Sain No More

My favourite of the three launches I saw at Sainte Cellier. It is slightly smoky and beautifully rounded out with warm woods - feels wistful, as if I am on the edge of an emotion... It is deeply comforting, deeply reminiscent and very accomplished.

This is a harsh and close quartered incense perfume that feels dense and compact. In a way with different incense perfumes you can sort of grasp what environment or aesthetic they are trying to encapsulate, and Sain does what it sets out to do very well. It isn’t a church type of incense that spreads and sweetens or dampens as it echoes across long stone stretches, like Northman by Alexander. It is sitting in your home, choking out the spirits it’s supposed to cleanse. So just be warned this perfume is intensely smoky, the herbal aspect and the juniper is a nice toasty berry contrast that prevents the perfume from being an overly charred fragrance. So far this has been my favourite of the perfumes from the discovery set. It’s intense, you can really see the picture it’s painting and I’m a sucker for incense perfumes. However it doesn’t develop into anything spectacular, would’ve loved a remedial medicinal sort of scent after. Very nice though.

Opens pretty badly for me. Could be the Hemlock, fairly sure I don't like that stuff. The juniper, and aldehydes? I don't know? It's a witchy, herbal brew, a mess basically. However, to my surprise it does improve and there's some complexity, the cedar/vetiver notes n such. This is not an overly smoky, tar laden fragrance, I actually think the smoky element strikes a decent balance, usually overdone in the indy realm but not here. I just don't like it, it's not very pleasant and without meaning to be too harsh, if I made this in my hobbyist perfume lab at home, it would be destroyed an chalked up to experience.