Behind the Veils

[Minh Scent]

Blood-red light cascades through languorous folds of sheer cloth. Hell-bright embers breathe into the gloom as billowing ribbons of thick, dark incense wrap their tendrils of smoke around your body like the curious hands of a lover.

Heady red musk, myrrh and honey, drops of cinnamon and crushed cardamom pod, the taste of opium-laced black wine, sweet oudh, and threads of saffron.

This starts out sweet and fruity; suspect the fruituness from the wine and honey. Very quickly the red musk comes to the forefront, and the fruitiness is gone. The myrrh adds wisps of resiny incense, although this is not an incense perfume. Rather, it is very close to the description as "tendrils of smoke". I can pick up hints of spice, but if anyone was anxious about the "hell bright embers" being cinnamon, no need, as it, the cardamom and saffron are more grace notes. Perfect! I cannot identify the oude or opium as individual notes. Red musk lovers, rejoice! This is sultry, sensuous and very female. I was hoping for the heavy headiness of Debauchery, but this is much more "behind the veils". Low throw, medium longivity (2 plus hours).

[GreeneyedMorticia]

Red musk smack in the face! If this is your thing get a bottle or three. First the red musk and black wine are dominant but then the honey and cinnamon and cardamom pod come out to play and remain in the back while the myrrh peaks outs every now and again. To me this smells a lot like aged Mme. Moriarty. This is seriously backup bottle worthy!

 

Medium throw, and longevity was about 4 hours but it could get wisps.

[zankoku_zen]

Red musk, honey, red wine, and cinnamony myrrh. This one is primarily a red blend - red musk and red wine. In some ways, it reminds me to Madrid. Sexy, red, wine. Good throw and wear length.

[galahad]

In the Vial:

Musk, honey and cardamom. Rich and heady

On the Skin:

Instantly gorgeous and decadent. The myrrh plays really nicely with the red musk and the myrrh is strong! I can definitely pick the oudh and the cardamom adds a nice rich spiciness. This is hypnotically beautiful!

On the Drydown:

The opium doesn't go sour on me like it can at times. While I don't normally think of gender in relation to scent, this absolutely has a womanly sexiness. Mature and seductive. A surprise stand-out from the new CD release. Multiple bottles for me.

[Blood onmy hands]

The red musk and wine smell like fruity, warm, deep, rich, sweet red wine, and the honey is very realistic and slightly bitter. The oudh and spices come out a lot in the drydown, with a good burst of cinnamon over a dry, woody base, and hints of cardamom. I feel like the honey is sweeter in the drydown and there's something of a dry, incensey haze, but it doesn't smell sharp like opium usually does on me.
A warm, spicy, honeyed, woody scent. I like the red musk opening more than the spicy drydown, and it fades very quickly to a honeyed, sweet cinnamon on me, and disappears around the 3 hour mark.

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: Blarg! I struggle with wine as a note on my skin, but I love all the other notes in this and hoped it would magically just work...so far I am getting red musk and cough syrup with something really bitter in the background. I almost get some cocoa too, I wonder where that's coming from? This wants to be a dark, rich, mysterious scent - but it's hard to take yourself seriously when you're covered in sticky cough syrup.

 

 

Dry: OMG. I keep thinking, what smells so amazing?? It's me, people, it's me. This gets SO GOOD. The cough syrup turns to sweet rich wine, which is the base for gorgeous red musk and spice. Nose to skin is lovely, but the throw from this is REALLY something else. I need a bottle of this. It's going to age so well. My hope is that as it does age, the cough syrup stage gets shorter and shorter. CD is killing my wallet....

Edited August 25, 2017 by LizziesLuck

[RedAoife]

I love red musk. Unfortunately, red musk loves me too, the result being that any blend featuring red musk becomes straight, all-caps RED MUSK on my skin. This one is beautiful (hey, I love red musk!) so I'm sure it's worth every scent if you don't happen to amp red musk into the stratosphere. For me, though, it's not different enough from my original beloved red musk scents. I do get little wisps of syrupy honey and spices (cinnamon?), and it does seem to have a powerful throw.

[VetchVesper]

I tend to amp cinnamon in perfumes, and Behind the Veils is no exception, but the other notes are strong enough that the fragrance is still balanced. I get sticky red wine, spices and red musk at first, but as this lingers on my skin it becomes hot hot hot. Super dry, spicy heat. Little sweetness, but much more interesting than most cinnamon fragrances on my skin. Definitely sexy and resinous with something bordering on animalic to my nose. I have quite a few red musk blends already, but I'll definitely enjoy wearing my decant of this when I want to imagine dry dessert heat blowing through Arabian nights.

[DiesMali]

In the bottle: Sweet, fruity red wine and a dab o' sweet, fruity red musk.

 

Wet on my skin: Starts out a bit grapey, but then...it smells like The Top and Chinoiserie from Luper 2015 had a love child. WINNING.

 

Dry: This is definitely a sibling scent to Chinoiserie, cousin to The Top, Obsidian Widow, and Lilith. I am absolutely ecstatic that it smells like the former in particular, because that is one of my top 5-ish scents and I was gutted that I missed getting a backup bottle! Now I can wear them both more often without being terrified of never finding another bottle!

 

The prominent notes on my skin, as this dries, are the opium wine, myrrh, and musk (it's more like indigo musk than red, on my skin) then all the spices in the background. Again, it's very like Chinoiserie in top notes, with the sweetness coming from wine and honey instead of wine and roses. The spices give it an incensed quality, like temple incense, and oh that musk and myrrh just make the wine so velvety-burgundy-smooth and sexy. My skin tempers most spices a bit, so they remain supporting notes instead of running wild (sorry to all the cinnamon-ampers). I'm in a happy cloud of sexy wine, resiny-spicy incense, and velvety-smooth musk. I'll probably get a second bottle at some point, because it is SO GOOD.

Edited August 27, 2017 by DiesMali

[mizliz2176]

Am i the only one who gets a similarity to streets of Detroit? to me, its a sweeter, red musky version of streets of Detroit. Maybe its just the myrrh? I thought I hated myrrh, but might not really KNOW the smell like I thought I did hmm. Full bottle in the very near future.

[Cassandra Dudum]

This was a gamble scent for me because typically I avoid wine notes (list of wine scents that didn't work on me: Blood Kiss, Blood Rose, Bordello, Horreur Sympathique, Lady Macbeth, Lilith, Nosferatu, The Obsidian Widow). Wine scents usually overpower the other notes on my skin and just smell like wine and I am not a fan of that.

 

Wet: This smells like artificial grape candy This isn't looking good.

 

Dry: This smells like Smut mixed with Streets of Detroit to me! I agree with mizliz2176. I own Streets of Detroit and it is one of my favorite scents. The dried of Behind the Veils is definitely giving me the aroma of Streets of Detroit if you replaced the motor oil note with Smut!

 

I am curious as to how this will age. Since I own Streets of Detroit and Smut HG, I don't feel as I need to purchase a full bottle of Behind the Veils. It is the first wine scent that I've tried that didn't overpower the other notes though. I recommend this scent if you enjoy Smut and/or Streets of Detroit!

Edited September 5, 2017 by VioletVorpal

[whisperstilled]

I never know how these ultra-complex bpal scents will turn out, but based on the thick, almost black sanguine color of this one in the bottle, I'm intrigued.

Wet: Blood Countess. This scent could easily dupe for Blood Countess, or perhaps the baby of Blood Countess and Horreur Sympathique. I swear I get smokey patchouli with the wine even though it isn't in the notes, which must be the oudh and cardamom. I get a faint breath of opium, but this is fundamentally an absolutely black spiced wine scent.

Dry: The red musk definitely comes out more on the drydown and does a great job of balancing the wine. The drydown is much nicer than the first wet blast of scent. I think this one deserves a full-day test, but it definitely makes a heck of an impression. A scent for nighttime for sure.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Whisperstilled

[tinyvulture]

The first notes to hit me are bold, sensual red musk and tart red wine. Reminds me of a less-sweet Mme. Moriarty. Moments later, I'm also able to pick out the honey and oudh. I'm not getting any cinnamon or cardamom. It's very pretty but I probably have enough red musk blends for now.

[milo]

Red musk and some kind of red fruit on me. I was in a red musk phase several years ago, and got burnt out from using it too much, and sold off all my red musk blends. I'm finding I miss it now, but I only like them in small doses. This one reminds me of Hollywood Babylon, one I really don't like at all. I will hang onto this imp and see how it ages, as the notes sound lovely.

[agirlnamedfury]

Definitely musky at first, but dries down into a weird musty damp sawdust kind of scent very quickly, which is like the opposite of sexy. Doesn't work for me, unfortunately!