Tenebrae 26

Wild zigzagging slalom ride through northern forests. Stunningly spare austere Nordic woods, cold, an icy blue on the nose as well as to the eye. Opens up with a wisp of smoke so sharp I almost thought 'bbq chips' but it passed in a moment to become a glorious pagan wild incense, cycling into a much warmer resiny incense with deep dry warm woods beneath. Lingering sap and toasty sawdust hangs on faintly for a little more. Stone love if it could sustain those wonderful phases, but in fact they hurtle past scarily quickly ... the zingy assault of the open lasts for maybe a quarter of an hour, each phase after that maybe an hour more, barely there by 4h in. A scent not strong enough to last the rugged journey it wants to take you on. About as expensive as your own private Norwegian forest reserve, too - and nearly impossible to find where I live. But I love every maddening moment of it. Will probably settle for some CDG HInoki or Aesop Hwyl instead, even though (I love them both) neither quite hits the heights of Tenebrae's high points... as both offer slightly better though still frustrating performance.

This is quite interesting. For the first few days of having the sample, I did not think of Tenebrae as anything impressive. But over time, I realized there is something special about Tenebrae. The soft, and ethereal nature of this scent belongs in the calm and meditative genre, kind of like CDG Kyoto or Aesop Hwyl or Diptyque Tam Dao. It reminds me not of a forest itself, but rather the viscous sweet mist emanating from a night forest. The scent is of something lightly wet, but also slightly thick. I think of the colors blue and green when I smell this fragrance. Unique green woods scent! It is wholly pleasant, and while I will probably go for the CDG Kyoto this time, I do have this scent on my potential FB list. UPDATE (05/12/2024): Bought a FB of this scent and after spraying it I detected some citrus as well. The scent is much more lovely. The versatility is also amazing. It's just nice! And pleasant! I love it! I wear this to sleep everyday lol

I blindbought so it was a bit of a gamble, but with a sale on curiosity won. Tenebrae arrived this morning and it is indeed pine, resins, incense and wood I can smell. I cannot find any fault with it, it reminds me most of Fille aux Aiguilles Lutens minus the dried fruit. It's not a sillage monster, but I don't care about that as long as I can smell it and it's holding its own after 8 hours of wear. To me it is this evocative dark forest they're talking about in the description and I've been in many a dark forest. It's a love, looking forward to Arcana Rosa still on the way :0) And the bottle will look nice in my curiosity cabinet too.

I was wandering through the Balenciaga Rosabotanica fields of luscious roses when I took a wrong turn and got lost. The roses disappeared and the foliage kept getting thicker, denser, and darker, as I arrived in this deep, dark, tranquil forest of Tenebrae. I obviously enjoy these modern botanical fragrances and Tenebrae reminded me of my beloved Escentric 03 as well. So for me, this is a dark woody aromatic, the main notes I get are vetiver, frankincense, licorice. Very shapeshifting, with a soft earthy dry down, sitting very close to the skin.

I have a sample for this fragrance but the sample smells very similar to the sample of Abyssae 33 that I have...😅 The colour of the liquid is the same as well (light blue). I got both from the official site. I'll try both scents somewhere at the same time when I get a chance next time. Update - 09/19/24 Ordered both samples (Tenebrae 26 & Abyssae 33) and tried them. They are indeed different scents but smell quite similar to my nose. Tenebrae is earthier though.

To me, a masterpiece. Dark floral, earthy, humid (by which Imean a crossover between a grassy and an aquatic vibe) incense. Deeply meditative and poetic, absolutely beautiful. Performance is disastrous. I have owned a bottle, but did not buy again because of this (and the price tag). Could buy again though. Edit : got myself a second FB after all

It starts off like a forest with some incense and settles into light and slightly sweet woods. I find this one very lovely, but I can understand if some people find it insufficiently complex; I on the other hand find it a very smooth and delicate blend of incense, amber, pine and woods. In this case, simpler is better.

lovely woody smell that reminds me of a dark enchanted forest, a reviewer below said that it reminds them of noir 29 by le labo which i love but i'd say this one is a lot more deep and sexy and earthy. love this but unfortunately they only sell them full sized and don't know if i'm ready to splurge

Worth buying! Fresh and earthy/woody, not sweet! Bought this after smelling it in the airport in Nice. It's great. Projection/longevity is surprisingly medium-low for notes that can have a 'monstrous' sillage, but honestly, that probably makes it easier to wear.

It smells like an essential oil sauna in a forest next to the sea. The blend is perfect and well made. However the performance is a disaster. Close to no projection and max 3h of longevity makes the price tag (~$300/250€ for 75ml) a big joke.

Smooth pine. Like a softer encre noire. I might be partial to this one since I grew up in pine forests but it's really nice. Perfect for fall. I'm not sure it's worth the price, though

A beautiful “winter forest” perfume with the worst longevity (1h max). Gorgeous bottle. Very similar to Hinoki (shower gel) from Le labo. Hinoki stays much longer on the skin.

Nice shady coniferous blend on the sharp side though.

Tenebrae is a piney, cedar-laden incense fragrance. I’d place it firmly in the churchy category, though it isn’t icy or austere; there’s a subtle sweetness from resins that rounds the edges. Olibanum feels especially prominent here. It carries both light and shadow at once, like an exit passage from Passage d’Enfer back into the world. You emerge from that corridor into a dim, enigmatic pine forest. Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It isn’t entirely unique; there are many incense–cedar–pine compositions out there; but within this vein, it’s one of the more successful ones, largely because it smells natural and well-balanced. Tag(s): raw olibanum, pine, juniper, woods, resins

Very nice woody green fragrance. Definitely feels like walking through a forest, I get lots of the fir. I see other reviews describe it as dark/woody/earthy but on my skin it’s much fresher, I almost get a hint of citrus although I know that’s not in the notes. To me it’s almost like a very sophisticated, elegant Pine O Cleen (I personally love that smell but it’s not for everyone!) Unfortunately sillage and longevity were poor for me, completely disappeared by about three hours. Based on the performance I think it’s overpriced, but it is still nice.

Bought last year for $245 on Luckyscent and checked on this again out of curiosity. This is now running for $305. That’s almost a 25% price increase in 1 year. Crazy. Honestly with the price hikes I don’t think this scent is worth the $$$. There are easily other pine scents that do a great job of creating the same atmosphere as this that don’t cost an arm and a leg. At any rate, this is a nice piney incensey perfume. It’s rather light in composition though, doesnt smell heavy or resinous to me. Just smells like burning incense in a pine forest.

A bright incense laden offering, this perfume showcases the sunnier side of frankincense. Mixing the frankincense with plant resin, fir, tree sap and earthy notes the perfumer creates a radiant if somewhat familiar fragrance. Given the glut of incense based perfumes in the market this may seem a bit repetitive but give it a try. It does have its charms. Unlike other brooding balsamic beauties (Norne or Lavs) this one is more airier and cheerier. Nice blending, unisex with moderate to strong sillage, projection and longevity. Enjoy!

Deeply lovely, with a fresh, almost marine-like, coldness to it that could be falling snow on conifers. It's woodsy and piney without being overly masculine or stereotypical, and holds a transparency throughout, with a very photorealistic wood. Not a strong projector, and fades far too quickly, but maintains a whisper of something very blue and gauzy close to the skin. Gorgeous stuff.

This is a nice daytime perfume (good for the office because it is very soft). I put a lot on and it's still hard to smell (basically i used the whole luckyscent sample but still hard to smell). it's a light fragrant woody vs. hit you over the head with the wood/fir. not convinced that it's worth it for the money but i do like the scent.

Purchased a sample from Lucky Scent, as this fragrance sounded intriguing. Not going through all the scent details, as others have already listed. For me, the scent leans more masculine. It gives a sense of relaxation and peace. After dry down fragrance smells like a spa in a 7 star hotel. Nice, but not for $305/75ml.

I don't sense frankincense in it but very clearly sense an orange or a tangerine which I was sure I'd find in notes... O__o To me it smells like a fresh pine fragrance with citrusy notes. I really like it though, it feels very elegant and comforting.

Subtle woody concoction. Slight tea vibe. Refined and subtle to a fault. It doesn’t smell bad but doesn’t resonate, so it’s hard to tell. Unisex. Disappears amidst other scents.

Very fresh and natural, you are in a fir forest. Perfect with this "botanical" range. 100% unisex and for all ages and all seasons to my opinion. 7/10

This has all the notes I like, but you have to douse yourself in this. It's very soft. Spicy and woody. March 2017 LuckyScent Sampler.

woody, piney, fresh i would say it’s almost aesop-esque but doesn’t smell like any specific fragrance they have released

It captures the spirit of Abyssae, but grounded with a warm, earthy vibe. Spa / Sauna vibe.

Airy ozonic woods in the winter, really lovely. Unfortunately it fades VERY quickly.

You walk through a forest and, by chance, come across a cave. Out of curiosity, you step inside. It's dark and slightly damp. You discover the remnants of a ritual, with strange symbols etched into the ground. A faint scent of incense still lingers in the air, mingling with the smell of the surrounding forest and its earthy notes. You don't know what happened here, but you're intrigued. That's what Tenebrae feels like to me: a green, spicy, damp, earthy fragrance with a balsamic, smoky undertone. It's intriguing, but that's as far as it goes for me - it's simply not my style. On the other hand, the performance is excellent.

I’ve worn Tenebrae 26 a few times, trying to come up with some words to match my perception of this scent... and it’s been difficult. Tenebrae 26 is a very natural, earthy forest walk— but there’s also a note that seems unbalanced. I’d be the first to admit it could be only me as others seem to enjoy this perfume, but I got to be honest: I’m smelling a cigarette ashtray and some ambroxan. It’s very light, so it doesn’t overpower. But this off note is preventing me from loving it. A good thing though, as the cost is not worth the hour or so you spend in this aromatic forest.

This fragrance is a dense, most resinous hush of shadows, where cedar bleeds thick and balsamic, its sap oozing like liquid amber through a fallen bark clouded in smoke. This scent is definitely one that hums low, evoking a wooden monastery cloaked in incense, walls steeped in years of prayers and curling smoke. It too manages somehow to remain slightly aloof, a darkness impersonal rather than all-consuming, undeniably cool, just shy of enrapturing. A cathedral scent, solemn, unwavering. Beautiful, distant, and not something I would personally pick.

This one is just an ok. In regards to perfumes with this sort of note profile there are many others that have done a better job with it. This is my least favourite of all the ones I've sampled/owned from this particular collection by L'artisan. It's nice, just not blowing me away. Also, the longevity on this one is very poor, as it barely lasts at all. The overall perfume just seems somewhat synthetic and muted with the notes here; Notes that should really have more depth and vividness with their use.

totally smells like a christmas tree in your living room

I'm surprised how many people described this one as fresh because it collapsed into a fit of patchouli and wood in an almost cloying sweetness that assaults my nose with a fury. Thank goodness sillage is gentle and nose blind is a thing or I would've scrubbed it within the first half an hour. I did not even bother experiencing the top and heart notes unravel because my nose was so done with it, and I was almost grateful when it hurried into the drydown-a cozy skin scent reminiscent of the opening but toned down ten times to a point that was manageable. I have my skin chemistry to blame but will probably stay away from this one-even though I really wanted to love the beautiful dark blue juice and fairy tale forest everyone else seems to be teleported off to.

Boreal forest, damp soil, dark clouds on the horizon. Very similar to Every Storm a Serenade if my memory serves me correctly, with how the synthetics (Calone, Iso E Super?) give it an airy, ozonic quality. Like the rest of the Botanique line, performance is underwhelming and there's a general softness and dullness that takes away from any compelling aspects of it. The earthy qualities lack depth, dankness, the fir doesn't tickle my nose like Fille en Aiguille. Great scent for a room diffuser I guess.

Et tu, L’Artisan? Iso E Super. Too much of it. Could’ve been an enchanting cool forest scent as promised, but no, the Iso E is virtually all I can smell. [Edit: or possibly Ambroxan? In any case, one of those commonly used synthetics that hits my sinuses the way rubbing alcohol does and has tenacious longevity.] Ah well. It's okay, L'Artisan; I still love lots of your OTHER scents.

You are standing on the ice in the Arctic on a calm day under blue skies, about 150 kilometers from the nearest pine forest. If you concentrate very hard you can imagine, possibly, a faint whiff of woods, but it disappears so quickly you will never know if it was really there. The dry down smells like the glue used to fix the label to the bottle.

After the top notes are gone, it develops into a very metallic and unpleasant smell.... I guess it's the Sap, but in my skin it doesn't work at all.... Really a pity, it's the first Artisan perfume that produced such a bad reaction in me : I need to wash my wrists.....now!

Tenebrae from L’Artisan’s Natura Fabularis collection is meant, I believe, to conjure associations of ancient forests and sap-infused incense and all sorts of evergreen enchantments, but I’m not sure that the promise of those wild, wintry woodlands translates as such for me. Imagine peering at those shadowed and frost-tipped treetops through the glimmer of a crystalline orb; a misty vision initially vaporous and shrouded coalescing into startling clarity. Tenebrae is the fragrance anointing those liminal moments as they move from uncanny and indistinct to recognizable and unmistakable. The scent of letting your eyes become unfocused as you attempt to discern the pattern of things. And once you think you’ve got it, that you’ve zeroed in on it, that you’ve figured it out, you’ve lost it entirely–because that was never the point. Let slip the glass ball from your fingers, let it smash to the floor in shards. Gather them, crush them, devour them. The blood on your tongue reminds you what you took from the vision was wholly your own. You don’t need anyone to tell you what the forest smells like. (Ok, but really: cedary woods and thorns and brambles and the not-greenness and possibly not-quite-wholesomeness of small green berries overlooked by winter birds, and all of the versions of fairytales you’ve pieced together in your imagination to construct what a grand forest must look like, and then you grew up and threw those dreams in the river, but retrieved them later in your cronage and burned them as a sort of frizzled and foggy incense.)

Atmospheric, baleful, haunting notes that create a forestscape I've only experienced in fantasy. A cold, ominous wind in a dark fairy tale forest! Chill pine envelopes everything in its sweet and wintry cloak. There's an earthy undercurrent, like desolate ground that's been freshly trod. The tingling sense of being watched in the woods . . . footprints on the path. It gives you a icy feeling, and you are drawn into a surreal world that is made possible by Daphne Bugey's scent imagery. This is my second of L'Artisan's Natura Fabularis Collection and I'm captivated. This is perfume artistry at its best. An irresistible magnetism that transports you to a locus of forest magic. Granted, it has the mediocre sillage and longevity L'Artisan is known for. But Tenebrae's extraordinary passage to a realm only reached through imagination offsets the challenge. Bring on a heavy hand applying! I'm ready to travel!

It's nice but nothing remarkable, and I can barely detect it after an hour. Maybe if I had an actual bottle and gave myself a good few sprays I'd enjoy it more, but on a strip and on my wrist it's hard to evaluate. What it reminds me of most is like a slightly sweeter and rounder cypress aroma. There's definitely some piney elements but overall it has an aquatic fresh vibe to it. It's a tad sweet too, but never cloying and extremely transparent. In the base there's a slight funkiness from some earth notes that isn't geosmin, but more of a dirty wood. There's also a subtle swampiness in here that I don't like, but it just hums in the background. It's not exactly bad but singularly piney things like this don't always feel like perfumes to me and more like some other kind of home product- like a room spray or a candle. That's where this lies.

A forest? Okay. Not what I got at all. Tree sap isn't something when I picture very obviously synthetic perfume ingredients. There's nothing wrong with synthetics, I greatly appreciate many. Let's call a spade a spade, though, shall we? Let's not pretend this is some natural, straight from a story book fragrance. Fragrance-wise, it's acceptable. Modern, purely contemporary. I can picture this being the suitable work scent for any gender, its inoffensive and light. Doesn't last, so I wouldn't be paying $270AUD but let's be real... I probably wouldn't buy it anyway. I like the name. I just looked at the bottle thinking 'Argento' and now all I can think of is that overly gory, brilliant poor acting and confused story line. Sadly comparable to the actual scent.

The first thing I thought was that this fragrance smelled like a greenhouse or a forest at night. That’s a lovely, magical, uplifting smell, but, should it necessarily be a perfume? Maybe if you were a lumbersexual? I can see a man wearing this if he went to a logrolling competition in Alaska. It’s a very natural fougère for a man....maybe a little too “natural”. The fir and the woody notes and the frankincense are all very pleasant, there is no doubt. It’s simply a matter of context. Where would you wear this?

This smells like the shirt of someone wearing an ambroxan bomb who left his shirt laying in the basement of a cool dank church basement overnight. This stuff is intriguing. If you like Abyssae like I do, you wont be disappointed by this - it replaces rose with earthyness. Performance is poor in my experience as well; close to skin amd skin scent after short periods. I wont repurchase but I am happily keeping the bottle I have and will enjoy it.

Passage d'Enfer crossed with Ormonde Jayne Champaca: starts off as a sweet, incense-y floral, dries down to a spicy basmati note and then, in less than 10 minutes, disappears completely except for a pale, thin lotus note. I much prefer Passage d'Enfer and Champaca each on their own (both have much better lasting power, as well). I think I like my incense drier and my basmati stronger.

I have quite a few pine dominant fragrances (Tallemaja Boreal, Treewitch, Norne etc) and the opening here has more of an ozonic calone/aquatic air freshener feel than foresty. On first spray it made me sneeze and the woody aromachemicals sting my nose. It’s nice but too synthetic leaning for me. I think this scent profile needs a heavy dose of naturals to really move me.

I have a carded sample with a short whimsical description of the scent mentioning incense, resin, & sap. Opens as a very nice wood scent, fresh & cool with a touch of fruity berry, incense, & evergreen notes After an hour it shares the same sweet milky notes as L’Artisan - Tea For Two I used several sprays & got medium projection for several hours.

J’adore ce parfum il me fait penser à la corse île de beauté c’est forêt de pin 🌲 avec c’est plage paradisiaque c’est la corse en hiver magnifique parfum la tenue et très bonne c’est l odeur d un chaman qui brûle de l encens dans de la résine de pin face à la mer 10/10

I tried to figure out what this reminds me of, and I nailed it! It smells almost identical to Le Labo’s “Hinoki” body range which does not have its own fragrance ( shame) And now I finally found a perfume that smells like this beloved addictive hand cream.

The moment I threw away the test strip it struck me, THÉ NOIR 29 by LE LABO! I own a bottle so I double checked it and yep, it is pretty similar. So to you whom love Tenebrae and want longer lasting quality and great projection, do try Thé Noir 29.

A warm and earthy incense fragrance. Doesn't smell piney to me. Maybe a slight aquatic tinge? Calm and meditative. Not a lot of sillage. Not a love for me, but could be for someone else