Monday, February 1, 2016

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Scent of the Day: The Ragged Wood (Lupercalia 2008)

                                                                                                                                           purchased and reviewed by ThoraSTooth
                                                                                                                                           written January 28, 2016


Lily of the Valley, star jasmine, benzoin, vanilla, plumeria, bergamot, Terebinth pine, juniper berry, and tea rose.

I'm wearing this scent today In honor of its re-release in the 2016 Lupers as well as Yeats' yahrzeit which is today.

At first sniff, this scent is cool and dark green, more a smooth evergreen than anything else although florals are definitely present.  It's more juniper than terebinth, but not by much.  Wet on my skin, it's evergreen-aquatic with floral sweetness beneath.  As it dries down the vanilla warms it up a bit and the florals begin to develop.  They're not very easy to distinguish save for the lily of the valley, which goes a little soapy.  It reminds me of The Illustrated Woman at this phase, although without the more robust tobacco and patchouli of that scent. 

Although I always expect this one to turn tropical when I'm reading the notes, it never really does.  At maturity it's a very soft floral, more plumeria than anything else, blended with a breath of vanilla.  (The vanilla used to be more prominent than it is now; aging has muted it a bit.)  The soapy evergreen impression is relegated to the background.  Overall it is complex, slightly aquatic, and dim, with one of the most wearable plumeria notes I've found in the catalogue.

The longer this one stays on my skin, the more fond of it I am despite the way it fades.  For me it succeeds in capturing the emotion behind the Yeats poem that inspires it.

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