Cotswold

The quintessential oak fragrance that delves into all of its boozy, smoky, sweet, and (needless to say) woody nuances. scent breakdown - Opens with an extremely realistic freshly coopered oak barrel accord. The smell of the freshly cut oak wood combining with its slightly smoky and sweet resin drying out under a late summers sun. In the dry down the natural sweetness and smokiness get amplified by some vanilla, tonka, and pine along with an unlisted whiskey booziness to my nose. In the deep dry down it smells like one of those fancy old fashions you get at a froofy “gastropub” where the waiter pulls the lid off the drink to reveal the smoke. personal thoughts - I worked at an old sawmill for a summer or two back in my high school years with one of my cousins who’s like a brother to me. During that time I had to cut a lot of wood, and I largely attribute my love for the scent of wood to those summers. That all being said, we did occasionally cut oak wood for a local whiskey distillery, and it was one of the most intoxicating smells ever. That smell, from freshly cut wood to brown booze in a barrel, is bottled here. If there’s one brand/perfumer I trust to make woody fragrances, it’s Nicholas Nilsson and Pineward perfumery. Simultaneously dark academia and drunken country nights, go figure. performance - As with most of the darker catalog from Pineward, it’s a beast and lasts 16ish hours on skin and until I had to do my laundry on clothes. Projection is strong and it can take a good hour or so until it’s “mass appealing” so easy on the trigger. rating - 9.2/10. when to wear - Whiskey & Cigars at a jazz club; Romanticizing Melancholy; Rainy nights night walks in the city song vibe - Deference for Darkness by Martin O’Donnell, Michael Salvatori, Halo TLDR - Fleshly Cut Oak + Oak Whiskey Barrels + Smoldering Vanilla + Smoked Pine. Smells like an old fashioned in a suit while at an old oak speakeasy. Timbered. Smoked. Slightly Sweet. Inteospective. If you love oak, whiskey, or smoky woody fragrances, give this a try. Side note - as with most Pinewards, the juice is very dark and will stain lightly colored garments, stick to spraying skin.

There are genuinely not enough words in the world to describe how much I love this fragrance. Oak, Cedar and Pine Needles are layered with smoke as they transport you to a campfire that was just put out and the scent has lingered. If the fragrance consisted of the woody and smoky notes alone, it would be a really nice fragrance on its own. The true star of this mixture is the vanilla note. Just when you think this scent is going to be all woods and a hint of smoke, the vanilla sneaks up on the back end and sweetens this out just enough to blend everything together. It's a warm, dry, slightly sweet delight that has really great longevity and solid projection. It's the perfect scent to wear when the leaves start to fall and the weather starts to turn cold. I cannot begin to express how perfectly this is blended and how pleasant it is to wear. If you enjoy scents like By The Fireplace, you will fall in love with Cotswold.

The smoke here is quite subtle, and I can’t really pick it out as a stand-alone note. Instead, it seems to contribute to the overall effect, which to me is a remarkably rich and cozy vanilla with a slightly sharp and dirty edge, imbued into cedar and oak. This dirty edge is where I imagine the smoke note lives, but it has more of the quality of stale air and dirt than smoke to me. I think it’s a fascinating combination that grounds a very vanilla-forward scent. To me, this smells precisely like a winter cabin I used to drive to in the winters and for that reason I find it absolutely precious. There’s quite a bit of complexity here so if you are looking for a not overly sweet vanilla-forward fragrance with elements that will keep you glued to your wrist, I highly recommend you sample this.

This is wonderful--complex, difficult to parse, distinctly reminiscent of a barn: a bit animal, a bit smoky, a bit of hay, and something I can't put my finger on. The vanilla is present if I think about it, but adds to the sense of cozy-ness also conveyed by the smoke without adding sweetness as such. Over time, it develops into a comfortable, interesting sawdustiness, in a way that evokes my father's woodworking shop without being directly representational. And while I find that many Pineward fragrances just don't last well on me at all, this is among a handful of very well-performing exceptions.

Definitely one of my favorites from Pineward so far. The biggest flaws of this fragrance is how cloying and syrup-y it can be - you need to use just a bit of this to get the best experience. The performance on this thing is incredible. It envelops you. This is an old log cabin during a cold winter night. It is smoky and dusty. Your home is old and weathered, yet undying. The fire is going, you are safe, embraced by a warm presence in your rustic sanctuary withstanding the cold.

A lovely, woody, smoky vanilla-y fragrance. Smells like what it might feel like to bake sugar cookies in a newly built log cabin. The smoke and wood make it masculine at first, but then the vanilla comes on strong to balance it out.

This is a woody and smoky vanilla with a hint of booziness to it. This opens with a sweet vanilla with the smell of powdery sawdust weirdly enough. It’s not a bad thing but it definitely smells like a very powdery vanilla sweetness. Then you get some smokiness with some earthy woods paired with the sweetness. I’m not sure where the booziness would be coming from but it’s definitely there. It smells like a woody, powdery, and smoked vanilla, with a splash of smooth booziness. I definitely get the pine needles too, they're fresh and green which cuts into the sweetness there. I loved this one, its smooth, its woody, smoky and sweet.

As everyone else has mentioned, this is a very woodsmoke dominant fragrance. Not really in a barbeque way, more like the insides of a whiskey barrel, long after the whiskey itself has evaporated. The vanilla in this was a good shout (I thought it might be maple syrup before I checked the notes). There's just enough in there to smooth out the dry woods and the charring. It makes the fragrance very comforting and homely, without crossing it over into gourmand territory.

If you wear this inside the house and aren't doing something meant to relax like reading or watching a movie... you won't like this. I was afraid to wear this until I went outside with it and went for a walk. In the air it is astounding. It absolutely reminds me of when I was younger and would go camping in August and play with charred logs the day after burning them.

Smells like sitting by a crackling fire in a cedar cabin on a cold winter night. Very smokey but cozy.

Opens with a strong cedar and candied clove accord with a dark greenness beneath, which mellows quickly into an oak+cedar+something sweet/herbal. The pine isn't a central player here, and it merges closely with the woods/sweet accords with something that resembles the dry fruit aspect of Fille en Aiguilles. Some of the sweetness might come from that dried fruit aspect, as to my nose Vanilla alone isn't responsible for its sweetness. It's nice and the ingredients are nice naturals but not a wow in my opinion

I liked this at first, but it got candle-y very quickly. I did get a lot of smoke and pine needles, which was nice, before it got cloying.

to put it simply.. Smells like Smoky BBQ sauce

I agree with karlovonamesti that this is very candle-like. To my nose this is cloyingly, suffocatingly sweet. I don't get any woodsmoke or pine as such, just a stuffy and vaguely autumnal ambery vanilla that will not leave. I sprayed this once in the bathroom and I kid you not the whole room reeked with the suffocating sweetness of it for three days.

The opening is sharply naturalistic in a great way thats signature for pineward- tree like and resinous, but short lived. Even though i love those naturals, i find that they lose form quickly and tend to become something unrecognizable in a way thats just fine- and that applies here. It quickly turns into an amorphously green scent that reminds me of some other fragrances ive smelled but doesnt remind me of anything ive encountered in real life, its ok but im not that smitten with this phase- it has a bit of a cold/ cleaning product-y affectation in the background that a lot of pineward fragrances have that im really not fond of and feel like it ruins a lot of their compositions. But this isnt too long lived either, id say about 40 minutes to an hour in on skin and youre already in the far drydown- which is surprisingly simple but great. It must be that vanilla note, it adds this warm human feeling that im just missing in most of pinewards other offerings. Its a very well done vanilla i wish they used more often, it is reminiscent of the far drydown of ambre sultan by serge. On clothes that vanillic element is not really detectable which is a shame, but it also keeps the form of some of the sharper opening elements around for longer and leaves a nice foresty musk on your clothes- however it is still predominantly that amorphously green profile i mentioned earlier and have mixed feelings about, when the sharper resinous parts stick around it complements it well but when its just that green character its a bit meh. I dont love this through and through, but i still really like it- i wish this vanillic element was carried more into pinewards other creations, its so much more of a homerun as a slightly sweet rounding element than something like the butterscotchy amber element they try to use in ponderosa

I may have already reviewed this but im revisiting my samples- very realistic, reminds me of murkwood from this same house. At times has that bitter ink quality to it. I really like it, but i will say that to the people reading other reviews and thinking this will be a boozy smoky affair- i can get that if i focus on it that way but i dont think thats how this scent would really come across to most people- i honestly get more of that when its lingering on clothes after a day or two (and i love the residual scent it leaves). But for the main wear, again like murkwood it has this murky damp quality to it that reminds me of the smell of a shirt that you fell into a pond with, and in the air it also is really reminding me of the smell ripe bananas give off. This is a bit more specific and experiential than just a widely palatable “boozy smoky woody fragrance” but i really dig it. I do think i enjoy the residual scent it leaves over time more than the main wear, but this is something special and well crafted either way. If i had one critique i feel like the vision for this becomes really clear when the pine feels more present in the mix, thats when this makes me feel enveloped in smoky woods, but when that falls into the background more thats when this can come across smelling more like ripe bananas to me. From what i understand a realistic pine seems hard to maintain in perfumery past the initial opening stages and that is true here, but also the more this fragrance goes on the more i feel like it does balance out over time into leaving a smokey oaky impression its going for, but that main/middle wear can feel a bit compositionally off at points- it feels very close but just needs that element to make it all come together the way it feels like its supposed to, at least to my nose

One of my favorite places in the world is my in-laws' cabin in Northern Michigan. It's tucked away in the woods at the edge of a small fishing lake that isn't necessarily a private lake, it's just that no one who doesn't already have a dock on it bothers to visit. It's been modernized to have electricity, but the heating is a wood stove and when you walk in from the forest the smell of baking treats, Grandma's candles, and the homey, mild, pleasantly woodsy smoke smell that saturates every item you bring with you grab you up in a bear hug. My first impression was that it did a lot of the things I liked about Ponderosa but blended in such a way that instead of Ponderosa's "tasting a cookie while smelling a tree and can't quite focus on either but it's still rather pleasant" Cotswold strikes a more personally preferable balance of "Just came in for a moment and have pine sap on my hands, but can I have one of those cookies you just took out? No? What do you mean they're still too hot? Aw, man." I can see where a few people are coming from with the candle comparisons, but in my case it's a candle that closely resembles something personal I love very much. The first time I experienced the drydown on skin my exact text to my sister was "MY TITS SMELL LIKE UP NORTH!"

I feel like this is as much frankincense as it is oak and smoke. Its a cabin-like, resinous scent for sure. When first applied, I got a fermented note that was quite astringent also- almost like farm silage. I think that some people will find that note disagreeable. It is another hit from this pine-centric company that I like a lot. I agree with the people who have said it is dark and muddy/dusty. If there is vanilla in here, then it is only slight to my nose. I have said it once and I will say it again: if you like the sort of scents this house will well-known for, then you should get a sample set.

Something about this is smelling like an old avocado. Also getting the pine/wood notes, a coumarin heavy vanilla, and smoke. But mostly a smokey overly ripe avocado, plus a hint of coconut oil?? I don’t hate it. It’s unique. I’d say if you are looking for a smokey pine/cedar scent and are a fan of heavy/oily scents like vetiver and leather, this is a safe bet.

So far nearly all of the Pineward fragrances I've tried are hindered by an oddly sweet Yankee Candle feel, and Cotswold is the worst in this regard. For lack of a better term, I'm calling it "Candle Amber." Sweet, kinda woody, kinda resinous, has me looking for a book of matches. People pay real money for this?