The Carousel

[Lycanthrope]

Calliope music played: a Strauss waltz, stirring and occasionally discordant. The wall as they entered was hung with antique carousel horses, hundreds of them, some in need of a lick of paint, others in need of a good dusting; above them hung dozens of winged angels constructed rather obviously from

female store-window mannequins; some of them bared their sexless breasts; some had lost their wigs and stared baldly and blindly down from the darkness.
And then there was the carousel.

A sign proclaimed it was the largest in the world, said how much it weighed, how many thousand lightbulbs were to be found in the chandeliers that hung from it in Gothic profusion, and forbade anyone from climbing on it or from riding on the animals.

And such animals! Shadow stared, impressed in spite of himself, at the hundreds of full-sized creatures who circled on the platform of the carousel. Real creatures, imaginary creatures, and transformations of the two: each creature was different. He saw mermaid and merman, centaur and unicorn, elephants (one huge, one tiny), bulldog, frog and phoenix, zebra, tiger, manticore and basilisk, swans pulling a carriage, a white ox, a fox, twin walruses, even a sea serpent, all of them brightly colored and more than real: each rode the platform as the waltz came to an end and a new waltz began. The carousel did not even slow down.

"What's it for?" asked Shadow. "I mean, okay, world's biggest, hundreds of animals, thousands of lightbulbs, and it goes around all the time, and no one ever rides it."

"It's not there to be ridden, not by people," said Wednesday. "It's there to be admired. It's there to be."

A place of power and possibility, of gods diabolical and celestial: glowing amber and heady cinnamon, the green of growing things and the white of thunderclaps, sweet myrrh and sacred styrax, forest moss and blood-soaked battlefields, papyrus and clay, rose petals, wildflowers, abbatoirs, and honey.

I was very excited about this, being kind of an ur-mythology, mixing all these different divine tropes together and into a jumble of tumultuous divinity, swirling and such.

Here goes!

This smells interesting in the bottle, like a tiny touch of green, sappiness, a little snow note. I get a hint of the clay-snow slush from Kumari Kandam, but then it veers off a bit.

Wet, this is still pretty sweet, still green-ish, and musky. There's a bit of an ozone snap but it's not terribly strong. Reminds me a touch of Lightning. And then there's a subtle bump of aquatics, salt? Then honey - followed by a touch of a papery, dry note. All still over the rocky base. The amber starts to hum here, midway through, and what was once initially very elemental, swirling with leaf, thunder, water, elevates into a resinous honey with incense, and then reminds me of Anubis - golden, glowing, yellow thrum of incense. I'm primed to look for 'blood' as a note, which is usually grungy and kind of funky, but I don't get that at all. Near the end of the major drydown, I think I can get a touch of rose petals, but it's not terribly overpowering or strong.

This started off whirling, rotating, turning, and ends up drying down into a supremely smooth amber incense, with moderate chewy sweetness from honey, and a little spice and earth.

[galahad]

In the Bottle:

Softly green and mossy with fresh rain

On the Skin:

Sappy greenery and soft flowers in the background with a hint of nectar. Warm amber and cinnamon creep in gradually, never overpowering. The floral note is really pretty and delicate.

On the Drydown:

As this dries down a touch of ozone creeps in along with a slight blood note. The resins add depth to an otherwise fresh and soft scent. Gorgeous and perfect for summer. I was expecting something heavier and I am pleasantly surprised

[zankoku_zen]

Amber, moss, wildflowers, honey, and a melange of other scents like myrrh, cinnamon, ozone, rose. Gender neutral to masculine on me. Super complex and a morpher. I actually am really digging this one as well. Good throw and wear length.

[LizziesLuck]

I am excited about this, more based on the idea I think - I often don't do well with scents with too many notes, my skin is too unpredictable on what it will pick up and amp to high heaven...

 

 

Wet: There is a green note in this that is stunning, and then something minty? Nope, not minty...but cool feeling. Interesting, I'm not getting any Myrrh and I figured I would amp that to the point of drowning everything else out. One of the "green growing things" is for sure The Lab's grass note, it's now coming through loud and clear. I love that smell. Hoping for some honey though to sweeten it up!

 

 

Dry: It sweetens up, and the ozone manifests in a really beautiful clean, rain-fresh sort of scent. The grass is there still, but there are other green growing things, and it's lovely. It smells like new life. I very much enjoy it.

[whisperstilled]

In Decant: Sweet! Sweet incense, probably the myrrh and the dreaded 'blood' note, plus those rose petals, wildflowers, and honey. This is one crazy noisy scent, as you might expect from the notes.

Wet: Reminds me of a sweet green tea for some reason. No incense so far on the skin. Honey and green sweetness. Surprisingly pleasant given that crazy list of notes.

Dry: There's a hint of the complexity of the description on the skin, but nowhere near as much as I get sniffing straight from the decant. Worn, this is primarily green and sweet, with just a breath of incense. Cinammon usually sets my skin on fire, and I'm only getting the vaguest breath of it here.

[Blood onmy hands]

Goes on very green, pulpy, refreshing, and wet smelling. It smells like the lab's bamboo note and reminds me a bit of the original Banded Sea Snake. Sweet aquatic cologne, wet greenery, and an overall men's cologne feel.

 

This has a huge note list, but I don't smell amber, cinnamon, incense/resin, blood, rose, or honey, and I don't think that it's particularly floral.

 

After about 15 minutes, I agree with the reviewers who mentioned ozone, because the greenery fades and it's more of a high pitched, sharp, dry soapiness.

[Teamama]

On me, The Carousel is very strong while wet. As it dries, it quiets, and reveals all its layers.

 

Amber, cinnamon, honey, moss & flowers are what I notice the most. Ozone, thankfully, just peeks around the edges after a couple of hours.

 

Complex & sweet, along the lines of Kubla Khan. Enjoyable, wearable, glad I got a bottle.

[dementia_divine]

In the decant: Cinnamon and greenery stand out to me the most. The moss is present, and there’s a touch of ozone, some resins, and what I believe is the same papyrus note found in Funerary Papyri.

 

Wet: There is a lot going on here. I do not think I’ll be able to pick out all of the notes, but the cinnamon, greenery, and moss are the first notes I detect. Then I get a resin, a little bit of soapy ozone, and some fresh, green, and slightly citrus-y papyrus. There are also some florals at play here, but I am unable to pinpoint which ones they are. There’s something slightly sweet in here (not the honey) that I am not feeling, but I am not sure what it is (maybe the styrax?). As it begins to dry, the moss, grass, cinnamon are still the notes that jump out to me the most, with a resin not far behind. Even though the cinnamon in this is described as heady, this is not a scent heavy on the cinnamon (and I’m glad, since I have sensitive skin).

 

Dry: The moss is now the dominant note on me, followed by the amber. I also get a bit of honey. It’s somewhat soapy on me now, but I’m not sure if it is because of the moss and the ozone, or because there are just so many notes in this one. I think it’s probably the moss and ozone, though.

 

After a while, the moss and ozone do give it an after-rain feel, but the honey has become more prominent by this time, so it’s part after-rain scent and part honeyed resin. How curious!

 

Verdict: It’s okay, but there is too much going on in this one for me. Oddly enough, the phase of the scent I enjoyed the most was the one I got after the scent had been on my skin for a few hours.

[Lucchesa]

The Carousel is the kind of scent I used to avoid because of too much going on. But after loving OLLA Eve, I thought I would give this one a whirl, and I'm super glad I did. This actually reminds me somewhat of Eve, both in terms of the ambitious scope and complexity of the scent and in the fact that both have an undercurrent of a rose that works on me. I do not smell a lot of cinnamon here, and I swapped with dementia_divine for this decant, so it's there, it's just my nose or my chemistry that is masking it. Instead, the first notes I get are ozone with a kind of green meadow scent. The ozone doesn't stick around on me at all, and I start to get sweet incense, green honey amber, earth and moss, the aforementioned rose... And surprisingly for such a jumble of notes, it works. It dries down to a skin scent but lasts a good while, and on me I would say it leans to the feminine side of unisex.