Olm

I'm one of the lucky 140 to have gotten a bottle and am happy to not regret this blind buy. I will however be a dissenting voice (with caveats) against some other reviewers. I'm on my second day of wear to make sure I get all phases of it. On initial spray I got an incredibly quick whiff of iodine and crisp, mineral water before it become overwhelmingly cashmeran and musk for the rest of the evening unless I really crammed my nose to my skin. Up close it didn't smell dark or oppressive, it smelled fresh, stony, with a touch of algae which to my nose, breathed life into it. A green, clean, freshwater pond being naturally cleaned and aerated by a stone waterfall. But from a distance all I got was (very nice but) basic musky amber. However (I said there was going to be a caveat) I'm located in Southern California where this week temperature's jumped up near 80 degrees Fahrenheit. There are a few perfumes I've tried that don't let mid and top notes breathe out when temps are above 70 (Penhaligon's Juniper Sling for example). Aquatic notes generally don't project very much to me, but my suspicions were mollified when, after a liberal re-application this morning and a long drive to work with the AC blasting, the chillier air in the car had all the fresh notes of algae, ozone, and damp crystal clear water gushing over limestone blowing through the car and it was HEAVENLY. All that to say, this may be crisp but it needs the temperatures to match or an application much higher to the nose to get the most out of the aquatic notes. Maybe it doesn't get as cold, dark, and dismal to me because it's so sunny here, or because the other perfumes on my shelf have more notes of peat, rot, and smoke that make them feel more sinister. Or maybe it's because my perception of an Olm is not one of sinister depths and eerie caves, it's of pristine waters, meditative silence punctuated by a metronomic drip of water off a stalactite into the most pristine water you could hope to drink. Still but not stagnant, in solitude but not without life, and only quiet in comparison to what is outside their cave. Which as a side note: I think olm's are adorable, I love getting to see how differently creatures evolve to perfectly suit their environments and was very sad to see people say they would have preferred an axolotl or the thought of living still or blind was incredibly sad to them. 1. axolotls live in a totally different environment to olm's, they would not be a 1:1 switch. That was a baffling argument to hear from supposed fans of Zoologist. I imagine an axolotl perfume from zoologist would be more akin to a freshwater version of their seahorse perfume. And 2. prescribing human perception of evolution or senses as a priority to all animals is just silly to me, especially if, again, you're a fan of Zoologist as a brand. A brand that is notorious for it's unique and sometimes abrasive combinations to most accurately capture the essence of an animal or it's environment. Even if unpopular or not the most "marketable" (even though, in my opinion, they have been making safer, more wearable scents as of late). Olm, in comparison to some of their other scents, is surprisingly refreshing, clean, and easy to wear, but if the thought of a blind salamander on the bottle is enough to turn you away from the bottle I don't know why you're looking at Zoologist. For some comparisons, this is the freshwater cousin to Zoologist's other aquatic, Squid. Or, I was surprised to find Olm is very similar to CB I Hate Perfume's Wet Pavement. Wet Pavement smells more metallic, like a wrought iron gate and pavement hosed down or freshly rained on. Decidedly more urban. Olm is fresh water running over powdery limestone, but the ozone and iodine notes at the top are similar. I find it cozy and comfortable. Unique but unoffensive. This is my first bottle since the redesigned packaging and I could do a whole other review of that. I'll always prefer a black and gold over white, but I can see the reasons why they made the changes they did. However I have to say I'm not a fan of it having such contrast against my other Zoologist bottles in both shape and color. The bottle does fit in my hand better for spraying and the mist is as always: flawlessly fine. But, form vs function. I think the old bottles highlighted the character portraits better and look nicer on my shelf as art pieces. Glad I like the perfume as much as the creature itself!

This is the fragrance of the horror movie The Descent. But with any luck, your nostrils will make it out alive. Olm smells like damp despair and artistic genius, and it’s possibly one of the most challenging Zoologist fragrances ever made. It’s salty. It’s mineralic. It’s oily. It's erotic. It’s ethereal. It’s gross. It’s ART. It feels like a love letter to Zoologist fans, written from a quill pen dipped in mucky, cloudy water and held in a hand that has grime and dirt caked underneath its fingernails. Like the olm itself, this fragrance is elusive, slippery, and conceals itself within a labyrinthine cavern of notes. It's almost unknowable. I’ve never smelled anything quite like it, and it’s equally challenging to describe. But it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, and it bottles the waters of a damp, dark, and freezing cold cave with devastating precision. At first spray, I initially thought Olm was weirdly wearable. But then ten minutes later, the algae note bellied up and said, “Hold my drink.” I get a lot of the Iso E Super, with those mineral and algae notes mingling in the foreground, and a strange chorus of iodine and musks echoing through the stalagmites. It’s like an unhinged and unstable bottle of Le Labo’s Another 13 had a breakdown in the bowels of a flooded limestone crypt. Another 13 walked so that Olm could crawl through cave water. It's a bottle of contradictions. Refreshing, yet murky. Light and airy, but also powerful and slightly...nauseating. Olm is ethereal, but in the darkest and most primeval way. It’s stale, and a little sweaty. It’s aquatic, blue and green, but also yellow and gray. It’s not just damp; it’s downright subterranean. Cold, mineralic, and dirty – like stagnant air trapped in underground stone. You can nearly taste that gritty cave water. And the way that Olm transforms throughout the wear is inexplicably complex. This is the work of someone who has mastered their trade. It's a primal howl echoing through a limestone void. It’s total, beautiful, fucking art. Olm evolves like a creature: initially light and refreshing, before dragging and dunking you into a muddy pool of mineral chaos. Those middle notes are skanky and slightly repulsive, until it slithers into a sensual musk. But there’s also something faintly erotic constantly undulating right beneath the surface of those cave waters – in a strange, wet, don’t-make-eye-contact kind of way. There are some people who might even say that it smells like...well, let's not go there. Could it also be the scent of a sweat-drenched Kristen Stewart at the end of the movie Underwater, after she's been hunted by abyss-dwelling monsters and is stranded at the bottom of the ocean? Probably. And somehow - more confusingly yet - one reviewer astutely noted that there are the oddest whiffs of bell pepper, and now I can’t un-smell it. So, thanks for that. Olm isn’t just a fragrance — it’s a shapeshifter. Olm doesn’t wear itself on you – it haunts you. Wear it. Love it. Scream it from a cave. Victor Wong knew exactly what he was doing with this one. There’s a reason why Zoologist made this a limited edition, because it is not a scent for everyone. But was it worth buying? OH(LM) HELL YEAH.

On the card that came with my sample of Olm they Zoologist doesn't list the usual top, middle, and base notes--just a general list of all the notes together--and I think that's actually accurate for this fragrance. While it certainly does evolve on my skin as it dries down it really does remain a remarkably faithful representation of what a limestone karst cave smells like. I've been in a few caves before, and its amazing how they've managed to capture what limestone slowly dissolving in rainwater smells like. When I first sprayed it I was surprised how powerful it was, I didn't expect that "wet cave dirt" could be a very intense scent but the iodine/ozonic notes and an inexplicable almost peppery spiciness give it a surprising bite at first. Over time the iodine note sits closer to my skin but doesn't really go away. There's a woody sweetness lingering in the background that does become more apparent as the iodine diminishes, but it never becomes the dominant note. Its more like the water running through this cave has percolated down through the organic matter on a forest floor on the journey there. Speaking of water, olm remains wet smelling all the way through, with damp sand and silt weathering out of the limestone as rivers dissolve their way deeper into the earth. It gives it a warm organic complexity that makes this work as a perfume instead of just a cave smell. If the orcs living in the tunnels under the Misty Mountains had a club, this is what Smeagol would put on to go to it; its smells like a cave, but a fancy cave. It sits close to my skin, but its fairly persistent, and my wife could smell it a few feet behind me while we were walking outside. It does last the whole day, but once its gone it doesn't seem to leave any lingering base notes and the next morning I can't detect it on my skin. I agree with how another review described it as "Your skin, but you live in a cave", and I could see layering it with other fragrances for different effects. I only got a sample but I might have to get a travel spray before they're gone...

Sooooo creepy, and I mean that as a compliment. Olm smells like getting kidnapped by a siren. I am walking along the coastline. There, along the craggy rocks, I spot the figure of a beautiful woman. Bewitched, I walk towards her. She coyly leads me into a nearby cavern. Thick curtains of algae grow in the stagnant water. The stone walls are dark and wet, but I swear I almost make out splatters of blood on their textured surface. Must be my imagination. This place feels sinister and ancient. This is getting a little weird... I think I'm going to leave-- --Suddenly, the woman is much closer to me than she was a moment ago. How is that possible? I should have heard her splashing, but she moved without a sound. Her full lips part into a smile that reveals rows of pointed teeth. She wraps me in an embrace. My body involuntarily flinches; her skin is covered in a viscous layer of mucus. Her fingernails are impossibly sharp. Lichen sprouts from her cuticles. She turns her head to speak. I can't focus on what she says because I am too busy noticing, with horror, the bits of flesh stuck between her teeth. I don't think I'll be getting out of here alive. Olm is musky, briny, and mysterious. I don't know how Zoologist managed to capture the scent of an enclosed wet cave in a fragrance, but they did. Finally, a unique summer fragrance! EDIT: I wore this on an unseasonably cool, rainy day and it fit the mood so well. She’s versatile!! I love her more and more with each wear. Olm lasts for about ~8-10 hours on my skin. I have a feeling I’m going to blow through my travel spray.

Olm captures the smell of dampness and stagnancy. It's intoxicating though. It is absolutely aquatic, musky, and even crisp. On my skin, the crispness is not like that of clean laundry or even citrus like others have stated, but rather like the way a pungent stargazer lily smells in full bloom, that is if you were able to to somehow make that smell cold. This note has not gone away on dry down. I would not say that that makes it lean feminine though, because I think this is an incredibly unisex scent. As it dries down, some of the warmer, woody notes peek through but never enough to overtake the others. They all sort of exist within each other, making analyzing it by separate notes difficult. To me, this is the sign of a really great fragrance. They should all come together in a way that brings you somewhere. For me, this brings me to the deep, beautiful cave I was able to tour in Arkansas. There were deep artificially lit pools that I could not see the bottom of surrounded by dripping stalactites and damp tunnels. It was a warm sunny day outside, so the eerie chilliness of the depths of its interior gave me goosebumps. I see that all when I smell this fragrance. It tells a story to my nose that allows me to envision exactly the scene that was intended. Zoologist has another fragrance, Squid, that is also oceanic and aquatic that I happen to adore. It paints a different scene to me entirely, but captures an aquatic scene just as masterfully in my opinion. I have this creeping desire to layer the two, but the idea of messing with either gives me pause.