Orion

[sarahmarie]

Orion, the Hunter, is the Lord of the Winter Skies. At his left shoulder sits orange-hot Betelgeuse, and in the heart of his sword, he holds a nebula that swirls with the birth of new stars.

Weathered brown leather, wild fig, Macedonian cedar, fire-red tobacco, pepper, white musk, and cardamom.

Oh my goodness this one is amazing. I smelled it at willl call and liked it, but I didn't get a chance to try it on before I had to leave...and then I got it for Christmas! Lucky me!

I can pick out the fig, cedar, and pepper the most easily when wet, with a hint of the cardamom... and together those smell a) delicious and remind me a bit of nutmeg. It feels somewhat foody, and really just warm and delicious. As it dries, the leather, tobacco, and musk come out a bit more, grounding it and making it much less of a foody experience. I can still smell warm, slightly sweet cedar goodness, though, with a gentle underlay of leather and white musk. I keep applying it to myself, but also to my husband. It's a great blend of like, comforting yummy and also kinda sexy and masculine - but not in a way where it feels specifically cologne-y or like femme people would feel out of place wearing it. I'm wearing it and loving it. It's soooo gooooood.

[Lucchesa]

Of all the Yules, this may have been the decant I was most excited about. I wish I could report that it works on me, but tragically, it doesn't. About a quarter of the time, tobacco notes are too sharp on my skin, and this is one of those times. (I'm thinking the "fire-red" part should have given me pause.) So for the first hour or two, it was all sharp tobacco. And of course it has wicked throw!

 

Eventually it settled down enough for the soft leather and the cedar and musk to make themselves felt. The fig was neither heavy nor sweet, and I never really got any cardamom, which is my favorite note. Although the drydown is quite nice, the sharp tobacco opening makes me glad I didn't blind bottle this one.

 

ETA totally unisex, and I do think this is going to be magnificent on a lot of people!

Edited December 29, 2017 by Lucchesa

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: Mmmmm tobacco. It combines so well with the cedar. Those two notes are dominant initially, woody and sweet and chewy.

 

 

Dry: I do like this quite a bit. The wood is slightly more prominent than the tobacco, but not by a lot. The leather comes through once dry also - soft, well-worn leather, the kind I really like. It's a very pleasant, woodsy-sweet skin scent. I can't decide if I need a bottle, or if I have enough scents similar to it. but it's really great if you like this type of scent (which I do - hence why I have others like it!)

[RedPersimmon]

This is very musky on me. Animalic, leathery, sweet with a little cardamom. Medium throw. I applied it in 75-degree F weather (That's winter in LA for you!) and three hours later, it's become a woodsy, vanilla musk skin scent. The sweetness (fig?) in it does remind me of something in the night sky, but the leather and musk definitely bring things down to earth.

 

Orion actually reminds me of a large, furry, winter animal. This could easily be named Ursa Major instead of Orion.

 

 

Edit: So I've had my decant for about a month, and I think I'm obsessed with it now! In the beginning, it was an odd scent that I neither loved nor hated. I don't really like it when it's wet, but after the first 15 minutes, the tobacco-leather-musk-spice thing becomes sooo intoxicating: comfy and confident and sexy but not in-your-face. Out of the 2017 Yules, Orion ties with The Air and the Ether for my favorite but it's Orion that I crave the smell of. This is going to be my first BPAL bottle!

Edited January 26, 2018 by RedPersimmon

[Lunasariel]

In the imp: Primarily earthy-sweet fig and that well-worn leather/mellow tobacco combo I've smelled so often they're starting to meld into one scent in my head. I might also be getting the faintest thread of cardamom?

 

Wet: Huh, that's interesting! One wrist is fairly similar to ITI, if a bit more leather-centric. The other is mainly white musk, lightly accented by leather and cardamom. But after a few minutes, both of them settle down into one of the leather-tobacco-woodsy-spicy scents that I so love - the leather and tobacco are by far the most prominent, but I can also get hints of cedar and cardamom. Still no pepper, and I don't think there's any fig left, alas. (This is hilarious to me - I HATE the taste of figs, but I love the smell!)

 

Dry: Woohoo, the fig is back! Now it actually reminds me quite a bit of a more masculine Nasty Woman (Nasty Man?) - earthy, sexy, and sweet. But the well-worn leather is still a major player, and the tobacco, spices, and just a hint of woodsiness and musk are all still distinguishable. I would still call this a cozy, leather-dominant blend, but with a unique twist.

[missnix]

When I applied Orion this morning, the leather and tobacco combo roared to the front immediately and I was worried that it was going to be too masculine for office-wear (I actually like a lot of unisex and even masculine-leaning scents, but am self-conscious when it comes to wearing such blends around co-workers).

 

Luckily, Orion softened quickly and is just GORGEOUS now. Without the notes list at hand, I would have sworn up and down that chamomile was one of the main players - looking at the notes, chamomile is of course not listed, so I guess the fig, pepper, and cardamom are conspiring to trick my nose. The result is sweet, warm, fuzzy, earthy, rich, lightly spicy, and golden. Staying power has been impressive throughout the day so far, and after the initial masculine wave that softened, there has been barely any morphing. A big winner for me, and possibly my favorite of the Yules this year (I'm not done testing yet, but will be shocked if anything else de-thrones Orion for me).

[Pixie-elf]

Orion is do wonderful and snuggly. It's liken being wrapped up in a warm cabin in front of a chair that your Granny who smoked often sat in. She made you a plate of spice cookies nearby, but you don't really smell them. You just know they're in the house.

 

It's got a lovely vanillaish, spicy cedar drydown for me. I love it.

 

Thank you so much Dark Alice for sending me this!! I love it!

[torikitty]

Love, love, love this. Snuggly tobacco with a hint of leather. Definitely had to get a second bottle of this. The cedar kinda evens it out so it's earthy enough that things don't seem so sharp to me.

[marared]

So Orion is basically confirmation that BPAL's fig is a NOPE with my skin chemistry. Nasty Woman smelled like nasty fig syrup, and while Orion smells like leather, cedar, pepper, and just a bit of cardamom (in that order) in the imp, on my skin it's overwhelmed by nasty fig. Nasty Woman never aged out of that stage, so I'm not confident this will either, but I'll hang on to it and see how it is next year or so.

[Elspethdixon]

In the imp, Orion smells like dry, warm fig-leather-wood, with a hint of what smells almost like brown sugar. On my skin, it's a warm and cozy scent, more leather-black pepper-cedar than fig, though the fig and tobacco are probably what's giving it a rich/warm sweetness (that almost gourmand brown sugarish note). The leather blends in nicely and doesn't take over. I love it already.

By the half-hour mark, it's settled into a warm, cozy-humid leather-spice-wood-sweetness scent. It reminds me of Pleasure of the Imagination III, even though the only note they share is leather.

[zankoku_zen]

This one is for the lads! Leather, fig, and cardamom. This has the same brown leather note that I tend to associate with Quincy Morris blends, but honestly the closest approximation that I can think of right now might be the male version of Ms. Fanny Phippany. Kinda dirty, leathery, and rolling around in pleasure. Medium throw and wear length.