Italian leather
Birch
Campfire
Clove absolute
Frankincense
Leaves05/22/2025
ClaireV
969 Reviews
ClaireV
1
Dry autumn leaves
Insanely atmospheric, Salem really does conjure up the feeling of stumbling across an old stone chapel in the middle of a wind-whipped New England forest, dry leaves swirling around one’s ankles. The scent hinges on the use of a smoky birch note, which, when joined to the realistic church incense accord, smells like black leather smoking out over scorched resins. The opening is acrid, due to Sixteen92’s signature black leather accord, which tends to run everything in an acid (rather than alkaline) direction. The Sixteen92 leather note is similar to that of Solstice Scent’s Library and Inquisitor, for reference. But it is also faintly fatty, the underside of the leather dotted with yellow globules of coagulated animal fat.
Salem seems to be a scent that improves with age, however. When I first received my sample, I found the leather note both bitter and goaty; now, a full three years later, it is smooth and sharp in all the right places. It is worth noting that the realistic church incense at the start eventually gives way to something a little more headshoppy in nature. But on the whole, I think that Salem works fantastically as an atmospheric set piece. It is properly moody and almost cartoonishly witchy. I visualize the scent as a wine-stained mouth in a pancaked Goth face, her sneer hidden by a wall of pitch black hair.
Salem seems to be a scent that improves with age, however. When I first received my sample, I found the leather note both bitter and goaty; now, a full three years later, it is smooth and sharp in all the right places. It is worth noting that the realistic church incense at the start eventually gives way to something a little more headshoppy in nature. But on the whole, I think that Salem works fantastically as an atmospheric set piece. It is properly moody and almost cartoonishly witchy. I visualize the scent as a wine-stained mouth in a pancaked Goth face, her sneer hidden by a wall of pitch black hair.
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