Devilscent #4 : Reprise
Olympic Orchids

This fragrance presents a slightly woodier and more balsamic version of Armani's Bois d'Encens. The blend of olibanum and labdanum produces a pleasant and slightly smoky aroma with enough resins to balance it out. It lacks sweetness apart from the inherent sweetness of labdanum, making it a simple and clean olibanum and labdanum scent. While there are aspects of frankincense, I don't detect any smoky burning of incense.

In terms of performance, it seems to be moderate and easier to wear than Dev 2 due to the absence of animalic notes. This fragrance is well-constructed but not particularly remarkable. Having only smelled Dev 2 and 4, I can't make any comparisons to the other two, but I personally lean towards Dev 2 for its more adventurous and interesting scent profile.

Ostensibly, Dev #4 is based on the same charred wood and incense base as the rest of the Devilscent series, but with a kick of butterscotchy whiskey on top (my favorite part), melding with menthol, eucalyptus, and some sort of artificial fruity sweetness to give the illusion of cough drops melting in a forest campfire, drenched with blue raspberry Slurpee.

To be honest, this is probably my least favorite of the Devilscent collection. While #1 used sweet bubblegummy jasmine played against the smoky woods to great effect, I find the sweet mentholated faux fruit in #4 distracting and unbalanced, adding a sort of chaotic weirdness instead of providing what I'm assuming was the intended juxtaposition against all the darker elements. I can see how this was supposed to be a sort of yin/yang, but I feel like the two sides melt together into an unintended third thing that's not as good as the sum of its parts.

All that being said, this is definitely interesting sniffing and I'll gladly take chaotic weirdness over just another stupid mainstream cliche. Worth a sniff.