Amberley

Pick up the bottle and it's heavy. Spray and it's fine. A fine, heavy blast of...I don't know what! Is it vintage soap and vinegar? Flowers, sour flowers and green things? Sweet; is it sweet? It is, sweet and sour. It isn't vinegar, it's...I don't know what!! It is evocative, nostalgic though fresh and perhaps somehow young, if precocious; or confidently carelessly mature in an energetic, unfading fashion. I've been wearing this almost two years and I still can't reckon it completely. First spray jolts me to attention, I feel refreshed and clear. There is something clean here, something solid, wrapped around with thick, richly vaporous flowers. I want to spray more, the mist is so fine and the bottle so solid! It gets greener the more I spray until I feels it is suffocating and I love it. As the cloud settles down and drifts out I feel myself settling and drifting with it. It starts to get dirty to me in an earthy soil way but is so...I don't know, airy? There is nothing powdery here, nothing soft. Honey and amber do smooth it out but there remains a spikey (or spininess) to it; backbone, say. Temperature does much in the intensity and duration. In summer Ella is brisk, heady and sexy; the animal really comes out and it shimmers and blends with my skin. In cooler weather it feels wilder, rebellious, maybe even cold blooded - maybe repressed and cracking, not content to fit in. I've found at certain times I don't even care that I don't know why or what, this makes me feel how I want to feel when I don't know how I want to feel. It is elemental to me.

This is my first Slumberhouse - first test and first purchase. Happened into my happy place shop while the shipment was being invoiced, planning to purchase one of two other bottles which were both out of stock. An hour later, almost completely noseblind (and having run out of time), I pulled a panic buy. Figured it was meant to be, timing and all, that I try the house and - again, panicked - between Sova, Jeke and Fjerne I went with the light side, having not even a passing clue what I had in the bag. By the time I tried it on I was hot, sweaty and It. Was. DISGUSTING. Sweet, doughy, heavy honeyed, powdery sticky sweat. Eww. Super bummed, totally grossed out, I started thinking of who MIGHT like it for a re-gift. Then I took a shower. Then I smelled it on my shirt from the sweaty day. Then I tried it again. THEN I started to get it, I think. On fresh skin I sprayed 4-5 times, forearms, neck and torso. It started unfurling about me much as a fern frond uncurling in the sunlight. I could smell dew drying. Dry dust puffing up from soft, silent footfalls. Green grass drying in the summer heat. I was transported, soothed, comforted. I was small, adventuring on familiar but unknown trails in a light dappled wood on the border of a open field, no dark corners to harbor harm, alone and thoughtlessly unafraid : why would I be. After a time I began to catch notes, light in a bubble. Honey was the sweetness, my sweat had made it heavy but now it is light as spiders web, I see everything else through it. Dust is the powder, and flour, dry and fine. The patchouli peaks around corners where it could easily have stomped through and mangled the scene. The honey smells green now, a clover honey. Now I am the fern and all I smell is sunshine and it is so sad and beautifully ephemeral and such is life. It is what it is. I dig it.

This is exquisite. This is holy as I learned the word : set apart and yet connected. Strong, multidimensional, transcendent. The frankincense washes you down like a cat tongue, then the sandal and orange blossoms snuggles you up in fur. I tested Olibanum last year in May, in the U.S. North West. It was rainy and sunny by turns and often scents on the skin seem to sleep if I don't warm up a little. This is one of those. I had sampled Battito d'ali from this house, which was lovely but too soft for my need at the time; with isolation I found a leaning toward harder, more bracing scent. At first application it was harsh, astringent, almost like nail polish remover. I like that myself. Sharing my vial with a couple of dude friends, one of whom I inadvertently doused, they also caught that opening abrasive power; the dousee messaged two days later to tell me how much he enjoyed it on his clothes as it mellowed and that it was still going strong, if subdued. My experience is this - it smells natural, medicinal, woody, ever so slightly blossomy; for personal intent but not unfriendly; it sinks into my skin and after about an hour develops (or simplifies) into a tonic of cool, light smoke that carries into a gently retreating veil of gauzy comfort. To say that Olibanum warms up would feel misleading as it always feels rather neutral in spirit to me, like gin being neutral as opposed to tequila feeling hot or vodka cold. As it works more into my skin with work or exercise, however, it does bloom in a dignified, unselfconcious...just rather pure and clean while still human way; I get no sense of artifice or pretense, I wouldn't worry about smelling my own sweat through and around it as I do with some others that I also love. This is different. I very much enjoy that it's a woody incense without spice. It doesn't last forever on me as the Patchuly and Confetto have, though it does linger long in whisps and twinkles. It also is so simple in elements (while complex in effect) that it layers exceptionally well with any other perfume including incense or sandalwood that I've tried, adding a smooth, clean backbone to softer works or an extra sparkle to heavier. I could go on. Personally, once past that initial blast -which, again, I enjoy- it is to my nose what rising smoke is to the eyes that watch it : mesmerizing.