Now Winter Nights Enlarge

[Eutectic]

Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze,
And cups o'erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

Shorten those tedious nights with a surge of body heat: vanilla-infused red musk, champaca, petitgrain, ylang ylang, patchouli, nutmeg, honey, galbanum, and traces of caramel.

In the bottle this is warm and slightly foody. A burst of the caramel, ginger, honey and vanilla. First on those notes pop up right from the start and make this seem too foody for me (I'm not a foody lover) but very quickly the darker grounding notes start to pull down the top notes to make the blend warm, sensual, and though slightly foody very dark in a sensual way. The dry down is a warm scent, with the patchouli, ginger and nutmeg dueling for dominance but with the other flowery notes pulling them away from being too floored. A very yummy scent that would be wonderful to wear on a cold and snowy night.

[alizarin]

In the bottle I get hit with a straight up sweet & gooey note I'm pretty sure is a combo of the caramel & honey.

 

Wet on me it's hard to pinpoint anything, sort of sweet and sort of muddled.

 

It went through a (thankfully short) powdery phase before dry down, honey sometimes does that on me.

 

But once it settled completely the powderyness dissipated and it is absolutely gorgeous. The spice balances out the sweet and it's beautiful and warm and amazingly blended, I can't pick out any individual notes. Definitely sensual, a warmth in the cold scent that matches the poem quite well. Can't stop sniffing my wrists. Very much looking forward to wearing this on chilly winter days & nights.

[cfrancesca]

Mmm...Sensual, rich caramel, red musk and honey. It's a bit heavy and robust, but in a delicious way Definitely sexy caramel!

 

One of my favorite Yules so far :love!:

Edited November 15, 2009 by cfrancesca

[hlemonds]

Perhaps i shouldn't be reviewing this yet, since my only test was yesterday just after these bottle arrived, but i have to put this out there. In the bottle and on my skin this is overwhelmingly caramel. I took a risk on this bottle, hoping that the caramel would not be noticeable, unfortunately this was not to be. I get the tiniest smidgeon of red musk and maybe the nutmeg....but otherwise it is HELLO CARAMEL. Do. Not. Want. Caramel as a perfume just makes me queasy, and i'm afraid if i had applied more than just the tiny dab i did, i would've ended up with a migraine.

 

A few things to keep in mind: This is my first scent with a true caramel note listed. I may be overly sensitive to this note, and it may amp on my skin, i really can't be sure. I also tested this fresh from the mail box, so i am going to revisit it in a few days and see if the caramel has perhaps been more incorporated into the scent. We shall see.

[Heavenlyrabbit]

My experience pretty much like Hillary's- PURE CARAMEL.

 

Not unlike Red Lantern.

 

This doesn't mean its a bad thing. In fact, it's pretty darned addictive.

 

And okay, okay, it's not pure Caramel. There are some other elements that bravely try to get noticed. But on me they never manage to assert themselves but do end up making the Caramel sexy.

 

Sexy Caramel.

Edited November 15, 2009 by Heavenlyrabbit

[thekittenkat]

In the bottle: Caramel and honey all the way! Yummy!

Wet: The caramel is slowly giving way to the red musk and honey.

The dry-down: Mostly red musk and honey, with the caramel still present but faint. Never got a hint of the other notes, not even the patch. I kind of like this, though.

Edited December 7, 2016 by thekittenkat

[vanessaxxx]

Perhaps i shouldn't be reviewing this yet, since my only test was yesterday just after these bottle arrived, but i have to put this out there. In the bottle and on my skin this is overwhelmingly caramel. I took a risk on this bottle, hoping that the caramel would not be noticeable, unfortunately this was not to be. I get the tiniest smidgeon of red musk and maybe the nutmeg....but otherwise it is HELLO CARAMEL. Do. Not. Want. Caramel as a perfume just makes me queasy, and i'm afraid if i had applied more than just the tiny dab i did, i would've ended up with a migraine.

 

 

This is EXACTLY what happened to me. I didnt get any of the other notes listed, just caramel - which is not my thing.

 

After the dry down all that was left was a powder scent.

Edited November 18, 2009 by vanessaxxx

[saralaughs]

Ok, I'm surprised but I'm getting more than just caramel. And what I'm getting is pretty damn good. I dunno. I'm gonna have to retest a bit later to give a better review. I will come back and edit.

 

Ok, here goes...I may have to come back and edit more later.

 

In bottle: caramel.

 

On: Immediately I'm blasted by caramel and something...sharp. Possibly petigrain. It doesn't take long to smooth out though. The caramel slowly recedes as well but leaves this deep sweet smelling sugar that I wish caramel was like on me all the time. The petigrain continues to shove its head up though. Definitely a bit of a sharp citrus. It goes away again. Morpher.

 

Further in the drydown I start getting beautiful champaca. Ylang Ylang is in there somewhere as I have a tickle in the back of my throat...it's not too prominent though. This is light on the vanilla-infused red musk and heavy on the caramel/honey still. Yet there is this lovely floral that peaks through all this and melds with that warm sugary base. It's beautiful. It's also backed by this barest hint of patchouli. I like it, but still too much caramel for me. Lovers of Red Latern on the other hand will rejoice.

Edited November 18, 2009 by saralaughs

[dawndie]

In bottle: sweetened musk

 

On skin: bawdy red musk

 

Half-hour later: still lots of red musk, barely sweetened with caramel and honey

 

In conclusion: I love red musk blends, but I was dismayed to read reviews (after I ordered) with amping caramel like in Red Lantern. Luckily this blend didn't do that on me -- it's a delicious sweetened red musk blend, fun and boom-chicka-boom-y.

[Lycanthrope]

Reddish, an amalgCARAMELam of notes that shoCARAMELuld work on me. When I first pCARAMELut this on, I really did smell the orange niceness of the petitgrain mixed with a sweet muCARAMELsk, deepened by vanilla, and I was pleasaCARAMELntly surprised. But I was teCARAMELsting in the vicinity of Eutectic, who can then atteCARAMELst that this turned to a sharp, unpleasant burnt sugar caramCARAMELel scent on my skin. My experience with caramel has been 'fail' as a noCARAMELte due to my skin chemistry, but the initiCARAMELal wet phase was promising... just not for me.

[greenranger]

My skin is slightly unusual, in that caramel usually doesn't last on me. It vanishes.

 

On me, I can smell the caramel for about the first 15 minutes, and then it becomes a slightly sweet memory behind all the spices.

 

Yes, that's right. I can sort of smell the red musk. I hardly get any flowers whatsoever. On me, this is nutmeg, and patchouli doing a really decent imitation of the March Friday the 13th scent.

 

I really like it, much like I really liked the March 13. However, as foody as it is on me, I can't justify a second bottle. I don't tend to reach for the foody ones to wear as often.

 

 

 

[ltrittipoe]

 

I wanted to love this. I thought "oh, it says TRACES of caramel, it will be fine". All the other notes are great on me.

 

But nooooooo..... I am facing the fact very sadly, that if it has caramel anywhere in it, I must not buy it. Not only is that all I get from it, the lab's caramel note interacts very very badly with my skin chemistry, and smells like unwashed, dirty ... um.

 

I don't get anything but *that* from Now Winter Nights Enlarge. So sad. I was hoping for sweet, spicy red musk. Swaps pile!

[meaganola]

Damn it. Red musk, champaca, ylang ylang, patchouli, and nutmeg say that this should be groovy hippie glory. Instead, on me, it's all burnt caramel, all the time (as a side note, this particular caramel is completely unlike the one in Red Lantern, at least to my nose, although that might be due to the fact that my bottle of RL is about a year and a half old). I would like the caramel if it wasn't burnt, but no such luck. It might as well be single-note burnt caramel from beginning to end.

 

Oh, well, it's actually kind of a relief to cross stuff off the upgrade-to-bottle list, especially since the very first decant I tested (the First Soft Snow) made an instant leap from the probably-utterly-unwearable list to the bottle list, and I'm on very limited funds. Now Winter Nights Enlarge was actually on my list of will-probably-upgrade-to-a-bottle oils, but it's most definitely off that list. In fact, I'm tossing the list and giving up on trying to predict what I'll like and what I'll hate because I've been very, *very* wrong about both lately. I *will* keep this decant for aging purposes, though, just in case the burnt caramel fades and the patchouli comes out over the course of the next year (I tend to wear stuff seasonally, so Yules typically only hit the rotation box between Halloween and Lupercalia seasons, which means that this will sit in the Yule storage box until the next time I'm working my way through Yule decants of years past).

 

[edenssixthday]

Now Winter Nights Enlarge - I was hoping that there would only be traces of caramel that would dissipate quickly, as caramel is one of my worst bpal notes. I opened the bottle, and ALL I smelled was caramel. Lots of gross, gooey, sticky, nasty caramel. Blech. Still, crazy me, I had to put it on to see how it really smelled. While it opens up as a CARAMEL!!!! scent, within minutes, the caramel was completely gone and what was left is this amazing husky, hippie-like patchouli scent sweetened by the vanilla/red musk and the honey, with a hint of nutmeg spiciness and champaca and petitgrain earthiness. Ded Moroz will always have my heart for my favorite wintery scent, but I think that otherwise, this one may be the surprise hit of this year's Yules. I just can't stop wearing it, even though my husband hates it and keeps asking, "What's that stink?" when I have it on.

 

 

[angelicruin]

Wet on my skin, this smells like slightly scorched caramel.

 

The "scorched" scent dissipates as it begins to dry and the caramel settles down too. I begin to scent the red musk, patchouli, and nutmeg notes. Dry the caramel is totally gone on my skin and I'm left with just the red musk and patchouli with a floral tinge to it.

 

 

[marared]

In the imp, it's total caramel and nutmeg, but it turns into eyewateringly overpowering incense on my skin. There's a slightly icky background to it that I think pretty much confirms that caramel isn't precisely a death note but one I should avoid, because it really never does anything good on me. I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be any "enlarging" going on if I were to wear *this* on a date.

[kohimame]

Wow, I really thought this scent would work on me!

 

When I first applied this, it was scorched caramel. As it dried, the burnt smell faded and I was left with a funky smelling incense smell. I don't know if it's the red musk turning on me, or what. Overall, it wasn't that great.

 

Well, off to the swaps for thee, decant!

 

Edit: I let this sit for a month and some change, and the burnt note in it has faded significantly. Now I have a very very sweet incense smell, which is much better. Still going to sell it, but if you tried Now Winter Nights Enlarge and didn't care for it, let it sit for a bit and try it again. You might like it!

Edited January 15, 2010 by Kohimame

[ephemera]

In the bottle this is spice and caramel and more spice and something that makes me think of walking through cold woods at night, heading home.

 

On my skin this is very reminiscent of the February 2009 (Navy) 13. The same cocoa (not chocolate) and spices, the same heaviness of scent. This is a bit sweeter though. I'm huffing at it. I'm hoping that this last through dry down and doesn't turn to powder on me.

[astarinel]

I totally hate to agree with a negative consensus, but I'm going to have to do so, here.

 

I sniff the decant and think, crap, this really smells like caramel, and I still remember the horrible things Agrat-Bat-Mahlaht did to me.

 

But, the other notes are so win, and the description says "traces" of caramel, so I try it anyway. Alas, it was not to be. It pretty much just smells like caramel at first, and scorched caramel at that. I completely agree with that description, and it's really overpowering.

 

As it dries, it becomes more interesting. The vanilla and red musk combo starts to remind me a lot of Trick #1, which I do love, but it has less depth and sexiness than Trick, and the sweetness of the caramel keeps lurking around in the background. I like where this scent starts to go, but it never really gets there for me.

 

And that scorched caramel thing is just ick.

[sofaking6]

So here's a blend where I can crow about my lucky chemistry..I get sweet caramel for just a few minutes, and then oh sweet hippy love coming through...champaca, patchouli, sweet honey and red musk, and vanilla flowing through them all. It's really gorgeous, kept me huffing my arm all night..even my cat dug it!

[crebbsgirl]

Ok, I put this on and immediately got caramel. And then CARAMEL. And then caramel... and celery??!?!? Weird. I was mildly impressed that the ylang ylang didn't come out screaming, but that's probably because it was beaten into submission by the caramel. I was hoping that "traces of caramel" would prove not to be overly caramelly on my skin. Unfortunately not. This one I actually had to wash off.

[lainevierge]

Why did I think this would work?

 

Oh yeah, vanilla, red musk, patchouli, nutmeg and honey. ALL lovely notes on me.

 

I'll agree with whoever said this was like 13 (Feb 09). It's just like that on me but sweeter.

 

I can't get over the caramel though. I should have known better. It was total caramel when I opened it (yup, the kind that turns straight to celery on me) but when I put it on that faded for a while. I've had it on for several hours now though and the caramel is back. I want to like it, but ick. I can't deal with the caramel/celery smell.

 

[Spork]

It works as labeled! Oh, wait....scent review

 

OK, starts out nice and sweet...but I do love caramel, and that's what it is til it dries. After drying, helloooooo patchouli! Wow! Glad that tones down after a little while, mmm, now some musk and vanilla, this is wonderful! Never got any nutmeg though but still a really sexy warm winter scent

[Invidiana]

Wow. This is out-and-out sexy. I absolutely love the vanilla-infused resd musk, which is really the star of the show on me along with the nutmeg, honey and caramel. The rest of the notes really add a nice dark base with a dash of mystery. Smells like something hot and creamy I'd want to be drinking on a cold winter's night.

[Venneh]

See, I don't get any of the carmel at all, which is a bit odd. This is pretty much delicate red musk, with a touch of vanilla and honey, and really delicate. Going to try this in a wider skin test, as this is near Bah! right now which is giving me all burnt coffee smells. On the second test, I smell a bit of caramel in the imp, but none of that appears in the blend; it's a honeyed red musk, and just a bit effervescent. Definitely worth seeking out a bottle.

Edited December 3, 2009 by Venneh