Odd Portents

[mxtine]

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

This is a truly beautiful and very well blended oil. It's a dark lavender in the bottle, and a deep musky lavender with the sweetness of black currant and the softness of amber. The lavender lingers as it dries down to a fruity, black curranty amber. Edited October 28, 2010 by Shollin

[Schmoozy]

Geranium, the slightest hint of lavender and rose with heapings of amber incense and musk. It's dark, full of resin, yet the geranium and lavender manage to soften up the darkness. Just when you think it can't get any better, whiffs of blackcurrant emerge and adds a delicious purple fruit vibe throughout the blend.

[galahad]

In The Bottle

Myrrh, musk and lavender

 

On Application

The lavender and olibanum are really quite strong and overpowering initially. Surprisingly, don't get any rose.

 

Dry Down

Once this settles down it is quite nice. A fruity sweetness with a touch of rose and incense.

 

Rating (0-5)

3

[crebbsgirl]

This is wonderful.

 

The lavender is initially quite strong, as is the amber incense. But as it dries it blends and smoothes out magnificently. The rose comes out just a little bit, and surprisingly enough, I don't amp it or turn it to cat pee like I usually do. I'm left with a dark, slightly musky floral that has an indescribable hint of sweetness. It's really unlike anything I've sniffed before.

[filigree_shadow]

I get a big blast of lavender, but only right at first. It calms down very quickly. Then I can smell geranium, and then it goes through a strange phase where it smells identical to soap, and then the whole shebang turns into kind of a dark, resiny powder scent with an odd high-pitched characteristic that I can really only describe as the scent equivalent of a buzzing or a whine. And that's where it stays.

 

How weird. I sense that strange doings are afoot. I believe my skin chemistry has no idea what to do with this oil, as it appears to have freaked out. OOOOoooh, wait, it has olibanum in it. Yeah, see, I should have noticed that earlier. There's your problem right there. That note doesn't play nicely with me. I'm sure this smells lovely on someone else, but it's not gonna work for me.

[thekittenkat]

In the imp: A dark spicy rose with currant under it.

 

Wet: A darkish oil. Certainly getting the spices. Worried about this because the GC Black Rose is just too much on my skin, sad to say.

 

The dry-down: Poof! This just seems to have disappeared. Faint hint of the black rose. Very surprised. Will have to re-test. I expected this to be a dark and sultry, spicy rose. Very strange.

[Lorna Brigid]

Geranium, lavender, amber, myrrh, dark musk.... this had notes of win. This should have been lovely on meh!

In the Imp: I smell the lavender, the amber, the black rose....

On my skin: Soothingly pretty.... huh? Wait-- what's that? It smells familiar, from my childhood... thinking of up north....woods.... mosquito bites.... This smells exactly like Calamine lotion!!!!!!

[theseagrows]

oooh this is dark and sexy. one of the few fruity-ish scents that works for me. i love scents like these, that seem to be a conglomeration of resins/incense, florals and berries. lovely and sexy in a dark, dusky way. the rose is very subtle, i think i am actually getting mostly olibanum, musk, black currant, lavender and amber incense. DAMN this is sexy. i might need a bottle of this!!!

 

[Venneh]

Olibanum, myrrh, and lavender in the imp. Predicting this will be wiped from my skin in less than a minute once on. Once on... yep, I was right, absolutely gone in almost no time. :/

[AmyO'Shields]

Odd Portents indeed!

 

In the bottle: I smell Oppoponax, Lavender and a bit of incense. I know there's no Oppoponax... isn't Oppoponax Sweet Myrrh? Must be the amber sweetening up the Myrrh...very nice!

 

On me: Lavender, Olibanum, Myrrh, and a touch of amber. This blend stays sharp on me for about 45 minutes, but it isn't unpleasant.

 

Drydown: After 2 hours, this goes incensey-sweet on me - an earthy-grounded sweet. If I didn't know better, I'd think there was Benzoin in here somewhere...

 

The lavender disappears, the amber-incense becomes more prevalent, and I may be smelling a bit of Black Currant (there are hints of All Souls in this even though they don't smell similar to me). I can't pick out the dark musk (although I'm sure it's doing a super job of rounding everything out) and I never smell the bourbon geranium (which I'm thankful for).

 

This perfume is surely a winner - there have been so many out of the Gothic Lit though... Volume 2 anyone?

 

I'd give this blend a 4.5/5 for it's amazing drydown. The more I sniff my wrists I am noticing a similarity in feel to Mother Ginger... Maybe if All Souls and Mother Ginger had a romp? That might sound off, but that's what I'm smelling!!! isn't our sense of smell amazing?

 

ETA: I don't get any type of Rose at all...

Edited January 11, 2011 by Herb Girl

[diBenjamin94108]

I ordered this because I like the story that inspired it: The Dream Woman. I have it in a book that is a selection of stories chosen by Edward Gorey (Gorey scents would be great). My favorite scene in the story is in a tavern/inn on a windy night. The scent doesn't really have anything to do with that scene though, or really anything else in the story that I could find. I would like to know how Beth approaches creating the scents. That would be interesting.

 

Anyway: in the bottle, it's lavender, with a fruitiness under that. On the skin, when it was very fresh, it devolved into a fruity mess. It was kind of disjointed and incoherent. Is that clean antiseptic scent that both lavender and tea tree have described as 'astringent'? It just seems like a strange (odd?) combo with fruit. One is clean, the other is luscious. They don't 'go.'

 

Now that I've had the bottle for a number of months, I like it better, either because I have formed pleasant associations with it, or it has mellowed and mixed.

 

So now, on my skin, it's fruity and even incense-y (by which I mean something elusive and dark). It's a purple scent. Dark grey-purple.

 

It's as if the lavender gives in to the fruit. Maybe that is the interpretation of the story into scent: in the story, Isaac, the protagonist, is a simple, decent man who dreams about then meets (and marries) a woman who is a down-on-her-luck, possibly murderous drunk. So then the clean lavender is Isaac and the decadent fruit is the woman. Maybe...

[mistressfizz]

Sniff: Dark and slightly resinous, with a hint of something sharp, like citrus or herbs

 

Wet: Not what I was expecting at all! I thought this would be dominated by florals, but it's more smoky and spicy, with a tingling bitter edge and earthy/mossy background.

 

Dry: Powdery, spicy incense. It's a rich blend and borders on being warm. But the herbs create a sharp unsettled tone that prevent this from being too soft. It's dark and dense. I like it, but I'm not crazy about it.

[Cassandra Dudum]

Odd Portents is very well blended and complex dark scent.

 

In the bottle: I mostly smell dark musk, black currant, bourbon geranium, and an undertone of amber incense.

 

Wet: Very strong rose (reminds me of the rose in Black Rose). Slightly herbal. A faint undertone of the lavender buds.

 

Dry: Myrrh and olibanum. The rose faded quite quickly. It is a soft herbal rose now. No powdery or soapy smell. It is more like a rosebud smell.

 

10 minutes later: The bourbon geranium and black musk are back. The olibanum overpowers the myrrh and amber. The faded rose note is less herbal now and more of a sweet whisper of a rose. This surprisingly sweetened up! The lavender is still not very noticeable.

 

Medium throw.

 

I was hoping to smell more amber incense and lavender buds in the blend. This perfume is a dark unisex perfume. The bourbon geranium keeps it from being too dark. It has just the right amount of sweetness to keep it from being too dark, too fruity, or too herbal. It is a nice Fall scent. If you are a fan of Black Rose, I would suggest this perfume.