Rivertown Road

yucky mess. Do you actually need this many notes in a perfume?

A truckload of frankincense up top merged with some lime and camphorous notes lend this scent a brisk tonic-y feel. Shrewd florals keep it from going too clinical, and while the opening is bracing, it won’t make your eyes explode as the lavender notes steer it toward an old school aromatic path but without becoming overly herbal. But really this is a frankincense fragrance at its core—it’s just top-loaded with items that hint at a traditional composition. The notes play well together—especially the triad of lavender, frankincense, and mint—but I find it to be a more pleasant composition fifteen or so minutes in once everything has calmed down and taken a seat. At that point it’s more of a straightforward camphor-incense affair that retains just enough of that opening sharpness to keep it feeling crispy clean. Very well done, quite unique, and it should be on the radar of anyone into chilly, tonic-style scents. It’s very strong, so make sure your seatbelt is fastened tightly.

Likened to a fantasy version of Old Spice, if Old Spice were blended and barrel-aged in a Himalayan monastery by artisan monks... Rivertown Road’s bay rum and lavender mix certainly remind me of my own Grandfather's Old Spice signature scent. This carries that masculine, warm spicy bay rum that can be summed up in one word -smooth. With a cool bracing intro of bay rum and lavender progressing through phases of spicy florals, it wraps up on a warm note, polished and woodsy. Unlike most masculine scents today with overpowering lavender, the beauty here is in Liz's choice to use lavender absolute which adds a more rounded and fruiter profile to the scent rather than lavender essential oil which can overpower.

OMG I feel like I've stumbled into an abandoned building here...! What I get is tobacco, incense and bay leaf -- the bay dominates, and kinda forms the direction the scent takes, and how it gets there. It has a very rugged, almost industrial feel to it. It's not pretty, it's not pleasant, but it's not revolting. I'm not a huge fan, but I can see where this is trying to go. It's artistically different from most things I've ever tried. It's not bombastic in an oud kinda sense, but it is bombastic. Definitely happy I tried this out, but I'm not sure I'd want to wear this one again...

I could swim in this; it's THAT good.