Theoi Nomioi

[Atrous]

In response to the National Park Service retweeting a New York Times piece on Trumps Inauguration numbers, Trumps fragile ego demanded that his administration order the NPS to stop all tweets.

The National Park Service refuses to be muzzled. On January 24th, South Dakotas Badlands National Park social media team defiantly posted a series of climate change facts from the National Wildlife Federation before being shut down. Since then, anonymous employees from the National Park Service started a rogue twitter account:

https://twitter.com/AltNatParkSer

These courageous federal employees are risking their careers to ensure that the public is kept informed on issues of climate change. They are fighting for transparency, truth, and science, and they deserve every ounce of support we can offer them. Tweet, email, FB, and phone in your support. Visit your local National Parks and thank the employees there in person. Donate to the National Parks Conservation Association and the National Park Foundation.

For them, for us, for the sake of the First Amendment, the environment, our state parks, and our future, we honor the bravery and chutzpah of these NPS employees with a scent that benefits the National Parks Conservation Association and the National Park Foundation.

The Theoi Nomioi are the gods and spirits of the wild: the countryside, the pastures, the forests. Under their auspices, untamed nature thrives, the beasts of the wild feast and multiply, the mountains reach to the heavens with their stony, snow-capped fingers, and the forests grow thick and dark with mystery.

The National Parks Conservation Association
Since 1919, the National Parks Conservation Association has been the leading voice of the American people in the fight to safeguard the scenic beauty, wildlife, and historic and cultural treasures of the largest and most diverse park system in the world. Help us assure the future of our beloved national parks.

The National Park Foundation
The National Park Foundation protects Americas special places, connects people to nature and inspires the next generation of park stewards.

Purely the scent of a coniferous forest...spruce and juniper, pine bark, sweet sap, and stone.

Oh happy, happy day...this is exactly what I hoped it would be.

[MischiefofRats]

This is so beautiful. It's even better than I expected, and I was really hoping I'd love it on account of the cause. It's sweetly sappy, stony, and smells of cool pine forest. It's the tiniest bit aquatic, but it's earthy and calming as well. There is nothing soapy about it at all. This isn't a bitter, aggressive, menthol-y forest, not burnt or dark. This is dry and sweet, like Douglas pine and not exactly like but evocative of that specific kind of pine tree with the bark that smells like gorgeous sweet vanilla. It's not a vanilla scent, but it smells like being IN that forest. This is an instant favorite with me. I will be buying more bottles.

Edited January 31, 2017 by MischiefofRats

[SadariEvenstar]

This goes on all pine and dries down into something utterly beautiful. It smells like standing in a forest at dawn. So pretty.

[non_boingy]

Initial thoughts--this is definitely a winter forest. I'm not getting a pure snow note (it's less intense than Mud-mingled Boot Slush, for example, or Skadi), but there's definitely something cold about it. The pine is not Christmas-tree pine but a very fresh, crisp, almost lemony pine--like you've crushed the needles between your fingers. It is bracing for sure, like drawing in a big breath of crisp air while camping. There's a sweet note that reminds me a lot of Autumn Lace as well--leaves, maybe? But not the dirty green-pepper smell I often get from the Lab's leaves notes. I generally avoid their "dead leaf" note but this is so pretty, and I like the one in Autumn Lace too. It's sweet, not musty or dusty. It makes me think of being at my roommate's family's cabin up in the Cascades. L O V I N G this!

Edited February 3, 2017 by non_boingy

[kscha2017]

This is lovely. Straight out of the bottle and onto my skin, it's a sweet pine and dry grasses scent with a hint of fresh air. I will need more.

[Soupy Twist]

Opens with spruce, but slowly morphs into cedar. I don't like cedar. It smells like pencil shavings.

As a few minutes pass, some of that vanilla/root beer/sarsparilla flickers for the briefest moment, but it's still mostly cedar, and then that changes to stone. There's a little of the Lab's snow note, like a breath of mint, over the whole stony-cedar thing. And then the whole dang thing is gone in an hour.

 

Sigh. Skin chemistry is so fickle.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Soupy Twist

[AmyO'Shields]

Holy skin interpretations of this scent so far!

 

Strong (but not mentholic) spruce/soft evergreen with a touch of what my nose interprets as a whisper of black patchouli and skin musk...

I get no snow note, no stone notes and no vanilla.

Dry, the evergreen is muted with a very very light touch of cedar heartwood scent, and the musky quality becomes stronger.

Honestly? This is what I was hoping Black Forest would smell like but it always went too high pitched/mentholy pine on me...

What a perfect scent to dedicate to the NPS! I will probably reach for this most on days when I can't get into the woods. Beautiful.

[phoenix1558]

If Skadi is the winter forest goddess, Theoi Nomioi is her spring sister. Early spring, as the woods begin to shake off their snow and welcome the sun. I put them both on at the same time. The early cold spruce is there in both of them, but Skadi has those sharper, crisper berries whereas TN has a bit more snowy, clear scent. After a few minutes, Skadi remains true blue, cold, crisp, sharp but TN is changing. There's still the spruce on top, but emerging is some watery spring brook, then grasses, wind, a hint of flowers (chamomile, perhaps?), something a tinge nutty, and something else a wee softer, like maybe a kiss of honey. This says Spring to me; a rebirth, the land just waking up from winter, but before it moves into the heavy warm heat of summer. It's lovely. Wild, and yet gentle. I'm suddenly thinking I could break down the 4 seasons of nature into BPAL scents and they'd evoke some sense of continuity; Skadi in deep winter, TN for spring, Leo 07 for hot late summer, and Samhain for fall. This scent is a wonderful homage to the wild beauty of our national parks.

[hexnut]

This is gorgeous. I guessed Theoi Nomioi would be conifer and little else on me, and I would have purchased it anyway, but this surpasses my expectations. There is conifer but it is balanced by a sweet herbal note that I think is White sage, and the whole both is comforting and piercing. I want to walk surrounded by a cloud of this scent, like an aura and an aegis against corruption.

[lizabelle]

Oh, this is beautiful. I can't believe I once thought pine wasn't for me--BPAL has firmly shown me otherwise.This is definitely cedar, but a softer, sweeter cedar than is in most blends. It reminds me of the one in How Doth the Little Crocodile. There's probably other conifers in here but I amp cedar heavily, although I do smell some other wood that almost reminds me of birch. I agree that there's something vanillic in here, although that may just be one of the saps/resins that are forming the base, which are rich but soft. I do smell something a little desert-herb-y too, so I second the sage. Overall this is quite dry but warm and a bit sweet, and I find it very unisex. In fact for those who lean very feminine and are turned off by pine scents; this is the pine scent for you.

[Casablanca]

In the bottle, this smells like sweet pine sap, soft cedar, white sage, dry grasses, something vanillic or benzoiny, and something like chaparral or cactus flower. Possibly with a glint of amber?

 

On my skin, it's all that, and so softly cushiony! Not weak or thin at all, as some blends come out at first, but full and soft. I also start to think I'm getting a little blue mingling of spruce-juniper in here with the rest of the forest.

 

The mood of the blend reminds me of the soft pine-sappy forest of A King Pursued by a Unicorn, but softer, sweeter, more complex, with even less camphor. I might need a backup.

[atropinedrops]

I was excited to see the notes when this was released, since pine-y, resiny smells are my favorite. And when I got it, I was even more excited. In the bottle it has a strong pine sap smell. And when it goes on, it's that same fresh pine sap smell but also with a hint of something warm and spicy underneath.

 

Honestly, this smells almost exactly like my bottle of Wolf Moon '07 which has been my favorite smell since it was released. And this is good timing, as my Wolf Moon is starting to go a little off. I'm probably going to buy a couple bottles of this - both for the cause and for the perfect replacement of my favorite.

[apackofcoyotes]

Freshly applied, this is all lemongrass and pine. A little sharp, like crisp pine needles and frozen sap in winter. As it dries, it becomes softer, sweeter, and more herbal, evoking wildflowers and dry grasses and cold water. Those pine and tree sap notes are still there, but they're not at the forefront anymore. To me, this is early spring in the alpine, when the flowers are starting to bloom but the snow is still melting. Very nice, and very appropriate for the rogue rangers!

[sailthetethys]

At first, it's just pure forest - conifers and leaves and other forest smells - and it is lovely. And, as the others have noted, there's a warm and spicy something that shows up in the drydown.

 

 

Maybe my nose is deceiving me, but I think there's a campfire in this forest. It's not very smoky or in your face. It's the sweet, resinous smoke that you get from burning sap, the smoke from the last embers of a dying campfire. When you wake up in your tent in the middle of the night, somewhat disoriented and slightly afraid, this is the scent that reminds you of where you are. It's burning low, but with just a little tending it'll restore itself to a full blaze.

 

I really couldn't pick a better metaphor for our rogue rangers than little smoldering lights in the dark. What a gorgeous tribute to the NPS.

[gloame]

I got a frimp of Thanatopsis with my order so I tested them side by side. Early on, they both have that same clean, green, chewy pine note. Thanatopsis stays pretty much that way throughout, but Theoi evens out into a softer, sweeter forest. There's some cedar in here with the pine and juniper, which I think makes for a softer blend.

You can almost feel the chewy sap between your teeth. Remember pulling it off a pine tree and rolling it into a ball between your fingers? And then your fingers were sticky for DAYS. That's in here.

I ordered this hoping for something that would remind me of my first Lab favorite (Arkham). It doesn't, but I like it in a different way.

[zankoku_zen]

Spruce, pine, dirt and sweat. This smells like the outdoors in a pine forest. Like I've been hiking. Slightly masculine. Medium throw and wear length.

[heatherlyn]

I really wanted to like this, I'd love to have a perfume that really captured the feel of hiking through the mountains. I got a strong aquatic, ozone, pine that smelled really artificial on me - alas! Have to get my forest scents while actually hiking, I think ...

[Blood onmy hands]

I wish that this smelled like pine sap on me (I grew up in the middle of a pine forest and have been trying to find a scent that captures that sap smell for over 15 years now with no luck), but this is a really sour evergreen and sharp, soapy ozone on my skin I had to scrub it off after an hour, because the evergreen note is so unpleasant.

[dementia_divine]

I'd been wanting this one for a while, because I love the cause that it supports, and I enjoy forest scents (at least as room scents – there are only a few that I wear).

 

In the bottle: Definitely smells like a forest. I can smell pine, cedar, and maybe juniper in here. The pine doesn't smell like cleaner at all. It smells like being in a forest of evergreens.

 

Wet: A burst of pine, and possibly spruce, if I'm remembering BPTP's Schwarzwald atmosphere spray correctly. Perhaps there is some cypress present as well. Although I detected cedar in the bottle, I'm not getting any of that on my skin right now. It just smells very fresh and wonderful, and there's a bright sweetness to it as well, which may be the stony, snow-capped mountains from the description. At the moment, this is the best forest perfume oil that I've smelled from the Lab. It's stunning.

 

Dry: It's still a nice, sweet, coniferous scent that's warmed a bit, with the woods coming out on my skin now (earlier I was mostly getting the needles).

 

Much later, I'm getting what I think is a sweet, powdery snow, stone, and coniferous forest.

 

Verdict: The unexpected sweetness in this scent makes me love it so much more than I thought I would. I'm in love. One bottle will not be enough.

[Lucchesa]

In the bottle, I get the smell of tree sap and pine needles. Wet, it has the feel of a deciduous forest for some reason, but as it dries down I get more and more of the evergreens coming out, pines and spruces and cedars. There's a sharpness in the drydown - not unpleasant, just a woodsy tang, almost citrusy.

 

Once it is dry, it morphs yet again, exchanging the sharpness for a sweetness, still redolent of evergreens and woods, growing softer and softer each hour. Lovely.

 

I think this will be a beautiful holiday scent, but it's perfect for everyday wear year-round, especially here in the Pacific Northwest. I imagine this would be similarly excellent on a man.

[sarandipitee]

This is beautiful. The pine sap prevents the cedar from becoming one note and when the whole thing just BLOOMS on my skin. It's wandering through the forest. I don't know if I need a full bottle because this is strong stuff, but I will use all of my decant and maybe look for a partial.

[tinyvulture]

I breathed this in deep -- forest woods, cedar, sandalwood, pine, the coolness of juniper, sweet sap and leaves. Like a really lovely woodsy/spicy cologne. I love the almost minty juniper note, it's really doing wonders for my sinus congestion. No snow or stone for me...this one's all forest.

[Reedsong]

There's root beer, there's birch beer...if someone made a forest beer, it would smell like Theoi Nomioi. I agree with every reviewer who's praised how stunningly lovely this fragrance is! It's warm and inviting, wonderfully balanced, and I'd suggest it for anyone who loves tree scents but has found other BPAL blends to be either too sweet or too sharp.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Reedsong

[ShannonElisabethJones]

I've had this one sitting on my desk for a while but haven't really tried it yet.

 

In the bottle, it's piney and woody. Nice.

 

Freshly applied, it's still piney and woody, with a whiff of something cold, like fresh wind off a mountain. Maybe something minty, too? I can taste it in the back of my throat. But the woodiness keeps it warm.

 

As it dries down, there's maybe something campfirey...minus the smoke? Something resinous, which doesn't usually mix well with my chemistry, but so far so good.

 

It's a keeper. Which is good, because I'm a total sucker for the activist scents.

[LizziesLuck]

Thank you to the lovely who sent me some of this to test! <3

 

Wet: Mmmmm. I LOVE the smell of the woods. The actual woods that I hike in. Nothing makes me happier. The smell of "woods perfumes" though? Typically cat pee on me. But this. THIS. This is everything. It's so real. It's so rich, and warm. I really wish I knew the exact notes (I am not missing them somewhere, am I??) so I could know which evergreen this is that DOESN'T smell like pee on my skin. It's not pine. I don't get cedar. Maybe cypress? A hint of juniper? I am guessing. I thought maybe some opoponax for a sec, because there was a hint of that wonderful "cola" thing it does, but now I am not sure. Maybe galbanum or olibanum instead - regardless, something resinous. This is making me want to be outside so much! (We had an ice storm this weekend, I am feeling really cooped up. Maybe making me appreciate the scent even more? Hmm).

 

 

Dry: This is amazing. I think it's red cedar. That's what it reminds me of. There's a path in Presqu'ile Provincial Park that I love. It's lined with these old red cedars and it smells amazing. That's what this reminds me of. I could be totally crazy, but who cares. It smells wonderful and I am getting a bottle or 6. I did not expect to love this, I am so happily surprised! My wallet, however....