A City On Fire Imaginary Authors 2014

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6.6 / 10 236 Ratings

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

Smoky

Woody

Spicy

Resinous

Earthy

Fragrance Notes

Burnt match Berries

Berries

Cade juniper

Labdanum

Cardamom

Clearwood™

Spikenard

Perfumer

Josh Meyer

Ratings

Scent

6.6236 Ratings

Longevity

7.7181 Ratings

Sillage

7.3182 Ratings

Bottle

7.2179 Ratings

Value for money

6.890 Ratings

Submitted by Franfan20, last update on 04/20/2025.

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

Terror & Magnificence

Bois d'Ascèse

Vi Et Armis

Cedar Forest

Black Series - A: Killer Vanilla

Falling Trees

Reviews

21 in-depth fragrance descriptions

02/27/2020

5
Bottle 7
Sillage 7
Longevity 8.5
Scent

SmellGoodGuy
66 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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