The Abandoned Mansion Imaginary Authors 2025

Haunted tiki bar, spectral mai tai floating in the periphery while some scratchy exotica album plays from a speaker you can’t locate, Martin Denny maybe, or Les Baxter’s jungle fantasies, that mid-century escapist thing that was already nostalgic for something that never existed, already haunted by its own appropriations, its own colonial fantasies dressed up as lounge entertainment, which is absolutely not what this fragrance is about but it’s where my nose took me, this tiki bar detour having nothing to do with the brand’s actual abandoned mansion concept.

The fruit here does exactly what I want fruit to do in fragrance, which is be weird about it, ashen and dusty and somber, bruised and semi-preserved like fruit that’s been drinking alongside the patrons, drifting in its own languid dissolution, melting into the upholstery, losing definition under hazy torch light, not trying to be fresh or bright or engaging, just strange and a little sad and smoky.

There’s a mustiness here, old wood and older paper, that particular smell of closed-up places where the air has gone stale and sweet at the same time, resort towns in the off-season where the bars are shuttered and the bamboo decorations gather dust and you can still smell a thousand phantom drinks soaked into the floorboards, lime and orgeat and something vaguely tropical gone sour in the humidity. Beach cottages abandoned after hurricane season, with everything softly deteriorating in the damp air, fruit bowls forgotten on kitchen counters, paperbacks yellowing and swelling and smelling like vanilla and wood pulp slowly decomposing, all of it fading together. This is October in places where October doesn’t mean sweaters, where fall is more conceptual than meteorological, where the season changes because the calendar says so, but the air is still thick and warm.

Something resinous and golden underneath, woody-amber earthiness, not cold-earth but tropical-earth, the smell of wood that’s never known frost, rooms that stay humid year-round, dust that never quite settles because there’s always moisture in the air. The smokiness like the ghost of a bar where fruits lounged and got tipsy, daddy-o, got a little loose, a little wild. The kind of abandoned that’s specific to semi-tropical places, where things don’t freeze and die back, but just slowly molder and transform, go spectral in the heat.

Sampling the latest release from Imaginary Authors, The Abandoned Mansion, a perfume adaptation of the scent used for one of the house’s longstanding candle offerings. It’s led by cedar and quince, a woody/citrus center made idiosyncratic but the inclusion of petitgrain, pimento berries (most strikingly), oakmoss, and an ambergris-like note, ambreine, not to mention the imaginary note of “paperbacks.” It’s a fruity, spicy, woody blend with a lot of heartiness via the petitgrain and oakmoss pairing, especially, a sort of mature, indoor complement to the more outdoor, exuberant Sundrunk citrus/rhubarb blend. It’s inviting and cozy, a bit familiar and evocative, while still being intriguing to the point that I keep sniffing it to gain a bit more insight. Quince does not really brighten the mix—it won’t be confused for Saint Julep—but it does, along with pimento berry, provide a bit of pulp and juiciness to give the blend some life, some reality, along with the darker heart of an old house loaded with overly-humidified, old books.

The current pricing for the entire house is $115 for 50ml, very reasonable for the quality of this house’s fragrances, the pricing of which has only increased by a little more than 20% in a decade, quite a feat. And it seems to be sold by the standard US boutiques that carry the line like Perfumology, which is great. Performance is quite good, as well.

Overall, I’m really pleased with this one and love the creativity that it was made with.

8 out of 10

One of the notes in The Abandoned Mansion's is aged paper. That's exactly what I got after applying it. I immediately thought of Tome which I recently tested but then realized, this was only the smell of the paper, not a book. As it dried down, The Abandoned Mansion started to reveal a resinous woody scent, more like an old cabin than a mansion. There's nothing else, like musty, earthy or moldy. In fact, at this point, it brought to mind a VERY mild version of Bowmakers Eau de Parfum. If you've tried Bowmakers and found it just too strong but like the idea behind it and wished for something much milder, you could easily go with The Abandoned Mansion. It's mild enough to be unisex.

Longevity was high moderate, about 7 hours while projection was more mid moderate for the first hour or so at which point it became more intimate.

I tend to be drawn to oddball fragrances. “Weird but wearable” is my favourite perfume genre, and as a proud owner of the infamous Maggie's Last Party I even enjoy sniffing the completely unwearable just for the novelty.

But you guys…this is a REALLY WEIRD fragrance.

It’s such a strange and jarring combination of harsh clashing notes (smoky pimento, tart fruit, bitter wood, sharp resin, and just a hint of burning rubber) that the instant the juice hit my wrist my immediate thought was, “Well, I don’t like THAT.”

But does it get better on dry down?

……..sort of??? It’s a very linear scent so it doesn’t change much, but it did settle down and smooth out a bit and grew on me in an odd, Stockholm Syndrome kind of way.

I’ve been largely underwhelmed by the Imaginary Authors’ scents I’ve tried, which tend to make big marketing promises but fall short in reality (looking at you, Cape Heartache ).

With The Abandoned Mansion, I can at least see where they were trying to go and it (kind of?) delivers. It’s discordant and a little haunting in a mouldering sort of way and although I don’t want to smell like this, it would make a neat atmospheric spray in a haunted house.

Projection starts high and fades to moderate, and longevity is solid at around 7-8 hours. Gender is room spray ghost.

I was gifted this perfume and have decanter samples to many friends, the majority of whom love this, so I find the unwearable comments interesting! I love how personal and unique the fragrance experience is.
The quince apple does not last long on me, but the cedar and amber cling for 8 hours. It reminds me of the wardrobe to Narnia, but specifically the return trip home (I find Moth by Zoologist to be the inverse of the first trip there). Abandoned Mansion reminds me of sitting around a campire, camping at the Potters' old lodge in the PNW.

Update: just tried City on Fire by IA, and I imagine CoF to be the sequel. You have a gorgeous old library in this perfume, and the next it's burning to a crisp as an attempt to erase history, or get back at the rich? Reader's choice.