Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab: Delphi

purchased and reviewed by ThoraSTooth

BPAL Scent of the Day:  Delphi (Wanderlust, discontinued 2014) -- The smoke of Sacred Incense of Apollo twined through laurel branches, bay, and honey wine.

I've been watching movies about ancient Greek mythology lately, which made me want to wear this one again.  In the bottle Delphi is sharp and a little boozy, like very un-sweet mead and an indefinite herbal note.

Wet on my skin, there's an immediate spike of fruit and floral.  The fruit seems bitter-tart, like bayberries.  The floral is nectareous, possibly a very floral honey.  There's also that woody-smoky note that often indicates bay rum.  As it ages, the fruity note turns more leaflike, still bitter green and tart but much more dry.  There's quite a lot of sillage.

It takes a while to mature completely.  The sillage reduces, the honey note takes over and turns a little musky.  After a while the smoke and green notes diminish and it's all light musky honey.  I suspect there's some ambrette seed in this.

I had the bad (or good, depending on how you look at it) luck to fall in love with this just after it was discontinued.  I wrote the Lab desperately and asked if they had any bottles of it left that they could sell me.  Fortunately for me the answer was "yes."  Another moment of love for the Lab's customer service!