Sweet Pine Tar

Ugh, I hate to make the first review on this a negative one, but this doesn't do what it promises on me. I'm starting to think that DSH perfumes just don't work on me, as so far none of them have smelled like what they say. So, this. There is a piney note to it, a sort of cool herbal tone that hovers over the whole experience. However, the majority of the scent is this kind of acrid woody scent that I've smelled before in other indie or natural perfumes. I believe it's meant to convey an earthy, woody, damp leaf kind of aspect, but to my nose it just smells weirdly sour and off. Like what someone who's never smelled rotting leaves might guess they smell like. After about an hour that off scent softens, becoming about equal to the pine and allowing some sweetness through. It never left entirely though, and after two hours I got tired of smelling it and washed my arm off. I will note that my experience with DSH is usually not in line with what other reviewers say, so if you were really interested in this, you still might have luck. But it just didn't work for me at all.

Ask anyone from New Mexico what is the smell of "home," and they will answer that it's Piñon Pine sap, locally known as trementina, but also called Sweet Pine tar. It's made into a salve and it's a powerful indigenous healing remedy, that many of the elders, like my mom, my grandma and great-grandma swear by. Almost everyone who is a New Mexico native is as familiar with this smell as we are with the smell of roasting chile. It's the smell of Winter in New Mexico. In New Mexico, for Christmas Eve, there is a tradition of lighting farolitos/luminarias to decorate your home - they are paper bags filled with sand and a candle, and they are the oldest form of "Christmas Lights" intended to guide the Wisemen to the birth of Jesus, and almost all the traditional homes in New Mexico are decorated this way. You have to fold the paper bags, fill them with sand, then place them all over the outside of your house and fence. The process can take hours and it's usually something you do with your entire family. After all the bags are placed, the candles are lit just before dusk. At this time of year, there is snow on the ground, so as you decorate, most families build a fire of pinon pine wood to keep warm, and because the wood is wet from the snow, the fire has a smell of a slightly damp, warm smoky pinon pine campfire against a background of snow and pine in the cool air. At dawn, after all the candles are lit, everyone drives around with their families to see the lights, and as you do, you can smell all the campfires in the neighborhood. It's a truly magical smell, evocative of the holy night and this ancient tradition. Dawn has captured it all so perfectly in this perfume. I am completely in love and will order a full bottle.