Scent descriptions · 08
Tombstone
A House That Expanded on Death
00
Introduction
Tombstone is a house that a friend introduced me to and I have held very high in regard ever since. They have very complex fragrances, and the balancing of ingredients is truly one-of-a-kind. They also have an artistic vision that I cannot help but appreciate.
The whole idea of Tombstone is that they attempt to clarify their idea of death, and via contrast, emphasize what it means to be human. Their choice of the title tombstone reflects that quite well too as I see it; where the tombstone is something that marks an end to one, and the knowledge that life exists in spite of death for others.
A particularly special characteristic of Tombstone is that they truly know moderation when it comes to their formulas. They use ingredients that other houses would overdose, and limit them to such a minimum that they are additive in all the ways that the fragrance needs it, while eluding on the negative stuff (such as is the case with Sweet Coffin and ambrocinide, as I will elaborate on later). They also do this with honey, turpentine, mint and so many other ingredients that I would almost consider red flags in perfume, simply because how cloying their overdosing can be. With tombstone? Not a case.
Their fragrances, generally speaking, are linear, but in a way that other houses COULD NOT ACHIEVE. They take a facet of the fragrance and build around it, carrying that facet through into the next stage, all while simultaneously adding and subtracting different elements of the perfume that interact with this main center-stage facet. You will see this being done with the smell of a floating log, a natural scent that I cannot describe, and galbanum and turpentine.
This is different from the status quo in the perfume industry, as when people say that something is a maracuja fragrance (for example), then it is meant that maracuja is only the most prominent characteristic of that fragrance, and it is not a characteristic that carries through, much less the same way it does with Tombstone; and linear fragrances do have that quality of continuity of a given facet, but they don’t have the aforementioned non-linear edits that occur to the main facet as it progresses linearly through the fragrance.
I guess what I am trying to say is that the Tombstone fragrances are selectively linear, making them one of a kind, and giving them an identity that is not of smell, but rather of character.
Overall, this may be one of my favorite houses, and for very good reason. Their fragrances are interesting, one of a kind in both character and smell, and their ideas are also phenomenal. I do appreciate their vision, which I have not spoken about enough, so I would also recommend you give their website a look. I will link it here: https://tombstonefragrances.shop
01 3 Feet 5
3 foot 5 is the hight of an average 5-7 year old, which is the age where a person will likely encounter their first instance of death, and recognize the fleeting nature of many things in their life. It is a sad thought, and I think that the fragrance explores it exceptionally well.
The rest of 3 Feet 5 will be filled in later.
02 Evergrow
To quote Tombstone themselves (as I cannot put it better); “Evergrow is the scent of decay feeding renewal—where withered roots cradle fresh vines, and dying roses bloom anew. This fragrance is a green chypre with earthy depth, as life merges into death, only to emerge again.”
Top
This is a fragrance that smells of an overcast exclusion zone that has had everything abandoned be overgrown by the native flora. It smells green, but rather than smelling of fresh or herbal, it smells like an invasive deep green. I can also smell turpentine, which combined with the galbanum makes the invasiveness of the overgrowth all the more characteristic. Some vines or ivy that refuse to stop growing where there is space to grow; regardless of the evolutionary pressures they have to overcome.
I can also interpret this as being the smell of a dense and dark evergreen forest surrounding some old ruins too dilapidated to identify, next some snaking wet road.
There is this sharpness from the aforementioned turpentine too, and aside from it being a part of the growing plants in the area, I could also see it as being involved with the reason for it being an exclusion zone in the first place: the sharpness a characteristic concomitant to something akin to a natural disaster or even a nuclear fallout within the area. It is unforgiving and malevolent.
Mid
The main thing I notice is that the galbanum becomes darker despite maintaining the same level of abrasiveness. It turns towards a much greener direction. The sky is no longer overcast, and the sun rays have shown themselves. The exclusion zone and the old ruins by the rained-on road are now pleasant sights, ones that will disappear as you pass through in between checkpoints.
At this point, it is the nicest iteration of galbanum I have smelled to date. It outdoes Bad Lily in complexity, depth and character; and mind you, Bad Lily is difficult to top.
Dry Down
The dry down of Evergrow really takes that galbanum and turpentine and pushes their character to the forefront. It smells incredibly green. Again, still the same green as the mid but wow. It is such a complex galbanum, mixed beautifully with that turpentine facet.
I dread the day my sample will run out.
Note
I would like it to be known that in some ways, I see this fragrance as anachronistic, in that it takes the galbanum and turpentine that I could only ever find in the top notes, and slams it straight into the heart and base. It is pretty impressive to see facets like those be the result of a change, rather than the starting point of one. This also agrees with the concept of renewal of life through death pretty well, so really hats down.
03 No Need to Come By
The idea here is that death is final in character, and there is nothing for us beyond that point.
Top
This starts off minty (with some trigeminal activation), resinous and turpentine-y. It is VERY dry, complete opposite to Sweet Coffin. It doesn’t feel hot though, it feels like a morning in the countryside after all moisture was sucked out of the world. It is abrasive but not out of place. I think I also heard someone say that this smells like the image of a kid playing with their dinosaur toys, and I can wholeheartedly agree; though I do think that there is a sadness to this fragrance that the latter image does not quite convey.
I can also see this being compared to Haxan, and its turpentine facets as well as the goat hair tincture that it is so famous for.
Mid
It turns away from the abrasiveness of the turpentine/goat hair tincture, and the dry character is emphasized. If someone would say this is powdery, I couldn’t fault them for it, although it doesn’t have the same powderiness as iris or orris would. The mint and the turpentine still are responsible for the bright parts of this fragrance while the body is mainly the resins.
Dry Down
It maintains the same character again, but has a new airy character that replaced the dry one. It really took on a gentle direction, and now the bright and in-your-face notes such as turpentine and mint have become more tame and pleasant. They seem closer to the body, and I can see this being the skin scent of an engineer who works with physically testing jet engines.
04 Sing at My Funeral
What I gather is that this is a fragrance conveying the hope of celebrating one’s life at the end of it rather than mourning its end. In my opinion, this is a great concept and it was executed really really well too.
Top
Mint, honey and something else. This is a relatively easy-to-pick-apart fragrance from this house. It smells like a beekeeper’s backyard somewhere in northern Europe, where they herd goats. There is something so beautifully natural that I cannot pick out from this too. I don’t think I have ever smelled anything like it: a facet of nature that doesn’t come from a note in particular but rather the air of the fragrance itself. I know that sounds vague, but describing it is a little difficult. Picture a smell that one innately or maybe even evolutionarily associates with “the outside,” then this would be it. It is not grass-y or pine-y, nor watery, nor anything else that is strictly ideologically associated with nature; rather it is only light, and airy, and somehow equivalent to a draft wind of a secluded life of someone like Henry Thoreau in his time living at Walden. Wow, honestly.
Because this is so nicely blended, if you regard the mint and honey as one and ignore my point about the nature accord, it can smell almost mechanical, like the heart of some thermally powered engine too.
Mid
The nature facet remains as it; but the rest of the fragrance has settled in a close way. Instead of it being a smell that represents the outside, it is now the smell of the home that the wind brought in from the outside.
Dry Down
This remains the same in the dry down. The notes converge a little on the same honey/mint centered character, but the gist of it is the same.
05 Sweet Coffin
This fragrance attempts to convey the coffin as a comfort despite it being of rotting wood and mournful connotation. This argues that death is not so bad, and the coffin in which one will rest is but another mere and inevitable discomfort to deal with; and the acceptance of which in and of itself is a comfort through surety and the certainty of knowing where the end lies.
I think they conveyed this quite well.
Top
This does smell like a wet piece of wood that has been drifting on a river for some time, untouched and weathered. It may been grounded several times at the riverbank, then been colonized by some plant or weed or even flower, before the local floods sent it adrift again. There is a little freshness to it, which is of character and not of smell, and it does cause some trigeminal activation too.
I can also see this smell being attributed to a lake in some Lovecraftian horror story
It is quite impressive because it goes about creating the smell of water in a way I have never seen before. If you look at fragrances that attempt to convey rain (or petrichor, the smell of the ground after it rains), they so frequently decide to go for an ambrocinide-heavy formulation (think Filippo Sorcinelli’s Nebbia Spessa, or Almost human’s Silent Rain), It always ends up being somehow sour or rotten; but in an intrusive and unpleasant way. Sweet coffin has the same vibe, as in there is a rotten accord to this, but it is different in that it is not sour, and it manages to combine the wetness of the general fragrance with the rotten aspect of it too; which none of the other fragrances managed to accomplish NEARLY as well.
Mid
Towards the heart, I can sense some ambrocinide now, but still nowhere NEAR the concentration of the aforementioned fragrances. This now feels like the log has taken on some of the weeds with it, and as it drifts, it collects seaweeds from underneath and some ground weeds from its occasional stops on the riverbank.
Dry Down
At the end, this tends to settle into an underwater scent. If you put your head underneath the algae-overgrown pond surface somewhere in the countryside, open your eyes and lit up the pond enough to see, then im sure that it would look the same way this smells.
It is the same character as before, albeit denser and somehow more gray. The ambrocinide is still there, but not in a rotten way. The other rotten character of the wood still exists, but it feels it has been dulled by the water.