Gothika

This is an interesting and mysterious scent. A fragrance not for the faint of heart. The name perfectly illustrates the scent. It's a Gothic scent, making me think of walking down the candle lit halls of Dracula's castle. Melancholy and beautifully dark. Musk, Rose, immortelle, a slightly honeyed candle wax, and cypriol are what i mainly detect. There is some incense and vetiver . It can give me the imagery of a "velvet vail", like for a funeral or wedding. But i wouldn't say there is any velvet note in here. Personal score: 8.5/10. I love Immortelle, so this does lean in my direction. Has a lot of musk of the kind that gives me an allergic reaction and makes breathing hard though.

Very nice and pleasant smell. Overall very strong notes of candle wax and bergamotte with davana peaking through. Not sure yet if I'll buy a full-size, but it's definitely in my Dark Tales "Top 5" fragrances.

There have been many reformulations, discontinuations, and such of Dark Tales perfumes. I have a (presumably) 2nd generation reformulation of Gothika. The notes for my bottle are: black musk, vetiver, immortelle, ambrette, rose otto, clary sage, davana, and bergamot. I think I bought mine at the end of 2024 or early 2025. Anyways, when I first smelled it, all I smelled was rose. Imagine turkish delight and rose scented soap. Just extremely feminine and just rose. No idea what current reformulations smell like.

To be fair i did not try this on skin, but on a few layers of tissue, and for me its a dark dusty davana-vetiver fougere with a little black musk and ambrette at the base. Bitter, dry balsamic. I feel like my skin would sweeten it like it usually does and it could smell slightly better to my nose after 30 mins. I'm not getting candle wax and the sage is lost in the other dried green notes, and boy is it dry and musty, not an ounce of freshness. Really find myself wishing for more bergamot. It's extremely vintage, like extremely. It's unisex but imo leans fem due to the powdery white rose note beneath it all. Not my type of scent but if you love the scent of urban exploring a dusty old french victorian gothic church ruin that smells in abundance of dried green herbs and white roses left behind from weddings past, and like someone's great-great grandma's french perfume thats still lingering but musty on her moth eaten wedding dress you unearthed in a wooden chest from the victorian era in the basement of said church ruins, then you have yourself a new fave. It is way too vintage and heavy on the dust and age for me though. but we love when a scent can evoke images like this. Dark Tales is an amazing perfume house, it's too bad they don't ship to the US anymore. I am absolutely obsessed with Obsidian Apple but have no way to get it : (

The perfume in my set (2026) doesn't really match what's written here. I couldn't figure out whether some scents are being constantly reformulated, but what I'm picking up is an incense that smells almost like burnt rubber, heavy on the smoke, herbal hits, and a quite dirty (almost animalic) musk. Tag(s): burnt rubber, herbal, animalic, dirty, edgy

Musty opening, interesting. Gives a incense feeling, like the description of the fragrance one comes to think of a church. It's very soft and dark. Not sweet at all, mysterious. It's pleasant but not mindblowing. Dries down to almost giving a licorice feeling. Still not a fan. Had a dabber bottle. 5/10