Fanghorn

When I first discovered Nick's creations, there really weren't any reviews up. I have since sampled quite a few core offerings, a handful of prototypes that Nick was generous enough to share with me, and I've purchased a few bottles, and wish to buy many more. I've had some semi-lengthy communication with Nick, and I personally feel as though I'm qualified to provide an accurate, unbiased opinion of Pineward, simply because I've been so enamoured with the house since the day I discovered it. With that said, I know there are many others who have a deep-rooted obsession with conifers, and the imagery that their aromas evoke (Christmas, mystical forests, mountains, remote wilderness, fantasy, Narnia, Tolkien, etc...). I understand. Pineward is the only perfume house, perhaps along with Slumberhouse (to some degree), who seems to have a full grasp on this concept, and is more than capable of delivering those impossible dream perfumes to weirdos like us. Fanghorn is what I consider to be the "core expression" from Pineward. If you could only sample one offering, and you're in the market for photorealistic natural conifer, this is among the best, if not the very best out there. NOTHING synthetic here. This is dark, deep, sticky, resinous sappy perfume extract. Pure fir sap. This is the scent of your hands after cutting down a Christmas tree. It's also quite similar to black hemlock. It isn't pine. It isn't spruce. It isn't cypress. This is fir and hemlock. Sappy, sticky, and sweet, in a resinous fir sap way. It's bracingly green, a bit bitter, and mossy, and that's because it's very clear that there's REAL oakmoss in here. Yes. Real oakmoss. Between the oakmoss, and the soil tincture, there's a thread of damp, musty, untouched forest floor. Lichen, conifer needles, and wet soil along a hidden babbling brook, tucked deep within the dense silver fir trees. If you've ever ventured deep into the untouched depths of the forest, perhaps after the first big snowfall, where the fir trees are draped in their soft white blankets - the boughs gently bending downward and the cold dry air carried that sappy Christmas tree scent through the air - this is that. Could also be seen as the forest in spring, with lush new needle growth, dewy wet ground, and sappy bark, but I prefer the former image. You know the scene in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, where Lucy is playing hide and seek, and accidentally discovers Narnia through the wardrobe - pushing her way through the fir boughs until she emerges in the magical winter wonderland that is Narnia? This is that. Bears some resemblance to Norne, sans the spicy clove note, with much more emphasis on fir resin (and not just hemlock), and the sappy magical aroma of conifer forests. Dare I say, this is the superior conifer perfume between the two. Magical stuff. The pinnacle of fir. Longevity is stout, and heavy spraying will project well, albeit for a short while. Stains skin if sprayed too close. Stains clothes from a mile away. Sticky and sappy feel. Not a safe blind buy, but if you know what you want, then this will deliver, in spades. A true masterpiece in natural coniferous perfume. 10/10 Do yourself a favour and sample the rest of the Pineward lineup. It may just be the revelation you've so,desperately been waiting fir.

Ooh I like this. It is dirty, but its a clean sort of dirty. Conifer needle compost, not muck. There's layers to Fanghorn II, and I ended up doing an interesting unintentional experiment: I was going out to an event this evening and wanted to shower first, but I also wanted to try a test spray on my wrist. So, I ended up doing that test spray and washing it off in the shower, which gave me an interesting speedrun of the fragrance before I put it on for real. On first spray, the top notes of fir, spruce, and maybe a hint of cedar/juniper come through strong, like young aromatic green conifer needles. Not crushed needles, living ones still on the tree. Immediately upon getting wet, the conifers vanished, and were replaced by a bloom of moist earth geosmin smell and damp tree bark. Even once I was done washing (and I only use unscented soaps/shampoo) there was still a faint but extremely persistent base note of oakmoss and what I think is Iso E Super, but I haven't smelled that on its own before. Wearing it out, its obviously a lot less abrupt. The conifer-forward top notes yield their place more gracefully, fading out over time, but leaving a lingering sweetness that sticks to your clothes. This isn't the harsh turpentine pine-sol conifer smell, this kind of balsam smells so sweet and jammy you'd almost think it was edible. Its the smell of a coniferous forest, not a sawmill. As the conifer smell dries down, it first turns more woody, almost like a spruce chest of drawers, but it quickly becomes earthier and dirtier. The lingering conifer wood scent blends into the underlying earthiness, leading to a kind of decomposing tree-bark smell, like loose sheets of decaying bark on conifer limbs that have piled up on the forest floor and started growing moss and lichen. Its almost as thought the drydown smells like the process of conifer needles decaying. At first they smell fresh, green, and resinously sweet. Then they smell dry and woody after they've sat out for a while, dried out, and turned brown. Then damp and earthy as they get layered under next year's needles and start to decompose. And finally moist and alive as they've turned to rich fertile loam. I feel like a forest nymph wearing this; Somehow inexplicably smelling like I just crawled out of my bed of pine needle litter while dressed well, downtown, and perfectly clean. I love it, and it certainly lives up to its namesake of an ancient mystical fantasy forest. I'm ready to get lost in the moss.

Premise: the notes here on fragrantica are wrong. There is no silver fir, that was in Fanghorn 1. Fanghorn 2 has a special mushroom extraction substituting the fir. The notes are: pine, mushroom, lichen, moss, soil, damp vegetation. Fanghorn is the original name of Treebeard, one of the Ents—the living trees—of Tolkien’s world. Here we are faced with one of Pineward’s most artistic creations and, in my view, a singular treasure within the global landscape of forest fragrances. Fanghorn is a telluric concentrate of humus and living earth, saturated with the energetic currents that transform what once lived into the substance of what is yet to come. The olfactory experience closely resembles pressing one’s nose into the purest, dampest, and most vital soil of a conifer forest. Living and dried pine needles coexist with decaying foliage, while decomposer flora and fauna are fully at work—everything speaks of cycle, transformation, and continuity. In filigree, rhizomatic and root-like facets emerge—earthy and fibrous, present yet never intrusive. They are notably less intense than in its sibling Oxylus, yet essential in lending depth and three-dimensionality to the composition. The earthen heart is enlivened by a restrained, still-vital sweetness of sap, alongside developing strobili—green, nascent, and laden with promise. The terrestrial complex is moist, almost saline, threaded with gentle acidic nuances that are perfectly counterbalanced by the sweet and balsamic traits of the green counterpart. In the background, a dark and profound aura can be sensed—faintly smoky and lightly incensed—far more restrained than in its darker sibling, Murkwood. Fanghorn is not a fragrance to be worn casually. It is a total immersion into the forest floor, an olfactory meditation on time, decomposition, and reborn life. A radical perfume, for those who do not seek aesthetics in the woods, but truth.

So I finally bit the bullet on getting the full Pineward sample set, and Fanghorn II is the first one I tried as soon as it arrived. First thing I noted: this perfume is dark (as in optically dark), and it stains! A single spritz on my inner wrist turned the skin in that spot the colour of an old greenish bruise, so definitely exercise caution around light coloured clothing and fabrics. Anyway, onto the scent. Burying my face in my arm smelled like faceplanting into the autumnal conifer needle-covered ground of the forested parks I frequented growing up where I live in the temperate north island of New Zealand, with unexpected and impressive accuracy coming from a USA fragrance house. There's a childhood scent memory of scrambling over partially decaying tree bark and cracked wooden playground beams mottled with patchy blooms of silver mosses and yellow lichens all damp from recent rain. It's musty, green, bitter, and sappy all at once. A very realistic atmospheric and not at all perfume-y; this is something I'd put on occasionally to be transported to a specific recollection of the outdoors, replete with all its earthy gritty funk, and it accomplishes that flawlessly. Performance appears decent insofar as I've tested this indoors in cool weather, with one conservative wrist spray creating a foresty scent bubble in an arms-length radius. Now 3.5 hours in, the bubble has shrunk much closer, but the fragrance itself has retained all of its character and will likely remain detectable on skin for several more hours. All in all a very satisfying introduction to Pineward. I don't know that I'd fork out for a full bottle, being rather expensive for what will probably be very occasional wear, but I'll cherish my little sample for whenever I'm in need of experiencing some extra olfactory grounding.

This perfume is so perfect, and exactly what I've been looking for. At the start of my fragrance journey, I wanted to find a realistic PNW forest scent: conifer trees, wet soil, dense understory vegetation. I tried Earthworm from Demeter, which was a very hyper realistic soil scent, but it was nauseating to me. I've tried many different woody scents, but none quite hit the mark. Most were too synthetic and went in the pine-scented cleaning product direction. I had kind of given up hope, thinking maybe this type of fragrance was not for me. And then I tried Fanghorn II... wow. I wouldn't call it hyper realistic, but it is very natural, and incredibly wearable. It is earthy, cozy, atmospheric, and slightly sweet from the pine. It also has a freshness to it, which starts out kind of spicy on initial spray but quickly fades into a subtle freshness, which I think makes it so wearable. It really invokes the feeling of walking through a temperate rainforest. I can definitely see it leaning more masculine, but I find it to be quite unisex due to how natural it smells. It also has the perfect amount of longevity and sillage for me; lasts the whole workday but not all day (that overwhelms me, even if I love a fragrance), and moderate sillage to where I don't think I would offend anyone by wearing this. I think this might be my signature scent, and I could definitely wear this every day. I'm interested to try it in the summer, I could see it being a bit too heavy in warm weather. If you're looking to smell like an entire forest, you should definitely sample Fanghorn II.