Ponderosa

This fragrance could give Fille en Aiguilles a real run for its money as far as my favorite compositions to wear around Christmas Festivities go. I remember sampling it back in 2022, expecting a total wreck, since I dislike both pine-heavy and sweet-gourmand perfumes. And it turned out to be a brilliant discovery. It is both a pine-dominant and a gourmand perfume, but the balance (and this is the key word here) of the two parts is so finely tuned that people like myself who struggle with both could find plenty to love about Ponderosa. Now, I never had the chance to smell Ponderosa Pine trees in real life. Supposedly, they do emanate these sweet vanillin, butterscotch, caramel, and cinnamon-like facets. What Nick did with this composition is to create a cozy and enveloping pine scent built around this unique-smelling coniferous by amplifying the innate “gourmand” and sweet facets of the tree. Therefore, you’ll get pine, and loads of it. However, it smells incredibly comfy and warm, delicious, and sweet, without ever becoming obnoxious or falling into the gourmand category (at least for me). My main issue with most pine-forward perfumes is that they lack warmth. When it comes to woody materials, I prefer the warmer, more exotic varieties. Hence, for me, coniferous notes have never presented much of an interest. But with Ponderosa, the warmth is present, in heaps. It works so well that you could feel it enveloping you. It is the warmest and coziest pine perfume I know, while always staying true to its identity, without succumbing to excessive sweetness. Just enough to convert even an unbeliever like me. Now, imagine if you were a die-hard Conehead. Fille en Aiguilles is my quintessential choice, while Ponderosa is the one that keeps me warm. IG:@memory.of.scents

As mentioned, the notes listing for this fragrance are wrong. Can someone please correct the note listing to the actual notes listed from the Pineward Perfumes website, which are: Ponderosa resin, ponderosa needles, cedar, vanilla, strawberry, cinnamon, butterscotch, beeswax, raisin cookies. The biggest mistake with the notes listing here is the complete absence of Ponderosa pine resin and Ponderosa pine needles, which are the main players in this spectacular fragrance and which are supported by the other notes, namely the butterscotch, strawberry, etc., to help put across the incredible smell of the wet bark of an actual Ponderosa Pine tree. They smell magical and this fragrance just dials the magic up a couple of notches. Ponderosa has become my favorite fragrance because it captures the epic beauty of the Ponderosa Pine Tree and also brings an elevated, magical element with the superior blending by Nick Nilsson. A magnum opus of a fragrance for a coniferous loving perfume hound like me. Thank you Nick for making this very special perfume! Highest recommendation from me.

It's a really beautiful scent but it is a lot: it's gourmand, it's spicy, it's woody. As you can imagine, it packs a wallop of a punch. So a little bit goes a long way. That said, everything is photorealistic- nothing synthetic or artificial. It's a very warm cozy smell. I get vanilla, butterscotch, pine forest, maybe some cinnamon, probably some cloves. Definitely for fall and winter months and not a year round fragrance. I may try experimenting with some layering to find a complimenting scent that calms this down some. I really like the smell but don't see how or where I would wear this. I'm too old for something this busy and I definitely could not wear this to work. Even if this is not your cup of tea, I would recommend buying a sample vial just to experience it. Although it's not for me, it really is something special.

Here we go. This one lands in the top tier of Pineward fragrances for me. IMO this brand is at its best when the woodsy theme is present but dialed back a bit from full-on photorealism. In Ponderosa, the gourmand elements contribute to achieving that goal, but they don't swing it fully into gourmand territory. They just bolster it and make it wearable enough to wear in polite society. It smells nothing like Cape Heartache, but it operates under the same basic theory, tossing in some faint strawberry and sweetness that balances out any scratchy woodsy note that might otherwise be too prominent. This is really well-composed, performs well, and achieves the goal of being both rustic and outdoorsy while remaining enjoyable as an actual perfume. So far this one and Gristmill are the bellwethers of the brand for me.

Finally got around to trying these Pineward gems, and Ponderosa is a runner up for full bottle purchase. Such a photo-realistic tree smell but gourmand. Sweet forest in a bottle! As if I bit right into the bark and tasted butterscotch/amber sweetness in it. Sweet pancake syrup over snow (if you ever did that as a kid growing up in the snowy mountains). Very reminiscent to me of the tall Ponderosa pines in the Yosemite area. A sniff of this takes me back to the times of exploring the woods with the sweetness of youth. Incredible fragrance, it's not just a scent it's a full-on experience. If you love the forest, and gourmand accords blended together in harmony, you may like this. It's extremely unique as are the other Pinewards I tried, definitely sample these first.

This one is complex but in a really good way. The opening has a very creamy and dense butterscotch note but with an addition of spiced cinnamon. It’s warm, sweet, and rich. You definitely do get the raisin cookies in this which is an odd note but it works. It’s smells just like the smell of cookies and sweet raisins. The beeswax in this is nice too, it’s waxy, warm, and sweet. The strawberry note adds some fruity freshness, it’s like a tart wild strawberry. The dry down is more wood forward with a prominent cedar note and the smell of ponderosa pine trees. It smells woody, fresh, green, but with smooth and creamy sweetness still lingering. This blend is amazing and I would love a full bottle of this one.

This is my absolute favorite from Pineward: a gorgeous resinous ponderosa pine and beeswax, complimented by a sweet honeyed butterscotch note. A hint of tartness from strawberry adds a hint of playfulness and is a wonderful compliment to the intense woody pine notes. Sweetness also is added from the raisin and cookie notes, a smell of wonderfully delicious baked goods and fine fruits, being eaten at a picnic in a massive pine forest. This scent brings me back to a family trip to Yosemite National Park as a young kid, where the Ponderosa pines towered over the massive sprawling valley below. Such a natural and well-composed fragrance. I need to get a bottle of the stuff, I simply can't get enough!

raw pine, freshly cut and haemorrhaging sap, handled with sweetness and light. the pine's acrid facets are mellowed by waxy, syrupy honey and vanilla, bringing out the ponderosa pine's natural sweet scent and complementing it magnificently. this is pure resinous stickiness. peeling away the tree's bark to reveal rivulets of butterscotch underneath. honeyed strawberry pulp squelching up from beneath the carpet of pine needles underfoot on the forest floor. ponderosa feels like a straying from the usual pineward path as it winds through the mystical forest, stumbling into a witch's autumn candyland where the syrupy amber pinesap is sweet enough to gorge yourself comatose.

I've worn this twice now and I can say that I enjoy it quite a bit. On my skin it opens up with a sweet woody smell, reminiscent of being at your grandmothers house while she's baking cookies. Then as it starts to dry down you're hit heavy with cinnamon and a little bit of vanilla. After about an hour its a smooth, sweet, cinnamon scent. On my skin I smell tobacco even though it isn't listed in the notes, and it sort of reminds me of a less sickly sweet Argos TOB. I'm going to give Ponderosa a few more days of wear then I'll decide on a full bottle or not. It is slightly feminine leaning but all fragrance is unisex imo. I personally rate Ponderosa a ~8.5/10.

As someone from the PNW I indeed know what ponderosas smell like. My favorite tree scent. This smells exactly like how the sap smells. I was hoping for something closer to the smell of the bark (if the butterscotch note was more prevalent I think it would be spot on.) But nonetheless it is beautiful. If you want to smell like pine tree sap this is the scent for you! I don't think any of the "gormand" elements actually come through. They mostly just tone down the harshness of the "treeness" in this from my perspective.

Ponderosa is both Smoky-woody and balsamic-gourmand. The scent is truly unique with heavy resin, not as smoky as other pine fragrance but leans a little bit onto the delicious sugary base. I cannot detect the strawberry but the caramel-feeling, which I assume is butterscotch, appear obviously on my skin. And I agree that Ponderosa smells like you walking in a pine woodshop while all of the wood are freshly cut. This is a perfect Christmas fragrance's dicovery for me this year. 10/10

Oh my such a unique resinous-sweeet amber scent. It's slightly spicey, woody, creamy and dense. This is the most dirty/ natural resinous scent i have come across in the best way possible and i like it. It has a good sillage and longitivity to it as well, it's well made. Edit: overtime the resin note could be a bit too sweet/ cloying to enjoy, but it's still nice for the first 4 to 6 hours, especially if used a minimum ammount.

This smells like walking into a wood shop that sells fresh pine and the owners wife is in the back kitchen making butterscotch or sometype of desert. As it drys down the amber becomes more prevalent along with the resins. The woodyness is tempered by the sweet nuances whilst the sweetness of this is kept from being too much by the woodyness. Simply amazing and natural, might be my favourite in my collection. 9.8/10 for me

This is a fantastic gourmand. Getting butterscotch mixed with a strong cloudberry note in the opening. Cloudberry is not listed, but getting it so strong I wonder if it is there anyway ore which combination of notes smell like cloudberry. Gourmands are too sweet for me to wear, but if I that would change this is what I would buy.

This is a fascinating and unique fragrance that somehow manages to make pine feel distinctly feminine. Pine notes over warm vanilla and other gourmands. Rather than a “walking through the forest” feeling like a lot of Pineward scents, it feels like you’re baking cookies in a pine forest with the windows open.

Ponderosa Pineward Perfumes 9/10 This house is really impressive overall, they make super natural and high-quality smelling perfumes. Ponderosa might be my favorite from them. It smells sweet with a warm resin background, and again, it just smells so natural. Really well done and easy to enjoy.

A really beautiful photorealistic scent. I grew up in Missouri and this smells exactly like the sap from the pine trees outside the house I grew up in. It’s got the amazing pine and pine sap sweetness and woodiness but not a in a terribly overwhelming way.

I absolutely love this fragrance. It reminds me of being on the porch at the cottage after swimming! It does lean a bit more unisex but has an undeniable feminine aura to it. The longevity is also fantastic, but I recommend really only a spritz or two.

Absolutely stunning ponderosa pine scent! Resinous and astringent at first, before settling into a warm cozy vanilla pine. No oatmeal cookies to my nose, just pure sweet ponderosa. Very nostalgic for me

This perfume reminds me of some kind of vanilla dessert. Sweetness placed in clean cut wood. Definitely natural.Smelling this perfume makes me want to eat sweets. It reminds me of some dessert. 9/10