Brand: Sixteen92
Scent Description: Ancient parchment, leather bindings, smoldering resins, frankincense tears, ritual candles, black fire, soot, steel, dust and smoke.
Released: Sihaya & Co’s Sisterhood of the Moon box Exclusive. Fall 2016.
A collection of indie perfume reviews
Brand: Sixteen92
Scent Description: Ancient parchment, leather bindings, smoldering resins, frankincense tears, ritual candles, black fire, soot, steel, dust and smoke.
Released: Sihaya & Co’s Sisterhood of the Moon box Exclusive. Fall 2016.
In the vial it’s definitely resinous and I get the frankincense and leather. A little sweet. A little mysterious. And for some reason, very familiar. Then, when I put it on, what it reminded me of hit me: Cotton Mather. This is a very Cotton Mather-adjacent scent. It has to be the “ink, ash, and flame” notes in CM that are probably similar to the “black fire, soot, dust and smoke” in Liber. Liber is sweeter and richer. I love it.
One of my favourite scents. Close in feel to Never Trust The Living! Predominantly sweet resins – I agree that they are reminiscent somewhat of gingerbread in their almost spicy, rich sweetness – with understated notes of smoke (like burning embers), soft leather, and something a little papery. It’s rare that I can pick out all the notes so obviously in an atmospheric but the paper and ‘burning candle’ impression are really apparent in this fragrance. Straight out of the vial, an almost almond-y leather and sweet resins are the most apparent – my partner says it smells like stollen – but this calms down in the drydown and the atmospheric notes begin to make themselves known, one by one. The smoke/candle scent is very understated – I usually amp smoke but this is not an issue here. The leather is soft rather than sharp or astringent.
This also has GREAT longevity (lasts all day for me, up to 12 hours on some days) and moderate throw. Highly recommend this if you like atmospheric scents, and even if you’re afraid of resins, it doesn’t come off as heavy incense to me.
This is such a deliciously witchy scent. It really matches the description but the interpretation is surprisingly approachable and even a little feminine. It has a sort of gingerbread-y edge. On me I get that delicious steel, soot, and smoke making for an addictive ashy scent, combined with the fuzzy church-like frankincense + other sweet sinuous resins and candle wax, realistic parchment with a hint of the scent of well-worn brown leather as the bindings.
Lots of ink and paper notes, a littlest hints of fire and smoke
starts off as “snickerdoodle cookies” on me. After a few minutes, I briefly get the gunpowder/gunsmoke and steel notes, and then it’s mostly slightly sweet resins, dust and leather, and smoke. I have a hard time finding the paper note in this one. But paper notes tend to go a little bit woody-vanilla on me, and anything sweet tends to just blend into a HII’MSUPERSWEET conglomerate note on me, so that may be why it’s MIA– it just melds into the sweetness of the resins and gets lost there. This is one of my very favorite rainy days/today sucks comfort scents.
After a year of aging:
This is still predominantly frankincense-snickerdoodle-cookies on me, but I definitely smell soft, well-worn leather and aged paper more than usual. The smoke note is still soft, wispy, and incensey to my nose (as if there were incense on a small fire). I’m also very lightly getting the soot and steel, and I don’t think I’ve ever caught the soot note before?
This starts with heavy, dark resins that have a lot of throw. After it fades, the sweet parchment comes forward and lasts for a while.