The Parliament of Monsters (2016)

[LizziesLuck]

You pass through the golden mouth, and find yourself inside a narrow, cramped corridor. Large wooden paintings of skeletal hands crook their bony fingers, leading you forwards. At the first turn, you hear a bizarre jumble of sounds: the high-pitched sound of gears grinding, metal on metal, the sound of sultry, low-pitched laughter, a clattering, wings flapping, soft hissing. Suddenly, a sharp howl pierces the darkness. As you make your way around the corner you are momentarily blinded as floodlights flicker to life, and thirteen gold-gilded stages are illuminated, bathed from beneath in sinister, caramel-colored light.

Dust, incense, wet tobacco, singed straw, and a curl of opium smoke.

I haven't tried the original. I was drawn to this due to the tobacco and singed straw.

Wet: Frankincense. Huh? Oh, incense. It is dusty, more of a dry Frank note than a golden glowing Frank. But it's still all Frank, all the time, on me right now. Hoping for more complexity as it dries!

Dry: Dry, indeed! Dusty, dry Frankincense. I never get any of the other notes. If I had known the incense in this was Frank, I likely would have avoided it - I have found lately that unless Frank is paired with something equally substantial, it's just going to dominate on my skin and not allow any other notes to shine.

This is a very incense heavy blend, I can't smell any tobacco at all (it's usually strong on my skin), and I can't pick out anything that resembles a straw note. Smelling it straight out of the imp is not helpful - I feel like this one needs warmth from skin to bloom. In the imp it smells like original Listerine. You know, the yellowish brown coloured one that isn't minty. Nothing like how it smells on my skin.

I feel like this review is highly unhelpful, and everyone should just go out and try this for themselves.

[Blood onmy hands]

I didn't like the original Parliament and barely remember it, but I'm not loving this version either. It's a similar dry, dusty vibe and some sharp, perfumey smokiness from the opium. Smells harsh, chemical and dusty to me. Not getting any straw/hay scent, and my original review mentioned sweet tobacco, which I'm also not getting from the new version.
Faint, dusty, perfumey, nondescript...

[Convallaria]

I got a secondhand decant and at first I wondered if something didn't go wrong along the way, but since there have been people with similar experience...first few seconds smell like alcohol, then it settles into a weak cologne. Of listed notes, I can only pick up opium. Frankincense crawls out at the start of the drydown, but everything mellows down again into something nondescript - it could be hay, but it's not singed. Very weak overall for a "parliament of monsters". Pity because I love all the notes, but glad I got to try out a decant rather than making a blind buy I'd regret.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Convallaria