2015: Lace Phoenix

[suki]

In 2015, it was our overwhelming honor to interpret Legendary Pictures Crimson Peak through scent. The entire process was thrilling, from the first moment we saw concept sketches before production on the film even began, through the crafting of the scents, attending the screening, and finally seeing our Crimson Peak scents and jewelry go out into the world. It was an incredible project that I will never forget.

After many long years of labor, the sideshow was back! Carnaval Diabolique returned to town with breathtaking artwork by Julie Dillon, and Black Phoenix made its first sojourn to 221B Baker Street.

Inspired by the Supreme Courts Sick Burn Champion and his blistering command of the English language, we created a fragrance set the Collected Poetic Works of Antonin Scalia whose proceeds benefit the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Trevor Project, and the National Center for Transgender Equality. In the same year, we created Palmyra, a charity scent benefiting the UNHCR.

This year, we joined forces with our beloved friend, Audra, at Loved to Death in San Francisco.

A cursed carnival camped in the foothills beneath a haunted estate: a curl of fortune tellers incense and spun sugar drifting past a crumbling manor.

In the Bottle: A very, very faint, sweet, light, wispy scent. It's so light and wispy, that I cannot, at this stage, pick out any notes! All I can say is that it smells "clean" and faintly sweet, but not foody.

Wet On Skin: There's a faint lemon aspect that has entered the picture, like a memory of lemon sugar, would be the best way to describe it. I also am getting a hint of a stone note, which I haven't encountered in a very long time! I assume this is the "crumbling manor" aspect that I'm picking up on. So far, this scent is very wistful- it's probably not a coincidence that this is for the Lace year, because there's already a nostalgic quality that puts this firmly in the camp of the Lab's "Lace" scents.

Dry Down: Oh. My. Goddess. This is just...heartbreakingly beautiful. The curl of incense is now showing itself. I anticipated it was going to be a sort of heavy, church-y incense like many of the Lab's incense notes of the past. But this, this is something else. It's become like a light, powdered (NOT powder-y) blue lotus incense I had many years ago. It's sweet and soft and nostalgic and just GORGEOUS.

 

In All: Hoard-worthy. I am going to need SEVERAL more bottles of this.

[dlynngarrett]

Lace Phoenix is as perfectly complex and beautiful as the scents in the CP line. I did not pick up incense at all in the wet stage. Even upon dry down, it's not the typical church incense. It's not heavy at all, and I can't wait to wear this after the mail shock has settled. A back up seems to be in my future!

[zankoku_zen]

Whispery, ghostly incense with a touch of sugar. This reminds me to a cross between Carnival Diabolique and the more ghostly aesthetic of Crimson Peak. Medium throw and wear length.

[KatyC]

On my skin this isn't as light and sweet as the other reviews suggest. It's a beautiful incense with the tiniest touch of sugar and a definite stone/cement/architectural note. It isn't as sweet or delicate as I expected but it's very atmospheric and quite haunting, and I will enjoy using it on moody days.

[LiberAmoris]

Lace Phoenix smells like sweet incense (I think I detect both red musk and red sandalwood, but that's a wild guess), and what might be a hint of stone and/or soil. It feels like it gives off the same red, incensey vibe as scents like Mme. Moriarty and Crimson, while being very much its own creature.

[patina]

Sniffing: A strong green aquatic and stone. I usually can't pick out stone notes but I can here.

 

On: Incense comes out more than anything else. It's sweet, maybe a little lemony. I have a sense of crystalline amber even though this doesn't do the amber-powder thing at all. Like Stormclouds On the Midway this is sweet and intriguing but faint when not smelled up close.

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: This is kind of creepy!! In a fun way, of course. The "old crumbling manor" vibe is totally evident. I don't really get incense or sugar (though it is slightly sweet). If anything I get maybe some woody notes, something slightly green, a hint of chewy resin. Really really interesting and not at all as I expected. Creepy.

 

 

Dry: Wow, this dries so different! It dries to what I think of as a very dark, inky musk-and-incense scent. Think Panther Moon, or maybe Luna Negra without the fruit? That vibe. It's sexy! Unisex, leaning to masculine. I quite enjoy it.

[lady_pandora]

I get a cloud of incense, I think including red musk, over the wood note that was in the eponymous Crimson Peak. Pretty and ethereal and a little spooky.

[roseus]

Mmmm sweet sugared incense, with dark wood and stone. Beautiful!

 

 

 

ETA: I have been noticing a distinct pink note the last few wears. It is sweet, light, and almost waxy. I wonder if it is lotus?

Edited February 12, 2018 by roseus

[melodynamite]

I live in a 90 year old fairy tale cottage, and this smells like home to me--stucco slightly damp from a recent rain storm, lingering incense from the night before, and something delicious baking in the oven.

 

This would most likely appeal to you if you appreciate things that are worn and softened by time, used bookstores, attics laden with forgotten treasures, the wrinkled hands of someone you have loved for your entire life.

 

It evokes a nostalgic, aesthetically-pleasing kind of melancholy in me, like paging through a decades old album of pictures of people from when they were terribly young, before anyone knew what would happen next.

[VetchVesper]

Hmmmm.... an intriguing melange. It doesn't smell like what I normally think of as incense, but it's lovely just the same. I think I detect some champaca going on, and I too get VioletChaos's sugary lemon at first. It goes away pretty quickly on my skin though. I'm going back and forth on whether I need a bottle of this. I think, if you like the idea of incense, but it tends to be to heavy on you, this might be worth checking out.

[milo]

This smells fresh and clean at first. Gradually, it becomes more like the traditional base to the lace blends. Kind of incensey and smoky. I really like this, it's like Black Lace's 'base', if you will. I'm looking forward to seeing how this Phoenix ages, but I don't think I need any more, as I have Black and Autumn Lace to satisfy my lace needs.

[shibagast]

Very incense-y in the beginning, then grows smokier as it dries. I feel like I smell like the back of a metaphysical shop at this point. I don't really get any of the sweetness or anything!

 

edit: I super lied and was impatient - this actually mellowed out to something sweeter somewhere in hour 2, though I still smell like the back of a metaphysical shop. (Maybe a long time ago this was a bad thing for my nose, but I think it's changing and I quite like it as I find it rather nostalgic.)

Edited February 16, 2018 by shibagast

[Cali]

Indeed that same woodsy note that's in Crimson peak - Starts off almost oudh-y on me. Dusty, dark. Like standing on a porch from a house in the woods at night, a string of fairy lights lighting the paths ahead.

Goes a little more clean (not soap-y, more "skin-clean") and a vague sense of a sugar not that reminds me a touch of mouse circus.

Looovely!!!! But, unfortunately way too faint on me.

[Lucchesa]

Lace Phoenix goes tragically wrong on my skin. Tears. I think VetchVesper is right and there's some champaca in there -- nag champa? -- and champaca and my skin are often at odds. The drydown is actually quite pretty; I just have this horrible emotional response to the wet phase and it's going straight to swaps.

[dementia_divine]

In the decant: Slushy snow and incense with some patchouli and what may be the wood of the manor.

 

Wet: I am getting slushy snow, patchouli, and wood with some sugared incense winding through the scent. I think this is Crimson Peak’s snow mixed with Frosty Silkybat’s patchouli, but I don’t have either of those scents anymore, so I cannot be sure.

 

Dry: It is a slushy snow, patchouli, and wood scent at first, but the patchouli (or is it patchouli-like oudh?), wood, and incense come out more over time and end up being the main players after a few hours of wear, with what remains of the snow in the background.

 

Verdict: I was looking forward to this because of the sugared incense note, because sometimes that descriptor can be absolutely magical (looking at you, Midnight on the Midway (original) and Fairy Market). Alas, there was not enough sugar in this for me, and the patchouli incense and wood were too strong on me in the end. I am glad that I did not leap for a bottle of this when it was live, but it was nice to get to try it.