Every Storm a Serenade

Blast of piney, resinous trees upon first spray! Someone's having a bonfire and burning their Christmas tree in a cool, pine forest. You wander closer to it and get whiffs of wood and lighter fluid. You are not yet near the ocean. Then....... you're hit with a MASSIVE wave of Eucalyptus and menthol (think Vicks vapor rub)! If you have sinus issues, the opening is going to be a godsend for you! Camphorous Eucalyptus dominates the opening with cold aromatics. The wood and pine needles take a back seat, and the salty/marine notes have not come out to play.........yet. 5 - 10 minutes into the drydown: That subtle smokiness does begin to mellow out, and the Eucalyptus is no longer screaming at you, but it does continue to speak quite aggressively throughout the first hour. Aromatic soil with a dash of jalapeño pepper. But only in the tiniest dose! It doesn't make you want to sneeze. 1 - 2 hours into the drydown: The intense piney / camphorous vapor smell has mellowed out. It's not the main character anymore. BOOM! A wave of seawater hits your nostrils! Salty, salty, ocean with sprigs of Eucalyptus mixed in. Next comes the seaweed and a hint of something savory....... did a fish just land in your boat???! Yikes, there's a few of them! But they're clean, happy fish, and you swiftly throw them back :) How did you go from a pine forest to a boat in a turbulent sea!? No idea! ESAS is a bit of an oddball in the drydown, leaning heavy into the seawater department. Ambergris becomes the MVP until the scent wears off. If ambergris is your thing, you'll love this! If not, stay clear! TO SUMMARIZE: it's a unique, woody marine scent that leaves you guessing, and a bit nervous in the best way possible. It has an intense opening that, after smelling Whiff Of A Waffle Cone, seems to be in the DNA of Imaginary Authors. It leans very masculine, and smelling this on a guy from a distance would be sexy as hell! If you're looking for a unique, punch you in the face kind of dark marine (and have sinus issues, like me) this is the one for you! I do wish the opening notes stuck around a bit longer, and that there was less ambergris. Still a fun, thrilling ride worth experiencing :) Longevity: 6/10, and the saline-like ambergris lingers long after its faded. You'll have to scrub it off if you don't like it. Projection: 5/10, with the opening being most intense

Always excited for a new Imaginary Authors release, I ordered my sample of this from the IA website and wanted only to wait for slightly warmer day to wear it out, and, like most of Josh Meyer's fragrances, Every Storm a Serenade does not disappoint. The note breakdown is fascinating---Danish spruce is the first named note, the woodsy anchor that gives ESAS some depth. I've been using a couple of spruce candles this time of year, and I can offer that spruce makes for a balanced woody scent--not as soft as cedar, and not as sharp as pine--and it's useful in ESAS. I don't specifically get eucalyptus or vetiver but I sense some combination of them. And the calone / sea water mix is obviously a part of the fragrance, even in the dry down. What most beach- and marine-themed aquatics usually fail to capture (or at least target) is the saltiness of the ocean and the beach. Nautica Oceans and Creed Erolfa are the only two fragrances (off the top of my head) that have captured this saltiness effectively to this point, and now I can add Every Storm a Serenade to that list. I admit that while I'm mainly a fan of the heavier IA scents--specifically, Cape Heartache and Memoirs of a Trespasser--Every Storm a Serenade is a great aquatic warm weather-leaning scent, though it certainly has enough depth to work perfectly fine in the winter (and inland). ESAS also has the Imaginary Authors' "DNA" that comes up a lot--I definitely recall a connection to Mosaic and Falling Into the Sea, though I'd like to do a more thorough comparison. Projection is good (not as great as some of the heavier monsters, like Cape Heartache, Memoirs of a Trespasser, A City on Fire, and Bull's Blood) and the longevity is significant, like most of Josh's fragrances. I haven't purchased a more warm weather-leaning or aquatic IA frag (I'm not sure An Air of Despair counts) but Every Storm a Serenade is definitely a bottle I need to get my hands on. A recommended try for all men and women. 8 out of 10

Being one of my favorite fragrances from Imaginary Authors, Every Storm a Serenade is a subtle yet masterful blend of common scents into an uncommon experience. While it may not create some grand story with exotic olfactory imagery like some of their other works, it does a pretty good job of conveying the setting as a fragrance. A darker take on typical marine scents, Every Storm a Serenade mixes the scent of a refreshing sea breeze with strong, dry vetiver and green coniferous woods. With the official notes listing Baltic Sea mist and Danish spruce, and Stina and Ulv's story taking place in Denmark, the fragrance is clearly meant to capture the essence of Northern European coastal forests. When I smell this, personally my mind envisions a foggy, damp, cool day somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. It's unapologetically natural, yet at the same time I find it refreshing and oddly calming. In the dry-down the it starts to get much smoother, further blending everything together with an ever so slight touch of cool sweetness. This makes it more refreshing and a little less calone/marine-like, as if gray clouds engulf this coastal forest and crisp, clean rain starts to lightly fall. I assume this is the other notes settling to give more breathing room to the eucalyptus, which becomes rather easy to identify. I totally understand how a profile like this could be divisive, and judging by reviews it's certainly not IA's most mass-appealing fragrance. By no means is it even close to being offensive, but I can see this being interpreted at first sniff as a rather cold and maybe even dusty fragrance to some. While it leans masculine to my nose, I think anyone who's comfortable with more rugged, vetiver-heavy fragrances could easily pull it off. Would work best on a melancholic and rainy day.

The salty air whips you and your friends as you make your way to the cliff to jump off of into the waters below. The smell of the spruce and eucalyptus mix with the salty sea air being pushed up from the crashing waves beneath. The clouds above rumble and groan with the smell of a quick summer storm on the horizon. Yup. Life's pretty damn good. Imaginary Authors is easily one of my favorite brands in niche perfume, and this is another banger from them. A beautiful and unique woody aquatic that is so picturesque yet wearable. Off the first spray I get a healthy mix of spruce, salty air, and calone, super fresh yet still deep. All of this with a healthy backbone of green and fresh eucalyptus and slightly animalic ambergris. It dries down more and more earthy and woody as time goes on, super sexy transition. This reminds me of how my grandfather smelled before he passed away, but in a good way. He was always hip with fashion and fragrances, and I have a really specific memory of him smelling this good. It's comforting and sexy at the same time for that very reason. Not something I would wear to a date, but great for an easy grab in the morning to spritz on. I get GREAT projection off my skin, easily projecting in a 5 foot bubble, but here's the best part of the fragrance: because it smells a lot like sea breeze, you bring that with you. When people were around me when I've worn this, I was asked if I just got out of the ocean (in a complimentary way). Performance is also fairly good on my skin, 5-8 hours depending on heat and how much I'm moving. Much better performance than a lot of other Imaginary Author's scents. Can lean traditionally masculine, but anyone can pull this off.

I live near and work on the ocean (and I am therefore intimately acquainted with ocean smells), I'm obsessed with the ocean, and I want to smell like a mermaid covered in kelp. This is the first marine/aquatic scent I've ever tried that actually smells like the ocean. It's not an exact match, but I do immediately think of the ocean when I smell it, and no other ocean-themed fragrance I've tried has ever accomplished that before. I definitely get crushed kelp and brine and that vague, cold, sandy/salty note... For the first 30 minutes. After that, it's almost overpowered by that dreaded dentist's office antiseptic note- probably from the kelp/seaweed accord. The cold beach-after-a-storm scent is still there underneath the dental note, so I don't actually hate the fragrance, especially since the dental note turns into something like a dill pickle-y sandalwood after another hour or so. I've smelled schools of tuna eating bait fish near the surface of the water (yes, you can smell that) and this fragrance even has a tiny hint of something that evokes that scent, which is crazy to me. Overall- yes, very much like a cool, humid night wind carrying the scent of brine and kelp that washed up after a storm. I'd buy a full bottle. I can look past briefly smelling like the dentist for this. I don't think this has a specific season. I can see myself enjoying it year round. It's unisex to me, neither feminine nor masculine.