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tkachenkomix – :
I agree with psebi101 review. On the Road starts off smelling literally like a highway, it could have been a Demeter fragrance named Motorcycle. Then after half an hour I got the leather (jacket?) phase and I like it much better. The dry down is my favorite part, a bit more sweet (and less masculine) but unfortunately very faint.
stepin – :
Amazing! Smoky leather, kind of wild like Bois d’Ascese, kind of smooth like Bois d’Ombrie. Also a hint of the earthy spice I liked in She Came to Stay. The sample haunted me and I had to get a full bottle. (You know a scent’s good when you’re thinking about it when you’re NOT wearing it.)
Metallica79 – :
First time for blind testing, and I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven. Sweet smoky leather with a kick-in-the-ass galbanum entrance.
Looking at the pyramid, it’s probably the combo of birch, guaiac, and patch that gave off a ‘smoky leather’ impression. I want to fill the tub with this juice and roll around in it. If you can anthropomorphize a fragrance, I need to make deep, passionate love to it. In fact, there’s no need to breathe air that doesn’t contain Timothy Han’s On the Road.
If you seek a similar opening with less smoke, more aromatic, check out Papillon’s Dryad.
Birch trees are indigenous to boreal climate in Maine, Palo Santo reside in the Yucatán, and Galbanum in Persia. There’s no Road on the map that takes you through all 3, but take my word for it, this is Highway to Heaven.
stepan74 – :
I ordered samples of On the Road and She Came to Stay with an order from Twisted Lily, knowing that She Came to Stay really put the Timothy Han Edition Perfumes on the map with a lot of critical acclaim, yet I was more intrigued by this second release, On the Road.
On the Road is a wintry mix of galbanum, benzoin, labdanum, birch, patchouli, and cedar. The overall experience is of a resinous woody fragrance, strong but not cloying, that I envision mainly as useful for fall and winter nights. It’s not woody or oily in a pine tar sort of way, but much smoother, reminiscent of the smoothness of Tom Ford Italian Cypress while not having any cypress, and instead seeming like a less harsh version of D.S. & Durga Bowmakers.
On the Road doesn’t have much evolution, which is fine, as the opening is not so overwhelming as to necessitate a diminution of intensity. Its longevity isn’t spectacular but it’s more than sufficient for an EDP, especially with a few healthy sprays as opposed to the dabs of a small sample.
Sold only at Luckyscent and Twisted Lily for $160-180 for 60ml, it’s expensive enough that you’d really need to like it a lot in order to want to purchase it, and I believe I do.
8 out of 10
Big_black_Dog12 – :
This is right in the same exact vein as Tom Ford Italian cypress, but a little more dirty and smoky. Day or two after a camp fire on clothes, not too heavy and wearing Italian cypress to cover it up is exactly what this is. Surprisingly I like this stuff, it’s very challenging to me. Very niche and the ingredients seem very upscale and of quality. Like a very wealthy man under cover wearing down to earth clothes and always out doors. Very nice juice, gots me wondering “how much?”
cahangir_fb – :
Dirty, smoky, medicinal underarm – amd not in a good way. Patchouli is something I just can’t get on board with and this scent doesn’t change my mind about it. Gorgeous bottle though.
smuhin53 – :
Although the scent wasn’t really my style, the first release from this aesthetically-discriminating brand (She Came to Stay) was an excellent spicy floral. This release, sadly, is a huge let-down.
It goes on as a dirty, thin patchouli punctured by a bitter bergamot. There’s a hint of something coniferous, but it’s buried under a murky cloud of smoke that, frankly, smells far more like an error than an intended effect. After 15 minutes, the scent becomes a vaguely musky, garden-refuse kind of smell — the kind of scent that might emit from someone lost in a forest for a week. Fans of Juniper Ridge might find some appeal here as the scent is extremely rough-hewn and rugged, although (to my nose), not in a good (or a particularly Kerouacian) way. You get 10 minutes of a ho-hum greenery/bergamot, another 10 minutes of a birch tar bomb, and the next 20 minutes are reserved for the accidental BO-type funk that ensues. There’s nothing endearing or even remotely pleasant about it.
On top of this, I couldn’t get the scent to last more than an hour. I wore it three times on both skin and fabric, and each time, it died at around the 45-minute point. I’m no stickler for longevity and I enjoy the engineered ephemerality of certain scents, but that’s not what’s going on here. The scent goes on very loud but starts losing volume immediately. All-natural perfumery is prone to poor performance, but the materials used in this are generally substantive, so something went wrong along the way with this one. Very disappointing from a line that has so much promise.
rohanik – :
The introduction is like passing near a street where the constructors are working on putting a new layer of asphalt and there is the smell of the burned materials they use. It smells like concrete, rubber, plastic and gasoline; pungent and bitter.
Thankfully, it changes after 30-40 minutes when most of the roughness tames and I get a softer burning wood backed up by some sweet notes. At this phase, the scent is airy and less in your face, retaining the burning birch and guaiac in the background; we have left behind the construction site, but the wind still brings whiffs of that freshly laid asphalt.
The part that I enjoy comes in the dry down, where the direction shifts again. There are resins and balsamic elements that make the scent fuller, rounder and sweeter, smoldering woods for that smoky aroma and a touch of patchouli.
After the loud opening, the projection drops dramatically before entering the second hour and by the third hour it’s a skin scent for me. The longevity is good, though, over 10 hours.
I find it to be an artistic creation and I personally wouldn’t find many occasions to wear it, especially that the perfume becomes more wearable when it’s already a skin scent.
gatti07 – :
Not so much a review, as a commentary on the bottle design – I love the aesthetic of the pseudo post-war utilitarian design of the bottle and its use of minimalist type face and labelling – very cool, in a considered, Scandinavian-type way. This almost looks like it belongs on the bathroom counter of an architect or something!