-------
According to BPAL, this scent is supposed to smell like King Arthur's birthplace... which could mean a lot of things, but in this case it's modeled after a feasting hall. My three minutes of research do not indicate the exact location where Arthur Pendragon was born, though I sincerely doubt he popped out right there in the middle of supper. The earliest known precise location of Arthur is the "postern gate" of Tintagel, which is where he was brought directly after birth wrapped in a gold cloth (is that even possible?) and taken by Merlin. And you what? Horses, sweaty guards, metallic linens, castle gates, and the aroma of an old man carrying herbs and a staff... that's not a very good scent. So I think I approve of BPAL's version.
The official BPAL description goes as follows:
According to legend, the birthplace of King Arthur. The scent of a castle's great hall in the midst of joyous feasting. Spicy mulled wine flowing through the musky heat, warm leather and bright clash of armor, the damp branches of Cornish hawthorn, blackthorn, juniper, English elm and bayberry, and the magical tingle of dragon's blood resin.
In the vial, it smelled, as Beth's sister put it "like an old lady's craft store." Which is not really meant in a derogatory way... that was just the setting it evoked. Fragrant spices and fruit (spiced apples, cinnamon, and other spices I can't place) with hints of wood. It's intense and mixed together, which certainly gives the impression of being indoors.
On the skin, however, it changed and began to seem more manly (to my great satisfaction). Beth described it as "spiced cider," which was quite accurate, and I imagine that's the same way mulled wine would smell. The wood smell, though still not in the foreground, seemed a
bit fuller, too. I couldn't tell you which kinds of wood it smelled like (I'm not nearly that good at distinguishing scents), but it was there. I didn't pick it out at the time, but the smell of leather, I think, was also present.
That was around 8:00am.
As the morning progressed, the smell became fainter. Which is really to say that it became less strong, since it was very fragrant. By noon it occured to me that the scent had changed somewhat, but it was also almost gone, so I took a shower, reapplied it, and left for work.
I paid more attention this time, and this is how the scent seemed to age. First, the mulled wine scent. You know how fresh cider smells, with the apples and the cloves and the cinnamon all individually distinct? That was similar to how it smelled when I first put it on.
When spiced cider ages for a few hours, those three elements tend to mix together until it takes on a more general, pleasant sweet spiced apple scent. Same deal here. The individual scents of the mulled wine ran together and became a less distinct sweet fragrance of spices.
The wood smells faded most quickly. Three hours later, it was not a smell I would have picked out.
The leather, on the other hand, seems to become more pronounced as the others fade. It doesn't become the foreground scent, but it gets more noticeable. Mixed with (what I imagine is) the aging mulled wine aroma, it's very pleasant.
By 4:00pm I could only smell the fragrance if I specifically put my nose against the wrist to which it was applied, and now, just after 5:00, it is still fading. I could keep noticing it fade for all eternity, but in reality, having experimented with it twice (two coats each time), I can safely say that this is effectively a four-hour scent on me. I think that's probably the normal time, since yesterday's Smokestack lasted about that long as well.
I like Tintagel! Very awesome scent.
No comments:
Post a Comment