Quicksilver Phoenix

[Blood onmy hands]

Cinnabar and silvery liquid droplets of mastic, white sandalwood, elemi, and lavender.

In the bottle, this is tons of creamy, herbal lavender. It reminds me of LUSH's Dreamtime bath melt, which I love. I wish that the lavender were stronger on my skin.

On my skin, the sandalwood instantly comes out to play. Lavender over dry woods. It's a very soothing, calm scent. Then, as this dries down, a spicy, masculine cologne smell takes over. It's like a man wearing too much cologne just stumbled into my relaxing spa day and ruined everything.

This has a musky/perfumey/cologney sharpness to it that I don't like at all. It starts to remind me of cheap hairspray after a while. That spicy cologne smell really takes over and kills the other notes on my skin too. After a half hour, this is really strong & obnoxious, and I can't smell the sandalwood or lavender anymore.

Quicksilver Phoenix is on the masculine side of things, but it's too sharp for me to want my husband to wear it. It starts to give me a headache after a while...

[Coldfire]

 

 

 

Decant: almost an ozoney lavender from this. Loving so far

Wet on Me: lavender and something I can't quite put my nose on.

Drying Down: Still getting a lavender but a masculine lavender if that is possible.

Dry: reminds me a bit of an old Men's Colgone — Devin by Aramis. boy did that bring back memories with a smile. keeper and need a bottle!

[Ravenclaw79]

Wet: Metallic, very metallic.

 

Drying: Men's cologne. Too bad I don't know any cologne-adventurous men.

 

Dried down: Lavender-y, a bit musky, a bit powdery. Interesting. And yeah, I can get "light and shimmery" out of this, sure.

[meaganola]

Dang it. I was hoping for nice, soothing lavender with some extra added goodness. My skin instantly converts it to fairly generic aftershave. *Nice* generic aftershave, but, still, aftershave. Very much not for me.

[littlegoat]

Unfortunately, anything that even hints at metallic goes the way of generic men's cologne on me. I'd sniffed this and gotten cologne a few times, and when I tried it out there was no real change.

 

After having it on for a while I get something a hint deeper, almost musky, but it is buried under the wash of cologne.

 

Nice, but not for me

[gingiemay]

In the bottle this smells of sandalwood and cinnabar. I get almost no lavender. On my skin, the sandalwood dominates, it is a very white, bright and brilliant scent. I was really hoping for a beautiful lavender sandalwood but unfortunately it is not meant to be.

[Electric Maenad]

This was not what I was expecting at all. Mind you, I suppose I wasn't entirely sure what I was expecting, so there you go. The lavender is the first thing that hits, and it's a rather sharpish, cologne-y lavender as opposed to the lovely soft fluffy lavender in TKO that made me stop hating lavender. So after five minutes, I'm thinking - "Augh, I need to wash my hands," and then the lavender just vanishes behind an equally sharp but more agreeable metal note. I think the sandalwood is also playing a part in this - toning down the metal and making more... well, liquid.

 

After about an hour, it reminds me a lot of Galvanic Goggles. A nice, clean, manly scent. James Bond, only French and instead of carrying a gun, he carries around a Thomas Pynchon novel and will spend the next several hours telling you about it until you realize with some surprise that you're in his bed. Naked.

 

Good stuff. If I was a guy, I'd be all over this. Suave, cool, and sexy in a very cerebral sort of way.

[fairnymph]

Golden oil. LAVENDER, strongly herbal, a little medicinal - very much like an aromatherapy or Panacea type blend, followed by a bit of citrusy-sour elemi, and piney-resiny mastic - okay, actually the mastic is pretty strong, almost as strong as the lavender. The white sandalwood is a light smooth musky note, distant.

 

Instantly soapy. Oh this reminds me GREATLY of Temple of Dreams, it's the same lavender note, and there is another shared herbal note too - basil, I think. Yes, definitely. Very masculine. The elemi is *poof* gone, and sandalwood still extremely faint. ToD also goes soapy on my skin, but this is soapier. Lavender, mastic and basil all on about par right now. There's also a sort of unplaceable spiciness tot his, maybe it's the cinnabar? It does smell a tiny bit metallic, but I'm not sure I'd get metal from this blend in a blind test.

 

The lavender has calmed down greatly now; I'd say the mastic is now strongest, then lavender, then cinnabar, then basil. And that cinnabar note has amped, still spicy but more metallic - it's definitely noticeably metallic now. This no longer really smells that much like ToD. And the sandalwood has amped up a little; this is sweeter and more musky and more rounded. Still, that soapiness (which is quite powdery) remains...it reminds me of lavender-herbal laundry soap now, somewhat.

 

Drydown is all about the mastic and cinnabar; very spicy, deep, resinous and quite woody-dry from the sandalwood, which also adds musky depth. Only faint hints of those strong herbal notes from earlier remain after a few hours. It is quite metallic, but in a way that reminds me of dark/rusty/corroded metal. Definitely a masculine blend. Fades down to moderate throw and has great longevity.

[Argentwolf]

Manly cologne that starts off with a hint of lavender and herbs. Fades away pretty quickly.

[strahlend]

On me this seems like soapy men's cologne. I love lavender but I'm not picking it up as a distinct note here. The soap aspect is what seems most dominant, sandalwood peeks in every now and then but not enough to get my attention. I thought cinnabar would be more obvious but I'm not getting it at all. In short, this one isn't for me.

[Vega]

Sniffed: A strange scent -- fluid, tight and medicinal. I've never smelled anything like it.

 

On skin: The same. Hmm, I think lavender must be the dominant note. It definitely seems herbal, maybe smooth from resins. A thick, close, heady scent, with a metallic/inorganic vibe. Very unusual, makes me feel a bit ill.

 

Verdict: Don't like Quicksilver Phoenix. But I must say, it really does evoke shimmering-hot liquid metal. How does Beth achieve this? What an unusual blend that was worth sniffing, but I won't be missing it.

[DraloreShimare]

In the vial - I get a musky almost-aftershave vibe from this.

On the skin - I can parse the lavender, but the rest is just aftershave to me. Like Old Spice, but with a bit more spice/herb.

Dry - More of the same.

[grrrlennyl]

Quicksilver Phoenix

 

On: Lavender and a fresh, almost piney scent. Interesting.

Half an hour in: Lavender soap like whoa.

1.5 hours later: Wow, something sweet and a tobacco note have taken over the lavender. Crazy. It's very soft and not cloying at all.

2.5 hours later: Something sweet with tobacco and a hint of lavender. Definitely soft and smooth.

Overall: I think this one is gonna be tested again. I can't quite figure out what I think of it.

[filigree_shadow]

I usually don't like lavender. It's not one of my favorite notes, particularly when it's that really herbal harsh kind of lavender. In this it smells soft and blue and silvery. Not harsh at all. It's comforting, and it's making me a little bit sleepy. It does that same thing to me that TKO does -- when I put my wrist under my nose and inhale deeply, my head goes a little cloudy and blank and relaxed. From an aromatherapy standpoint, I like that quite a lot.

 

When it's totally dry, though, I don't smell much lavender -- mostly that silvery almost metallic sort of shimmery scent. I don't object to this scent, it's just not the sort of thing I wear as a fragrance.

[JazzieCazzie]

My first real car, one that I loved and adored before it was totaled in a pileup on the FDR in NYC, was a color called "cinnabar," so that alone would have drawn my attention (and yes, looking at the Wikipedia photo of a cinnabar ore, it's the EXACT color of Spunky). The presence of lavender and sandalwood certainly added to that so I was ecstatic to be able to get some of this in a swap.

 

IN THE IMP: Unusual. Really unique. The sandalwood is predominant to my nose, which -- though I love sandalwood -- is not usually the case for me (it tends to make its presence known later). Sharp and metallic but not in a bad way. Very slightly lavender (again, a surprise, since lavender tends to be very noticeable for me). And yes, VERY silvery.

 

Dab on wrist and in crook of arm.

 

WET: The lavender immediately comes out to play as soon as this hits my skin. The rest of the notes combine to make a sparkly, lovely, sweet-but-not-icky-sweet cloud of gorgeous. The sandalwood is NOT really noticeable on my wrist but very happily makes its presence known in the crook of my arm, which tends to amp different notes.

 

DRYDOWN: Divine. Really divine. For me, it's lovely and light yet somehow sophisticated, complicated and unusual and yet really accessible. I think this would be a HUGE seller commercially (not that BPAL would ever go that route, just that it is a scent I would think would work really beautifully on many people, something that would make others ask "WHAT ARE YOU WEARING, YOU SMELL WONDERFUL" without being offensive to those who don't like smellies.)

 

On a scale of 1-5, a 4.8