This likely makes me a hypocrite, but I love this perfume (along with Lou Lou and a few other 80's and 90's sillage monsters) while I can't stand some of the older ones like Tabu and Youth Dew. It's probably because it was popular when I was starting to notice perfumes, cosmetics and fashion because I fell in love with this when I smelled a perfume sample in one of my mother's magazines sometime in the late 80's. (I was ten when this was released, but it might've been later.) It was exactly what I wanted to smell like when I got older.
I know to many people it smells quintessentially 80's, but to me it's timeless. Like MissK, I think it smells medieval, but I also think it smells fresh and current at the same time. It's as if it has always existed, and it smells like nothing else. That's my definition of a classic.
This smells more like the work of an alchemist than a perfumer. It can take me to all sorts of places, and I think this perfume made me fall in love with aniseed notes because I hate eating aniseed or licorice. Like Diane1953, I think the woody, animistic and spicy notes alter the floral and sweet notes mysteriously and dramatically. They no longer smell nectarous, and there's even honey in this!
I also never apply more than a couple of sprays of this, so with that light application, it's not nearly as strong as it would be with normal application (by my definition, about three to five spritzes).
Love it or hate it, this is a true original. Perfumes before this had been sultry, but none had smelled so viperous, beautiful and otherworldly. While I love its "sequel" perfumes, they're Poison light. They kill softly, and this kills swiftly. Sometimes, I prefer my Poison neat.
