp of cold air.

My skin drinks it up but holds on to the white florals and sandalwood.

[Convallaria]

The opening is very green, I think I get Lab's grass note. Violet flower and iris kick in shortly after. Musk spiced with sandalwood in the drydown. Decent wear length, low throw but nice intensity. Nice mixture of green and sweet spices, needs some testing but potential full bottle buy.

 

(I'm taking notes on imps and bottles I own in alphabetical order as I test them and this one came right under Poe (event exclusive, got imp with purchase). Coincidence or...?)

[Teamama]

Mmm! On my skin, I get mostly dark musk, violet & delicate sandalwood. The iris is very faint, and the neroli isn't noticeable. A possible bottle.

[renfair]

This scent came as a frimp to me from a FB sale, though I think it was new.

First Sniff Impression: Mr. Bubble. Yeah, like the stuff my mom would pour in the tub for me in the mid-80's!

Wet in Vial:Sort of a sicky sweet, fake bubblegum smell.

Drying Down on Skin: Fortunately musk starts to come out fairly quickly to balance out the sweetness, which I think might be the sandalwood and violet giving me the bubblegum hint. It's getting a little powdery on me. It's a very cold floral.

Dry on Skin: I vastly preferred this one a few hours after application. A lot of the "bubble bath" smell has faded, leaving a fairly basic, though slightly warm, floral. I think if it started off with this scent, I'd like it a little more (though the name would feel less fitting).

Conclusion: I definitely got a "coldness" from this scent, but not much that was dark or ominous. This is probably because of my own association of the immediate smells with the bubble bath I used when I was about four years old. So maybe without that initial prejudice I would've been able to judge this one better. However, it's not my brand of floral, and I think I'll be passing this on to someone else.

[patina]

I have a super aged bottle. It starts out as wet violets and dank sandalwood. I can't really pick out the neroli. The musk combined with the violets smell like...hair...oil? I've never smelled hair oil in my life, but I imagine Victorian men would wear something like that.

 

On drydown it goes a bit powdery. Not baby-powdery, but like a dry attic trunk filled with sandalwood.

 

This might sound less than appealing, but for me it's a go-to comfort scent.

[Lucchesa]

In the imp and wet, The Raven is all violet, all the time. Black musk can be a problem on me, but it stays resolutely in the background, as does the neroli (which I love) at first. As it dries down, the sandalwood and neroli begin to play more of a role, balancing it out in a way I prefer to the almost single note violet of the wet stage. Really lovely once I can get past all the violets.

[gloame]

Bright, sweet violets and something green-dry-leafy behind it. A raven sitting in a yew tree, hidden by the bushy limbs, watching everything without being seen. Interesting but I don't love it.

 

Where I'd wear this: A walk through a night garden, Austria

[Ghost of a Rose]

Frimp from the lab aged about 4 years

 

In the imp, all I smell is a bit of wood.

 

On my skin, wet: This is surprising me. With all those floral notes, I expected to love it. But on my skin, it's just a generic women's-cologne-for-the-masses. No realistic flowers at all.

 

After 10 minutes, I can pick out a bit of violet, but it's still predominantly a light cologne.

 

After 30 minutes, all light cologne again. It's okay, pleasant enough. But nothing special.

 

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

Edited August 16, 2018 by Ghost of a Rose