Wind From Mount Kailash

Coniferous elemi I'm a sucker for elemi and here the sharp lemony-resinous, almost varnish-like elemi opening is to die for. It is the real focus for me, and it's done masterfully with all slightly sweet and spicy aspects stressed in the right proportions. Even the smoky-resinous nuances are stressed but not overwhelmed by incense and opoponax. However, this is not merely an elemi soliflore. It's a full-bodied perfume telling a story of a Buddhist temple in the Himalayas. You can easily picture a high altitude coniferous forest with a smell of incense, burning resins and aromatic herbs coming from a temple nearby. But for me, this is the picture of standing in a coniferous forest that just got cut down with air packed densely with the smell of amberwood resins coming off the freshly cut trees. This somehow feels like what DS Durga Bowmakers set its sights on conceptually but is done much better and with superior ingredients. It's easily my favourite of Anna's "Landscapes" line. Projection is apparently enormous (at least in the beginning, not sure if it stays this way). I sprayed it once on my wrist and my girlfriend said that she could smell a blast of it the second she opened the door to the apartment.

Warm and sunny field scent. Very pleasant, but unfortunately I tried it on my arm too close to Cuir de Russe that was overpowering it with tar. Will need to try again to review properly.

Oregano, lavender, and wood/pine. A man in a flannel shirt and jeans returns to the cabin after chopping down pine trees. It's been a long afternoon, and the early September chill slices through the shower steam. He scrubs and scrubs, but the sap wont budge. He emerges from the shower, still smelling of pine and outdoors. That's how natural the notes are in this bottle. Although this particular perfume is not for me, I am a HUGE fan of this house and highly recommend it for the quality of ingredients and remarkable blending of notes.

In the opening, I get a terpenic elemi note accompanied by juniper berries. After a few minutes, this combination is followed by a fresh combination of camphoraceous sage and herbaceous oregano. There is a noticable confierous quality to the scent due to the combination of juniper, elemi and frankincense as they all share a piney quality. The perfume transitions from a fresh herbaceous opening to an incense-y base of frankincense and oppoponax. I enjoyed the drydown a lot, but found the opening too ‘raw’ for me.