Mississippi Medicine

Like Bowmakers, this is a cedar scent first and foremost--the D.S. & Durga website confirms as much: "Mississippi Medicine is rich in cedar. Dry red Virginia cedar." But here it's paired with smoky birch tar and strong, swampy cypress. The other notes are but fleeting support, a touch of aldehydes for brightness, and some buried incense to help pad this out. The violet is subsumed into the sharp woodiness and just lends a touch of "industrial solvent" ala Fahrenheit (not that this smells even remotely like Fahrenheit, but that's another example of unrecognizable violet used for atmospheric effect). Mississippi Medicine actually shares a lot with Bowmakers (the starring red cedar accord is functionally identical), though the ultimate effect is more smokehouse than luthier shop, so this feels more rugged and rustic by default. Both are extremely dry woody scents with no real sweetness, akin to the woodiest scents in the Comme des Garcons line (Hinoki, Wonderwood, Avignon) but with a more natural presentation. If they use cashmeran or ISO E, it's not nearly as obvious here; this smells like cedar oil moreso than the ethereal, amorphous "cedar" note you get from ISO E Super. This is very nice for what it is, very evocative for those that appreciate uncompromising woody scents. Overpriced? Sure, but hunt around the discounters and these come up for decent prices on occasion. I wish performance was better, but I appreciate the rough-edged, naturalistic presentation, so it's a bit of a tradeoff. You wouldn't really want the borderline acrid smokiness to fill the room anyway. In the end, I'd probably rather wear something like Blackbird Targa - which leans even further into the campfire smoke, lasts a bit longer, and feels more complex - but I'm glad to have a bottle of this nonetheless.

I'm head over heels with this juice! At first it's indeed medicinal, in a liniment-meets-bandaids way. I imagine it would be incredibly off-putting for some people, and I question how I have grown to love this type of thing. I digress... Soon after the medicinal phase comes a powerful scent of campfire smoke. I don't love smoke in perfumes, so I just hoped this feature would mellow out, and it did. The smoke only lasted around 30 minutes before it receded into a mix of herbs, a spice that reminds me of nutmeg, and pure frankincense. Eventually the herbs and spice dissipated as well, and I am left with the loveliest pure frankincense resin that drifts steadily up to my nose for hours. At first, as others have said, sillage is big, but it quiets down so quickly that I expected it to be gone without a trace within 2-3 hours. This did not happen. While the head and heart notes lasted around 2-3 hours, the wonderful base of natural frankincense lasted a solid 5-6 hours longer. Some might find a single note of frankincense a bit boring, but frankincense is one of my favorite natural materials. To me, MM is really a frankincense fragrance, covered up temporarily by all that other good stuff. It feels very creepy and ritualistic throughout. The ritual starts out in the dark woods, with God only knows what--a bonfire or a pyre? Once the frankincense kicks in, it reminds me of a funeral, then a cemetery at night with white tombstones that have not been visited in a hundred years. Truly a haunting fragrance. I don't know anything about the "death cult" from the 1200's that is the topic of this fragrance, but it feels quite sinister. I get creeped out easily, so as much as I love this fragrance, I have to try not to think about these images when wearing it.

I've smelled a lot of hardcore niche perfume in my life and it's rare that I'm surprised anymore but Mississippi Medicine surprised me. This is inspired by a Death Cult that burned bodies in wooden houses and it smells like that. The best way I can describe the smell is a swamp on fire, and you're watching it burn while covered in tree sap. I haven't tried bowmakers yet, but the closest thing I have to this is Gucci Guilty Absolute. This makes GGA feel like child's play. It reminds me slightly of Kilian Pure Oud (also hardcore) but that is more of a fire at a carcinogenic chemical plant. This smells better and is more wearable (not by a large margin) than Kilian Pure Oud. This opens like a bottle of vintage medicine, super pungent. Then you're transported to a hyper realistic swamp/forest. You can smell the trees, vegetation, soil, and roots. Then the fire 🔥 Incense, tarry cade oils, and smokey birtch tar. This is very artistic and might not be wearable to most. But if you love fragrance as art and this description sounds interesting, it's worth a try. 100% not blind buy safe 😄. Longevity is surprisingly below average. I decided not to buy at the store but I can't stop thinking about it. I have no idea when and where I'll wear it, but I think I need this haunted forest perfume in my collection. This is strange, offputting, but high Art perfumery. Scent 8/10 Performance 4.5/10

Ointment, liniment, sticking plaster, herbs and trees and leaves and sap ... yeah, you're in D.S.&DurgaLand again, and it's a great place to be, if uncompromising nature and slight weirdness are your home range. Never been to Mississippi myself so I can't speak to how authentic its cypress is, or how genuine the Deep South dirt may be. But overall this is beautiful: definitely one of the more deeply outdoorsy ones of the range - it's less assertive, but also more natural-smelling, than the human craft evoked by Bowmakers' varnish and turps - and with the same absolute integrity of all the rest from this house I've tried. Disregard all the ahistorical nonsense hype about death cults - there's nothing in there to freak anyone out, no weird blood or metal or animalic notes - it's all pretty clean-cut for a muddy-footed urchin sort of a scent. There's a measured, cool coniferous clarity behind the first few wafts of smoke too. Really gorgeous, true unisex, pretty oddball stuff; horribly overpriced, but there's very little else around that's anything like it, so I'll just hope that the universe throws me a bone on this one and sends along a used bottle via eBay or a bored frag-head who can't deal with Mississippi Medicine's swampy charms. Personally it's right up my bayou - I'd quickly grow obsessed with it if I owned it, I think. Bewitching.

There is no reason that I should like this, but like another reviewer said, it’s addictive. At open I would say this is a dry, masculine scent. However, as it moves through it’s layers, it quiets and becomes softer, muskier, female. At the base there is just lovely smoldering warmth. My first impression was utter surprise. It doesn’t smell like anything else. That first hit of smoke, cold juniper, and tar is, well, jarring. On that first day, first spray, I thought “hmmm, this one is going to live in the sample collection, an unwearable oddity”.....But I kept coming back for it. It triggers scent memories, like Proust’s Madeleines. When I wear it, I think of a dying fire on a cold fall day in the woods here in North Carolina, among the oldest, tallest pines. It is bitter cold out. It is dead quiet. Everything feels, looks washed out and grey. The fire has just been put out, and the rush of smoke and resin blasts you in the face. Gradually, the smoke settles, until the only thing that is left is ash. The ash rests cool on top of live embers. They smolder with quiet fire and heat, and will do so for a few hours. It’s a little hypnotizing to watch them. Until you remember that it is damn cold out, and you’d like to be in front of that fire again. That is Mississippi Medicine. And I must have more!

This is a storytelling, memory scent. All the other reviews are valid as the scents here are so evocative. All reviews of this one should begin with "For me..." So: For me I get a very rich campfire smoky combination of the brighter notes like the violet, cedar, pine, aromatic, spicy and balsamic in a terpenic opening, which is probably what many are referring to as medicinal. I first perceived this as camphor / eucalyptus but it's much more than that as you come to know it. It quickly dries down to the birch tar I presume, which I get as straight up roofing tar. I think this can be overwelming and offensive, it made me wish I could vote that I both love and hate this perfume. However I stuck with love because it's addictive and I've found that instead of retracting from the heavy tar scent, you have to inhale right through it to the other notes that give this Mississippi medicine it's beauty. Even better, if you continue to layer this perfume on top of itself with frequent refreshes, the bright opening lasts longer each time and due to relatively week projection and sillage it will never get too strong. In fact, I'd say it's almost an entirely personal scent and nobody will even notice or comment unless you're hugging them maybe.

It's interesting to see that the olfactive pyramid here misses two notes: cascarilla and... the main player of this fragrance: cedar. It opens with smoke and greenery (juniper and angelica, imo), reminding me of Trudon Revolution and FM French Lover, at that stage. When the opening calms down, a fantastic cedar note appears, and at that stage it could be defined as a mash-up of Malle's Angeliques SLP and CdG Kyoto. The drydown will have a serene olibanum note close the show, and results being quite similar to the drydown of CdG Hinoki. Performance is just ok, but so are all the other ones that I referred to here. Even if it's not unique, it is nonetheless a beautiful choreography of the interplay between woods and incense from top to base. There are a lot of dark notes, but it remains ethereal and airy all the way, very meditative. Might be a great option (possibly the best) if you don't already own other fragrances in that category, or if like me, you already own 20 other woody incense fragrances but have never enough of them. Highly recommended if you can get a good discount (otherwise there are several other more affordable alternatives). Colder days, 25+, leans towards masculine.

In the opening, it's pine shrouded in a sharply herbal, cold, medicinal juniper accord. As the herbality fades over the next hour or so, MM turns subtly pleasantly resinous; it's what you smell climbing too high up a fir tree when you're twelve. This is where I get smoky incense, although it's more a supporting character, I wouldn't call this an "incense" fragrance exactly -- personally I don't find it churchy at all. At about the same time, an aldehydic soapiness blended very subtly with sweet spectral violets starts to open up. I like it in small doses, but the aldehydes do make me queasy with more than 1-2 sprays. After a few hours, what's left is photorealistic pale bone-dry pine plank (it really smells exactly like a freshly sawn 2x4) floating over a mild transparent soapiness. It smells clean fresh and neutral without disappearing completely. I'd call it minimalist; not the most dynamic composition, but it's unique, and interesting enough that it took me a few weeks to wrap my mind around it. I really like it; I wear this to work a lot.

It's hard to express just how much I love this fragrance. I've been looking for this for years. I've been seeking out a fragrance that's exactly like this and I've finally found it, so it feels like my soulmate. Maybe it's my catholic upbringing, but this is very "churchy", and that's my favorite genre of scent, and quite rare and hard to find. This smells like a church, or an old log cabin, a forest, a campfire. It's woody, but in a historic, decaying kind of way. It's so evocative and addictive and I can't get enough of it. Today is actually the first time I'm wearing it properly. I really over sprayed too, and I'm in heaven. As soon as I sprayed it all over myself, I knew I needed a full size, and this would be my new signature. I don't care what anyone else thinks of it, I'm obsessed with the feeling it gives me. It feels mysterious, dark and mystical, kind of haunted, even. I think that in a really traditional sense I guess it would lean masculine, but to me it's genderless, and on my skin the incense notes wear quite sweet.

I've been looking around for the scent of dry sauna wood and I'm so happy I finally found it in this fragrance. While the name is "Mississippi Medicine," this actually reminds me much more of "Minnesota Medicine." It evokes memories of my grandparents' self-built Finnish sauna house. And that makes total sense, as traditional Finnish saunas burn birch wood. The note structure advertised is quite spot on, but what really comes through is the cypress, birch and smoke. There's almost a camphor-type quality to the wood notes too. They're very cooling and dry. This is one of my favorite qualities in a fragrance, and the only other that's really showcased this CdG Hinoki. I'm two hours in with MM on my skin and it's still displaying some good sillage. Cannot speak to longevity yet. However, this is just perfect for me. I imagine wearing it on a cool, spring night when I can take the time to transport myself back to my grandparents' farm - the birch forests, the morning saunas with the whole family, aurora borealis, walleye, etc etc...

Opens so sharp and clean. Even the smoke is purifying. All of DS&Durga's fragrances feel percussive to me: steady, sure, supportive, rhythmic. This one makes me feel strong. It's listed as being for men, but this is absolutely a unisex scent. It's got an edge to it - unnerving, perhaps? But it's /mine/, I'm the thing in the woods looking out at you. There are more like me a short distance away, close enough you can smell what they're burning. It fits like a glove. I'm so picky about woodsy fragrances, this one is divine. I've been wearing this a lot since I got a 2mL when I visited one of this brand's stores in NY. I took my time smelling everything they had, got samples of my favorites, and this is the one I keep wearing. (Though if they had a sample of concrete lightning, or if my jazmin hadn't spilled it might've been those... but still, this is the one I keep coming back to). It has terrible longevity, this is the weakest point about this fragrance. I want more of it. Only reason I'm not buying a bottle.

The initial spray disappointed me, but within a couple of minutes I became infatuated with this. It was very herbal and sharp at first, but dried down into this lovely, rich, dark smoke smell, with a more pleasant balance of plant in there. I can see where people get BBQ from, but more so in the sense that it reminds me of a pile of fragrant firewood rather than cooking meat. It's like a bonfire in the darkest depths of a cursed swampy forest. I've been looking for a Southern Gothic perfume for awhile, and this wasn't even a part of that search, but it fits beautifully. Maybe it's the cypress, but it has a really lovely note I can't fully put my finger on, something akin to a fresh-cut Christmas tree or going for a walk in marshlands. As much as I enjoy it, I wouldn't recommend blind buying this. I absolutely love woody, smokey, smells and this might be my favorite. I was half hoping I wouldn't like it given the price point, but I may have to go out and purchase more than a sample of this.

The notes and website description conjure an image of something “dark” and “scary”, and while this is indeed “dark” nothing scary comes to mind. It’s comforting. Like sitting by the fire is comforting. Everywhere around is a wet darkness of a night forest - unknown, half-silent creatures and sounds lurking in the shadows - but they cannot touch you. You have a roof over your head - but it’s raining. It’s outside, but you are warmed up... Cypress and incense certainly do their magic in this fragrance. First feel is full of a wet pine forest imagery, but it settles closer to the skin and becomes incense and fire. “Mississippi medicine” for me is unisex, primeval. Not seductive, - it’s not playing with you, - but definitely sexy. This is a quiet certainty of a dark witch: “He will be mine”. Concept of an evocative scent is popular these days, but nobody does it like DSD. Exceptional, through and through. Although, do have to say that this is for an “Advanced” perfume lover. 10/10

This fragrance is so specifically evocative for me: twenty years old and waking up in a tent in Appalachia Ohio in late summer. The noxious yet somehow pleasant smell of being encased in a sweaty sleeping bag, the still lingering embers from the previous night's campfire, a potpourri of hot dogs, camel turkish royal cigarette butts, and firewood. I can almost hear the greedy, ravenous sounds of the raccoons that raided our cooler that night and woke me up. Despite the odd-sounding composition, it's very comforting. Reminds me of a good time in my life. It smells like I should be hungover. If only the performance lasted longer than ten minutes. It's very ephemeral; too ephemeral. Put it on to recall a memory, poof, then it's gone again. You know that smell of camping and staying up until 4am that you can't get out of your clothes for days even after a wash? That's basically what this is, but without any of the staying power. Just me? This would make for a stunning candle imo.

The opening on my skin is fresh but in a very non-typical kind of way. I can clearly smell the pine, cedar, and incense, which I believe have been made slightly fresher with aldehydes. Mississippi Medicine is dry, smoky, balsamic, resinous, woody, fresh spicy, and has a salty quality. It smells kind of like a sleeping bag or your hair after a night of sleeping next to an open fire while covered in mosquito repellent. I think this fragrance evokes nostalgia among many people who try it, including me. It reminds me of scout camps, fishing trips, and visits to a bronze age museum village when I was younger. This is a piece of olfactory art that is not meant to be mass-appealing. I think it is truly amazing, but I find it hard to think about occasions where I would wear it. If this was a candle or a diffuser it would get a 10/10, but as a fragrance it gets an 8/10 from me.

I really enjoy wearing this, but background matters. I grew up working in a family owned meat processing business. I am no stranger to a smokehouse or the product liquid smoke. The same business used fireplaces to provide heat and portable heaters inside the smokehouse. This cologne provides memories of being in winter and walking into a smokehouse running on all cylinders. The wood scents I can clearly recognize and after dry down the smoke lessens into a nice aroma. I agree, this scent really isn’t for people that have memories or positive connotations with wood and smoke scents. As much as I like this scent, I do mix it up by using aquatic colognes and Fahrenheit to add variety. The price is high, but if rotated it will provide value.

Quite a special one. The opening smells as if I'm sniffing a new variety of black pepper with the aromatic aspect dialed way up, with reduced spiciness, and smoky. If I focus I can see through the illusion and recognize birch and cypress. Both oily, dry and woody, with a very quiet, but present, smooth violet. The violet really is the magic here as it balances out the sharpness of birch and cypress and keeps the incense from being too aggressive. Each component in Mississippi Medicine is fairly common in perfumery, but I've never smelled such a woody and aromatic unisex combo before. It's also surprisingly wearable as it's become my dumb reach when I don't know what to wear. It wears close to skin but lasts all day. Love this.

This perfume has been haunting me for a year so I finally decided to pull trig and purchase it. I encountered this perfume at my first visit to DS&Durga in Brooklyn while visiting a friend last fall and it stood out as my favorite of all I tried. I’ve never stopped thinking about MM. I even went so far as to get birch tar essential oils but that just left me smelling like liquid smoke. There’s something creepy and ephemeral about it, for me it evokes memories of a burning church/a witch being burnt at the stake. I specifically don’t want to smell inviting to men, I want them to smell me and be vaguely afraid for reasons they can’t quite place. This really does the trick, I am so glad to have this in my collection.

The opening is a big pine and juniper burst (done well and doesn't smell like cleaner). Shortly thereafter, it starts settling to something like Encre Noir, but smokier. Whereas for other people, they think it's too smoky and barbecue-like, for me this isn't really a smoke bomb. Some of the woods they use have a smoky aspect (birch, probably amyris essential oil, nimberol, etc.) It is true that after ten minutes the birch tar with its smoky aspect does dominate, but it doesn't feel too intense. In fact, it starts settling to a mild smoky after about 10 minutes and feels much smoother. Nevertheless, I probably wouldn't buy a full bottle of this--I'd just buy Encre Noir--or even better Encre Noir A L'extreme.

This is my Holy grail scent as I have purchased many promising the aura of one that has spent the weekend in the forest under the pines, tending a fire and perhaps operating a gas powered chainsaw. It is very masculine but I do not care. I cant stop smelling myself and mentally transporting to a cabin in the pacific northwest on a misty weekend. Its not perfumey. Its more of an authentic odor one would develop galavanting deep in the woods. It opens with an almost acrid scent of gasoline or tar? Then quickly dries down to a slight whiff of campfire and fresh pine or fir. The incense pulls it all together. As it unfolds it settles into the campfire and trees and stays with me all day.