Epiphany

Epiphany is a luminous fragrance, as luminous as the manifestation of light (as the ancient Greek teaches us), which opens deep, creamy, giving space to dusty, fresh and clean notes. On my skin the dustiness of the iris is particularly exalted, with its elegance and sensuality, a dry, slightly spicy iris wrapped in delicate rose petals. A wonderful fragrance that I would not fail to wear, a passepartout for every occasion. ‘The morning after the flood’ painted by Turner.

I purchased sacred bond after sampling it through a kind perfume friend and received the samples of all the other fragrances with my order. So I’ll give my first impressions on all and will edit once I have had the chance to give them a full body wear (I don’t know about you but these small samples for me are always only just enough perfume for 1 first impressions spray and then 1 full body wear). Out of all of them this one is the most challenging for me. I’m rather a girly girl when it comes to fragrances. You do you and wear whatever you like, but on my skin this one pulls masculine. It’s very spicy and incensy. I definitely pick up on the saffron and cardamom. I do find it again quite unique (but that could just be because I’m not generally drawn towards this more masculine scent profile, so I can’t comment on the “reminds me of” section). I won’t be getting a full bottle of this for that reason. I will do my full wear test though, sometimes fragrances end of surprising me (love on first impression can turn into a “meh” and no on first impression can turn to a love).

Epiphany is a big no-no for me, matter of fact it gave me the instant epiphany that I don’t like this fragrance. There’s no denying this is a very unique scent profile, but there doesn’t seem to be any harmony or balance to make this wearable in any way. It’s got this extremely prominent note of a bitter and zesty lime, coupled with enough black pepper to make you sneeze about 30 times in a row. From here you start to notice a very sour and sticky liquorice contrasted by the smoky, earthy woodiness of incense, birch, cedar and patchouli. It starts to improve a bit as it dries down but to be completely honest I don’t find any enjoyment from this scent. As I said earlier it could do with being a bit softened round the edges.

This fragrance is a distant cousin of SHL Soleil de Jeddah and Lorenzo Pazzaglia Esco Pazzo, but I like the above fragrances better than Epiphany. In the middle and dry-down Epiphany gets some kind of rubbery and sharp notes. To my nose Epiphany leans masculine due to birch and incense. This is a pass for me.

The worst scent I’ve ever tried. Unfortunately I have a whole bottle I don’t know what to do with. Reminds me of the old chemical scents people used to use. It does change over time but just to another similarly unpleasant one. Unfortunately it lasts for days on clothing.