Tum

[fairy]

Hail unto Thee who art Tum in Thy setting, even unto Thee who art Tum in Thy joy, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Down-going of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Day!

In the imp...tum is bubble gum. It's almost drinkable. Once applied it gets a sharp metallic scent which doesn't work for me. Still smell gum...maybe gum on a metal pole. Don't care for Tum

[Meg]

In the bottle: Boozy raisins.

 

Wet: Wow, very strong booze and raisins smell, it smells a bit like a traditional English Christmas pudding. And from underneath that, something woody and herby starts to come out. It's linden! Wow!

 

Drydown: A very strong linden blossom scent, soft and delicious. It combines with the raisins, that come back, resulting in a red grape juice smell, with a touch of linden honey. It smells really like red wine with herbs, a kind of drink someone would prepare for a ritual.

 

Overall: I can't stop sniffing myself, this is divine! I really love the wine/linden mix, to me this smells like walking in the woods on a hot summer's evening, when everything is cooling down, and drinking delicious grape juice under the gentle shade of a linden tree. Really beautiful, delicious and the lab couldn't have chosen a better frimp for me!

[Diana]

Wet: Grape candy! There's a bit of a dry herbal note to it as well.

 

Drydown: the grape smells like bubblegum. The herbal note, whatever it could have been, has almost gone, but there's a tinge of it left that's keeping the grape note from being too overwhelming. It's almost got a wine-like quality to it at this point, but it's subdued.

 

This is an odd blend! It's not sweet, but it's not purely herbal either. I'm just confused. This is one I'd get if I were to use it with ritual connotations rather than to wear as perfume.

[gypsybaby1]

I can't believe I haven't posted a review of this...

 

SWEET! it's a fizzy, light scent. very uplifting and bright.

 

works equally well as a room scent or a personal scent.

 

[absinthe21]

I cannot believe that I am the first to recieve this scent....but I will try to be the first to review it and do it justice.

 

I got an imp of this in the order that arrived today.

 

I can't pick any one scent out of this blend....it is so well blended.

But I will give impressions as they come.

 

In the vial: Very incensy....with a sharpness to it....almost citrusy. I smell spice..dark spice like cardamom. Interesting.

 

Wet on skin: Very strong.....but not alot of throw, which is wierd. You would expect it to smell strong everywhere, but it's only strong when it is next to your nose. Right now it smells the same as it did in the bottle.

 

Dry for 30 minutes: sweet orange and clove incense....this blend is amazing.....I wish I could buy a bottle of this.....the more I wear it, the more it develops this creaminess to it. Oh this is wonderful!!

 

If Beth ever makes it to where this is available to buy....I will be the first in line!

 

Merged with existing Tum review thread. --Shollin

[supremegoddessofall]

Very sharp, but also spicy. It's almost got a pure cinnamon oil feel, except it's nowhere near as strong. But there's something else, too - allspice or nutmeg maybe? I think there's a touch of cherry in here, too. Very interesting combination that I keep coming back to sniff.

[myandroidconcubine]

Out of the bottle this was pure grape cough syrup, so I was really nervous about putting it on. Within a few minutes, however, it had settled into a kind of fizzy grape soda - not a scent I'd wear on a regular basis, but really fun and funky. It made me incredibly energetic and I found myself dancing down sidewalks in the morning! Woo. It's a few hours later now and it's settled much closer to my skin, in a clingy fermented wine smell that reminds me very strongly of Kali.

 

In conclusion, it's a great scent for the setting sun, coming in bright and fervent and mellowing to a sexy, clingy afterglow. Not my personal scent of choice, but I'll make use of the imp.

[filigree_shadow]

This smells exactly like grape juice on me. Like Concord grapes. There's something a bit smoky in it too when I sniff it up close.

 

But it's incredibly strong, and when my arms are by my sides as normal I can only smell grape juice. A lot of it.

[AmyAngel]

I'm new and still learning notes and things, so keep that in mind.

 

Tum: This is really STRONGLY fermented-smelling in the imp. Very rancid grape smell. Wet, it smells the same. It seems to have softened a bit as it's dried, though. 15 minutes later it's smelling more like cough medicine, but not the kind I liked – more like the red grape kind that wasn't as sweet and tasted sharper. After 45 minute or so, it's pretty wine-like, but I'm not really liking it. Into the swap pile!

 

My quick-description on my spreadsheet simply says "yucky fermented grape" - to me there's a sharpness to it that is pretty unpleasant. I'm not getting any richness or other scents, just an unpleasant sharp grape smell.

[Miss Lynx]

Interesting... I keep thinking this smells like something else, but I'm not sure what. It's predominantly an incensey scent, with amber in it almost for certain, but it's also got a citrussy edge to it, and I think a bit of musk. It's not as heavy as Cathedral or Aureus, but there's definitely an undercurrent of darkness to it... It seems very appropriate for sunset.

 

As it settles in, I keep catching little whiffs of all kinds of different things. Sometimes it's like a lighter, tarter Aureus, other times it's like a less-sweet Hymn to Proserpine, other times something else entirely. And yet, while it has similarities to several scents I really like, on the whole I'm not as pleased with it as I could be.

 

Eventually as it dries down, I realize what it reminded me of: Litha. The citrussy-sunny-incense feel is a lot like that one, though of the two I think I like Litha better.

 

And the scent it eventually shifts to is a sort of not-altogether-pleasant waxy scent that a few other scents also dry down to -- not sure what note that is that does that, but I wish it wouldn't.

 

Overall, it has more of the feeling of a ritual oil than a perfume, and while I'm sure it would be good for that, it's not something I would wear as a scent outside of ritual.

 

Grade: B-

[ouch!]

Ok....This is a strange one!

 

The two most predominant notes for me are..GRAPE...and CLOVE. There's definatley clove in here somewhere.

 

When it's wet it's all grape and clove, which to me is a very strange combination...I do not like it one bit...so far there have only been a few BPAL's that I've not liked very much and this wet stage is not winning either....

 

Once it's dry slightly though, this very resin'y incense kinda smell happens, it's either Frankincense or Myrrh. It's much more tolerable now, but that grape soda smell just won't go away..it's kind of ruining it a bit.

 

Setting sun?.....erm....not really. It's not warm, calm or relaxing enough for that..it's a scent that's trying to be bouncy and fruity but mysterious at the same time....it's slightly medicinal smelling to me. (sorry I'm just totally typing what springs into my head between sniffs) There's a wood in here somewhere too.

 

This is a very strange blend for me......And right now I'm going to go back and read what everyone else has to say about it. Because I'm a bit baffled!

 

Ouch!

[pastrydeity]

In the bottle, I didn't like this one at all--it smelled like grape candy and cloves, but not in a good way. For a few minutes after putting it on, the grape scent was still very strong, but more pleasant than straight out of the bottle. After that, it faded even more, to something more subdued and mysterious. I like it quite a bit, after it's dried down like that.

[Garbazhul]

Tum really made my day. I hardly can tell any of the scents in it, but it's like a mixture of wood, flowers and honey. My co-workers like too, also the patients.

 

Reading the description (I read it after trying the scent), one could think of Tum as a feminine scent, but I think males can wear it as well.

 

Also Tum seems to change from "more wood + honey and sun" to "more flowers + honey and sun". Just awesome.

 

Edit: It's still there after nearly 11 hours. Just great!

Edited April 15, 2007 by Garbazhul

[hologhost]

Wow, this is a tricky one. The previous reviews say grape, but I am so not getting that. Honey, wood, and incense. There is a sweet fruit note, but it's not grape. And something that really smells to me like tobacco. Doesn't really appeal to me.

[Wildbriar]

Here goes my first review... woot!

 

In the imp this smells sweet and olive-y, like fresh cut olive wood and honey. Very Nice.

Wet on me it smells of evergreen resin and florals. I get none of the grape that others describe, nor do I notice any cinnamon or clove. I can detect a hint of spice that may be nutmeg, something less sweet than cinnamon. At first drydown this retains that sweet resinous smell and as it mellows it becomes sweeter as the floral notes come to the forefront . Finally, after 20 minutes or so it has become a delightful, warm sweet-spicy scent that I really love. A very autumnal scent to me, which makes sense as Autumn is the twilight of the year.

[impadua@aol.com]

I just got this from the lab this week (thanks!!), and it is an interesting scent. Grapey, fizzy, smells like childhood when it is first applied.

Then it gets a little different, like grape juice sitting out on the front porch a little while. Maybe a little fermentation goin' on.

All in all, it's a friendly scent. I'm keepin' it.

[tinyvulture]

full-bodied red wine, extremely fruity and sour. there are also herbs, but i couldn’t say exactly which ones. as it dries, a very strong wine smell remains, but it’s tempered with faint incense and something tangy that reminds me of olives. olive leaf, maybe? i’m not hankering for a bottle, but i'll use this imp from time to time. probably on cold days, as it’s a very warm scent.

[LadyCrow]

In the imp: Sharp, deep resin.

 

Wet: Fruity, but still resinous. Sweet, though.

 

Drying down: Is that the grape? Yeah, it's all coming together like some kind of ancient wine. Wait, there's honey! No, the honey's gone away. Wait, it's back! Oh, here's the resin again, that kind of lemony-resin like Ahathoor has. No, now we're back to grape.

 

Beth is a master at evoking scent concepts (e.g. the unsettling factor that Kuang Shi seems to have, even though the fruit notes in it are very pretty), and this really smells... streaked, the way a sunset can be. You'll see streaks of gold, orange, dark pink, purple, what have you, and this smells like that. Only ancient.

 

I'm not going to mortgage my leg for a bottle, unless I suddenly decide that having mead with a mummy at sunset is my thing, but it's hugely evocative and very well done.

[Naamah_Darling]

Honey and lavender, very strongly. The combination is, surprisingly, very much like chocolate.

 

This is herbal but sweet, and the overall character of it is of a fading, glittering gold, the last of the light melting on sun-warmed stone.

 

This is a sweet, somnolent scent reminiscent of a bittersweet lullaby. A surprisingly gentle perfume, given how violently my skin typically reacts to lavender.

 

It's nicely nuanced and deep, a shady scent. Fairly typical of the Stations of the Sun scents as a whole.

Edited July 10, 2007 by Naamah_Darling

[ladybird]

My experience with Tum was funny and sad, all at the same time. It was like some warped parody of the usual BPAL sniffing process: complexity and change over time, but every nuance an unhappy failure.

 

Wet, it was sharp, astringent, and herbal. One of the friends I was meet-and-sniffing with said that she could smell fruit, but I didn't.

 

Dry: Oh, there's the fruit. Rotten fruit. Heavy rotten fruit. Ick ick ick.

 

I know lots of people love Tum, but it was a terrible failure on me. Alas!

[usamimi]

In the bottle: Bitter. Raisins and cloves.

 

Wet: Slightly sweeter, but still heavy on the raisiny, clovey smell.

 

Dry: Didn't work with me at ALL. I had to go wash this off. It made me smell bitter, bitter, and more bitter.

 

Overall: A lot of people seemed to love this, so I was disappointed when this came out so bitter on me. :/ Ah, well.

[zankoku_zen]

In the imp: Raspberry jam?

 

On Skin: Raspberry/orange marmalade. Very sweet.

 

On Drydown: Spicy citrusy floral. Reminds me to Mama-Ji, on it's drydown.

 

Verdict: This ends up smelling very similar to Mama-Ji on me. On wet, it's too sweet for me to handle though.

[LadyBug]

Smells kind of like sweet water. However, there's something else there than the sweet...something kind of darker. Not sure what it is but that's what throws it off for me. I hate to say that this scent made me feel sick to my stomach but that's what it did. I will definately be swapping this because I can't stand it.

[Delirium1009]

In bottle: This smells extremely sweet… like very ripe grapes and honey.

 

immediately on skin: A musk is starting to come out now… and it’s softening the sickly sweet note. It still smells like very ripe fruits though drenched in sweet honey.

 

After a few minutes: This blend is still very heavy on the grape juice note but it has a slight spiciness after a few minutes. I think I smell clove, but it’s very light. This blend has started out very strong and very sweet on me though.

 

Later on: there seems to be some light musk that is lightening the grape juice note a bit, but this is still extremely sweet. The spice is there as well, lingering slightly underneath the grape. It gives the blend a little more depth, but it’s just very sweet and not that complex to my nose.

[maproot]

have gone through half a bottle in less than a week-grape soda that is mysterious-i must get more,dont smell honey,more like sunflower and grape with a spicy sweet yum for the tum

 

ADDED April 8:

 

i getgrape soda from tum-or the kind of grape chewing gum I liked whe n I was a little kidlet...never knew I liked grape stuff so much-so if it would only be a bit warmer so I can use my beloved Tum now-umplease !