Bestla

[Casablanca]

The first queen, daughter of giants: radiant amber, black fig, and rose oud.

This is a bright reddish carmine fluid.

Fresh on my skin, Bestla starts strong: primarily as a dark red rose, with some dark weirdness mingled in. I realize it’s the oud, but it’s different from usual. It’s strange. But it’s a strong oud! From the notes list, I realize it’s the black fig that’s giving the earthy-woody oud the weirdness I’m getting, which is a darkly sweet fruit-fleshiness. The black fig blends almost into oneness with the oud, darkening and sweetening it, a part of it. Soft amber lives in the background.

Once Bestla has dried, she fully blends: a dark, potent rose oud with tones of black fig and soft background resin creating fullness.

I don’t have anything quite like this. It’s close to what I’d wanted Daruma Doll to be, from last year’s Lupers, without the Doll’s red musk that did so poorly on my skin. A keeper.

[Jenjin]

Swirly smoky, wooded rose notes at the front, along with a raunchy, indolic musk i'm trying to identify. It kinda smells like booty but I'm thinking it's the oud. Fresh, sweet, and just a hint of your lover's bum.

This is what I would imagine a black rose in the forest to smell like, glistening and rare. I can't really detect the fig or the amber except for a creamy note and a touch of wet spice that accentuates the gothic quality of this FANCY queen. After dry down, it is sultry, dark heaven. I know it's rose, but the way that the other notes blend with the floral, it becomes grounded, smooth and oh so sexy.
I haven't tried it out yet, but i'm seriously guessing that Bestla is a man-killer. It smells like a long afternoon boff in the sack while you're wearing lacy red tartan, snogging red wine and rolling over thick, black red rose petals. Toss me on those plaid satin sheets my McQueen
UPDATE: Honestly, this has aged beautifully. Perhaps the oud was "fresh", but after a several weeks of aging, I barely get any indolic whiffs at the start. I love this one!!!!

Edited February 24, 2017 by Jenjin

[Kay Torres]

Okay, so this was my first time actually smelling oud, and I'm now a HARDCORE fan. I have a few other scents that list it as a note, but it isn't something that I can pick out in those. But Bestla?? This is an oud experience from beginning to end. In the bottle and wet on the skin, it's very, very... animalic and almost fecal with some rose. But when it dries down it's a sexy (and I mean you just spent a weekend locked in a bedroom doing unspeakable things type sexy), exotic, powerful, earthy and elegant roller coaster of a scent. Not for the faint of heart. Lol. Not for lovers of light scents. This is a scent that requires chutzpah. If you want to feel like an actual walking sex goddess capable of bringing the world to its knees with a knowing wink and a slow smile, THIS is the scent that you should buy. As for throw? This ain't subtle. It's a knock 'em dead one. Wear length? I clocked this at over 16 hours and some change.

[sth0]

Wet: Smells just like ferret "poof" (when they release stink from their anal gland) and cat/ferret pee. I miss my ferret but I am also turned off.

 

Initial dry: Less stinky (I am guessing it is oud, but it is quite a potent oud) and now I smell the rose. Rosy ferret...

 

Dry: Yes. Rosy ferret. Fancy lady ferret. I dunno if I can go out in public smelling like this!

[theseagrows]

in the very beginning, this starts off with amber and rose oud, and omg it's pretty. it's like wine, roses and leather, yet not leather in the usual sense. after this it gets pretty animalic mingled with a winey, dark red rose, and ends up being primarily a dark, winey red rose in the end. i think there's some juicy sweetness from the fig, but it doesn't read as typical fig, if that makes sense. a sultry beauty!

[LizziesLuck]

Really excited to try this. I purposefully let the bottle settle for quite a few days before giving it a go.

 

 

Wet: Oh man. I don't know what is happening here. All of these notes are so much win for me....but my arm smells like dirty diapers where I applied this. I cannot accept that. It's gorgeous in the bottle

OK - after applying elsewhere on my arm....this smells better, but still "off". I have wondered before if I had slight difficulties with oud, but as I never seem able to pick it out in a blend, I wasn't sure.

 

As it settles though, it loses the ick factor, and slowly develops into an almost effervescent amber scent, with a bit of...of man, it still reminds me of poo. WHY???

 

 

Dry: This is so disappointing! In my elbow where I first applied it, it smells like amber and BO, with a hint of poo. On my wrist, just the amber and feces. I don't get it. I am choosing to believe I am having a "bad skin day" and will try again another day.

[Blood onmy hands]

Like others have mentioned, I get something dark and slightly fecal about this, along with a sour rose note. I do enjoy a handful of oud fragrances from other companies, but I don't think that any of the lab's oud fragrances thus far have really worked on me. This has a damp, sour dirtiness that I just find off putting. In the drydown, the woody, sweet fig creeps in and it's more enjoyable, but still not something I really want to wear.

[zankoku_zen]

Fig, woody rose, and amber. There's a slightly sour perfume note in it, and I'm going to assume that's from the rose oudh. Other than that, I probably would have loved this. Medium throw and wear length.

 

Also, the oil is like a dark cherry red.

[milo]

Quintessential weird bpal. Kind of herbal, amber, something funky and something kind of floral. Not at all what I expected, something is amping on me for sure. Probably the floral. Sad.

[littlegoat]

The first few times I tried this I was really put off by the sour/sweet note at the beginning. I think it was the rose oud, because I've had rose go weird on me before. After about 25 minutes though, the sourness faded and it was beautiful. Warm amber sweetened by the fig, but not very figgy, just cozy and beautiful. Since I liked the drydown so much I kept trying it, and the sourness has faded a lot. It only takes a few minutes to get past it. I'm going to keep wearing it, and if I like it as much as I think I do I'll definitely need another bottle or two.

[lizabelle]

Oh, man. I was scared of this because of the amber, but I'm glad I took the forum's advice and went for it anyway. This is Oudh, with a capital O. It's not really like any other oudh I've smelled before--it's dark and spicy and if you tried to convince me there was cinnamon and/or molasses in here I'd believe you. I get no funkiness or fecal smell, but of course everyone's skin/noses are different! The fig blends in perfectly with the oudh and once again becomes the perfect base note. I love fig as a base note, it just works so well. The rose isn't as assertive but it's definitely there, as a fruity, velvety red rose in full bloom. I get no amber at all out of this, which is good because amber has ruined several scents I had high hopes for. This could easily become a favorite for me.

 

As a side note, the oil really is red. Very red. It stained my (very pale) arm a bit, although the color did fade after about twenty minutes.

[Astarial]

I tried a decant of Elizabeth of Bohemia (the perfect rose oude) back when it came out, and I liked it, but not enough for a full bottle. It was a bit powdery and flat. I blind bottled this because I figured the addition of amber and fig would round it out and add some depth.

 

Imagine my surprise when instead, I got poop. Literal manure. I don't know if that's the oud or the fig, since neither of them has ever done that to me before but ugh. It was awful. Poop on my wrists all day.

 

Toward the end of the day I did get a nicer waft, closer to how I expected, so I set it away to age for a while in hopes that it might improve.

 

Good news: it totally did. It's about 2.5 weeks later now, and it's really grown the fuck up. I still get maybe the idea of poop when I sniff at the bottle, but only because I'm still kind of expecting it. On my skin it's become fantastic - deep, earthy sweetness from the fig, a creamy snuggle of amber, and slightly powdery, slightly floral, slightly spicy oud. It's amazing and I'm really glad I gave it another shot.

[bulletslc]

I like this! It's definitely got a body/skin element, but the powdery amber mixed with rose mixed with spicy fig on top of the animalic oud.....to me this is gorgeous! A great balance of all the notes.

[WinterSong]

I wasn't too sure about this one - amber and rose are fickle notes on me. Amber often turns to powder, and rose tends to fade, so I didn't know what to suspect. In the bottle, I get rose. So much rose.

But on dry down, this becomes something sweet, and sophisticated. The rose doesn't vanish too much, and the amber behaves itself. On me, this actually reminds me a bit of a lighter, brighter Lucille Sharpe, without the plum and smokiness. I like it! I'm glad I chanced it and got myself a bottle because I'm going to be wearing this one a lot!

[Lucchesa]

I put Bestla on before heading out to work today and couldn't remember what was in it. (I think I had it confused with Audumla and was expecting streams of milk.) Well, oudh was immediately obvious. Stinky oudh, like the one in Nevertheless She Persisted. I gritted my teeth and, nevertheless, persisted. And the indolic quality only lasted about 10 minutes before it turned into the gorgeous, non-stinky oudh of, say, Cassiopeia, but with rose instead of plum. I knew there was other stuff in there, but I couldn't have said precisely what -- something chewy, that must have been the fig. And like lizabelle, about 2 hours in, I would have guessed there was a late-blooming cinnamon or cassia note, a lovely spicy quality. This is quite beautiful on me, with a little throw and good wear length.