Enigma

Straight out of the tester bottle, I got an almost undetectable papery scent, wasn't sure what to expect as this is my first straight up Iso E Super. On my skin this stuff is MAGICAL!!! It's straight up addictive. I have like a weird primal reaction to it LOL & I genuinely find myself craving it when I'm not wearing it which I've never experienced with any other fragrance. It's hard to figure out exactly what Enigma smells like to me. It's a woodsy, creamy, and clean (but not lactonic or soapy) skin scent. An evolving blend of cedar, sugar, cashmere, musk, paper, and something almost oceanic and salty.. in the best way imaginable. 10/10, can't get enough of this stuff. I wear it literally every single day (sometimes alone, sometimes with other fragrances- it's great for layering)

Smells like Elmer’s glue fresh out of the tester. Completely transforms once on skin. @kdequalist is so right, and it gives you that same lil boost of serotonin you’d get if you deeply inhaled your S/O’s hoodie too. I can’t stop sniffing my arm. This is addictive. I was testing multiple Alkemia scents on both arms and even though a lot of them were strong, I keep getting blasts of Enigma above all else. It has this indistinguishable, delicious, mysterious, nostalgic, genderless quality about it, if I smelled this on someone in public my head would be on a swivel as they passed by.

I can detect a smell for this one, both on the bottle and on my skin. And, the best way that I can describe it is an "off-clean" skin smell . . . you know the space after the scent from the soap/lotion from a shower dissapate, and your skin is just beginning to develop a very slight salty tinge. But, there's also a bracing depth quality to it . Personally, I love this scent. I love it by itself, but I also really love it layered with Wood Sage & Sea Salt by Jo Malone.

Hard to explain, the scent is so intoxicating - it makes me...kind of excited (if you know what I mean) I put it on my fiancé all the time haha The scent is woody and warm. It smells like a hoodie that you get from your significant other. It’s musky, arousing and comforting, you want to sleep in it and smell it 24/7. I layer it with everything. Truly 10/10

I love this! Wow so gorgeous! In the bottle it has no smell. As soon as I put it on my chemistry kicks Enigma in to gear and my gosh it’s perfection. Musky smooth creamy beautiful just perfect. Okay I’m definitely ordering a full bottle! It works with your own chemistry to create your own scent. So fun! Get you a sample. It’s incredible!

I also detect a little bit of vinegar at first, but then it completely goes away and you are left browsing in an OG metaphysical or occult bookstore. It smells like old library books that are saturated with incense—but not smoky at all. It is subtle and mysterious, I absolutely love it and am so glad to have found this sent.

Enigma is an incredibly soft scent. I have to focus pretty hard to detect it at all. It’s a little papery, woody, and also maybe a little creamy. A great candidate for layering if you want to add a little subdued woodiness to another fragrance.

I love this one! To me it smells very clean, almost a laundromat or dryer sheet smell. I've had people tell me it smells like anything from "the beach" to "spicy christmas tree."

makes me smell like those little french violet candies mmmmmm

This is a lovely, curious little perfume. It's very ephemeral. One moment smelling lightly of soft dry wood the next smelling of clean air. Sometimes it smells lightly of paper, sometimes of nothing at all and it's different every 5 minutes which just adds to the curiosity of it. This isn't a statement fragrance. It's something to be quietly intrigued by, and I am rather here for it. I will have to try layering it now with other scents, but on it's own, it's worth checking out because it's just so unique.

Warm pencil shavings. A diffuse cloud of freshly shaved cedar with a hint of amber, atop an underlying muskiness. Moderate initial projection forms a soft scent bubble for 2-3hr, longevity 8-10hr. It's typical Iso E Super: a soft-spoken, minimalist wood scent that some people enjoy standalone and others use as a primer for other fragrances.

Initially powdery, but settles into a very nice woody smell.

Pleasant vaguely woody vaguely glue-y skin scent. Would potentially be addicting if it weren't so faint and elusive, but that’s the way it’s marketed after all - as a mysterious Iso E Super single note perfume. I basically smell nothing at all when I first put it on, and it's actually a couple hours later that I start to notice it, after I've totally forgotten I'm wearing perfume. The scent turns warmer and sweeter on my skin drifts in and out until the end of the day. I wonder if others can smell it on me more than I can. In any case, I couldn't imagine wearing something this simple all by itself. I've made some bangers mixing it with other indie oils though: Enigma + Library Ghost by Poesie is a godly combo.

I love Alkemia but, unfortunately, this smelled like a very cologne-y, woody and just kind of unsettling smell on me. Not the bewitching, intriguing scent so many are describing. If this is Iso-E, it's good to know so I can avoid it in the future.

Smells like office paper when applied to my wrist. Had my dad sniff it, he said he "definitely smelled something, it's just hard to place". So goes my first dip into the world of anti-perfumes and "your skin but better"...

Smells like salt and vinegar chips

I can’t smell it at all, not on my skin alone, anyway. Despite that, Enigma accomplished exactly what I wanted it to. I love Alkemia’s Rara Avis, but it hugged my skin too closely. Below is the addendum to my review of Rara Avis..... "I found a solution to get this lovely fragrance to project a bit off my skin. I bought Alkemia’s Enigma spray and spritzed lightly over this oil. I am anosmic to iso-E Super, so I don’t detect any change to the scent. My final test of this theory was to borrow my SO’s schnozz. I put Rara Avis solo on my left arm, on my right I topped it with a single-spray misting of Enigma. He couldn’t smell anything when I waved my left arm through the air, but he could clearly pick up the cucumber, lavender and ozone when I waved my right arm, about 10 inches away. When he put his nose directly to each arm he was not able to identify any difference between them, so he may be anosmic to iso-E Super as well (another test for another day, perhaps)."

for being such a simple scent, i've become completely enamored by enigma's subtle, yet entrancing aura. it lingers around me in the most delightful way, and i can smell it fading in and out of my radar throughout the day. i'm not sure if anyone else could smell it on me, but for my enjoyment alone it's so worth it, and that's not even mentioning its versatility when layered with other scents. great dupe for (if not a better execution of iso e super than) molecule 01, i tried it by chance the other day and didn't realize how spoiled i'd been with enigma, though it might just be my bias. i am utterly obsessed.

I didn't care for it. I had heard that Iso E Super can go very bad for some people and I think I am one of them. It just really rubbed me the wrong way and I can't give a reason for it. With that said, maybe you will be lucky. For the price, can't hurt to try.

On me it's woodsy vanilla bordering on toasted marshmallow. Anytime I pair it with other perfumes, people go out of their way to ask what perfume I'm wearing.