Enkhespalos

[hypatia]

Elder wood, leather, blonde tobacco, and cognac.

In bottle and just applied: Leather and a whisper of tobacco. This smells like the exact same leather note as in Dee, the one my nose perceives as "cool and sweet," almost like night air, rather than the straight-up leather-goods-shop leather of de Sade. Or maybe that's the tobacco and/or cognac making itself known.

After a few minutes: The wood note comes out, and it's gorgeous: just a solid warm streak of exotic woodsiness. I don't think I've ever tried a BPAL with elder wood in it before; it's rather like sandalwood, to my nose.

A while later: The wood settles into the background and the tobacco and cognac come out to play. When the tobacco first pops out, it triggers a scent-memory of a tobacconist's shop I used to go to -- a lovely little place that sold fountain pen ink and fancy soaps and hairbrushes along with smoking accoutrements, and always smelled deliciously of pipe tobacco. The cognac is there in the background as a counterpoint to the tobacco, but (fortunately for me, because I really don't like boozy scents) it never smells like alcohol. Just warm and a little sweet.

Enkhespalos reminds me a little bit of Hellfire, which has a similar tobacco-and-booze-and-leather quality, but it's less sweet, and I think I like it even more for that reason. It's kind of butch in a very gentlemanly, old-world kind of way (which is pretty much exactly the kind of scent that I like best). It would be perfect to wear with a three-piece suit with a pocket watch -- or even just a nice tailored vest and a pair of polished oxfords.

Verdict: Sexay! This one doesn't last as long as some (it's mostly gone by the end of the work day if I apply it first thing in the morning), but it's lovely in all of its stages. I can already tell it's going to be in the regular all-year-round rotation.

[Edited to add top-of-page description.]

[grnwoodtree]

This smelled delicious wet - the cognac and leather and tobacco blended wonderfully. Very happy - however, after about 5 minutes it turned and stayed into the leather and it wasnt a pleasant one! The best thing I can think of is bandages you find in the hospital. Really acrid and sterile...would have loved it otherwise.

[dawndie]

In bottle: medicinal antiseptic

 

On skin: dusty wood, like a stable

 

Half-hour later: no change, still lots of dust and wood

 

In conclusion: this was really feral on me, woof! I was hoping for something mellower. I'm also all "where's the cognac?" like when I get home from work and demand vodka. We'll see if this one calms down from its testosterone rampage eventually.

[aquazoo]

Nice & woody. And leather, yum! Is it the cognac that gives it an iron feel?

 

[zankoku_zen]

Oh man, I think I may love this one. It's a little masculine for me, but I do enjoy how the cognac really sweetens this blend up and I can smell the tobacco and wood, and just the barest hint of leather. It is much more masculine after about three hours, when the leather really sort of comes out of the background.

 

But on wet, oh YUM!

[Roogna]

ooooooh in the bottle I get all with cognac strongest and on me it's a rather pleasant mix of all the notes that still leads with the cognac. normally I don't like booze scents but this is a rich sweetness tempered by the leather and wood and even the tobacco

[nekogrrl]

In imp: LEATHER.

 

On skin: Straight up leather. Don't get me wrong, I /really/ enjoy the smell of leather, but this just isn't doing it for me.

[Coldfire]

Decant: totally getting the blond tobacco and wood and faint traces of the leather

Wet on Me: more leather and the green of the tobacco oooof

Drying Down: morphing into more leather. leather and man and faint traces of the cognac....yummy!

Dry: Leather and Wood and everything good. That is what this is made of! I just want to huff on my wrist right now........

[Penance]

Origin:

 

5mL from LadyJC.

 

Preconceived notions:

 

All the notes in this are ones that I really like, so I'm expecting this to be a winner.

 

First sniff:

 

Masculine. I'm getting some leather, some tobacco, some wood and...some soap? Where's that coming from? Something here is a bit bitter and soapy and I have no idea what it is. I'm really hoping that whatever note is causing the soapiness disappears once it hits my skin. If there's one thing I've learned from BPAL, it's that scents can smell very different on the skin than on the bottle, so I'm not giving up hope.

 

Wet on skin:

 

Yay, no more soap! Fresh on my skin, I get a lot of wood, some mild tobacco and soft leather. This isn't brand new leather and it's not dry, dusty, cracked leather, either. It's well-worn and broken in. I don't particularly like the smell of real leather, but I do like a nicely blended, soft leather scent in perfume and Enkhespalos fits the bill. This is still a decidedly masculine scent at this point, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for me (I prefer unisex or masculine to girly, as long as it doesn't smell like men's cologne).

 

Dry down:

 

Now this is nice. I get a lot of dry wood from this once it dries (I don't think I've ever smelled elderwood before, but it smells like a cross between cedar and redwood or oak to me) combined with a touch of soft, broken-in leather and just a hint of very soft tobacco. It's musky and soft and comfortable smelling, somehow. This would smell amazing on a man, but it's very wearable for me. This is almost exactly what I'd been hoping for.

 

The bottom line:

 

A definite winner once it dries down. This is an "everyday" kind of scent for me, one of the ones that I can (and will) reach for on a regular basis, rather than just when I want a very specific sort of smell to suit my mood or an outfit (tell me I'm not the only one who coordinates scents to outfits...I know I've got a raging case of BPAL insanity, but I don't think the matching thing is abnormal).

[rayvn1]

Good stuff! This was probably my favorite of the year's Lupercalias. Cognac is usually not my friend, but this is a rich..juicy is the only thing I can think of to describe it, mix of leather, wood, and tobacco. Suuuuper masculine which is A+ for me. Yeah..juicy..it's a weird description but this oil is oh so awesome!

[zmulls]

Oh, it's too perfect. Leather is always good for me, and the cognac is so enthralling. It is the best "dress-up" scent I've found.

 

I try to stay away from LEs, as I can't bear to know that I will not be able to buy more. But someone frimped me a decant some months ago and I fell in love with it. I scored a half-bottle from someone and a couple decants and I'm hoarding it for special occasions.

 

If this found its way into the GC, I would be a very happy masculine-scented BPALler.

[stubbornfire]

I am super grateful to the person who just sold me this bottle, cause this scent is gorgeous. Lots of leather, with something sharp I am guessing is the tobacco. I don't know enough about how cognac or blonde tobacco smell on their own to really be specific about all the notes but gosh it's all gorgeous. and it's the first scent I've bought to have something resembling a 'don't fuck with me' vibe, and I needed that today. 10/10 would buy again and again if given the chance.

[filigree_shadow]

Oddly, this one doesn't work on me. I really thought it would. I usually like those notes, and they usually agree with me. Sadly the combination smells a little... antiseptic on me. It kind of reminds me of band-aids. Like I said, odd. I think it's the leather and cognac combination. But I'm pleased to see that a lot of people really like it -- I feel like this combination of notes should have worked. It's probably just my skin that's weird.

[tdgnika]

I should love this, and I was excited to try it - Tobacco! Wood! Leather! Booze! All my favorite notes. Alas....

 

In the bottle, this smells like chemicals to me. I'm not sure which thing throws that smell - maybe the wood?? The leather being too raw? Smells... off. I let this age for several years after receiving it, hoping the off smell would temper with age, but it didn't.

 

Wet on the skin, the same chemical smell, though getting a bit of the wood at first and then within the first few minutes the leather starts to come through.

 

Hour or so later, it's a very raw leather smell. It would seem that I like my leather more aged. This one is, sadly, a pass for me.