Allen Ginsberg--Howl

[Boudicca]

PM me your address Maya and I'll send you my decant.

[Petticoats]

Maya, you write such magnificent reviews! You put me to shame. Thank you for lending your eloquence to a fragrance I'm so enamoured of. I'd love if it you would review the Burns Rose (strong hint!).

LOL! I keep thinking about getting it, but most rose fragrances are DOOOOM on me. The only rose that has not gone straight to bathroom-spray air-freshener (or soap) on me is Texas. However, your comments about it keep making me think I should give it a try. (You evil enabler, you.)

Heh, looks like I'm fitting right in! If I had decanting supplies I'd happily send you a sample... maybe I can improvise.

[Petticoats]

Oh wow, Boudicca beat me to it! Awesome!

[Maya]

PM me your address Maya and I'll send you my decant.

You don't need to send your whole decant. How about a nice soak of a q-tip? (Sending addy as soon as I get off of this post.)

[gypsyjolie]

I was afraid of this as I have bad scent associations with gritty rooty BO patchouli from college... but I am so glad this was made permanent so I can try it as so many of Fabienne's patchouli blends are becoming my fall/winter favorites.

wet: Caramell-y woodsy patchouli. Light than I feared it would be. Sweeter than I expected. Something smells vaguely floral? Odd.

drying: Ah yes, amber is more identifiable now. The patchouli is warming up and coming forward. It's definitely patchouli, rich, deep, dark, manly, sexy in a sort of body odor way. This is deep and woody/rooty but smoother than I expected. It's almost leathery. there's a sort of spicy smoky scent here, like a faint incense but not it's not nag champa or headshoppy at all. mmmmm.... this is rather sexy.

full drydown: Yep. sexy. Masculine in the best way, like wearing your man's leather motorcycle jacket still warm from his body. Warm, deep, woody, spicy, slightly smoky, sweetish patchouli. There is a black musk adding a softening touch of powderiness to this. It's a bit sexy and a bit reserved at the same time, very grounded. Lightly sweet, like the scent of skin. Lightly smoky, to warn of danger ahead.

I'm buying a bottle of this and sharing it with my husband. I wish it had a bit more throw, but it does have longevity. Aging will only make this more delicious, I predict.

[Floria]

There is definitely a Bohemian underworld quality to this. I get smoky headshop incense, underlaid with some non-foody sweetness to give it oomph. There's a dark, chewy quality that makes me think a bit of tobacco, although it doesn't smell like cigarettes at all. And it lasts for hours!

[willworkforvanilla]

Damn this is good.

While I think this may be a bit too masculine for me, I'm still getting a big bottle to share with my Mr. I think on certain days I could maybe carry it off. Plus, we just have to have a bottle....I need to smell this whenever I want. It's that damn good.

Howl is complicated. No one scent jumps out at you. It smells very well blended. On the first sniff all I could come up with was how much I love this and was dumbfounded on what notes were actually here. Later that day, I slathered it on the Mr. and sat for like 20 minutes sniffing him, trying to get a grasp on what exactly it is that I smell.

Of course patchouli is all around the scent. It's the good patch..Not the cheap stuff you get at head shops. Red musk is also up front along with the amber musk and black musk ( I guess, I smell a musky amber and just lots of musk but nothing says black musk to me...just lots of musk).

I'm also picking up on toffee or something like that. It puts in mind a flavored coffee sort of. I'm not getting any green notes, so I'm not able to find the chypre or at least to my nose it isn't that noticeable. There is a woody note here and it seems that could be the sandalwood. Sometimes I am getting a slight powder scent but it's not that strong. I am picking up of resins/incense along with a bit of smoke. I didn’t get much tobacco, but we both thought we were getting whiffs of a dry clove smell.

This is pretty strong with very good throw. I could still smell it on my husband later that night but it had faded a lot.
Yes we need the big bottle. This is resin, smoky, dark perfection and it’s a crying shame that I am just now trying it.

[sillageslut]

Chocolate patchouli sex in a bottle. I purchased 10 permanent catalog bottles on my first Posset's order (I don't do anything half-assed), all blind purchases and this is my favorite. I love chocolate and had recently purchased a couple of chocolate fragrances (Aquolina Chocolate Lovers & BBW Red Velvet Cake), I was very disappointed and ended up giving them to my daughter. If chocolate or cocoa had been listed as notes in Howl, I would not have chosen it. I am so glad I did. Love, Love, Love. I put Howl on at 10:00pm and could still smell it the next morning The sillage is heavy for the first hour and then dissipates to moderate. I can't add more than what Maya has said in her wonderful review except that if you do not enjoy foody type scents, this would be one to try because it is also dark, creamy and resinous. BTW - I am happy with all 10 Posset's I purchased.

[Greymalkin]

After much deliberation, I have decided that my first review will be for "Howl."

The first time I applied it, it was on totally clean skin, while cooking a complicated and spicy meal (I needed an olfactory break), and I think this was where I goofed. I kept huffing the crook of my arm, and saying to myself, "I WANT to like you, "Howl," but you are far too cacophonous for me." The bottle was tucked away, with plans of trying again soon. I do this with everything I don't immediately love, at first.

Jump to the next day, when my skin oils had equalised, and I had a craving to enjoy a perfume. I often use perfumes as little scooby snacks, morale boosters, throughout the week.

As soon as I applied it, the earthy, bitter, poppy latex and chocolate accords, backed by lovely woods, musks, and spices, hit me like a truck ---- and they were exactly what I needed, right then. The drydown has a rather smoky aspect to it, as if the other accords are being filtered through a haze of sweet shisha smoke. This is so incredibly, indescribably lovely. It reminds me of a certain place and time, a zeitgeist of my past, that I needed to recall.

I think that along with knowing exactly which samples to chuck in, Fabienne has the magical power of helping us to recall the forgotten bits of ourselves.

[funkmoppet2]

Welp, this has just shot straight to my top ten - thank god it's permanent or I'd have missed this little gem, and that would have been just criminal.

Powerful patchouli start. The musks quickly push through with a backdrop of the opium tar which gives it a positively filthy edge. Gradually the tar backs off and the musks and patchouli coalesce into a perfectly sexy den-of-iniquity scent that's quite unlike anything I've smelled from Fabienne before. It's dry (yay!), and personally I much prefer it to Mistress Of Power which manages to hold onto a sweetness that stops me from liking it. I really do like my musk and patchouli scents dry and not sweet, and thanks to Fabienne's amazing skills with chypre, Howl is perfection. For me, it lives on the same shelf as Bpal's Smut and Mme Moriarty, while being clearly different from both of those. The red musk is very present but doesn't dominate the other notes, which in itself is quite a feat, given how loud red musk is. Yum. On me, the sillage is rather potent and a light hand will be needed.

Love the poem it's based on too, and thanks to They Might Be Giants I also have "I Should Be Allowed To Think" stuck in my head whenever I wear this. As far as earworms go, I'm ok with this one.

Definitely on my bottle list.