DEV #3: The Inevitable Olympic Orchids Artisan Perfumes 2012

Stomach turning from the very first sniff. The opening is a gag-inducing, ungodly concoction, and I did not like this at all. Something about it smells deeply off, like a strange, misguided blend of essential oils that never agreed to work together.

The opening is truly horrid to me. Burnt and metallic, mixed with cinnamon oil, and medicinal in the worst way. Not a chic apothecary moment. More like pure iodine. It does not read as perfume at all. It smells like someone went wild at an essential oil shop.

Thankfully, this does not project much and stays close to the skin because it is oily as hell. As it settles, it smells almost exactly like pure cinnamon oil. And here is the thing: I already own that. I paid about eight dollars for a bottle of it.

In the drydown, the sandalwood finally tries to show up, but somehow it smells sour. So now we have cinnamon oil plus something sharp and unpleasant. The opening was burnt plus cinnamon oil, and the drydown is cinnamon oil plus sour wood. Neither phase does this any favors.

I normally admire this perfumer’s work, which makes this even more disappointing. This one is a miss for me. It's supposedly meant to smell like sadness and melancholy, and honestly, mission accomplished. It just made me sad. And annoyed.

It's a 100 percent natural blend, for what it is worth. But to my nose, it smells flat, poorly blended, and unfinished. Something here simply is not clicking. I absolutely hate this.

I expected something truly dreadful but this is a smoky cinnamon with resins. Quite wearable, actually, in my opinion. But again, I like Sorcinelli's But Not Today, so what's wearable for me is a nightmare for someone else :D

There is an ominous quality to it, oily and pulling, alluring... An hellish incubus would smell like this, perhaps?

The song "Loverman" by Nick Cave (Metallica's version) would smell like this!

The deeper we pushed into this river into the darkness on our unwavering search for the most unfathomable fantasy, the densest fog, the most occult clearing of an enchanted forest, the most enigmatic rain of tangible substances, the most secretive regions of our associations, the most surreal scenes, the more bizarre became what unfolded along the banks of the ever-narrowing, yet increasingly numerous tributaries, until we finally, at the end of a river arm, arrived in the dark heart of a niche, encountering the inevitable.
Nellie, the old wooden boat, had become stuck in the murky swamp. The few grasses that had grown where the dark land supposedly began were smoldering in a faint smoldering fire. It smelled of burnt flesh and fat-laden, hissing wood embers. I believed I was hallucinating the outlines of a shadow sprinkling paprika over the fire when the immense scent of a gigantic clove numbed me like the unwanted cause of a toothache. A cinnamon leaf, which had taken on the four-legged form of the myrtle plant, forced my face into the moldy mud, mutated to colossal size, where I had to endure an almost endless monologue about doubts concerning the existing order system in the scent of herbaceous sharp spices. All the plants of this place, the trees and their blood had been subjugated by the cinnamon leaf, which was convinced it was a clove. They were all dressed in sharp, moldy mud, living in fear of being seasoned like the grasses by the river and the enemy flesh in the smoldering fire.
I gave up, I sat there, indistinct and still in the posture of a meditating Buddha, staring at the work of the inevitable for many seemingly endless hours. I thought of Yatagan's words. It was disgusting. I was fascinated. Nothing changed. It could no longer be changed.

(With thanks to Sea Mermaid)

Um, yes, the only saying that comes to mind for this scent is: Not beautiful, but rare.

DEV #3, the inevitable! So, I will definitely be avoiding this smell, in the form of a perfume, in the future, that much is certain.

Although I can appreciate some borderline fragrance creations, this one does not convince me.

In my opinion, DEV #3 is a gourmand of the unbearable kind.

The opening reminds me of the good old Hoffmann drops, which my late grandmother used to give us for nausea and vomiting. Interestingly, I always felt worse after taking those drops, as the taste was just awful.

After a while, a strangely familiar scent wafts into my nose, and I frantically try to remember what it reminds me of. It somehow smells like food, but what kind?????

The mystery was solved when I opened the refrigerator. We always have a large bottle of Hela Spicy Ketchup stored there.

I love this ketchup and can eat it with almost anything, but smelling like it? No, I definitely do not want that!

Funny, I'm suddenly craving a plate of pasta with ketchup!

The ketchup smell lingers heavily and only changes slightly in the base.
The spices lose their strength, and what remains is a musty, woody scent reminiscent of sauce powder.

Now the question arises, what is devilish about this smell?

It is not an infernal stench, although I consider the composition unbearable, and I wouldn't go so far as to attribute the appetizing quality of the odor to Satan.

All in all, DEV #3 is a perfume for cooks, as this scent does not stand out among all the kitchen aromas and does not transfer to the food.

In this sense, bon appétit!