Gibbon's Boarding School is the scent of a refined institution of higher learning. Feel the crunch of scattered dried leaves underneath your feet before crossing the threshold. Inhale whiffs of embers smoldering in the fireplace at the entryway, begging to be stoked and tended. Walk down well-traversed hallways and trace your fingers along extensive woodwork over a century old before coming to a pause before the grand library which contains many original works from when the school first opened. Vacant leather chairs await students at strategically placed tables lit by green glass banker's lamps. Breathe in the faint scent of autumn air permeating throughout the building from open classroom windows. Dappled sunlight illuminates crisp paper sitting atop dusty wooden desks. A pencil case contains a carefully sealed tobacco pouch hidden within. Steal away to the boiler room during lunch for a secret smoke. Gibbon's Boarding School features 32 notes to evoke the atmosphere of the sprawling brick school. It is composed of a variety of woods, leathers, smoke notes, light spices, ambers and vanillas with tobacco, dirt, leaves, black musk, frankincense, moss and hint of apple. Gibbon's leans masculine but it can be enjoyed by women who enjoy our darker woodier fragrances. It has a smooth and rounded feel on the skin. Gibbon's Boarding School is an atmospheric fragrance with notes of dusty wooden desks, paper, a carefully hidden tobacco pouch, dying fire, dried leaves, leather chairs and an Autumn breeze.
Created by Angela St. John as part of a collection of fragrances based on the fictional town of Foxcroft, Maine. Gibbon's Boarding School is an eau de parfum, edp.
SOLSTICE SCENTS GIBBON'S BOARDING SCHOOL REVIEWS
Fragrantica: Intriguing, complex, smooth but strangely very specific. Woods, burning incense, amber, books, worn leather, fall, dusty halls. Oddly, this is the unconventional fragrance of a cold institution's past, reeking of rich tradition and history. The opening is a disturbingly detailed scent story but it continues to transform. Like time itself the perspective is always moving. As it settles notes fall away or muddle together in slow motion, like a picture very slowly losing focus. You can't really register it happening but then you realize you don't recognize anything anymore. At the end you're left with a few semi interesting reminders of a recent memory that is fading fast... Dry down is a nondescript, woody fall fragrance.
Fragrantica: It is LEATHER. The backup player is oud, but not cheese/barnyard, more woodsy, and with a slight "amber-apple" sweetness in a few hours, an accord that reduces the more tannic aspects of the leather and oud. It is perfect for a fall or winter day and will transition nicely to evening. As a woman, I love more "masculine" scents, so this would smell heavenly on a guy (lean into the sweater!). But for the sexy outdoor gal, this works great with the high leather boots and jeans. As reviewers noted below there is a dusty quality and a tobacco-ish scent, but don't think TF. It lacks the vanilla-sweetness of TF and leads with a strong leather, not soft suede and not lipstick-oris-leather--just leather--bordering on animalic, but not quite. Any "ozonic" notes may be there to lift the scent and lighten it, but I don't sense them, and would never have guessed at that. They are probably added with a judicious hand to counter the oud. The slightly plummy dry-down conjures up your favorite place for goodies, crunchy fall leaves, a cup of apple cider.
Fragrantica: I was surprised that the first notes that jumped out at me were gourmand—mostly vanilla. Over time, the vanilla top notes quiet down into a sort of sweet tobacco smoke and allow the heart notes of sandalwood, leather, dust, and cedar to come through, with a faint smell of dead leaves and conifers around the edges. It's an intriguing, layered fragrance. It's definitely not a "modern" scent, it smells antique, if that makes sense, like an old house. Like creaky boards and dust coming through the beams of afternoon sunlight. I'm definitely going to let this one age a bit and come back to it, because just from the transformation it went through in ten or fifteen minutes on my skin, I have a feeling this could settle into something really special.
Fragrantica: Very much a leather and tobacco scent, with a fair amount of dark, smooth woods, and some dry papery/library scent in there too. Not very foody at all (for Solstice Scents, at least), but the tobacco blend does give it a sweetness, and tobacco, it would seem, is another note that likes to work really nicely on me. Rather fascinating!
