A City On Fire Imaginary Authors 2014

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6.8 / 10 192 Ratings

A perfume by Imaginary Authors for men, released in 2014. The scent is smoky-woody. It is still in production.
Pronunciation

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Main accords

Smoky

Woody

Spicy

Resinous

Earthy

Fragrance Notes

Burnt match

Berries

Cade juniper

Labdanum

Cardamom

Clearwood™

Spikenard

Perfumer

Josh Meyer

Ratings

Scent

6.8192 Ratings

Longevity

7.7148 Ratings

Sillage

7.3149 Ratings

Bottle

7.2146 Ratings

Value for money

6.961 Ratings

Submitted by Franfan20, last update on 09/25/2024.

Interesting Facts

Imaginary Authors developed this fragrance exclusively for Machus, a men's fashion retailer in Portland.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Cedar Forest

Bois d'Ascèse

Terror & Magnificence

Vi Et Armis

Cape Heartache

Falling Trees

Statements

12 short views on the fragrance

GeorgeReid 2 years ago

7
Bottle 9
Sillage 8
Longevity 5
Scent

A 10/10 as an enthralling artistic statement.
A 0/10 for typical usage; smelling like a burnt match won't appeal to most users.

4

MRoth 4 years ago

5
Bottle 8
Sillage 7
Longevity 6
Scent

I love smoky scents (Arso, Hamdani etc) but this is full-on BBQ complete with sticky sweet BBQ sauce. Yum for some, but blind buyer beware.

4

Luxusdomme 4 months ago

floating between burnt woods, heat radiating off traffic lights. It envelops me in a melting metropolis.

3

BoBoChamp 4 years ago

8
Sillage 7
Longevity 6.5
Scent

A unique, yet challenging male-oriented Winter fragrance slowly shifting from heavy spicy-smoky to a more balanced earthy-woody drydown.

3

TheSmeller 2 months ago

8
Bottle 9.5
Scent

I once went camping and my coat smelled like smoke for months. This is that smell, bottled. I love it. Others might not.

2

Ngarcia 4 years ago

6
Bottle 7
Sillage 9
Longevity 0.5
Scent

Awful, just smoke smell, other notes try to make it more dry and green but they fail, just smoke, but amazing longevity.

2

Urnottuesday 2 months ago

2
Scent

Minty gasoline. That is the only thing I smell. I didn't even know gasoline COULD be minty.

1

MrJoff 13 days ago

This is what your cloths smell like after you sat downwind of a campfire. Initially nice, but then you wish you sat upwind. Photo-realistic

1

TheDunkPapa 22 days ago

8
Bottle 6
Sillage 8
Longevity 9
Scent

A burning match that just went out, or a nearby campfire puffing smoke in your direction; salty, sweet, slightly bitter smoke.

1

Katemorganb 8 months ago

8
Bottle 8
Sillage 7
Longevity 7.5
Scent

Photorealistic burnt match, a little barbecue-y but could be satisfying for smoke lovers.

1

More statements

Reviews

12 in-depth fragrance descriptions

02/27/2020

5
Bottle 7
Sillage 7
Longevity 8.5
Scent

SmellGoodGuy
60 Reviews

SmellGoodGuy

Helpful Review 2

Only for Lovers of Avant Garde/Niche in the True Sense of the Word, Fragrances..

If you're into dumb reach frags, you'll hate this. If you think fragrances like: Hamdani, Guilty Absolute pour Homme, Tyrannosaurus Rex, L'Air du Désert Marocain, The Night, etc... are unwearable or are only to be appreciated and not worn; stay away from this. You will think the same.

However, if you ARE into those fragrances, then you'll absolutely fall head over heels for this composition.

It probably sounds crazy but, to me, this smells of a medicinal, black soap from a high end source. One i would definitely buy if there were one.

True to it's name, it smells of smoke, but it also has a subtle sweetness to it, attributed to the "dark berries" accord, no doubt. The cardamon helps to marry both the cade oil and the sweetness, creating one well blended composition. I'm not too familiar with the note of labdanum, but i do understand it can have a powdery sweetness to it and probably accentuates the smoky aspect of the composition, helping to make the fragrance a wearable "city on fire" and not a sad, municipal, accident.

Overall, if you like literal niche fragrances and want to project the avant garde type you are, you'll like this.

08/09/2020

9
Bottle 8
Sillage 10
Longevity 9.5
Scent

Carboytony
116 Reviews

Carboytony

2

Burn baby Burn!

I'm a huge fan of smokey scents and this never fails to deliver. It's very smokey, yes, but it's not a typical burning wood and leaves fragrance. Indeed, the some note is almost sweet, it's more opaque in texture. It's the scent of a burnt match, supported by notes of Cade, Spikenard, berries and cardamom. Labdanum in the base adds a dirty, leathery note to this. Smokey and seductive.

03/11/2024

6
Pricing 8
Bottle 6
Sillage 6
Longevity 6.5
Scent

DressUpWitch
50 Reviews

DressUpWitch

1

It's growing on me

This fragrance was the biggest driver for me to purchase the Imaginary Authors completed works short story collection: I had to know what it smelled like.

I've mostly enjoyed this as a sort of costume when trying to get into the headspace for a specific creative project. But I'm also starting to enjoy it for its own merits. It's definitely not an everyday scent for me, but it IS wearable. The match smell is definitely there at first spray, but the longest lasting note is sharp and tangy. (Probably the cade oil?) I think it would layer nicely with a balsam or maybe even citrus.

That said, I'm not sure I'd be willing to buy a larger size when my sample runs out.

04/13/2020

9
Bottle 9
Sillage 8
Longevity 9
Scent

Venomrock101
32 Reviews

Venomrock101

1

Takes Time to Warm Up Too

I’m going to be completely honest here, at first, I absolutely hated this scent. Being really new into niche scents, and cologne in general, the smoke note hit me like a truck. I actually coughed and had to pull away my nose from the card I sprayed it on when I first tried it, and then after that attempt I put the sample away for a while. But one day I was going through my samples and was like, “Oh, I haven’t tried this in a while, I wonder why?” and sprayed it on my wrist. While I still didn’t like it, it smelled a lot better to me on skin than it did on the card. From that day forward every so often I’d spray it on my wrist and each time it became more and more and more inviting to me, and then I found myself actually wanting to wear it. The smoke got way less chokey, and the other notes actually started to open up to my nose which led to this probably becoming my favorite from the house. Just a nice, clean, smokey scent with a hint of berries. The smoke has honestly become the best part of it to me as it just smells like you are burning the darkest wood to ever exist, an ebony fire. Once again, try it before buying a full bottle because like me, you might not like it at first, or you may just not like it at all. But this scent definitely gets my recommendation.

06/16/2023

Stacia
134 Reviews

Stacia

2

True smell of stuff burning

Every few years, someone will ask me if there is a perfume that smells like campfire smoke, and while there are lots of good smoky scent suggestions I can direct them towards, nothing smells as much like an active fire as this one from Imaginary Authors. I don't consider this a wearable scent but I do consider it olfactory art. It's brilliant in the way it captures every facet of a fire. Woody, spicy, herbal, and that dominating carbonous smoke accord. Imaginary Authors really does tell stories using scent. That is their business. It's not selling perfumes that everyone likes and wants to be complimented on. Highly recommend this one to anyone in search of a TRUE smoke smell.

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