The Grove of the Sun

[annemathematics]

Immortally vibrant olive, black pine, and bay laurel shimmering with rivulets of fresh olibanum sap.

Please know that I'm testing this fresh from the mail with five other anniversary scents. The pine and sap are reminding me of Flying Kites, a favorite bptp lilith scent. The weather today has been cold and dark and damp and grey and THIS SCENT is the perfect antidote to such dour weather. A beautiful waft of outdoors that hints slightly at the Yule season but doesn't scream Xmas.

 

I totally play favorites and based on the initial test, this was my current favorite anniversary fresh out of the mail.

 

after having had this sit for a bit...now when it dries down, it reminds me very much of the blends from yule 2013's miskatonic festival series. salty, wintery, outdoorsy waft of crisp air. pretty but with an underlying something else. (and my series favorite has shifted to relics of herself)

Edited January 4, 2015 by annemathematics

[Haltija]

I never smelled Flying Kites so I cannot compare it to that but I can compare it to being in the same family as something like Destroying Angel (I don't get any mushroom quality in that scent.......... or something like Burial) While it doesn't have a "dirt" smell it just has a earthy note and I am getting it from the pine mixed with the olive. It's kind of fresh and makes you crave Summer even though it's not a full on Summer blend. It's great and I will enjoy my decant when the weather warms up a little.

Edited December 31, 2014 by Haltija

[blu°]

This is so much more aquatic than I would've expected. I'm not sure what makes this smell so juicy-fresh, similar to the way aloe feels on skin, but that's what I get. A fresh blueish green, not so much sweet but juicy aquatic.

[zankoku_zen]

Olive, pine sap, laurel. This one definitely smelled like an herby olive oil and it dried to a slightly perfumey olibanum and pine. In fact, this would make an awesome cleaning product/soap. Average throw, low wear length.

 

Olive, sap, clean.

[brilliantcat]

Beautifully invigorating in the decant. I get a bit of a Yule vibe from it without it being full-on Christmas themed. Once applied, the pine is front and center with the olive oil adding richness. This is one of those blends that smells different up close at the skin and in the cloud of scent that wafts from my arm. There's a lovely resinous quality from the olibanum and a bit of herbaceousness from the bay laurel. I get a touch of sweetness from some combination of the notes... perhaps the olive oil? The pine calms down and the blend softens immensely on the drydown; this sticks very close to the skin. I find it surprisingly soft and cuddly and even soothing. I'd like to try this on the husbeast as well, but I definitely need a bottle. Every single one of the blends I tested from this collection has been a hit. What a wonderful Anniversary collection

[thekittenkat]

In the decant: It's as though the other notes were being dissolved into some fresh olive oil.

 

Wet: The olive oil has mellowed, but the pine, bay laurel and olibanum are slowly drowning in the olive oil, alas, but they aren't done yet.

 

The dry-down: A gentle, slightly pine-scented olive oil for ritual use or just as a room scent, but certainly not a cooking oil! I like this, but because the olive oil subsumes the notes, the decant will be enough.

[milo]

Mostly pine at first. After a bit, still pine, but muted, turns a bit like a powdery herbal blend. Kind of like a herbal meadow in a pine forest. Not something I would wear, but it's nice to try.

[BoneBone24]

Wet: Very botanical, like a winter garden.

 

Drydown: So fresh and so green, but in this wet, dewy, atypical sort of way. The pine is noticeable, but it’s balanced out by a difficult to pinpoint balminess. It’s shimmery and glossy and damp, but without skewing aquatic.

 

Dry: Spicier and warmer as the bay laurel gains prominence. I get the sense of a marshy woodland with the sun streaming down, melting clumps of snow leftover from the winter. There’s a vibrancy of new life springing up; birds chirping, leaves forming, beetles digging their way out of the dirt. Balmy, spicy, and fresh.

 

 

8.5 out of 10 bones

[Zorra]

Why does this smell so lemony on me? Not lemon rind, but some lemony smelling plant, I couldn't say which though. I don't smell pine, or olive, or olibanum, it is not aquatic at all on me (and I worried about that because I am not very fond of aquatics), all I get when it touches my skin is this ... a lemon scent that is not lemon rind, not the fruit, but some plant, I just don't know which one.

[tinyvulture]

Strong herbal blend. Bay leaves, olive oil, and pine sap. It feels like a high quality milled soap but it's not really "me" as a perfume.