The Face of All the World is Changed, I Think

[CiCi]

The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
And this …this lute and song…loved yesterday,
(The singing angels know) are only dear
Because thy name moves right in what they say.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Absinthe accord, opoponax, green cardamom, olibanum, honey, prickly juniper, and rockrose.

This scent is gorgeous and has a presence to it. It is a strong scent but it is not heavy at all. I smell a woodiness and sweetness to it that goes well with my skin chemistry. The wood is mild and not overly masculine. I was somewhat leery of this fragrance because of the Absinthe but it only adds to the brightness of this blend and prevents it from being to much of a skin scent. The honey is beautiful, and is not powdery, and adds some golden sweetness. There is a very mild spiciness and the dry down is beautiful and smooth. I didn't expect this to smell as wonderful as it does, especially as there is a floral in here. But this really stands out to me as something really unique that I could wear often.

[KissleMeNow]

I definitely went out on a limb ordering this. It's mostly notes I'm not very familiar with, and there wasn't a lot of excitement about it on the forum (most people seemed to be going "Eek, absinthe!") – but I love the poem it's connected to enough that I ended up with a bottle.

 

I opened it up and fell in love. It's amazing. What pops out most when it's wet is the junipur, but the overall scent is very fresh and green. The absinthe (I think) makes it a bit sharp, but it's not astringent. On the drydown, the honey warms up, and it gets a tad of spice and floral while remaining green. As was said above, the transition is very smooth. Not very much throw once it dries, but it's a gorgeous scent.

[angelicruin]

Whoa, this one does not agree with my skin. Sour and powdery describe this scent on me.

[Incendiare]

Ugh, I can already tell that this isn't going to go well. In the vial, all the medicinal notes automatically surface and cover everything else up. No cardamom nor honey. Even the rock rose hasn't made an appearance. Wet, it slightly improves, thankfully because of notes such as honey and rose, and here, the rose isn't too sour or heady. After a couple minutes, the opoponox adds a bit of a smokey sweetness to this. It's gotten better with time but it's still not my style.

Edited February 26, 2012 by Incendiare

[PersephonesChild]

Super powdery, both in the vial and on my skin. It opens up a little on my skin, but I don't notice really any of the notes that are described (no absinthe, which I would have liked, no spiciness, no juniper, and a little bit of a high note that *might* be rockrose.) This is so far from what I expected-- rather a disappointment.

[surf-tormented]

I get a bright metal note with a hint of absinthe herbs.

 

As it dries, the rockrose comes up. Its presence adds a woodiness to the blend, plus now it's a little bit like stone too.

 

So metal, absinthe, stone...doesn't get better than this. Oh wait, it does. It's really green too, fresh yet metal.

Then comes the smokey note about 30 minutes in. I get no sweetness, so the honey note must be blending in perfectly with the smoke. It's dark, exotic and lovely. Plus, odd in its own way...again, unique.

 

Glad I got a 1/3 bottle of this in a decant circle. I will love each drop. It's an unique blend, I've never smelled another perfume

close to it before. It does invoke the world...earth, metal, woods, stone, plant life...which is the feel I get from the poem that inspired it.

Edited February 28, 2012 by surf-tormented

[astarinel]

I got a decant of this because I love the poem (and EBB's work generally) so much, but I truly expected to hate this blend. Green and herbal is never my thing, and a lot of the herbal notes turn bitter and medicinal on my skin.

 

However, I don't actually hate it, which is quite surprising to me!

 

It starts out green and clearly herbal, but not sharp or bitter. The honey adds an undertone of sweetness, but even as a honey lover I don't necessarily pick out the note in this blend. As it dries it starts to smell floral and smoky, and warms up a bit. Normally smelling a new blend reminds me of ones I've already tried, but I'm not sure this one really reminds me of anything I've smelled before. It's quite unique and a little odd, but if smoky-sweet herbal-floral sounds up your alley, this is quite nice.

[Kamanjah]

I got a decant because I haven't tried absinthe before and the other notes usually work on me. In the vial is smells green. Wet on my skin, I can pick out the juniper and cardamom. No resins making an appearance yet, it's very green. 15 minutes in, eww, this smells like poo and herbs on my skin. I toughed it out to see if that overtone would leave because I couldn't smell it unless I put my nose to my wrist. It did leave, and later I could smell juniper on one wrist and frankincense on the other (my wrists often do different things with scents, odd chemistry, that!) I then washed it off after about an hour and still had faint resins on both wrists after one washing. I kind of liked this one until I got the whiff of poo.

Not for me – off to swaps.

[zankoku_zen]

Green, sweet powdery. Hint of absinthe and juniper with a swirl of cardamom.

 

Odd.

[milo]

Jasmine is not listed here, but all I'm getting here is sickly sweet jasmine. This is very heady and not my kind of perfume at all.

Edited May 6, 2012 by milo

[filigree_shadow]

I can't smell any absinthe or anything that smells green -- this smells nothing like what I expected.

What is smells like is JASMINE. That's it. Kind of a weird sour jasmine.

 

It is so strongly jasmine that I actually wonder whether milo and I both got decants from a mislabeled bottle.

That's how much this smells like jasmine and how little it smells like I expected it to smell. It really makes me think this is some kind of mistake, and I really do not think that I should try to swap/sell this partial bottle I have because I kinda doubt that it is what it's supposed to be.

[Blood onmy hands]

This is such a weird scent. I was expecting mostly resins and rose (as those are the notes that would tend to amp up on me), but I can't really pick out any of the listed notes from this. Maybe the absinthe, as there's a bitter, herbal, green quality, but it doesn't really remind me of bpal's other absinthe scents. Sort of sour and powdery, green and herbal...

[Dusk]

This was only a very small test because I got frimped a sniffie. In the vial, it's not much of anything. Kind of vaguely green with cardamom. On my skin, it starts out damp rock rose then gets drier and spicer. It's spicy, perfumey dry rose for the first 20 minutes or so, but gets increasingly green. I think I smell juniper, and some kind of woody green resin (I read olibanum is frankincense, but it doesn't smell as sweet/golden as frankincense usually does). There is something a bit sour about it. This dries to a very dusty resin, almost powdery, with cardamom, a bit of green, and the tiniest hint of sweetness. Also a lot of opoponax later on but my skin always amps that.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Dusk

[achildoftime]

Wet, this one mostly smells like absinthe and rockrose. It's a flowery absinthe for sure. I was hoping to get some juniper or honey out of this, but no such luck. Even when it dries those notes don't really come out. What I do get when it's dry is the cardamom. I have other spiced florals in my collection that I'm more fond of, but I'm sure this will find love in another collection.