New smells!

So because I'm daft for hand-made perfume blends and books, when my favorite perfumers put up an offer of 8 scents designed to match their friend's new novel:




(available now on Kindle!)

...I figured hey, why not.

Herein follows my first impressions of some of the delightful character-centric scents the girls at ZOMG Smells whipped up, in rough order of their appearance in the book.

Colin:
I'd give this to all the playboys in my life... if I knew any. ;)

Rich, complex and a tiny bit impudent. Regal French lavender overrides the other notes with a little "your reputation precedes you, sir"... and then the party starts. Amber floats through hauling frankincense behind it and gives the middle of the scent a full, sensual musk. The lavender hits its soapy high note ten minutes in and then mellows above the most amazing woodsy dry down where nutmeg and cardamom come gliding in like debutantes fashionably late for their own ball.

If YSL's Opium eloped with Old Spice, this would be their sassy Parisian baby. And while the end result on my hormonal female skin is a gentlewoman's lavender and spice confection I'd love to smell it on a dapper young man who might hang onto the woody notes a little longer.

(This review was also posted to their site)

Captain Westfall:
Smoky, salty, and strangely... green? That's probably the cypress and oakmoss - this scent brings to mind a Hollywood bayou, all moss-festooned cypress groves and dark waters edged by genteel plantations with none of the mud and rot. Smoke from somebody's fireplace lingers in the still, humid air. Grave dust haunts the drydown, unseen but raising hairs on the back of your neck. I have the urge to watch Interview With The Vampire.

The dog likes this one, too. Longevity is great.

"Bitter vetiver, cypress essential oil, a worn leather scabbard, the scent of woodsmoke mingled with the docks he came from, the sweet amber of the wealthy he now mingles with, and the Lady's oakmoss and gravedust."

Gabriel:
Earthy, ragged, and a little bit moon struck. Shares some notes with Westfall and Green Lady, which makes sense as Gabriel claims the Lady's favor. Gabriel's scent is heady with frankincense and cedar, and the "grave dust" note lends sharpness to the background just as it does in Westfall's blend. My impression is rich dusty wood and resin, preservative notes that tickle the nose and hints of things old and unseen. Charming and dirty, like Gabriel. Moderate longevity.

"The background of his scent is of the grave: frankincense and myrrh, cedar planks, freshly turned earth and patchouli, the warm skin-scent of sandalwood that he shares with Drake, and the Lady's sharp green galbanum and bitter gravedust."

Deirdre:
Bitter medicinal herbs, sweetened only slightly by the lavender poultice. This scent is sharp on first application and mellows grudgingly into something a little warmer as it dries and the resins come out. Brings to mind an apothecary's work-table, the wood stained and infused with the scents of all kinds of poultices and infusions. The result is not unpleasant but standoffish due to the bitter tea; would require conviction to wear this to social events. Fits the character very well, but doesn't seem to fit me and on my skin has poor longevity. I wanted to like this scent because it sounded lovely but it doesn't quite deliver the way I had hoped.

"Bitter black tea, dried herbs and dusty herbal flowers, a fresh poultice with lavender, and the resinous evergreens of the North."

The Green Lady:
If Captain Westfall smells like the Hollywood idea of a swamp, The Green Lady smells like an actual swamp. Her scent is the one from which Gabriel and Captain Westfall take their dusty backgrounds, but there's quite a lot more dust in Green Lady. I don't smell the lavender here until the end (in fact, didn't even recognize it until I read the notes). My husband smells pine and I get the smell of fresh wet earth, mingling with sharp, slightly rot-sweet green things - like burying one's face in a forest floor. The drydown settles into earthy, warm, dusty cedar and the tiniest hint of lavender. The projection on this scent is great at first but drops sharply as it dries down, leaving bare hints close to the skin. Longevity doesn't seem great on me but sometimes woods will cling for hours after I expect them to fade, so who knows? Entirely appropriate for those times when you need a little bit of wildness (or want the perfect scent to accompany that witch costume on Halloween night).

"Sharp green galbanum, fresh wild lavender, cedar coffinwood, vetiver, patchouli and sandalwood for a last touch of the living on their lost ones, and grave-dirt."

Fragrance Review: Zeppelin to the Moon

And since I planned to review all of these in December and am currently planning an order... here's a very late fragrance review.


An extra thrown into my 'squee party' set from ZOMG Smells, Zeppelin to the Moon is the sort of scent one puts on when one wants an 80s power scent and can't find the Drakkar Noir. It's pushy, it's daring, it's kind of like Captain Jack Harkness invading your personal space.

"A dashing, old-school captain's-cabin scent. A scent wearing a greatcoat with gold bits on, if you will. Teak wood, redcurrant, oak moss, geranium leaf, and brown musk with a spot of treacle."

In the bottle: Tangy geranium leaf, sweet redcurrant, inviting musk and a hint of wood.

On skin: Ever had your face pushed into a freshly polished teak conference table?

I want to like this scent, because I want to like all of ZOMG Smells' scents (and also because I do tend to like oakmoss and geranium and musk in other scents). But when I put it on my wrist (admittedly heavily, hoping to counteract my skin's absurd scent-eating abilities), the first half-hour was just sickening amounts of teak and musk, and the geranium went from pert to pushy. I could smell it when I moved my hands even slightly, and I felt like I was breathing Murphy's Oil Soap. I get the greatcoat the description alludes to - heavy and smelling of oil-polished buttons and rich wood, and a little too much for a warm spring day.

It's settled down now, and the oakmoss and wood are coming through a little more subtly with the sweetness of treacle in the background. I say "more subtly", but no one will ever mistake this for a gentle lady's perfume. Even as it fades the scent still has presence. I'm going shopping, and I'll sniff my wrists again when I get back but the opening has me solidly convinced that this is not a keeper for me unless I can layer it.

If you have an affinity for greatcoats, though, you should quite enjoy this one.

Update: The scent has lasted a good solid six hours, which is lovely, and still projects a little. The drydown on me smells reminiscent of incense smoke - sandalwood? Huh. While I do like it, it's not uh-may-zing.

Earth and Heaven

Scent 2. Earth and Heaven is rich and a little bit spicy. The description reads:"Full of the best things of both worlds! This is the scent of a celestial compost heap, and be assured that's a good thing. At least it is to us, and presumably to the wee compost worms that lived diligent lives and went to their just reward. :)

Heavenly frankincense and rich dark chocolate all mulched together with wet earth, a touch of patchouli, and the sweetest, gentlest clove in the world."

This is better than Brownian Motion. My first thought was "I smell like a dirty hippie!" but I didn't. I smelled like a clean hippie. A celestial hippie. If Brownian Motion is the fall day coffee shop scent, Earth and Heaven is the bohemian summer road trip scent. It's totally in my rotation, although I'm not sure I'll wear it to work again. I was entirely too aware of the fact that I smelled like a church/head shop (what? They both smell like incense!). Rick liked it better than yesterday's fragrance, too. He didn't love it but he only made faces at it instead of insulting it so that's progress!

I didn't really get the clove until the very end, but on application the chocolate hit right away, and it's a delicious chocolate. It dissipated really quickly though and I got what I was looking for: the wonderful foresty smell underneath. There isn't a lot of fresh leafy green in Earth and Heaven. It's mostly browns - not a balanced compost heap but a deep humus like a leaf-littered forest floor. The patchouli (or maybe it was the frankincense?) stuck out bold and strong and stayed alllllll day. It lasted beautifully. I'm thinking these fragrances are keepers for the longevity if nothing else!

5/5 Stars, a great rich fragrance with a touch of spice. Leans toward "woodsy oriental" but not nearly as heavy-handed as the orientals I'm used to.

Tomorrow: Four Seasons In Mighty Contention on Trivial Matters.

Brownian Motion

...smells like mocha. Or maybe hot cocoa, depending on your skin. It lasted admirably. I didn't reapply it all day, and I was still getting whiffs of it as I walked around 6-7 hours into my shift. After that it settled down quite a bit but I can detect it on my wrist if I stick it right up to my nose, and it's been 12 hours or so since I put it on. That's pretty good longevity!

Longevity aside, Brownian Motion isn't the greatest scent in the ZOMG Smells catalog - but it's not a dud either. It's a little too chocolate-y and not enough bitter coffee and swirling cream. It's simple and sweet and warm, great for a crisp fall day and although you do get a hint of sharp caffeine at the start, when it leaves the scent is entirely delicious cocoa. I liked the bitterness better, oddly.

Rick thinks (probably because of the sweetness) that it smells like something a preteen girl would wear. That isn't necessarily an insult (he's not exactly a fragrance geek, either) but it's not what I'm going for and he has to live with whatever scents I'm wearing, so this one isn't going to hit regular rotation. I like the scent (which is good, since I spilled it and put the tissue I used to soak it up into my shirt drawer). It's just not "me".

4/5 stars, great longevity and decent projection, true to description on page but somehow not what I was expecting. Simple scent, not a lot of change between application and drydown. Loses its sharp coffee edge as the day goes on and ends in sweet chocolate. Definitely a "gourmand" fragrance.

Tomorrow: Earth and Heaven.

ZOMG, Smells!

I used to work in fragrances. I love good smells and I love the way scent interacts with emotions and memory and I generally geek out a little around fragrance, even though my work wasn't that involved - I just got into it more than some of my coworkers.

Anyway. For a couple of years now I've had this thing on my christmas list. It's a sampler pack from a teeny tiny little company called ZOMG Smells. They call it a Squee Party, and it's 10 scents of your choosing in tiny sample sizes, and with scents like Camping in a Vanilla Forest, That Dream Where You're Naked at School, and Xocolatl, how could anyone resist?

I could, because I was broke, but there it sat on my Christmas list anyway. Today a package came, and even though the mailman shoved it pretty roughly into our mail slot it was ok, and it was a squee party sampler, and it had the 10 scents in it that I thought I'd like most, courtesy of my sister who is the best gift-giver in the world. Except the rest of my family, because they're pretty damn good too. But right now, my sister is at the top of the list.

And I got even more excited when I opened the package, because the girls at ZOMG Smells are awesome, and threw in extras. Here's what I got:

1. Brownian Motion (wearing it now. I smell like a coffee shop!)
2. Earth and Heaven
3. Four Seasons In Mighty Contention on Trivial Matters
4. Xocolatl
5.Garden Nap
6. Nuee Ardente
7. The Chieftain's Wife
8. Smoky Black Chai
9. Camping in a Vanilla Forest
10. Purple Almond

(and the extras)
11. Deified
12. Zeppelin to the Moon

So over the next few days I'm going to wear each one in turn, review it, and enjoy the heck out of a bunch of fancy new smells.

Although the first thing I did when trying Brownian Motion this morning was spill it on the bedroom floor... so the bedroom smells like a coffee shop now. Oh well!