Odd Portents

[Dark Alice]

ODD PORTENTS
"Isaac, you dreamed your ill dream on this Wednesday morning. What time was it when you saw the fair woman with the knife in her hand?"

Isaac reflected on what the landlord had said when they had passed by the clock on his leaving the inn; allowed as nearly as he could for the time that must have elapsed between the unlocking of his bedroom door and the paying of his bill just before going away, and answered.

"Somewhere about two o'clock in the morning."

His mother suddenly quitted her hold of his neck, and struck her hands together with a gesture of despair.

"This Wednesday is your birthday, Isaac, and two o'clock in the morning was the time when you were born."
—Brother Morgan's Story of the Dream-Woman, Wilkie Collins

Black rose, olibanum, dark musk, myrrh, blackcurrant, lavender buds, bourbon geranium, and amber incense.

Odd indeed! Portents in here are amazing. There is fruit in this. Black currant is peeking through along with the lavendar with the barest hints of rose. There is something fruity, dark, and sensual about this. I don't smell the myrrh or the black musk. Everything is so well blended that nothing dominates. It's just kind of all mish mashed in there to create this heavenly scent. This is definitely a keeper!

[countessmouse]

It is all lavender and amber for me. And the throw on this oil is incredibly strong, so much so that it is all I can smell at the moment and it's been over two hours since application. I like, but in really, really small amounts!

[strahlend]

For about five minutes I thought this was going to be the one blend containing rose that I would love. In my imp and wet on my skin this is dark and smokey and incensey, lovely amber incense. Musky, dusky and wow all over. At this point I'm not getting any rose at all. It is heavenly. A short time later, however, a sharp rosey tang shows up and takes over and the amber is going a little powdery. It's still nice but not for me.

 

~

I ended up getting a partial bottle anyway. It's so dark and musky in such a sophisticated sexy way that I kept sniffing it and sniffing it and finally realized it had won me over. This really is a lovely scent.

Edited October 24, 2010 by strahlend

[la belle dame sans merci]

This one is really hard to describe, and I'm so new at this, without a sophisticated nose.

 

Dark Alice sums it up with "There is something fruity, dark, and sensual about this." She's so right, I think of it as a spicy sensuality blended with a sweet, dark floral sensuality.

 

I really like bourbon so I do notice that. It's like the bourbon note blends the olibanum and myrrh (which is where I think I'm getting the "spicy" impression from) with the blackcurrant and geranium. For being the first note listed, I don't get much black rose. An incredible synthesis of scent.

 

Sophisticated and pleasurable.

[wendyb1063]

This one is gorgeous!!!

 

It is a beautiful blend. The rose is not that noticeable yet. The lavender is there, but it is subtle. It is sweet, dark, and while there is a very slight fruitiness to it, it doesn't dominate. Feminine, romantic, and utterly lovely.

[Molls]

Wet, this was awesome. I could smell the black rose, the dark musk, and amber. But it seems to disappear completely after dry-down. Even at the skin level, there's no scent left on my arm, within about an hour after application.

[Nachtwulf]

Oh, Odd Portents, how I love thee.

 

I took a real chance on this; me and florals of any sort pretty much hate each other. I'm not even sure why I got it in retrospect aside from 'ooo currant, black musk, myrrh'... ah, but this is not like that.

 

In the bottle: Lavender, and some sweet, mellow undertone that seems almost foodlike. This scent is very well-blended and it's difficult to pick out very many notes individually.

 

Wet: Ginger. No, I'm not kidding. There's something about the initial application that reminds me of nothing more than Shub Niggurath or Gingerbread Poppet. A bit sweet, a bit spicy, a bit prickly to the nose. Less actively foody, but there you go.

 

Dry: The gingery spike mellows back as it dries and it turns into this gorgeous spicy fougére. I never do get even the slightest hint of rose, in any identifiable sense, but the amber and black musk step forward to soften the lavender and myrrh and whatever else. It's the kind of scent one can wear all day without getting sick of it (and a good thing too because its staying power is insane). Even now, it's 13 hours later and I can still pick it up on the back of my arm.

 

Very nice, very warm and unisex. It's a bit autumnal, but I'd certainly recommend it to warm up any rainy cold days you might be having.

[Iceblink]

Strong lavender that made me recoil a bit when wet--but the drydown of Odd Portents is beautiful! I smell amber, rose, a faint black currant, and musky myrrh, but it's all blended smoothly and it's wonderfully "perfumey". A little bit on the powdery side. I'll definitely test this again.

[SophieCedar]

I've been trying to review this for 3 days now... was starting to convince myself that I'd never get around to it!

Wet: This is sweet and meaty with dried fruit. Lavender, currant, myrrh, and something that smells like cocoa? The frankincense is tempered by the sweet dried fruit. There isn't a distinctive rose here. Surprising considering black rose is the 1st ingredient and this is a relatively dark oil..

 

Drydown: lovely scent but disappears! Can smell a touch of amber incense and bourbon geranium but super light.

[angelicruin]

Dark musk, lavender, amber, incense, and dark fruit. There is a myriad of notes bombarding my nose as I sniff my wrist. I find myself really liking this one.

[Blood onmy hands]

I thought that I would like this scent a lot more than I do. I was expecting a complex, rich scent, but it falls sort of flat on my skin. The only note that I can pick out for sure is the lavender (which has an odd menthol/medicinal edge to it) and a fruity note that doesn't smell as sweet as blackcurrant usually does on me. As it dries down, the amber lends a dusting of baby powder over the weak, fruity lavender.

 

This has a lot of notes in it that are usually really strong on my skin (rose, black musk, myrrh, geranium), but I don't smell them at all. Weird. Odd Portents is a light, baby powdery lavender and a hint of fruitiness on my skin. Not for me...

 

ETA: This has gotten stronger on me with age, but not necessarily better. It's even more baby powdery now, and I mainly get the black currant and myrrh (which I normally love), but they're just sickly sweet paired together in this blend. Like fruit syrup and syrupy resins poured into a tub of baby powder. The rose, black musk and geranium are still nowhere to be found.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Little Bird

[lahdeedah]

Holy high preciousss! I've been looking for a new lavender love, ideally blended with rose and sugar or vanilla. Something akin to TAL Nocturne, but without the sleep-inducing intent. Odd Portents are apparently really good portents for me. Starts out mostly lavender, but not too sharp, with this sugary undercurrent. Later in drydown more of the dark fruit elements are making an appearance, and the scent is getting more complex. The throw seems pretty good, but this is one I feel I will likely be compelled to make a spray out of so I can have it wafting all around me.

[zankoku_zen]

Odd Portents is well, odd, to me. It starts out with lavender with a tinge of rose and then dries down to a musky amber incense blend. The musk isn't one that tends to work on me and it's slight powdery. I think it might be brown musk actually since it makes me think 'furry', and evokes Brown Jenkins in my mind - minus the coconut.

 

Dark, resinous, powdery.

[obsidienne]

Wow, I expected this to be all dark and heavy, but it's rather light and herbal. It starts off with a lot of lavender, then as it dries down on my skin the whole thing sort of fades into a rather light scent. Now I smell more of the myrrh and the amber incense coming up. But all of this is very very soft. The rose and blackcurrant notes are developing, just as a hint of fruit and a hint of rose. The further it dries down the more the resins come out and the herbal aspect is now gone. I usually find geranium off-putting, but I'm not getting it at all here, thank goodness! This scent is incredibly subtle -- fitting consider its name. Not a lot of throw. Pretty, but I wish it was much stronger.

[GypsyRoseRed]

Odd Portents reminds me a lot of Scorpio 2004. The rose and lavender should be wrecking it for me, though, and instead they're just blending in with everything else to make a sweet, rich incense.

[edenssixthday]

Odd Portents - I thought for sure the lavender and black currant in this would ruin it for me, but it doesn't! It's a really beautiful scent on me. Oddly, I get no musk at all. Rather, it's a very husky and incensey herbal scent on me. I really love geranium and myrrh, and they're the dominant notes in this, along with the black rose, which is definitely a dark, deep rose without being heavy. It's a very pretty blend with good staying power and a nice, solid, but not overwhelming, level of throw.

[ACVail24]

Odd Portents

 

I don't smell much of anything, in any stage, except myrrh.

which isn't playing nice on my skin this time

[Heavenlyrabbit]

So very glad I took this off my Sale page! First test, it really wasn't good. It took a day to settle. Odd Portents is one of those BPAL's.

 

So very pretty. The Lavender doesn't dominate- I think the Bourbon Geranium ( a very good note for me personally) keeps it in check.

 

Black Rose, whatever cultivar it is, smells divine. I haven't been having much luck with Rose in the last year or so.

[Gryphon]

Ditto to what Dark Alice said about this being a very well-blended scent! Wet, it's heady and perfumey and simply luscious. I feel the way Molls does about the dry down, though. The scent nearly disappears. This might be a good scent locket scent, but with so many other wonderful BPALS to choose from, I'm not likely to invest in a bottle and will settle for the decant.

[tativa]

OMG this is like the hit of the weenies for me. Its that same gorgeous soft sweet lavender I love... with a dark fruity undertone. This is what I wanted On darkness, and more recently Pom III to be like... fruity yummy lavender

 

It fades a little quick for my liking... but THIS is the weenie I am actually getting a bottle of this year. Its just so pretty and elegant, and I could see it as a blend I'd wear alot.

[patina]

To me, this is a very, very near relative to On Darkness. The rose (in Darkness, it's rose geranium), lavender, and dark inscence make them near-twins, but I do believe Odd Portents is a little better. It has a lovely throw.

[Amaranthus]

At first this smells like bourbon geranium, myrrh, and resinous tree sap (but not distinctly amber). Odd Portents morphs into equal parts rose, lavender, and amber incense, with a rich, dark, resinous background. I pick up the blackcurrant as a note that enhances the florals, but doesn't stand out on it's own. The musk is not heavy. Like the blackcurrant, it enhances the overall perfume without taking over.

 

Odd Portents continues to smell amazing for hours. The gorgeous resins stay on the skin long after the florals have faded. They become deeper with time.

 

This smells like the perfume the tragic heroine of a Victorian novel would wear before she ends up wandering the moor as a ghost. After ghostification The Shadowy and the Sublime would be more appropriate, but in warm corporeal form Odd Portents would be the tragic heroine's scent of choice. Dramatic and beautiful!

[bloody sore]

I didn't mean to get a bottle of this. I really thought that I was buying something else when I asked for it!

I am really really happy that I made that mistake. Looking at the notes in this, almost everything is something that I usually don't like in a blend. Somehow, things all come together and it totally rocks. It's mostly rose and amber incense on me, both things I tend to avoid. The fruit is what I smell from far away, along with some smoke. Good stuff, as it gets me to break out of what I thought I liked. YAY Beth!

[ljaylh]

Hmm.. this is an odd mix, really more genius than odd though - I can't imagine anyone else looking at these notes and thinking "hmm.. I bet those would smell good together". But clearly Beth knew they would

 

So this is a dark one, as I expected. The incense is more misty than smokey, and the resins are very fluid. Bourbon geranium is a new experience for me - I love bourbon smells generally, but I'm not sure I'm digging this mix all that much - geranium often goes a bit peppery on me, and that's kinda spoiling the otherwise smooth feeling of Odd Portents. The lavender comes out pretty strongly after about 15 minutes, along with the black rose, and unfortunately those two the nice incense and resins - in the end, I'm left with a lavender/rose mix - it's still dark and resinous but now it's more floral than incense, the blackcurrant is there now too, and there's also a slightly sharp green edge (geranium, you fiend) that's upsetting the balance.

 

It really is a genius blend though - if it weren't for the rose+lavender thing, I would really like this one.

[milo]

This is quite dark, and I do love dark. I get no rose or lavender, this actually smells a lot like Panther Moon on me for some odd reason, though the notes are not at all alike, and yes, it is a bit like On Darkness to me as well. As with PM, this does smell amazing on me, it's a bit sweeter actually with something akin to warm tobacco. I'll probably hunt down a decant, as I do have a lot of dark, sweet scents. This really is stunning, though, and it would definitely be in bottle territory if I didn't already own similar blends. Come to think of it, I may just get a bottle, this is so comforting and sexy at the same time. I love surprise wins!