R'lyeh

[Miss Lynx]

The sunken city of the Great God Cthulhu. A hellishly dark aquatic scent, evocative of fathomless oceanic deeps, the mysteries of madness buried under crushing black waters, and the brooding eternal evil that lies beneath the waves.

I didn't really get grapefruit from this, evil or otherwise. There is a sort of tang to it that could be described as citrussy, but it doesn't smell like any particular kind of citrus to me, and it's not the dominant note, at least not on me.

The main sense I get from it is aquatic, but not so much something that genuinely evokes the sea, as smells like some bath product or scented candle that's theoretically supposed to smell like the sea. There's something generically "perfumey" about it; it smells less like actual water than like a sort of perfume-industry consensus of what "aquatic" scents are supposed to smell like.

There's also an edge of something vaguely unpleasant underneath it, that smells familiar but not really identifiable, and gets stronger as the scent wears. Not sure what it is, but I suppose it's thematically appropriate given the name of the scent to have something nasty and disturbing lurking underneath the (pseudo-)ocean.

All in all, not for me. I did kind of like it when I first applied it, but it gets worse rather than better as most scents do, the longer it stays on my skin.

Grade: C

[Katinka]

I racked my brain for over an hour trying to pinpoint just what was in this rather unusual blend...in the end, I can only describe it as water trickling down the damp walls of a sparkling cave. It has a very "mineral-like" element to it, but it melds surprisingly well with my skin and is rather pleasant. No evil grapefruits, sadly.

Edited December 13, 2005 by Katinka

[AlaskaSnows]

Wet: Freshly cut, not quite ripe yellow grapefruit.

 

Dry: Grapefruit and some bitter herbs. Like a rotting grapefruit that never got ripe. I definitely smell the aquatic note in there too, a sweetness behind the bitter and sour. It's interesting, but I see no reason to actually wear something with these bitter notes. Might be good on a man.

[AngellicMystique]

Wet: I get lots of grapefruit, grapefruit and dark ocean water.

 

Later: Erm. I'm getting evil grapefruit on my skin, fruity, dark aquatic, and I think that's a musk in there. Not bad, but not me.

 

Finally: Upon dry down and airing, I'm in love with this smell

[magdalene]

I'm just going to quote amaltheagray's review of this: "

 

r'lyeh is EVIL CTHULU GRAPEFRUIT. it is the GRAPEFRUIT OF DARK UNHOLY DEEDS."

 

Truer words have never been spoken.

[Rhowan]

In the bottle: Grapefruit

 

Wet: Grapefruit

 

Dry down: Grapefruit with a dark aquatic undertone which just makes this smell more grapefruity...

 

Conclusion: I have to agree -

r'lyeh is EVIL CTHULU GRAPEFRUIT. it is the GRAPEFRUIT OF DARK UNHOLY DEEDS."

 

 

 

ETA: Didn't last very long

Edited January 11, 2006 by Rhowan

[GemmaCat]

In the bottle: very fresh and tart, strong citrus base that reminds me of high class mens cologne.

 

On the skin, wet: even more citrusy with a very powerful lime base and a hint of ozone.

 

This is a weird one for me. It has an interesting scent; a mix of fresh citrus, almost masculine musk, and fresh aquatic notes, but it also has an undertone I can't quite place and which I find unpleasant.

 

All in all, this is one which doesn't quite work with my skin.

[Fefferbella]

Sharp bitter grapefruit.

 

This smells exactly like cutting open an unripe green grapefruit.

 

Very intense. This is a great "wake-up!!!" scent for sluggish mornings.

[PixieSkull]

In the imp: Wet and sweet and spicy, definate citrus scent.

Wet: Wet, grapefruit melding with some soft spices. Slight incense smell.

Dry: A lot spicier dry than otherwise. The watery part of the fragrance goes away almost entirely, except for that sweet tinge of grapefruit on first sniff.

 

Category: Water/Soft Spice

Rating: 3.5/5, nice scent

Overall: I like the watery bit of it and the soft spice is very nice, but it made my nose tingle for the first few hours of wearing it. The almost-sneezy makes me like it less than I normally would have on scent alone. It's okay and I'm glad I tried it. I may keep it around for a little while to test some other time.

Edited February 3, 2006 by Shollin

[The Perfumed Ferret]

Amber and Warm Musk.

 

Something sharp and aquatic kicks in about 15 minutes later.

 

Dry down is a bit powdery

 

No grapefruit here!

[slave1]

In Bottle: Sweet ozone

 

On Skin: Wow, after just reviewing Sea of Glass I feel I’m in an ozone rut here. This is very sweet though, not sharp. It has a slight cloying note that gets to be a bit much if I sniff for too long. On the forums people said grapefruit, which I don’t smell at all. I don’t even smell citrus. I smell a sweet ozone soapy note and a light floral. The floral has to be white but also dripping sweet. After about 10 minutes, the scent darkens a little. Maybe a musk? This scent is so interesting and I love that it confuses me slightly, especially since it doesn’t fit the description quite right. I am keeping this imp, I love that it does smell like sea water… clean sea water though… no fishyness or dirt… I alos love that it’s sweet, and not sharp and as crisp as most other ozone/aquatic scents I’ve reviewed.

[Ryvre]

I wasn't expecting to like R'lyeh. I kept reading about the grapefruit, and I was expecting something very citrusy, but I had to try it on the name alone. I definitely smell the grapefruit, but there's something deep and incensey too that tempers the grapefruit. It may be evil grapefruit, but I really like it.

[Meganaut]

I bought an imp of this from glokeroo (thanks!) and I've worn it two days in a row now.

 

In the imp, I get nothing citrus from this. I do get a definite salt water smell. It reminds me of a time I was on a tour boat in the Keys and a storm came up. A salty-ozone scent.

 

The drydown leaves something slightly musky (?) behind. Doesn't strike me as particularly masculine, though. A very interesting, hard to pin down scent. There's something dark in there, but it doesn't smell rotten. It makes me think of sheets of seaweed for wrapping sushi, an ocean vegetable smell that's not woody.

I am adding this one to my big bottle wishlist for sure.

 

-Karen

[VenusFlyTrap]

I thought I probably would like this one.

 

Some aquatics are ok to my nose but not this one.

 

I am glad to be able to try this in a imp.

[Diva Urd]

Count me among the ones who also got the "evil grapefruit" vibe from this. The wet phase was very fruity on me, with floral notes in the background. As it dries, the fruit go a little more into the background to mingle with the florals. I can't really pick out any notes aside from the grapefruit, even in the later stages, since it is still the predominant note on me.

 

It's not bad, but not one of my favorites.

[Meg]

In the bottle: Ozone, black musk and bitter grapefruit.

 

Wet: The ozone, musk and grapefruit sweeten and battle for dominance. The grapefruit smells bubbly with ozone, hmm!

 

Drydown: The grapefruit and ozone are slightly pushed into the background by black musk's very vanilla-sweet scent, that really grounds the blend. There may also be myrrh in the blend, somewhere. When all has settles, waves over waves of ozony-grapefruit come at my nose, over the sweetness of musk.

 

Overall: An unusal marine blend, very feminine and pretty fruity. The grapefruit is really realistic, with a bitter bite that makes it credible. The overall result is the smell you'd get eating a sugared grapefruit by the seaside, watching the gentle waves, in a hot country. I don't see it as particularly dark or broody, but it's certainly mysterious and a bit exotic. And it lasts for a long time, with vanilla dark musk grounding the grapefruit. Nice.

[g026r]

In the bottle: Very wet smelling, slightly sweet.

 

Wet: Wet flowers.

 

Dry: Flowers, flowers, flowers. Almost overpowering sickly-sweet smell.

 

Overall: Doesn't evoke R'lyeh to me, and the floral smell was too feminine. Gave it to a friend, in the hopes it will work on her instead.

Edited March 28, 2006 by g026r

[LittleGreyKitten]

This one surprised me with it's sweetness. There's a hint of aquatic to it but not a lot, and also a deeper scent of incense, which reminds me a bit of the undertone to some of the Springtime in Arkham scents (Whippoorwill and Al-Azif come to mind). No grapefruit for me, sadly.

 

As it dries the aquatic dissipates quickly, leaving a sweet, dark incense aroma on me. I'm rather liking it, but I have a lot of sweet incense blends, so I am not in love. Still, this one is pleasantly lower-key than some- incense is one that amps like whoa on me and can easily waft far and wide, up to 20 feet (!! yikes) away from me. So this one is at least staying near me- that's nice.

 

Yeah. The more I smell this the more it relates to the SiA set, and I'm thinking Whippoorwill in particular, but I'll have to sniff and see for sure later.

 

I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5, which might be a little stingy- I'm just feeling kind of burnt out on incense blends I guess.

[kourika]

R'Lyeh was the scent that confirmed that my skin definitely does NOT like aquatics. I did get the scent of cold, dark water, but it wasn't the ocean...it was a cold, dark puddle of standing water that was beginning to grow algae and mold. Yuck!

 

I passed it along to a friend who loves Lovecraft scents, and she adores it!

[mermaidrage]

I received R'lyeh as a very generous frimp and, given the EVIL CTULHU GRAPEFRUIT vibe going on in this thread, had to make it one of my first tests.

 

In the imp: Grapefruit. And that metallic bloody taste you get when you bite your tongue. And salt water. Strangely enough, I LIKE it. I like it a lot.

Wet: Oooh, this is... umm... this is interesting. It's sharp and biting but at the same time, rather intoxicating. I sniff and get assaulted by grapefruit almost instantly followed up by the aquatic note that reminds me of why I used to love The Body Shop's Oceanus before they changed the formula.

Dry: This went SWEET and dark. I guess it must be the black musk and the ozone mixed. The grapefruit's still there but it's mellower.

 

I really like this. I might need a bottle.

[valentina]

Not typically a fan of aquatic scents, I tried R'lyeh because it was a frimp from the Lab (thank you!) and I wanted to pass it along to a friend who's an aquatic scent addict.

 

This is, truly, a deep, dark, mysterious, lost-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean scent. While it starts out very clean and aquatic in the imp and upon initial application, it does darken into a sea water-and-incense smell. If the temples of the submerged city could waft up their dark, incensy offerings through the ocean, it would smell like this. Plus, I get a little musk or something dark and masculine going on in the background. To me, this is a dark and brooding scent.

 

I find it rather masculine and sexy as hell. I don't know if I'm giving it to my friend, because it kind of trips my trigger.

Edited May 2, 2006 by valentina

[Eunice]

Salty grapefruit in the bottle and salty grapefruit on my skin. I want to say it is also soapy but only because it smells just like a grapefruit body scrub I use. I'd tested this once before and didn't like it at all but this time R'lyeh is more intriguing and clean. I like it a lot more. I feel very clean with this on. Clean and energized.

[nerdcraft]

in the vial:

Oh wow. This is quite juicy but also deep - sort of a fresh incense, if that makes any sense at all. Reminds me really strongly of a "fresh rain" incense I used to use.

wet:

Same. Not too strong. Smells quite clean. There's something I can't identify that I want to say might be fruity or citrusy. And reading the last 4 pages of reviews, it evidently is grapefruit.

dry:

The citrus fades, leaving a wet, aquatic incense behind.

 

season: Ooo, this is hard. Maybe more wintery, or for rainy spring days.

office-friendly? Yes, for sure.

 

overall: Interesting. I find it really fun to try scents that don't have any notes listed and that I'd never choose for myself. I ended up liking this one pretty well, actually. I feel like this could be a unisex scent. It also feels a little sophisticated and pulled together.

[desu]

In the imp: A juicy ruby red grapefruit.

 

On my skin: The smell of grapefruit being immediately sucked up by my skin which is a shame because I love grapefruit. :/

[Aredhel]

Rating (on skin): 3/5

Summarised in a word or two: Strange.

 

Preconceived notions: I got this during one of my "let's throw a dart at the phone book and see what we come up with" moods, since some of my favourite BPAL loves (Tzad!) were thrown at me randomly as imps. So, let's see what becomes of this.

 

In the imp: Grapefruit? Well... kinda. Maybe. It's got that similar grapefruit-y, citrusy-y tang, but it doesn't strike me as grapefruit per se. Hmm.

 

On skin, wet: ....What the hell is this? Cinnamon? Orange peel? Yuzu?! This is definitely not what I expected. There's something else, something dark (part of this may be the yuzu), keeping this from being bright and Christmas-y.

 

On skin, dry: Spices, orange peel, maybe ginger, yuzu, something peppery, maybe some kind of dark musk, and... water. Dank, moist, water. Odd, but not wholly unpleasant, strangely enough.

 

Conclusion/Notes: Odd indeed. It'd be interesting to try on a guy, but as I'm single (and no plans to change that), I probably won't keep the imp around. It's certainly too dark and heavy for me at any rate.