Harvest Moon 2006

[jewelbug]

... This Harvest Moon oil is a merging of autumnal scents from all over the globe: chrysanthemum, pomegranate, cane sugar and dusty wheat, sorghum, green tea leaf, rice flower and rice milk, Russian sage, bamboo shoot, elderberry, black cherry, wild plum, red haw, hazelnut, red apple and shagbark hickory.

Bottle: Gentle bright apple fruity scent with a red berry sort of scent, maybe pomegranate?

Wet: Grassy apples and pomegranate with some green florals.

Drying: Red fruits, very winey, actually, with dry grasses and autumnal florals, I get hints of wood and nuts. As it dries I get the same fruity/winey autumnal florals with occasional wafts of woods and a slight creamy nuttiness.

Overall: This is pretty, but I never wear it, so I think I'll find it a more loving home.

[tartchef]

Nyom.

Take the best parts of Samhain & Tamamo-no-mae & you've got HM 2006...Wet, there's crisp, green apple (despite what the description says, this is green, not red, to my nose) & the heavenly combination of Beth's green tea & bamboo notes - fresh & tart & greenygreengreen Left to dry a bit, the pom & elderberry peek out, juicy & a bit thicker than just the apple, and there's that lingering pale sweetness I recognize as rice flower. After an hour or so, the fresh greenness fades & the sage suddenly pops, along with spicy mums & the scent of old, dry wood.

 

Super delicious!

Edited October 29, 2008 by Shollin
Removed Lab description --Shollin

[caitilarkin]

In the imp: Deeply fruity, earthy and green

 

Wet on skin: This brightens up on my skin. I can pick out the berries and the cherry, which are backed by a dry wheat-y note.

 

Morphing: Something shrill and herbal this way comes...Checking the notes, I see that this blend contains sage, my sworn enemy. Sure enough, the sage has launched into its traditional war dance on my skin.

 

Dry on skin: Sage did its level best to lay waste to Harvest Moon, but the fruit notes are valiantly persevering. Eventually, it dies down to a pleasant, grainy floral that lasts about three hours.

[zankoku_zen]

Oh man, Harvest Moon 2006 is super yummy.

 

And it kinda reminds me to Mabon. I think it's the sweet berry/apple spice thing it has going on, with a woodsy background. Definitely spicier on the drydown though. It's got other stuff in it, so it makes it, in my mind, a variation of Mabon.

 

But yes, I can see the comparisons to Samhain also being made.

[asciident]

Wet: All fruit! Plum is taking over.

 

First on: Same on my skin.

 

Dry: It's suddenly gone really sour. Too bad.

[fairnymph]

Sniffed: Bright golden oil. Sweet, smoky, woody, herbal, fruity, and rather intense. Sage (a strong, almost medicinal type), hickory wood (not unlike oak, but smokier and darker), pomegranate, black cherry, apple and elderberry.

 

Wet: Spicy, smoky apples. Crisp, tart and juicy apple note as in many autumnal scents., the other fruit holds. Woodfire-bbq. Sort of nutty, not the hazelnut (which I can't detect), but the sorghum and wheat. I get the heady richness of rice flower, but not rice milk.

 

Dry: Apples fading, as usual, but pomegranate is still very strong as well as the now-apparent wild plum (a la Kitsune-Tsuki), then black cherry, and faintly the elderberry. It has an brambly dark fruit vibe, now. I also get some cinnamon - quite spicy.

 

Later: The apple has actually morphed into a baked apple or pear scent, odd. The sage has amped even further, and is really harsh, almost bitter - it reminds me of the sage note in The Agony of Heartache. Masculine, especially combined with the ashy hickory.

 

Summary: Cinnamon-spiced, hickory-smoked baked apples with strong, medicinal sage. I get a little bit of other dark fruits and sorghum, along with some almost-creamy rice flower, but only if I sniff closely. The other notes are totally overwhelmed. Strong throw, great lasting power.

[jwhxtna]

IN THE IMP: Woah, hello there, that's a lot of notes. Everything just seems to mash together, so it's hard to pick out any one particular note. It kind of reminds me of Hanging Gardens and Fruit Moon in that sense, but with more florals and greenness. It's somehow green, fruity, and floral at the same time, and gives off a slightly Asian vibe.

 

WET: The top note is a fruit, I think plum, and maybe some pomegranate. Still very green and fresh.

 

DRY: Green and lush, though less so than before, and the fruity notes fade to the background.

[Dragon0514]

Out of the bottle it already smells like Fall to me. After wearing it for a bit It becomes a beautiful mix of fruit and sage with a light under current of the smell of dry hay. I'm in love already. So glad I found a bottle of this one.

[Monster]

I'm going through my box of BPAL and reviewing scents I haven't...for future reference and all that (some of these have actually gone unsniffed since I purchased them! Yikes!)

 

This definitely smells like fall..but more of an early fall/late summer scent. Harvest Moon 2008 smells like mid-fall (not too much later but definitely later in the season copared to '06)

 

This is a dusty wheat/milk scent on me with a few crushed herbs in the mix. The apple in this is what really makes this scream "AUTUMN!" This smells like a farm, hay, wheat, apples and milk. Very pretty!

 

Compared to the other Harvest Moons, this would be my second favorite (was never a fan of HM '04 or '05...they smelled relaly "plasticy" to me).

[thekittenkat]

In the bottle: I'm getting a lot of the tea leaf, some of the mum, the sweetness of the sugar, and underneath there's the cherry and the apple. A bit like a very sweet tea that has elements of apple cider in it.

 

Wet: My goodness, but this is lovely! It really smells of autumn to me, up in the north Georgia mountains, in some of the valleys yet not built up. It's very well blended.

 

The dry-down: Still lots of tea leaf and apple, but the sweet sugar is keeping this mellow. There's hints of wheat and sage, and some creamy note, which must be the rice milk, down at the base. The florals seemed to have blended together. I'm not really getting any hazelnut, which is fine with me. Sadly enough, it's fading away a bit, so I'm thinking scent locket on this lovely oil. The bottle art is rather fantastic!

[Aldercy]

Tea (more black than green to me) and plum mostly (yum), with chrysanthemum and sage starting to come out in the drydown. There's also something that strikes me as glassy acai berry (perhaps the elderberry is responsible? or even the pomegranate? or maybe just the whole concoction of fruits).

 

This is very different from my other autumnal scents, but still notably autumnal. Actually, it smells like what I imagine autumn might smell like in a completely foreign country-- same cool, breezy feeling, but with a different assortment of native plants. It's sweet and chilly. Nice.

[darab]

This makes me think of the very beginning of fall. The fields are being harvested and the fruit is ripe on the trees.

The smell of juicy pomegranates and apples are very strong while this is wet. Once it starts to dry, it developes a wheat/ straw smell that some may think smells like an old woman’s perfume, but it makes me think of a hay loft full of hay bales.

[Invidiana]

I would describe this as a reddish-purplish autumn scent with flashes of gold; spicy dark fruits--the pomegranate, elderberry, black cherry, plum and apple--all blended togethe with spices with just a tad of dryness from the wheat, sorghum, tea leaf, sage and bamboo. The hazelnut, shagbark and hickory add a rich nutty and woody undertone for the finishing touch. A very deep, rich and complex autumn scent that is also deliciously sensual!

[heathercaley]

I am so jazzed to have a whole decant of this beauty all to myself!!

 

Once applied, I get apples! Yummy juicy sweet and sugary apples. There's a touch of mummy floral and the creamy rice is there as well... making it...erm.. creamy!! I've noticed that pomegranate has a sort of bitter edge to it, and so it makes it easy to pick it out and say "why hallo there pom!" but that sugary tea is settling it down.

 

This is absolutely delightful and I'd want to own a bottle of this. I'd wear it year round. It's just that kind of beautiful!

[reynardine]

Rich scent in the bottle, but wet, the Chrysanthemum is almost piercing. Starts to settle down pretty quickly, though. The sage is quite distinctive. Hoping that settles down as well, as I was looking for the fruits in this one. Ah, there they are. Quite the morpher, this scent. It was for a July moon, but this scream autumn to me—September or October (at least in the climate where I live). Finally develops into the rich scent I first caught in the bottle, reminding me of woods and fields, with very ripe fruit.

[thebirdofhermes]

Bottle: All juicy apple with a hint of mulling spices. Rather like a nice frosted mug of apple cider. Smells very drinkable.

 

Wet: More juicy apple, but the spices are a fair bit stronger now. Still very much a spiced apple cider type of scent. I don't think it's quite red apple... definitely seems to be a different sort of scent than the Red McIntosh apple I was expecting. Perhaps a different variety, then. Definitely not a green variety, though. Too sweet and not tart enough for that.

 

Dry: The apple is all gone! Oh no! Well, wait... it might be sitting in the background behind everything else, since there's still something suggesting apple to me. Perhaps not a bitten into apple, but rather a crate of fresh picked apples... lightly apple-y, but somewhat waxy too because the skins are intact. The sage, green tea leaf, and bamboo are making for a green tinge to the earthiness of the wheat and sorghum, although again it is a suggestion of that than any distinct note. No, the distinct part now is the hazelnut and hickory, making a nutty woody dominance. There's the hint of something spicy still, though I can't quite put my finger on it. It's almost more of a room scent than a body scent... but backs off before crossing that line.

 

I do wish the other fruity notes would come out and play, but I am keeping in mind that this scent is nearing four years old and that fruit notes do tend to be the first ones to go. It is quite good, I will give it that... but it's also not one I see myself wearing much of right now. It really feels more like autumn to me. (Which, in a way, is odd for me to say, as I don't generally perceive scents as being so specific to a season that I don't want to wear them at any other time... even if they were crafted with a particular season in mind.) In a way, it reminds me of Summer's Last Will and Testament, although more that, if Summer's Last Will is early autumn, then this is later on, after the summer's heat is little more than a memory. Not as dusky warm a scent; while there is a warmth to it, it's more the warmth of a fire staving off the chill of encroaching winter.

 

The more I let it sit, the more the interplay of the notes change. In the time it took me to type up this review, the sugar cane came out and began to sweeten things up a little. The apple seems to be peeking out a bit more, but it's still quite hidden. On me, at the least, Harvest Moon is quite the morpher. Still not sure I like him for spring/summer wear, but I predict he'll get a lot of use come autumn.

[whisperstilled]

In Imp: Plum, green bamboo and tea, a brush of pomegranate. I get the feeling of the other notes beneath the fruity tea aspect, and they support it and lift it up in a really nice way, but this is one well-blended scent. It's hard to pick out specific notes.

 

Wet: Surprisingly soft on the skin for the fruity sweetness in the decant. There is definitely apple in there, which is dominating the other fruit notes.

 

Dry: There's something intruigingly foody under the apple, something almost like a baked good. All in all this is a light scent with short throw, but it's really well-blended and pleasant. I'll be keeping my decant even if I don't need a big bottle. 3/5

[tiensou]

Sniff: Medicinal, like cough sweets (that must be the sage). also, a hint of woodiness underneath, like leaf matter, (probably the hickory). Kind of fruity, but not identifiable as of yet. I was surprised how much it smelt like cough sweets (in a really nice way, given that I hate medicial smells).

 

First on: The sage smells goes within seconds, and it's already going more fruity/musky. I know alot of people raved about the apple, but I'm not getting much of it (although, this is 4 years old now!) dusty, spicy leaves are stronger now, and the pomegranate and chrysanthemum are coming through. Very late september/october-y.

 

Half an hour later: Oh wow! I was wandering around tescos with my nose pressed to my wrists! Now very fruity, with the apples (dusty red, not green!) coming out strong with hazelnut, sugar and a little musky kind of smell. Also quite plummy.

 

Dry down: Very creamy, smells like sugary milk, wheat and rice flowers. Gorgeous!

 

Overall impression: Not what I expected it to be! Also a very changable scent, it smelt like a completely different perfume by the end, rather than just a perfume changed by the body. I did expect more apple and fruit, and was a little dissapointed by how herbal it was (the dangers of buying on the internet) but after wearing this, I really enjoyed the herbal-ness at the beginning, mellowing out into fruit, and then creaminess. A really lovely lovely scent. I've been wearing it non-stop for a few days now. A happy surprise!

Edited October 31, 2010 by tiensou

[Gin]

This is pretty much the Harvest Moon of my imagination. Sweet apple, leaves, spices. It smells like a restrained Samhain. I'd like a stronger black cherry-plum-apple presence, but I think I might miss out on the spicy-floral mums that are anchoring it. This is really nice, I'm glad I got a bottle.

[LizziesLuck]

Harvest Moons 05 and 06 are two of my all-time fall favourites. They're a bit similar, but there are differences for sure. To me, 06 seems to have a hint of spiciness to it. I also happen to adore the label art on 06. Fall in a bottle!

[lizabelle]

I really shouldn't have looked at some of the older moon scents, for my wallet's sake, but I did. And I saw "chrysanthemum" in the notes, and I jumped. I adore chrysanthemums. This starts out bursting with red fruit, which is actually amazing--the pomegranate and berries blend together perfectly and there's the slightest whiff of a mum to ground them a little. As it develops the sorghum and hickory develop into a deep, warm base, and there's some creaminess from the rice notes. There's definitely some herbs lurking in the background, as well as tea and bamboo, and it all blends together into the most gorgeous, harmonious early-fall scent. It's almost apple-cidery from a distance, which honestly just adds to my love for it.