Zerotonin

As a child and teenager, how often did I wonder what that delicious-looking butterbeer from Harry Potter tasted like? Or wished to sit in winter in the cozy 'Three Broomsticks' by the fireplace, with butterbeer in hand, and later to fly home on my broom. I never made it to Universal Studio/Resort until today, unfortunately. You can buy butterbeer there. But I have brewed up what feels like hundreds of recipes at home.
Creamy Vanilla Crumble didn't live up to my expectations. Luckily! Because I was expecting a simple, light cake gourmand.
However, the start made me suspect I'd mistaken - I first smell a coconut-patchouli mix, similar to Velvet Haze, in the first second. Less than 15 seconds later, though, the vanilla is there. Deep, dark, spicy, some cinnamon, a load of malt beer. The slight bitterness goes great with the sweetness and rounds off nicely. I actually feel like I have my beloved butterbeer under my nose!
The base is somewhat reminiscent of Tobacco Vanilla. The longevity and sillage are really good too. This is a great fragrance that makes my wizard heart beat faster!

It is winter, the family is sitting in the living room by the fireplace. The electricity has failed, which is why everyone has gathered around the warming source and is staring spellbound into the flames. Every half hour, the father throws new briquettes into the stove, as a precaution, so that the only source of light and heat does not go out. Every time he opens it, the smell of burning wood permeates the room.
Hungry, the family munches on a pack of dried plums. Just before the power went out, the grandmother was making dinner - there was going to be roast and sauerkraut. Half-cooked, the beautiful meal now smells abandoned in the kitchen, only making them hungrier.
Stories are told to pass the time. The children listen intently to the adults' tales of times when this was a perfectly normal situation. Whiskey and beer is brought out of the cellar to add to the cozy atmosphere.
After some time, the electricity is running again, the food can be enjoyed belatedly and the fire slowly goes out. Only the whiskey glasses that have not been cleared still give off their aromatic, full scent.
The true By the Fireplace.

"The rain fell down. Hard - then soft.
It hit the grass. Green - and damp.
Wet, so wet.
It brought your image back to me.
You always smelled like the rain."

These beautiful words are uttered by Smith Jerrod, standing completely naked on a theater stage, in an episode of the show "Sex and the City." And they've been stuck in my head ever since I first smelled this perfume. I imagine it surrounding that scene like an aura, punctuating every single, spoken word.

The smell of weather turning starts with a blast of green, sweetly aromatic herbs (which I can't even sort out at first because the mint hits me like a club against the head) and earthy + smoky notes. I think I detect basil and lavender in addition to the strong, sharp mint and chamomile. I personally would have liked the combo even better had the mint been toned down a bit.
It smells of wet earth, of herbs and grasses, which release their natural oils after great heat in the rain shower. Somewhere in the background, a campfire goes out because of the rain, the fumes still wafting through the fresh air.
Then, all of a sudden, the green and smoky notes fade into the background and the wax comes to light. Like a ray of sunshine that struggles to find a way through the clouds after the rain and pushes them further and further apart, the wax note gains strength. An incredible balancing act, the smell of weather turning there between sharp-green-smoky top note and soft, waxy-lovely heart and base notes!

The naked man and the equally naked lady, who reminds him of the smell of rain, can no longer hold on - it smells like warm skin under the sun on a still damp meadow. Until the end.

Finally, I find it worth mentioning that Lush has only used three synthetic fragrances in this fragrance out of 21 included and they openly state what is included in their fragrances

I spent a lot of time with my grandma as a child. You could actually say that I grew up almost half with her.
She had an older house with quite a large garden on the very edge of a small village. She planted at that time, together with my grandpa, some firs there in the garden, when the house was just built. In my time, of course, they had already grown tall and towered far above the roof. In the middle of the firs was a small pond, with goldfish and frogs that came to visit from time to time. That was where I spent most of my time. I played a lot, discovered a lot, learned a lot.
At one point, my grandma had my uncle build his own sweet bench there for me. When the weather was nice, I would then retreat to 'my' spot with books and read. And then it happened with every slightly stronger breeze that some of the pine needles fell on the leaves of the books. As I read, I would break one in two and hold them close under my nose to inhale that resinous, woody, fresh-green scent. Soothing, lulling.
It was also in this place that I began to discover my love for the smell of tree sap. My first conscious memory is of accidentally leaning on the tree (as a very small cerotonin), right into the sticky substance. I found the smell to be so strong that I recoiled in shock and ran to my grandma. She smiled and explained that the tree was bleeding but that I shouldn't worry. She said that the scent was so beautiful after all. My interest was piqued and I began to experiment. I quickly discovered that some of the fir's resin could be clear and viscous, amber and even more viscous, or yellowish-white and solid. Depending on the stage, the strength of the scent also changes. The liquid was also perfect for gluing leaves and sticks together to build a Barbie nature tent ;-)
Now, over twenty years later, I'm sitting here and still quite overwhelmed by everything the scent triggers in my head. Murkwood smells exactly like the place where I loved to spend time back then. Like the pine needles on the books, the loose earth under the trees, the resin running down the wood, and the crisp air under the firs.
My grandma has since sadly passed away, the house was sold and the firs cut down by the new owner. I usually try not to think about it very much, as it makes me dead sad. But I know that's part of life too - constant change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes just for the worse.
Thank you Murkwood for the bittersweet memories and thank you Floyd, for the sample!

I feel obligated to lance for this poor little scent!
Yes, he smells getting used to, so after the first spray. And yes, he also smells like (kitchen) spices. But he does not smell like Maggi or even unwearable.

In the foreground of the heart note is a cool, spicy-floral accompanied incense, as found in "Encens et lavande" (which, by the way, it smells damn similar!). The curry-spicy immortelle is so perfectly interwoven with it, embedded in powder, that it makes for an incomparable olfactory experience, the likes of which you rarely find. At least in this way.

I feel transported to a Mediterranean garden, in the middle of midsummer, with the earth dry and the air filled with the oils of the spice plants and the few, woody flowers that can withstand this heat.

The finale is a milder, softly creamy interplay of musk, incense, patch and tonka.
A fragrance for dreaming, the wanderlust. Authentic from beginning to end.