Brand: Alkemia
Scent Description: Lapsang Souchong tea, Russian leather, aloeswood, smoked black amber, aged dark patchouli, tonka, amazonian breuzinho, Moroccan bhakoor, labdanum, temple incense, carmelized opium, black coffee, black coconut, tabac leaf.
There are so many reasons that this shouldn’t work for me. Nonetheless the more I wear this the more it grows on me. I amp leathers and tobacco. Yet their notes in this mix are restrained. Coconut is usually a death note on contact with my skin but it’s working here. As this settles on me the opium is making an appearance. Something in this is reminding me of my beloved discontinued Vamp but this leans more masculine. I see a TON of layering potential here as well. My sample definitely improved over the few months that I’ve had it so I agree with LittleBird1987 on that. I enjoy this WAY more than I could ever imagine.
This is a very heavy, dry, warm, spicy caramel amber to my nose. Notes of tobacco, coffee, coconut, leather, and incense support the caramel, and a very light medicinal note lingers in the background (possibly from the patchouli). Reads slightly masculine and reminds me somewhat of TF Tobacco Vanille. A gorgeously complex scent for cold weather and nightlife. Slightly cloying, so proceed with caution.
I find that some Alkemia perfumes need a REALLY long rest period (like a month or more) in order to accurately judge them, and this was no exception. I was really excited to try this one, and it smelled promising in the bottle (even if I couldn’t pick up all of the notes / I have no idea what some of these notes would even smell like IRL). That said, this was not for me … it waffles between straight-up incense (like dragon’s blood) with no complexity to bitter coffee.
It doesn’t smell “bad,” but it also isn’t something I’d like to smell like all day. Longevity and throw are good.
a lovely tea scent with sweet patchouli underneath.
I did not enjoy this one. It was too thick and musty smelling, and I kept getting this strange tobacco syrup smell. As if someone had liquified old tobacco and mixed it with something cloying. It actually made me feel a bit nauseous. I would avoid this scent if either leather or tobacco doesn’t work for you.
At first, there’s a huge blast of coconut (which is one of my “ohgodno” notes), and it almost dissuaded me from picking up a bottle of this. After that calms down, which is thankfully soon after it appears, the sublime opium, resins, wood, and tea come out. It’s a little bit dusty smelling, for lack of better phrasing, but it’s very dark as well, which is my jam.
This is dark and dusky and so pleasant, with an amazing dry down. It’s lovely enough for a full size, if you like very dark leather, vanillas, opium, amber, and tobacco.
This isn’t my usual jam, but I’m definitely getting more incense than I remember getting when it was new (it’s 2-3 months old), along with a smoky tea note and leather note that are just damn good. The notes with major throw on me are the coconut and caramelized opium, but happily the caramelized opium brings a bit of the smoky tea with it. The tabac leaf I only really catch on my right wrist, which tends to be my scent-eating side, so I’m assuming that’s the last note of the hangers-on for me and it doesn’t smell like cigarettes. I do definitely get the aloeswood too, but in this instance it’s so well blended that it’s sort of part of every note, bolstering each one a little.
This one immediately smells like tobacco and coffee to me, which is odd, but I like it. It’s actually pretty gourmand on me. I get a lot more of the wood and amber and some caramel on the drydown. It’s definitely dark, and makes me think of an old coffee house closed up for the night.