Hallowed – Review: Tauer Perfumes Incense Extreme

I was looking for a perfume fitting for todays holiday: Epiphany, the Day of the Three Holy Kings, as it is called here.

And, to give credit where it is due, I was inspired by the blogging project We Three Kings, to look at incense perfumes with a new interest. And I am only at the beginning, I have a slew of incense based perfume samples coming, so this will be a theme you will hear more about in the bleak grey months of winter that are still ahead of us.

Andy Tauer is known for his love of incense and it is through his creations I have first gotten to know it better and learned to appreciate and love it.

Incense Extreme is a straight forward incense perfume, and that is how I like it. If I want incense I want to smell it as unadulterated as possible. Incense Extreme starts with a breath of coriander and petitgrain over the smooth and clear incense, the base is ambergris and woods, that retain and stabilize the incense for long hours. It is never a good idea to apply a Tauer scent and want it gone in an hour. That is not going to happen. Ever.

Thankfully they are so good, that I enjoy wearing them for the long haul, twelve hours is quite the norm for any his perfumes.

This is one perfume that doesn’t show a lot of development, it is almost linear and that is good. Incense always evokes associations of churches in me, but this is different. It is an outdoorsy kind of incense, clear, strong, but at the same time airy and not stuffy or stifling.

It is perfectly unisex, not too masculine, as many incense fragrances can lean in that direction.

I like to wear Incense Extreme at night, to bed. I love how it is with me whenever I turn. I am aware of its presence in phases of being half asleep, half awake (trust me my nights are not smooth sailing), which I find comforting and bracing at the same time.

Incense Extreme gives me a feeling of calm, dark grey quiet, of dusk in a forest, breathing in the misty air, a column of smoke slowly spiraling upwards. Being all alone, and enjoying it. I wear it when I want this sense of contented loneliness, that is sometimes hard to come by at this (very long) moment in my life.

Picture Source: “Foggy Forest” wallpaper via walldigger.com, thank you!

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