Gothique

I like this one too. This perfume house is all about using beautiful art as a backdrop for each of its fragrances, and it certainly works on me. Gothique reminds me a lot of really good hippie fragrances in the 1975-1985 era. And not in a negative way either, but for those of you who didn't get to experience them personally, Gothique leads you down the path. I love all the incense notes but it doesn't seem like church incense to me. Or Hari-Krishna incense either (and don't anyone ever think that dreck should be brought back). Gothique just has an ethereal quality that isn't duplicated a lot of places. But it most definitely isn't high fashion. And doesn't need to be either.

By turns creamy, resinous, and even sweet, this fragrance is like wandering into a church and lighting candles. There is a soft yet definite smell of smoke with notes of cedar and amber mixing into what amounts to the bottling of gothic romanticism. It’s all here: beauty, softness, darkness and depth. It’s unisex and unique (say that three times fast) with any sweetness tempered by the olibanum and cedar. It lasts 4 hours on my skin while scenting my hair and pillow for much longer. If I was a beautiful ghost haunting a church, I would want to smell like this. Scent: 9/10 Longevity: Moderate

The most bewitching scent - evil incarnate and Holy Mother in one. I bought a sample months ago and let it sit. I came back to it on a cold winter's day and then immediately purchased a larger bottle. Lasts on the skin for a decent amount of time and I don't really sense a huge shift in notes as the hours pass. Some of the oils are pretty potent, so if you have sensitive skin, I recommend moisturizing your skin with a carrier oil like jojoba before applying. It stays spicy and rich throughout the day, like the stale air of an abandoned cathedral. It really is the ultimate gothic perfume.

It smells (almost overwhelmingly) of myrrh and frankincense. It smells like catholic mass, almost exactly, and evokes strong memories of going as a child. It's a little bit sexy and warm with hints of cinnamon-esque spice and a resinous undertone. It's very cosy and layers well with sweeter scents. Very smoky, blends nicely with my personal skin chemistry, will forever be a favorite of mine. Lasts very long, around 2 hours at full strength, then fades into a nicer less auratic scent after 4 hours. Lasts longer over an oil.

I received this yesterday and I have to say that while it wasn't what I was expecting, it's also not totally unserviceable. My main gripe is that Gothique is a myrrh-heavy fragrance. I understand that myrrh is sort of powdery, fuzzy, medicinal, and cinnamon-adjacent. I don't really have a problem with myrrh. I like incense and I like catholic incense. Myrrh is a component there. The problem I have is that it smells like linear cinnamon and myrrh. That's it. There are some vague ambery undertones but no distinguishable vetiver, cedar, or labdanum. I generally like to stick to ambers that include patchouli because that gets me over to the resinous alpha-pinene-smoky-aggressively-astringent-terpene-conifer side of amber that I like, but this one is like a soft vanillic-myrrh-cinnamon thing that isn't really my cup of tea. I detect no olibanum, which I have and use in my home often. I was looking for cathedral incense and I can say for certain that this isn't it. This is nice, it's cozy, and it's good for bedtime. I can go to bed alone or with someone and they'll smell it for a little bit without getting a blast of perfume in their face. I like that for me personally but I don't think other people totally love it, especially when actual sleep is involved. The cinnamon-myrrh aspect isn't totally awful (like I just painted it to be, see above) because those aren't notes that I hate. Again, I was expecting dark, gothic, bloodborne/dark souls, super heavy super serious cathedral incense, and what I got was kind of an amber-gourmand. I don't hate amber gourmands, I just wasn't expecting one. If anyone knows any perfumes that genuinely smell like catholic mass that aren't outrageously expensive, please DM me. Observations 🠟🠟🠟🠟🠟🠟🠟 Gender (?): unisex leaning fem Longevity: 4/10 2-3 hours (its an oil rollerball, what did you expect) Projection: (4/10) hardly noticeable but depends on placement (see above) Value: Good, but again not what I was expecting Overall: 6.5/10 not great but far from terrible Also, review aside, the notes on this fragrantica entry are actually just fucking wrong. Canele is not a note here. Canella is the real note and it's a type of cinnamon. Also, blackcurrant leaves are not a note here, Cassia is, which is again, a type of cinnamon. If you want the full notes, visit the Alkemia page. Fragrantica seems to be pretty good most of the time with note accuracy but in this case, it stuck out as inaccurate. novel over.