Salem was originally part of the Fall 2014 collection but was moved to the General Catalogue by popular demand. It is a spicy, woody, dark and smoky fragrance that features notes of damp leaves, church incense, Italian leather, dry birch woods, clove bud absolute and bonfire smoke. Salem is a parfum.
Sixteen92 produces small-batch fine fragrance inspired by history, literature, lore and magic.
Reddit: Salem smells like a fresh, chilly, wet fall day. The leaves are so realistic. It took a while for the leather to come through, but after resting a while there’s a strong and enchanting leather note. The incense and clove are probably what add a sort of earthy, sticky, slightly sweet complexity that I’m not quite sure how to describe. It’s not spicy at all and I really dig it. It lasts a decent amount time, like a couple hours. I’ll definitely get a larger size.
Basenotes: Insanely atmospheric, Salem really does conjure up the feeling of stumbling across an old stone chapel in the middle of a wind-whipped New England forest, dry leaves swirling around one’s ankles. The scent hinges on the use of a smoky birch note, which, when joined to the realistic church incense accord, smells like black leather smoking out over scorched resins. The opening is acrid, due to Sixteen92’s signature black leather accord, which tends to run everything in an acid (rather than alkaline) direction. The Sixteen92 leather note is similar to that of Solstice Scent’s Library and Inquisitor, for reference. But it is also faintly fatty, the underside of the leather dotted with yellow globules of coagulated animal fat. Salem seems to be a scent that improves with age, however. When I first received my sample, I found the leather note both bitter and goaty; now, a full three years later, it is smooth and sharp in all the right places. It is worth noting that the realistic church incense at the start eventually gives way to something a little more headshoppy in nature. But on the whole, I think that Salem works fantastically as an atmospheric set piece. It is properly moody and almost cartoonishly witchy. I visualize the scent as a wine-stained mouth in a pancaked Goth face, her sneer hidden by a wall of pitch black hair.
Basenotes: On mercy! The dead, damp leaves of early and mid winter. Incense, with an underlying animal skank. Ancient leather from the covers an old Hymnal's time-worn use. Old birch trees swaying in a cold wind. Clove, from a secret spell. Smoke, from a lazy fire. An almost maple sugar note, later on. Well done!
The Scenturian: In the bottle: LEATHER. Very strong leather and some nondescript spices. On the skin: The clove comes roaring in, and the leather softens a bit. Now it’s primarily clove with smoky church incense with leather to round it all out. There’s a certain dryness to this fragrance, probably from the dry leaves. This definitely leans masculine to me, like a hot man who smells like clove lurking in a church while wearing leather pants. TL;DR: Clove with church smoke and leather. Very atmospheric and masculine. 3.5/5.
\
