recently, a close friend of mine introduced me to a new and strangely fascinating liquid product that also comes in bottles and drams, has a relatively high cost per ounce, and spans a dizzying variety of scent notes.
that's right, he got me started on a perfume that you can not only smell but also can drink - the wonderful world of whisk(e)y. so far, of the different drams i've tried from whiskies around the world, one of my favourite notes to smell and drink is, hands-down, smoky stuff.
so when i first tried Campfire from Long Winter Soap Co. and it gave me serious smoky whisk(e)y vibes, it didn't come as a surprise to me that i really loved it.
the description and notes for Campfire are spot-on, and overflowing with the store's typical wit: "So this girl Julie comes up to the booth at a fair and asks for wood smoke perfume oil. Turns out she's the chick who hangs her clothes next to bonfires just to get the smoke stink all over them. I'm with ya Julie, and this one's for you! Sweet wood smoke and a little white musk and vetiver."
in the bottle, Campfire is a surprisingly dark oil and the first sniffs vividly bring to mind a strong smoky barbeque sauce. as the initial blast of smoky wood fades, a light sweetness counterbalanced with the vetiver drifts up lazily to make this something that a brace of chicken wings would kill to smell like. this isn't a tiny little flame tended by boy scouts on their first day, it's a roaring conflagration that threatens to leap out of its firepit as it sends tongues of fire and dark grey smoke skyward.
on application, the pyre continues to blaze furiously - okay, maybe a little too much smoke there now - and the fleeting thought crosses my mind: would people panic and start reaching for their phones to call the fire department if i went into a lift or some other enclosed space with them? i wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility of that happening over the first five or ten minutes of wear, though after a while the vetiver comes out more on my skin and it adds a really nice earthiness with a touch of worn leather to the smoke.
but the time when Campfire really starts to shine is after about another ten minutes, with a slightest touch of white musk coming up and rounding off the harshness of the smoke and lifting the strong earthiness. with its transformation complete, this doesn't make you smell like you just narrowly escaped the flames of a burning building - no, you wear the flames, you are the flames, and you're the one who's powerful and in control.
i'm sure somewhere out there is a whisk(e)y that smells exactly like this, and the day that i find it, i'm going to buy it in a heartbeat.
i really loved that fiery smoky "katniss everdeen girl on fire" feeling of Campfire in its prime for the next two hours or so that it lasted, though the downside was that the perfume oil had a relatively personal throw of a foot at most, which decreased steadily until it was only detectable at a nose-to-skin level in the last half-hour of wear. though perhaps the silver lining to that cloud is that the likelihood of accidentally triggering suspicions of undetected fire when wearing this out is reduced to those who aren't good with personal space.
overall, this is an amazing scent to reach for as a confidence booster and to scratch that smoky itch whenever it comes up, though it would have been perfect and deserved a higher rating with just a touch more longevity and throw. i can see myself attacking this bottle pretty savagely in the near future, so it's only a matter of time before i end up with another replacement (or two). 8.5/10.
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this review is of a product that i had purchased at regular price with my own money. i wasn’t asked to review this scent as a condition of receipt and didn’t receive any incentives for writing this. i’m not affiliated with Long Winter Soap Co. and as always, all opinions remain my own.
all information correct at time of publishing.
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