Holiday Moon

[quikslvr]

Bamboo pulp and oude with green and white tea.

All green and lemon tea on me at first. Luckily this goes more soft green than sharp lemon on me as it dries. Still, it's quite bright, without being totally POW! in the nose about it. I find it soothing, despite its zingy-ness. Very pretty.

There's an underscore to the waft that's deep, a little woody, and gorgeous--perhaps the oude? On me, though, I only catch it every once in awhile. It also goes rather perfume-y after it's dry. All that said, while I love the smell of real tea, it's never been something I've wanted to smell like, so I think this bottle will be moving on. Edited November 28, 2007 by Shollin

[kythryne]

Oh, pretty pretty pretty. I hesitated over this one, because all the other Lunacies I've tried so far have gone soapy on me, but the bamboo and tea convinced me, and I am so very very glad.

 

From the bottle, it smells green and damp and slightly sweet, a little like walking into one of the candy shops in Chinatown on a rainy day. On my skin, it starts off slightly sharp and lemony, and then the bamboo comes pouring out and it all mellows down into a gorgeous wet green scent. I'm having trouble picking up the tea note, but the bamboo is there, beautifully clear, and there's something mysterious and foreign to me that must be the oude.

 

When I was a kid, we had a little stand of bamboo growing wild near our house, and sometimes I'd pick a branch of it and play with it. The bamboo in this and in Neo-Tokyo smells SO much like that -- clean and astringent and woody and fresh.

[Ina Garten Davita]

It's funny how a scent can completely capture a color. Holiday Moon is most assuredly green. Bright, fresh and green with a bit of coolness about it when wet without a any signs of being aquatic whatsoever. What a delightful fragrance. My skin takes the bright green chill and slowly warms and sweetens it, giving Holiday Moon's green a soft gilded edge.

 

What if Beth said it was a girly pink scent and the label had hearts and flowers on it, would Holiday Moon still be so green? Hmmmm....

[desu]

In the bottle: I've stuck my nose into some pretty cheerful scents before, but this one is the most festive by far. I smell a really sweet, pure green smell which I guess is the bamboo?

 

On my skin: The teas kick in to help deepen the sweetness. I usually go for deeper, spicer scents, but this crisp, clean scent is growing on me. It challenges my equating a crisp, clean winter scent with pine, juniper, cedar, and berries.

 

Later on: A sweet, teaish scent lingers on.

[weaver]

Smooth, cool, green, and slightly sweet. If you like Embalming Fluid, this is better: smoother and rounder, more blended, less lemon. I smell green tea and something else green, must be bamboo. The roundness probably comes from Oude. When wet it is very bright. Then it settles in the dry state, and I get some wood notes, but it continues to be juicy and fresh. It has better than average throw, and lasts a reasonable amount of time, 3-4 hours. It will be a wonderful summer scent.

 

On my scale of 1-5 (5 being the best) it rates 5.

Edited January 20, 2006 by weaver

[hangingfire]

In the bottle: green and fresh, faintly citrusy (although it doesn't seem as specific as lemon or lime to me).

 

On, wet: the citrusy sharpness is somewhat less, or rather it's clearly more of a light tea note than citrus; the overall impression is now very green, with a slightly resinous undertone (the oude?).

 

Drydown: Stays fresh and lovely. I really like how the resinous aspect anchors the bamboo and tea notes, keeping them from shooting off into the atmosphere.

 

Love love love it. I'm so glad I got a bottle.

[jemz]

Mmmm....My Birthday Moon . I just had to have it! And the label art is absolutely adorable. It makes me wish I bought a Holiday Moon tee.

 

In the bottle, GREEEEEEEN! Like...sparkly, citrus-y HI I'M HERE sort of green.

 

Wet, Mmmmm...a burst of tea and more green with lots of zesty and happy notes. There's something in there that is reminiscent and familiar. I don't know what it is but it's very lovely.

 

Drying down, it smells a bit floral but still lively and fresh. I keep getting flashbacks to my childhood days when I got to play hide and seek in the bamboo patch in my godparents' backyard. I think that reminiscent scent is bamboo. And it smells so good on me. It almost makes me wish I bought a second bottle. I think I'll just scoop up a few more imps since this is definately one of my favorite scents!

[SoapyRN]

Not much more I can add other than kicking myself in the ass for not getting a second bottle!

 

Perfectly blended green tea with bright notes of citrus and fruit. Only think green fruits, cucumbers and cool melon?

 

Faded a bit fast but I might not have put enough on.

 

Great bottle Macha! Beautiful festive scent.

 

Off to the swaps to hopefully get a bottle for my sister now.

[Alchemy21599]

In the bottle: scrumptious green tea.

 

Wet: Green tea and a deeper spicey scent. Perhaps the oude?

 

Dry: Green tea rounded off by a hint of spice. Moderate throw. Gorgeous!

 

I join the others who wish they had ordered a second bottle...or more!

[pranashakti]

On first application this is a touch sharp with a strong citrus-ish top note. The sharp goes poof but the citrus-ish sticks around. I completely agree with everone who has said this is green. Living, joyous green - not leaves, per se, or a plant. It's the kind of complex, delicious green smell you get when winter has started to pass and all the plants at once realize that it's time to wake up and be again.

 

I'm thinking it's the oude that gives this a little roundness and its depth...kind of like a trellis you train vines to grow on. Stabilty and shape for the riot greenery. As this wears it warms and softens and the citrus does finally go. Even at this stage it's a very present scent with more throw than I expected - a little goes a long way.

 

A very alive, joyous, unique and present scent. It's like nothing else I own and I really, really dig it. It's just what I needed today and I wish the bottle was bigger so I could give it a big squish (and of course, to have more oil).

[oakmoss]

Fresh green notes don't really suit me, but I have to buy all the Lunacies because, well, because I'm obsessive and so are you, don't try to deny it. So I opened this bottle not expecting it to work for me, and..... on first whiff, tears came to my eyes. Completely unexpected reaction. A sense of peace and a strong feeling of Tea Mind came over me, centering me in the stillness of the moment, so that everything was suddenly very acutely present. Slight scent of lemon, now shading into green tea scent, water running softly through a bamboo pipe into a stone basin, one single song of a bird, repeated after a silence......

[coulrophobe]

In the bottle: Very light, crisp, green; not as heavy on the green tea as I thought it would be.

 

On: I do smell more lemony green tea now, but it's not overpowering the other notes. There's something very watery smelling lurking underneath that stops short of being actually aquatic.

 

I'm usually not a huge fan of green scents - they tend to be a bit sharp on me, and I don't normally like reeking of vegetation. But this is quite different. It's like fresh, warm rain on spring foliage, and there's enough sweetness to suggest florals to me, rather than a truly "green" scent.

 

Most of the Lunacies work well on me, and Holiday Moon is no exception. This pleases me greatly.

[jasper17]

In the bottle, I get tea and citrus - very light and fresh. A very unusual scent.

 

First applied, it is very stong, very citrusy and the tea is evident. I'm not sure my skin likes this very much at this point.

 

After about an hour, it's mostly citrus with a little of something woody underneath - while it was really strong before, at this point, it's started to calm down and be very clean and warm and green. I like this stage a lot.

 

After about 3 hours, it's a slightly citrusy scent with something powdery beneath it.

 

Not sure about this one yet. I'm hoping that maybe the Aizen-Myoo that was lingering from this morning was interfering with the actual scent of Holiday Moon. I really like it but I'm not sure I can handle it enough to get past the very strong, almost overpowering scent when it's first on.

 

Back when I do a do-over.

[Brienze]

Several people on the first page compared this to Spirits of the Dead, and even though I got both bottles today as well, I figured it might be useful to compare Holiday Moon to Neo-Tokyo instead. I used to think N-T was one of my favorite scents, but Holiday Moon knocks it right out of the park!

 

Wet: bright green bamboo; in-your-face in a happy, non-threatening "look at me! look at me!" sort of way. N-T is the shy younger sister in comparison, even with the sharpness of ozone added.

 

On, 5-20 mins: The top notes (brightness and clarity of the scent, to me) stick around for a good 20 minutes on Holiday Moon. In comparison, N-T very quickly loses those top notes and the ozone and aquatic give way to the floral that's in N-T but absent in Holiday.

 

30 mins: for about 5 or 10 minutes there the scent turned a bit earthy; I think that was the oude. It went back into hiding pretty quickly, though.

 

1 hr: Holiday has softened, it's very slightly powdery (VERY slightly... I argued with myself for awhile about whether it was powdery at all, but finally had to conceed that it is, just a bit) but not at all perfumey. The tea has come out and partially hidden the bamboo. N-T by this point is both powdery and perfumey... not to the point that I can't wear it, but I loved N-T for the top notes.

 

2.5 hrs: Sniffing my Holiday'd wrist just gets a bit of lingering, powdery aftereffects. Ditto the N-T wrist, only more powdery, with more perfumey tossed in. The amazing thing though is that as I move around, I'm still catching waft from Holiday, even though I can't smell it much on my wrist anymore. It's not quite as bright and green as when freshly-applied, but the waft, even this much later, is closer to the wet scent than the closely-sniffed drydown. I heartily approve!

 

Other comments: I never got lemon from this, or aquatic (and I loves me my aquatics, so I was looking for em), or floral, though I will admit it's a sweet green scent -- not astringent like medicinal herbs, or sharp like Mediterranean herbs, so it definitely has sweetness coming from somewhere. Maybe bamboo is just like that. I have to admit; I reapplied so I could smell the top notes again. Not sure how long the waftyness (is that a word? is now!) might last, since wrist-sniffing isn't an accurate gauge in this case. It's at least 4.5 hrs on me though.

 

Summary: it's bright, it's green, it's sweetish, and it doesn't go funky-powdery or perfumey in the drydown. It has surprising waft.

 

Rating: 5 out of 5 from me, and I'm a picky bitch so it really earned its rating. I wish I'd ordered more than one bottle!

 

BTW - If you're scared of all this talk of "green", don't be. It's nothing like Envy. Besides Neo-Tokyo, I'd liken it to The Dormouse -- Holiday is getting sweetness from bamboo instead of peony, but they're both in the same "range", I think, in terms of strength and degree of sweetness.

[gingersnapp]

This is spring in a bottle. And I look out my window at the snow / rain mix and want to cry.

 

It goes on very strong... a brisk tea scent with an underlying spiciness. As it dries, it mellows considerably and also gets quite creamy. It's green and herbal and bright and yet soothing at the same time. Very beautiful, very spring.

[Tramp]

Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!

 

In the bottle this is one of my favorite scents ever. Zesty lemon sweet over clean, fresh-cut bamboo. Wonderful. On - about the same. For 5 minutes. Then it turns into cucumber. DAMMIT! Horrible, almost fabric softeneresque cucumber. Am so sad. Am going to try this out in a scent locket type thing and see if that keeps my skin from turning a delicious blend into a salad scented dryer sheet from hell.

 

Rating (Out of 5)

in the bottle - 5

on my skin - 0

[Diana]

In the bottle, it is kind of ozoney and wierd. I can't really smell it too well.

 

On the skin, it is bright and zesty, but there's almost something bitter in the background. I wonder if this is the Oude? I don't even know what it is. I saw it in the description and thought "oude? huh? whatever. *click*." It's almost like the pithy part of a lemon rind.

 

Initial drydown: wow. OZONE. I tend to shy away from ozone notes because they often smell like airfreshners to me. The scent overall is a greenish yellow cacophony.

 

More dry: The ozone is actually nice at this stage. It's like fresh air rather than artificial room spray. The citrus notes have died down significantly. I wonder if the green note I'm getting now is the bamboo or green tea. It doesn't smell like TEA tea like Severin. This is very clean & fresh & spring-like.

 

Not my typical choice of scent, but I like it. =)

[AliBabble]

i really love this. at first, i get a great dose of citrus - specifically grapefruit, maybe tangerine or even kumquat! wow - i love this. although this is a lunar oil, it makes me thing of sunlight - dappled sunlight on big dark green leaves. anyway, as it dries, i get more bamboo and tea...very cooling and refreshing..i don't find it overly perfume-y as some have mentioned, just very...watery and moist? like the wet inner bamboo, or a lovely pool with lily pads, or something. it's tranquil, but bright and energizing at the same time. uplifting, but not hyper. beauteous. oh and the oude - if i'm perceiving it, is a very, very subtle woody-spiciness i get at the end, but not dark at all...it just gives the scent a little more depth...

[sophia_helix]

....damnit.

 

I was really holding out hope on this one. No strongly tea-scented oil has ever worked for me (Embalming Fluid, Spirits of the Dead, etc.), because they all go yucky lemon. This was fresh and woody, though, and even the hint of citrus sneaking in was still nice enough. It was like...a slightly lemon-scented rainfall, cool and lovely.

 

Then it dried down, faded out, and started to get that drugstore perfume aspect that so many of the clean/fresh scents do to me, where it's a completely indistinct, yet cloying smell. GRAH.

 

I will try it again. Maybe burn it, maybe try a locket. But I repeat: GRAH.

[Phaedra]

Wet this is sweet green tea mixed with fresh aquatics. When first on this is freshly cut zingy citrus. Very clean and refreshing. It starts to smell a bit like- air freshener? After about 30 minutes it softens and becomes powdery and dusty. It doesn't change much after that. The main reason I got this was for the oude (which is one of my favorite notes) and I can't smell it at all in this blend. This isn't the oude I know and love which is very strong and woody. Holiday Moon smells how I expected it would- green, aquatic, sharp and citrusy. This isn't really my type of scent. I think it would be good for springtime though for people who like this category of scent. I do hope that Beth does more dark and exotic blends with oude in the future.

[crescentwench]

In the bottle: nice and green, w/an underlying warmth to it. kinda smells like a soap i had once.

 

On me: still green, but more soapy smelling. the warmth is still there. there is definately some citrus to it, but some green teas can be more citrusy, so maybe that's it. I wonder the warmth is the oude or the white tea, having never worn a perfume w/either. I think i'll keep it around for summer, when it would be nice and refreshing. It's a little to aquatic for me to wear now. I do wonder what that warmth smell is, because i love that more than the top notes in this one. Perhaps i'll experiment w/some aging.

 

overall: about a 3 on a 1-5 scale. nice, but not an everyday scent for me.

[perclexed]

In the imp: Apple cider with a kick. Yeah, don't ask me. I got nothing.

 

Wet: Lemon pledge with an aquatic undernote.

 

Drying: Green tea with lemon. How very strange. (This part was written before I found the description on the forum.)

 

Dry: Spicy green tea. Like it got jumped by some cider and mugged by wasabi.

 

After 45 min: See, now, this is what green tea should smell like. This is the best tea based scent I've come across in BPAL to date. It's lovely, and warm, and with a bit of sweet, woodsy yumminess to it that makes me want to purr. Or hug a panda. Maybe hug a purring panda?

 

Final thoughts: Smashing! Light and just amazing. I would use this while meditating, or when I would need to bring a sense of peace to my life. It brings to mind meditating in one of those japanese stone structures in front of an exquisitely architected garden, that contains a lovely and well manicured koi pond. With a bridge. And possibly an enormous bell someplace. And lots of delicate, well formed plants. Without insects (except a lazily circling dragonfly), and the only sound is of your own breathing, a light breeze and possibly a blorp or blurp or two from the koi. In the pond. With the bridge over it.

 

I'm so stinkin' glad I have a bottle of this. Woot!

[amrita]

Wet, this is exceedingly "fresh"-- It reminds me of fresh scented soap.

 

Drying, this is primarily green tea (reminds me of the particular flavor/smell of green tea icecreams), and a grassy-greenery smell. I am curious to see how this will develop, since it's starting to go soapy, but is still tolerable.

 

Crap... twenty minutes later, this is still so soapy-clean, but now I detect something warm and woody-sweet underneath. It's very light and has no throw on me right now.

 

I tried this again on a different day, and instead of liking it more as I expected to, I liked it less--it seemed even more soapy. I think this is a bad body chemistry issue, especially because I don't get a lot of the complexity that other people seem to get. Sigh...

[darkling]

In the bottle and on my skin, this is a soft green scent. The bamboo note is prominent with a hint of tea underneath.

 

It has almost no throw and doesn't last very long but it is lovely springtime scent.

[ladytaga]

I just got an imp of this..I need to buy it..

It reminds me of June Gloom with less vanilla..(if that makes sense june gloom would dry down to a vanilla scent on me)

In the bottle it is more melon but once it is on for a bit it gets a little lemony.

I love it now I must get a 5ml

 

edited to say....

It turns powdery after a an hour or so...I am going to try to blend this with either june gloom or banshee and hope it stays a little while..

Edited January 24, 2006 by ladytaga