Serin

I think I finally found the key to this one for me- spray VERY lightly, and from a distance so the fine mist settles. I keep coming back to my samples of this, and each time in the past the marigold has bludgeoned me about the head and face in the opening, and stayed a little too bitter for me to be able to relax into the scent throughout the dry down. I never scrubbed- I always rode it out, but I never reached a point in the dry down where everything felt balanced to my preferences. Still- underneath the prize-fighting marigold there was something so intriguing, so I kept coming back for more- trying different weather conditions and different moods, but never having a fully enjoyable wear. Today I sprayed only 1/2 squirt from the official sample on each arm, and from a distance of about 2 feet, so only a small fine mist settled on each arm. This time I am loving this creation! I'm getting a soft dusty hay-like accord (mentioned by only one other- Daphne2Laurel, but to me it is a clear impression) with florals floating above it- there is suede (not listed, but as Bubbles also noted) and earth underpinning it. The marigold is still clearly there, but now it's a beautiful collaborator with the rest of the brew rather than an overbearing overlord. 4 hours in, and I am finally experiencing the incense that I never perceived in any of my previous wearings. Performance is still at the level I prefer, which is strong enough to enjoy without bringing my arm to my face. I am impressed by the experience delivered with this tiny application. After this revelation I look forward to wearing this more often and becoming truly acquainted with it! *I just wanted to add that this may sound as if I dislike the scent of marigold. It is such a unique and strong and bitter/medicinal scent (I'm talking about the whole plant, not just the blossoms). It's not a plant that I seek out sticking my face into and inhaling deeply (like I do with so many others), but I actually love it in the garden as a light backdrop to everything else floating on the sun-warmed breeze, and with a super light application that is now what I am getting :) Edit a few months later: Yep- subsequent wears have confirmed that when I apply very lightly and diffused it is gorgeous to me, and like nothing else I own! A 30 ml is definitely in my future when my samples run dry.

The first few minutes after spraying, Serin smells a little like natural, herbal medicine.... edible-like, I could imagine adding it to tea. If you rub marigold stems and leaves between your fingers you will know that distinctive smell, and it’s here, upfront and center stage. Then Serin morphs and smells like suede with herbs on the drydown. I’m guessing the suede note is a combo of sandalwood and a note I’m not familiar with, possibly Cypriol (or maybe it’s Guaiac reminding me of suede?). Anyway, there’s also smoke and some spices entering the composition. Last summer I grew — from seed —two different kinds of marigold and tagettes (tagettes, I believe, are a type of marigold). I swell up like a balloon if bitten by mosquitos so I like anything with marigold in it because it’s a natural insect repellant. Not that Serin reminds me of repellant, but I am curious to wear Serin in warmer weather. And the longer I wore Serin, the more I liked it. My final impression was of a Buddhist temple, there’s something very peaceful and healing about this perfume.

I have been enjoying my full bottle of Serin I just got yesterday. I suspect I was one of the first who ordered. I love all of January Scent Project's work. This one is a very unusual but very pleasant incense vibe as if you burned a fine incense in a summer marigold and heliotrope garden. It isn't excessively floral but has a complexity that keeps it interesting and not too femme. I am very comfortable wearing it even though I am a big hunky super masculine male, or at least my wife tells me I am when we are in bed. I think this is a little similar to some of John's other work, so if you like Vaporocindro and Eiderantler you'll love this. It isn't the same, but it's in similar themes. The sublime cedar Burvuvu remains in a different (and wonderful) planet and is one of the finest perfumes of all time, I think.

This is like walking through fields of marigolds and dry hay, smelling some woodsmoke in the air in the early fall. I love a scent that is so natural and yet so interesting & intense. If there are synthetics in this, they are in the service of enhancing the naturals, making it bright & airy. There's an underlying incense for depth. I love that the marigold is like a top note that is bright but not a citrus, & more lasting than citrus. Just so fascinating & I can't stop smelling it at different stages of development.

I might wear this sometime and post a fuller review but I came here to say: My boyfriend wears this and I love it on him. The woody notes combining with the mint gives me the impression of being in a California bay forest, which is one of my favorite local landscapes. Very different from other incense frags... dry as a bone, herbal. I was surprised by the champaca note because that flower can often give me a headache, but here it is lovely.

To me, this is a huge dark smoky scent mixed with some spice and hints of sweetness at the top but, what was most unexpected was how much the dry down reminds me of Amouage Interlude Man - must be the incense/ resins. This makes the scent for me! Not a clone for sure but, the similarities to my favorite scent keep me coming back for more!

Love it. Smells like a Strangelove perfume, superb quality, original and, most importantly, utterly beautiful. On the skin it's completely different to card tester. Put it on you!

Serin is an earthy, herbal yellow floral driven aroma with a heaping dose of spiced woods and soft musks. For a moment you wonder if the marigolds have turned with a gentle aroma of decaying stems inside a vase. There’s whisps of sage-like herbs and cumin laced musks along with bright florals which cut through the rather deep earthiness of this fragrance. I don’t get any smoke or incense from Serin but I do pick up a real nice woodsy drydown. There’s even hints of pollen and cedar. This is the real gardening experience distilled into a bottle sans the soil aroma. It’s difficult to say wether I like this or not. There’s moments where I smell fresh spicy mustard and then there’s brief moments of curried tomatoes but it’s strangely addicting. The savory qualities of this fragrance seem to go unnoticed by others reviewing it so it may be a chemistry thing for me. Cumin is largely present to my nose in the heart which creates this incredible savory gourmand experience which segues into the more woody and pleasing aspects of the composition. The drydown is where this becomes wearable. It’s dry, spicy woodiness perfectly balances the rough herbal opening. Overall for uniqueness alone this is a 10/10. Wearability is a bit different. This is a 6/10 Serin truly is a love letter to those who love adventurous and artistic fragrances and aren’t scared to get outside their comfort. I love to be challenged by florals instead of animal musks and fermented Oud.

There's an initial wrinkling of the nose at the first hit, like entering the greenhouse and suspecting that something has just died. That dank green smell lingers, reminding me of the piles of flowers left behind after a funeral at the crematorium. I'm thinking "Is this a perfume or an ordeal?" But that's how this fragrance seems to work: floral/mossy notes emerging from a green, damp miasma, which challenge the whole notion of what we mean by "Fragrance." John Biebel is at pains to distinguish the two principle accords, - marigold and incense , - from the individual notes that comprise them, but in my humble opinion, the decomposing floral effect of the first overpower the drier woody tones of the second. I don't get "incense" but I do get "garden." For me at least it's a fragrance that succeeds on the tester strip rather than the skin, just as I would rather enjoy those flowers as I pass them thrashing around in the garden, rather than have them constantly thrust under my nose or left, decomposing in an airless room. More of a "Like" than an "OK" but certainly not a "Love."

Serin is strange. It has an aspect that is highly enjoyable to me from the incensey, spiciness. But, it also has another aspect to it that is troubling to my nose. There's an odd "sweetness" that is almost like a vapor around the edges of this fragrance that reminds me of the sweet smell of decomposition, as in something that has died. I think Airborne Armadillo is on to something when they said that Serin smells better from a distance than it does nose to wrist. Smelling the light vapor trail is very nice but smelling the fragrance up close and personal just has that strange sickly sweet decomposition edge to me. I still feel like Serin is worth at least a sample if for nothing more than "morbid" curiosity...LOL.

I’ve had a sample for a while and finally wrapped my head around it enough to put some words down. January Scent Project's Serin is severe, disturbing, and enigmatic. It is deeply attractive and seductive yet impenetrable and unwelcoming, both beautiful and ugly. If asked to scent a Pasolini film (other than Saló) or novel, Serin might be my top choice. This fragrance is best for: 1. Not giving a damn.

The sample set is a thing of beauty - not only do you get generous, color-coded samples but it comes with postcards for each perfume and at a very affordable price. The fragrances are very unique. The only one that I could plausibly compare to something I've already tried is Smolderose. However, I find them completely unwearable. Serin is the only one that I found pleasant enough to accompany me. Though I doubt having it on would signify anything to people around me. It feels like the perfumer and I are speaking different languages. It's ok, I am just not the intended audience. For the first half hour or so Serin creates this effect that I can only describe as wet cardboard - not in an off-putting way. There is something slightly floral about it. Then it becomes very cool (as in chilly). Maybe comparable to Rook's Undergrowth or Olympic Orchid's Night Flyer. I guess this is the note described as "smoke", but I think Clandestine Laboratories is closer to the mark in describing it as "ashes" in the eponymous perfume. This is nothing like the smoke of Bois D'Ascese or Patchouli 24. I wouldn't characterize this scent as woody, but rather as earthy. The damp feeling never goes away. Overall it feels very smooth, rounded corners, reflections in granite, linen on a summer day. This is one of the few perfumes my wife could smell from the other room, or after I left that room, and it lasted on my shirt for days. So performance is in the red but because it lacks any sharp edges there's nothing unpleasant about that.

I rarely write really negative reviews, especially of a small house, and while I'm finding that most of the offerings from JSP don't really appeal to me a lot, I do like Selperniku--a lot! But this...OMG Blech. I gave it to my SO, because it almost made me nauseous and I thought it might be...better on him. NO. It's a combination of some kind of super-wood/cedar/mentholated "minty" smell that definitely is "porta-loo" cleaning product. It does not dissipate for about 1/2 hour. It then just becomes an oddly bitter, non-incense, detergent-like smell with an underlying sweetness (the kind of sweetness you would find in an uncleaned loo). It never becomes a pleasant woody smell, or a nice cedar smell, or even an ISO E smell, or incense (incense? who thinks this smells like incense?). My guess? Those tagetes or marigolds. I've grown them, and they are bitter; I wouldn't make a perfume with them, even as a kind of low-key balancing note. One reviewer writes below that they are a repellent. I think s/he will find this repels indeed. This one was a miss from the very daring and different JSP (he is that).

I like several of this house, and am finding Serin tough to even like. All I smell is "bad burnt" like rubber tires on fire...no rose, marigold, citrus, sandalwood or any of the other notes. My normally not scent sensitive husban read this as "sweet, like flowers"; and one of my three dogs finds something in it that fascinates him when it's on my skin..musk? I'm going to have to call this sample 'not for me. However, many others have found depths in it I just can't get past the 'burn' to find, but i would not recommend a blind buy on any of the January scents.

I have a review below. Anyone one want a steal of a deal for a bottle 7/8 full please contact me. Purchased new from TL. If you know you love it... I'm practically giving it away. It's a very bitter smell. Tagettes overlaid with calendula and cypriol. That's pretty much it. It's those three with mostly calendula and cypriol. Please contact me. I will be happy to sell my 5/6 or 7/8 full 30 ml bottle for forty-percent off (please do the math).

Did I get wrong sample? To me this is almost a soliflore of green apple !!!! Start as a rather elegant Green apple peel, then an indescribable transition (lavender-mushroom?), then we land on creamy green apple cushion. Then it got sweeter, the color of green apple feels “brighter”, and comes with a high-pitched saffron-like highlighter. Then it just soft down becomes a subtle shadow of .... well, green apple.

There is something almost bug spray like to my nose. I never smelled Marigolds or Tagetes in a scent before, so I am unsure if that is what I smell. There is also a woody smokiness that kind of adds to the astringent bug spray smell that I keep picking up in this. The one comment I did receive was from my daughter who told me that I stink. Need to be a pass for me.

cypriol, mint, oppoponax, guaiac, and maybe some bitter marigold but the cypriol dominates for me; rich and warm, very herbal and balsamic, not a typical incense fragrance if incense at all, unique

Dark smoky spicy flowers that last forever. Not a compliment getter and not unisex. Way more feminine. Highly unlikable for a good reason.

I've tried all of JSP's fragrances, and they are all very interesting. My favourite is Eiderantler, a lovely lavender mossy spring-fresh scent. I can see this one being very polarising. It's is not like anything I've ever tried before. My immediate impression is astringency, medicinal and herbal. It smells very like those old fashioned adhesive sticking plasters/bandaids or antiseptic cream. It's not unpleasant, its actually quite soothing. It's warm but savoury, absolutely no sweetness at all. There is a minty note as well initially, but this wears off very quickly, and after about 20 minutes it turns into smokey incense. To my nose, the marigolds don't come through really on me, its more a generalised herbal spicy feel. If you like sweet gourmands, this is the complete opposite. I like it, but I'm not sure it will become a regular. It's still worth trying though, its so unusual.