this is gorgeous! got told multiple times every day I wore this that I smelled amazing. the aged paper in this one avoids being too vanilla-y, hitting right on the smell of old brittle books. the incense and mossy stone meet that paper smell head on to blend beautifully, all of which is backed by the suede and a kick of woodiness. I can't stop smelling my wrists while wearing this! I'm someone who doesn't like smelling too sweet or sugary and this one is the perfect amount of mysterious and dark too avoid that. instead, I wear this and feel studious and a little gothic. if I actually liked the concept of dark academia, this would be the smell.

Warm yet dusky, NC really has the best mahogany in town. On my skin, it's really the star of the show with the support of the incense (and other notes, but especially the incense is gorgeous). Invokes comfort and prestige, transforming into something more papery and lightly musky on the drydown. I'm typically very wary of leather and wood, but this is SO wearable! Give this a go if your heart is set on finding something with those notes but haven't had luck yet.

I put this on towards the end of an anxious day. One whiff, and I instantly found myself getting lost in a maze of bookshelves as my anxiety began to unravel like the binding of an old book disintegrating over time. It starts off with a sharply strong cedarwood note which is soon tempered by the fuzzy quality of the suede. Shortly after it starts to dry is when the vanillic scent of aging paper really comes out. It conjures up the distant memory of discovering an ancient spellbook and suddenly finding your nose buried within its pages as you inhale that distinctly magical smell. Although I’m not getting much incense from this, the hint of mossy stone adds a damp quality to the background. It’s as if the window beside the reading nook had been mysteriously left open during the rain, leaving the suede cushion lightly soaked. Once again, Nui has succeeded in creating a soul-stirring atmospheric that will be as well-loved by me as the books it evokes images of.

This is the scholarly, golden, enticing aroma of cozying up in a big armchair in a home library -- fire roaring and the candlelights down low. The oak and cedar have a glowing, resinous, bourbon-tobacco quality. The sueded brown leather combined with the aged paper note is sublime. Mossy mineral top notes lift the blend into a cool earthy space above the glow. It's simply stunning, especially as the weather turns cold, and I have been unable to wear much of anything else all season. Layers fantastically with evergreen notes for a Yuletide twist. Truly one of my favorite discoveries from this house.

This one is smooth, polished wooden bookshelves lining a room, full of ancient, arcane tomes with browned, brittle pages. The suede in this is smooth, as is the incense smoke, and altogether it is a mystical, brooding atmospheric. If you loved the beautiful paper and ink of Bibliophilia, Forbidden Library is in the same vein. It’s the library the tome of Bibliophilia was pulled from.