Haxan

Wow! This is my first Prin Lomros fragrance and it wont be my last. (Review here is first impressions from a sample I let rest for a month then atomized.) First spray--it's a blast of bright lichen green (Costus?) intertwined with white fireplace smoke. Haxan is not sharp -- I'm surprised! There's a sweetness here that is soft--maybe it's Jasmine or Laudanum? Or maybe Comarin is the sweetness? It's lovely. Haxan isn't a person. Haxan is untamed Nature. But this is nature that's welcoming and inviting--there's no danger here or dark woods. The experience of Haxan is extremely complex. As I am writing this review, I can't keep up with how quickly it is shifting and developing around me. Haxan is delightful and playful. Impish even--once you've got a hold of it Haxan shifts form. First--Wormwood comes through strong for my nose (one of the ingredients of Absinthe, if you're familiar). Tobacco. Chamomile. Marjoram. I can smell these all at the forefront. About 5 minutes in I'm getting the Cypriot oil coming to the forefront. The white smoke is gone now. Instead the different trees are peaking through--Pine, Balsam, Spruce. It's like I'm walking through a forest and the wind keeps changing direction. Actually--speaking of wind--there's a physical cooling sensation when breathing in Haxan. My guess is that this is the Balsam fir! Or maybe more accurately the camphor notes? About 10 minutes in -- I can smell the animalic notes. It's not barnyard. It's the smell of fresh bedding and a well brushed out coat. This is absolutely a goat but it's the fanciest and cleanest goat I've ever had the pleasure to meet. The dry down is coming in more with toned downed animalic notes with violet leaf. It's not too powdery -- it's a soft and inviting embrace. What a trip! Even at this first pass, I can tell I want a full bottle of Haxan. So many witch-branded perfumes rely too heavily on "hippie" notes in my opinion (ie. patchouli overdose). Haxan actually does smell like VVitch VVoods and not like your local thrift store. :) Bonus: My male partner sniffed me and said, "Wow, I like that!" He said he couldn't tell what the notes were but that I smelled "great" and "familiar and comforting." (Actually, my partner's reaction was wayyy more positive to Haxan than Tihota or BR450--go figure!) I'll take it as a win. Do not blind buy this bottle. Get a sample first and atomize it.

Haxan is another masterpiece by the perfumiers’ perfumer Rajjesh Balrishnan. I would encourage anyone who wants a fragrantory experience of taking of a walk in woods that are “Lovely, dark, and deep” (Robert Frost's famous line) to get a hold of a sample or full bottle before it sells out again. The lavender note is strong during the opening but it’s the cedar, fir, and birch that reach out their needles and bark to envelop us. I thought of the 3 Witches in Macbeth who create a mysterious brew and also foretell the fates that will unfold. There are so many notes here (a “must have” for any of Rajesh’s creations) that only those with exceptional noses will be able to truly smell them all. Nevertheless, just reading the notes helps me search my olfactory memories and in so doing I can slowly recognize some than the most powerful ones. Maybe some day I will be able to identify most. I like the description of this scent as “ebbing and flowing, light and dark shape shifter”. I am reminded a bit of House of Matriarch’s Bonsai with its powerful fir opening. Haxan has many more notes and much greater longevity. It also evolves beautifully over the hours. I am enjoying Haxin as a superior summer scent. It can be described as fougere summer scent; it is a universe apart from the popular beachy or citrusy scents that many turn to in the heat. And it stands apart from most other. well-regarded natural summer scents too. The strong opening is bracing, but it turns much more gourmandy about 3 hours in. There sorcery comes much the way alembics were meant to turn base metals into gold. What I mean is as the fragrance goes through its notes it becomes deeper, darker, and full. I have rarely smelled any fragrances that so utterly transforms itself throughout its journey. At one point the scent quiets down from the tree scent and then a while later it comers on strong again but with a vastly different set of notes. The quality of the ingredients makes this witchcraft possible, but Rajesh is the only I one I know who can do so well. Rajesh’s fragrances are often at the high end of the price scale. Haxan is reasonably priced and still a scent that rises to very lofty heights and down into the mossy ground with the trees forming the conduit for this long-lasting and beautifully metamorphic fragrance.

I do not say this lightly: as a devoted admirer of forest fragrances, Haxan is an absolute masterpiece—one of the global pinnacles of green and woodland perfumery. Within this 30 ml bottle resides a true choral symphony, where fauna and flora coexist as facets of a single, living, breathing biome. The pluvial dimension is rendered with extraordinary mastery. This is not an abstract idea of rain, but its physical consequence: everything is soaked with water. The temperature is mild, the air saturated yet still, and a profound, almost sacred calm prevails. The earth responds, alive and reactive—centipedes emerge from the soil to feed, ungulates leave their arboreal shelters, floral effluvia once again spread through the air, small mammals resume their scurrying, and fungi silently release their spores. To my nose, the primary banners are chamomile, beeswax, mushrooms, goat hair, conifers, and wild herbs. Everything is perfectly integrated, without force or hierarchy: nothing stands out, everything cooperates. This is a fragrance that does not depict a detail, but an entire ecosystem, in its organic and natural complexity. It is a profound shame that this creation has been produced intermittently, and that is precisely why I keep two bottles in my collection. Some perfumes are not replaced—they are safeguarded.

A lovely composition from Prin Lomros in collaboration with Rajesh Balkrishnan. An agrestic-fougere with a twist, unlike anything I have smelled. I don't get the whole witchcraft mumbo jumbo. This perfume is rather luminous, like the brightest days spent in the summer fields. A complex composition that plays on the Fougere edge through the use of lavender and several aromatic herbs while also nodding to the countryside by employing grassy, hay-like, and earthy accords, as well as goat hair tincture. The latter is barely detectable, as opposed to other works of his. More than anything, it helps to provide a beautifully warm creaminess to the base. The mushroom is prominent, especially in the early stages, alongside spruce, galbanum, and hay. The lavender is there but kept in check by clever usage of cashmeran and beeswax to caress its potentially abrasive nature. It is well blended and feels like a polished perfume, sophisticated and easy to wear while offering an olfactory journey. You will smell unique without polarizing your surroundings, as most of his creations are notorious for—an early favorite of mine from the house. IG:@memory.of.scents

"wire blier, limber lock, three geese inna flock... one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo's nest" Haxan is the only watery, green perfume I have ever come to love. This perfume brings up a distinct scent memory for me: that of making biodynamic preparations. This scent memory is so strong that I simply cannot judge this as a “perfume” so to speak. This is the smell of stuffing chamomile into cow intestine, drying out yarrow in an old barn, boiling giant vats of bitter mugwort tea, and gathering fresh leaves off of stinging nettle, all while smelling ambient wild lavender growing in the distance. If you work in agriculture, or have ever sat in on a biodynamic farming lesson, you’ll know that these memories are comforting and nostalgic. This is a smell you simply must try in order to understand, and I cannot recommend it enough. If I’m forced to, I’d classify this as a natural, green fougere, with aquatic elements. The longevity is great, and the silliage/projection is personal. If you want to smell like you’ve wandered out of a witch’s lair, you have to try this. Thank you Raj and Prin for creating this art.