Description
The karasu tengu of Japanese mythology are powerful and vengeful spirits who live deep in the forest and are known for taking the appearance of crows or of wandering priests. Brave individuals who are lost, confused or helpless may summon them through prayer and the burning of incense.
Apoteker Tepe’s Karasu combines traditional raw materials used in kōdō, the Japanese incense ritual, to create a fragrance that expresses the spare, transcendent asceticism of a prayer rendered in smoke, dissipating in midair.
Karasu features notes of Costus root, Siam wood, hinoki, smoldering paper and spicy cardamom. The fragrance is available as a 50 ml eau de parfum. Karasu was launched in 2016. The nose behind this fragrance is Holladay Saltz.
pastych – :
Challenging, strange, unnerving beauty. Completely baffled my nose at first (chalky mud? cardboard? damp flaky plaster? orris root? tomato leaf? ) but in the most compelling and mysterious way. Smelled far more like a place than a perfume, for sure – redolent of organic life, yet no one specific spot or thing or creature or plant you can really put your finger on. Then morphs into slightly sweeter, more aromatic, more recognisable phases – yet it always stays mysterious – modulating from wood to incense to Avignon to Kyoto to the unknown. Ever-changing: it kind of shimmers on the nose. Very Zen, to my mind – a riddle for the brain, shot through with contradictions and surprisingly airy, dry, minimal space where you least expect it. Intriguing and weird and possibly great. Definitely one for the nature-organic-woodsy-moody loving oddballs, though. Not only are you unlikely to get compliments, many might not even recognise you as wearing fragrance at all. But you might feel so enlightened and lifted by it you wouldn’t care, and rise serenely above all that.
Jura227 – :
This smelled like costus root for almost 5 hours straight until it transitioned into a cardamom note. Costus root has an unwashed scalp scent profile and the opening of this strongly reminded me of the discontinued Fille D’Eve by Nina Ricci. I picked up green and wood vapors along the way but they were more of a backdrop for the costus. Intriguing scent that needs to be explored more in order to wrap ones head around it. I wonder now how it compares to Holy Mountain. Too bad this entire line had gotten discontinued. Holladay is a talented perfumer and I hope she remains in the business instead of locking up shop and disappearing from right under our noses…
Gai – :
Opens with a thin, sour, almost ‘cruel’ smokiness and bracing green notes which slowly gives way to sweetness and spiciness. For me, the cardamom appeared, but not until hour six, just folded gently into the base (which I would call Apotekerade due to my other samples from the house) which is warm, dusty, and almost cloying.
These aren’t scents you wear for others but yourselves. Absolutely screams for a solitary walk on a crisp fall day.
Longevity is, like other offerings from this house, exceptional.
mvm03041951 – :
A complicated and austere fragrance. The opening to me is a combination of Japanese incense, creosote smoke, and burning rubber (the costus, i believe). A challenging opening, meditative and cold. The smoke subsides a bit after about 30 minutes, but never leaves entirely, making room for the hinoki wood, which provides a subtle yet bracing airiness. I detect no cardamom. We’ll see how it lasts and how the drydown develops, but the projection through the opening and mid is modest yet noticeable. This is definitely a unique scent, far away from anything mainstream. It brings to mind fragrances like CdG Avignon, or a far more subtle, rounder and colder Montale Full Incense. Overall, this one grows on you, but once you “get it”, it’s beautiful and contemplative. I’ll be enjoying this one for myself, expect no compliments on it, and do not care.