Black Vines

This sounded wonderful, but I mostly just get a big blast of cinnamon, like red hots cinnamon candies. There are hints of black licorice candy and sour evergreen at first, but the drydown is all cinnamon on my skin.

This scent is strong, strong licorice which dries down to cinnamon. There may be other notes, but those two overpowered everything else. I like this scent a lot, but it read as a little more masculine on me than I like, so I gave it to my husband.

I previously wrote a review on this (titled strong anise scent). I've owned this fragrance for over a year. I don't know if the chemistry has changed or what... the scent is great. Very nice scent. But it absolutely BURNS. Do not apply if you have freshly shaved or gotten out of a hot shower. Absolutely do not apply if you've just worked out. It is downright painful. I made the mistake of applying this after working out and it was a feeling akin to being pepper sprayed. Washing it off only provides a slight respite as it absorbs in your pores. It no doubt contains cinnamon oil... imagine placing that on your skin. So while the scent is awesome, I don't really think this should have made it to market as it is borderline dangerous.

The opening of this fragrance is something like a black vine licorice twist dusted with cinnamon--emphasis on black LICORICE! A hint of fig and balsam are evident during the first hour, but the scent of licorice (a highly refined star anise) dominants this experience, which is about 7 or 8 hours on my skin. It's the longest-lasting fragrance from the house of Kerosene that I've tested so far. The projection is also well above average. By the second hour the tonka and vanilla surface strongly with just a hint of resin mixed in. It's something of a hodge-podge of notes that don't really compliment each other, in my opinion, though it's by no means objectionable either, just somewhat "confused." The refined licorice note eventually devolves into a more familiar star anise scent. By the third or forth hour the vanilla and incense share center stage with the star anise and things get interesting again. The star anise and the incense are there until the final curtain. Despite the somewhat muddled transition in the middle of the dry down process, I found this fragrance to be very attractive--attractive enough to buy a full bottle, in fact. A word of caution to those with sensitive skin: this fragrance may burn slightly when applying.

My sample led to a purchase of a full bottle. The mix of licorice, cinnamon and fir is outstanding, never smelled anything like it. Very unique so do not blind buy. Not for everyone, definitely for me!