Lucid

Lucid opens strange. I get a spicy clove-esque herbaceousness coupled with a sweet coumarin and a somewhat "classic" leather/musk combo. It's kind of a mess, but it's also somewhat intriguing. I find that the opening gives me a nagging headache so it took quite a few tries to fully grasp this one. Something about the musky herbal vibe goes straight to my gut and makes me queasy. The drydown is a clean, tame musk with some soft leathery nuances that give it a sort of rubbery-skin smell. When I really focus in, I find that herbal strangeness from the opening lingering around, but wafting through the air and in passing all I really detect is a generic old school leathery musk-dominant woman's perfume. Can't say I love this one, but It's not bad.

The opening of this is rough, a very herbal spicy mix of woods, a touch of something almost lemony + a strong hay-like coumarin. It's cacophonous, I'll be honest. (2 sprays) But give the notes a bit to settle down. Each sniff brings to mind, like a chant when I try to describe it, "fresh spicy herbal woody, something almost lemony beneath..." And that's the best I've got! But it's very accurate to/on me. (The hay tone has all but disappeared now.) I get no real leather, or oud (except that HoM's oud tends to be just a very zesty woody to me), but a certain clean white muskiness does cover the whole 'woody herbal spicy' thing. With my nose pushed up against it there's a kind of leather, yes, vintagey but fresh; maybe it'll rise more later. Will report more if it changes. (It's been an hour at this point.)

On first spray, I thought "powder," "Chanel," "Habanita." Then after it settled a bit I thought "Bandit." Not my thing at all but it is very well structured. How an all natural perfume manages the leather note from Bandit is a mystery to me but color me impressed. In addition to leather I can also detect the oud and this vintage powdery note. It starts out strong and the first two hours are almost overwhelming. It loses steam after that and is more of a skin scent. Very nicely done.

The dry down is straight up white musk.