Spooky Building Scents

[spookybelle]

Since you all gave me a bunch of great suggestions for light and flowery scents, I'm gonna go ahead and ask for your help for finding something completely the opposite!

 

I'm looking for scents that are evocative of old, abandoned, possibly haunted buildings. Anything from a little cabin in the woods, to a spooky Victorian manor, to a vast stone castle.

(Especially for the castle one, if you've ever played/heard of the game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, you'll know what I mean.)

 

So basically any type of creepy, empty place that you wouldn't want to be alone in. What do you guys think?

[Numanoid]

Well, the Lab has some Halloween scents (only until Nov 30th) that have a haunted house theme....Atrocious Attic, Lurid Library, Bloody Banister, The Chilling Cellar, Forbidding Foyer, and others! Maybe??

[Ordo_ad_Chao]

off the top of my head, definitely the decrepit house!

[patina]

Here goes:

Black Annis (GC: leaves and stone, musky cave.)

The Decrepit House, definitely.

Silenti- reminds me of a well cared for Victorian house.

Old Moon- Dusty attic scent

Seance- GC: smells like wood in a dusty parlor and old roses (rosewood) to me.

Days and Nights in Vaults and Charnal Houses- downright creepy underground scent. Also smells like spring flowers somehow.

House of Night- GC: evergreen, floral. Reminds me of a funeral home, all flowers mixing with various people's perfumes and faint cigarette smoke.

German Expressionist Horror DD: Old, mildewing velvet drapes, black and white pine forest- a dusty, lonely, mysterious movie set.

Sloth GC: Dank basement or room filled with burning incense.

I don't know what smells like castles, but Night's Bridge might work.

Edited November 23, 2012 by patina

[sunlitgarden]

Dungeon Crawl is somewhat hard to find, but I find it really evokes a wet, cold stone basement/dungeon.

[Usagi]

Inganok Jewelers; it's my ultimate creepy dungeon scent-- yet it still smells good.

[ivyandpeony]

Dungeon Crawl is somewhat hard to find, but I find it really evokes a wet, cold stone basement/dungeon.

 

That was one of the first scents to pop into my head, too!

 

My two favorites that would fit this bill are Carfax Abbey and The Castle, both from the Dracula (Halloween) series from fall 2006. So they could be harder to find just because of the amount of time that's passed, but you can keep an eye out in Swaps and in Lab overstock sales on Etsy. (Both have aged beautifully, BTW, so that's always a plus.)

 

The Castle - A distant whisper of pine, wet moss and dry leaves passing through vast halls and winding dungeons whose scent bears the memory of blood, faded splendor, imperial elegance and stunning violence. I actually find this much warmer than expected - I think there may be some amber & patchouli in there representing the "faded splendor" and "imperial elegance." It is one of the very few BPAL scents with blood in the description that either doesn't contain dragon's blood resin or contains so little that it doesn't get sharp on my skin, too.

 

Carfax Abbey - The scent of abandoned places, of desolation and emptiness: heavy woods and thin dusty herbs touched by the wafting incense of a nearby chapel. This does have a dusty quality but the woods and resins are dominant. It truly does evoke an empty, desolate church.

[Dark Alice]

Spooky Victorian Manor=Wretched Rose Window! There is something just off about the dust, violet, and rose in it. It creeps me out when I wear it.

[laforetnoire]

Ouija : Lush parlor rooms draped in thick velvets and gilded in gold, unearthly whispering in the distance, fleeting flashes of wraithlike figures rushing just outside your vision, the chill of a phantom presence brushing by your cheek, the inscrutable knowledge that disembodied eyes are peering at you from darkened corners… this is the essence of Victorian-era spiritualism: rosewood, oak and teak notes with wispy blue lilac, tea rose, dried white rose and ethereal osmanthus.

 

A definitely creepy atmosphere here!

Edited December 5, 2012 by laforetnoire

[MandyCassandra]

For the castle...

 

Possibly The Black Tower?

 

A sepulchral, desolate scent. Long-dead soldiers, oath-bound; the perfume of their armor, the chill wind that surges through their tower, white bone and blackened steel: white sandalwood, ambergris, wet ozone, galbanum and leather with ebony, teak, burnt grasses, English ivy and a hint of red wine.

 

I've never actually smelled this one, but whenever I read the notes, I always get the chill of that abandoned keep in my head. It might be worth a sniff.

[spookybelle]

Thank you all! So many great suggestions! I'm definitely adding some of the GC scents to my list and keeping my eye out for the discontinued ones.

Edited December 9, 2012 by spookybelle