Schwarzer Mond

[hologhost]

The keeper of secrets: opoponax, Tunisian black amber, night musk, antique patchouli, zdravetz, terebinth, myrrh, and Pimenta racemosa.

I confess, my nose palate is not up to this. I smell patchouli and myrrh. Initially, it's sweet and spicy. I catch a note of somethng I can't identify, but I noticed it in Doc Constantine.

I this. I know it's not supposed to be a female scent, but I really, really love it. Edited October 24, 2006 by Shollin

[finecurvedhips]

i worked hard to get a decant of this one - i was so bummed i couldn't afford to grab it when it was up on the site.

 

in the imp: hrm...very...not-your-typical-moon. well, the moons i've had, anyways. very strong to my nose, though i can't pick notes out if my life depended on it.

 

wet: uhoh...something doesn't like me at all.

 

dry: this smells like bad men's cologne on me.

 

not a keeper for me. *sobs*

[PilotKitten]

Don't love this one that much... lol. It sounded like it would be really masculine and it is.

[Melantha]

Oh, would that I had ordered more than one bottle!

 

I loves me some patchouli, and the notes I recognized in this sounded great. I figured that the ones I didn't know probably would work, and they did.

 

Patchouli is definitely the strongest note here, but the musk tones it down, and I get wafts of the other notes. It stays very true on me; doesn't morph so much as soften into a halo of scent that surprises me as I move.

 

Lovely.

[Athena's Owl]

colour: deep ruby-brown. it' looks like maple syrup.

 

imp: wtf? is that? I smell MINT? MINT? have i gone insane? I also smell wood, of some kind, and something that makes me think specifically of orientique ( I think only the canadians will grok that.)

 

wait a second. That's patchouli. isn't it? that's the first time I've smelled what I recognize as patchouli, in the bottle. must not rush this. must not slather. must sniff.

 

I get a hint of something like a sweet resin. I don't think it's amber, but sweet resin. so. mint. wood. patchouli. resin.

 

onward.

 

Wet: oh what's that? some kind of dried herb, something from the spice cabinet that reminds me of clove (please, no) something peppery. where did the patchouli go? I smelled it in the bottle, why not now? no, all i'm getting is that clove-like smell. not the flashback to the dentist's office trauma that was uranus for me, but still...

 

patchouli? come back!

 

maybe that's myrrh I smell, and not clove. it's not making the sides of my tongue curl the way clove does. but get this - when I move my wrist away, I get that orientique smell - not just the pathcouli but the incense and more specifically the PAPER shipments came packed in...

 

I know it's starting to dry aleady but the very highest note is something clean and cobweb clearing to smell. with the feel of mint, but not mint. somebody tell me what that is, I'm baffled.

 

and intrigued.

 

(partway into waiting for 20 minutes after smelling the "wet" stage) that high note is like something from my grandpa's medicine cabinet. but I don't know what. something really old-fashioned from that early to middle 20th century vibe, but with a twist. My grandfather used hair dress... you know how george clooney insisted on Dapper Dan in O Brother, Where Art Thou? like that, but marketed specifically to black men. and shaving soap, and carter's liver pills, and mysterious bottles of things. whatever this note is, it's making me think about pulling everything out of the medicne cabinet, and putting it all back. but I don't remember what in there smelled like this.)

 

20 minutes: back to that something peppery. (Patchouli? where did you go? Resins? hello?) and the sweet mysterious I remember this smell.

 

but take my wrist away to type and I get wood. a tiny sliver of wood. almost piney, something with turpinol, something that I want to call anise but I know its' not anise. and it's not fennel. but that sort of a licorice sort of vibe. like some kind of an herbal tincture. Medicine. I smell medicine.

 

I think that this imp is going to have to age before I try it again. it's so evocative, and just... so bizarre.

[TrailerTrashPrincess]

i've tried this three times now, and last night i put it away in the bottom drawer of the BPAL cabinet to age.... to see if i forget about it for awhile, will it get better...

 

all i got was cherry/almond and raw fish.

the smell changed, on skin, after awhile to a tin of smoked oysters and then still with the cherries on the side.

 

so if anyone else happens to get a Sushi note out of thise... you're in good company.

 

ADDED 11/18/07:

 

so i ordered this when it was up on the site, and the day the package came in the mail i opened this bottle, sniffed it - and thought it was one of the worst things i'd ever smelled. i remember thinking it smelled like Worcestershire sauce (=awful. like fermented fish) and not understanding why everyone loved it.

so i closed the bottle and haven't opened it again until today.

 

sniffed from the bottle: i really can't smell much of anything

on skin after an hour (because i forgot to sniff it sooner): sweet resin-y dark amber, sweet sandalwood and maybe the eensiest bit of either "cola" or black patchouli.

no anchovies, thankfully

 

most of all, i have to smoosh my nose against my arm to smell this at all. if it was a GC, i'd probably wear it (after the Worcestershire sauce part aged away), but it isn't... i like the smell, but it is much too faint for me to rationalize the slather it'd need.

maybe i'll put it on the boy for our wedding.

[ViolentKitten]

SM is nice, but I was hoping for some more complexity on my skin, it's mostly spicy powdery patchouli. There is a slightly soft sweet powder note which I think is coming from the opoponax and I’m getting a tiny touch of amber, myrrh and musk and maybe some other stuff going on way in the backgroud, but they can’t make their way out to mix in. Mr Patchouli is just so strong here and the other notes are amping it up and making it too powdery. I kind of like it, but I don’t think it’s one I’d wear right now. Definitely one to age though, I’m looking forward to seeing how mellows and how those other notes mix in.

[ariedana]

This is the one scent I fully expected to hate or for it to hate me. The opposite happened when I got my decant -- it's in love with my skin. Thank God I found a bottle!

 

In Bottle: Very dark and complex, and if I'd just gone on that scent without putting it on my skin, I wouldn't have even tried my decant. The patchouli jumps out, and it tends to hate me.

 

On Skin: WOW! Such a dark, delicious blend. My friend Dorei called it "Spicy Dr. Pepper" and I agree -- it's spicy and fresh and almost a bit bubbly. The patchouli stays nicely in the background, thank goodness.

 

Drydown: It morphs a fair amount, but it disappears a little more quickly than I'd like. Damn scent-gobbling skin.

 

Throw: Fair to middlin'. This is one I'd like to try for, ehm, intimate occasions, because I have a feeling it would be seductive up close.

 

Overall, this is true love for me. Now I need a boy to test this on...

[Dinah]

Thanks to the lovely The_Witching_Hour, who generously gave me a sniffie of this!

 

When wet this is sweet, syrupy and resiny, though with a slightly sharp note that reminds me of medicine (though not unpleasalntly so). As it dries that sharp note disappears more and more, the scent mellows out and gets wonderful round and well-blended.

 

It's not something I'd wear often because it is just too resinous-sweet (I'm more a foodie-sweet person) but it's very complex and intriguing and I'm glad I got to try it.

[em_h]

Ooh, spicy resiny goodness yes! This is just one of my perfect scents, and I only regret that I didn't order more of it. Rich and sweet and dark and complex, lovely. Straight to the top ten.

 

ETA: My gosh, the drydown is even better, so sweet and thick and haunting. I LOVE this scent.

 

I did learn that I have to be careful re: the throw, which is intense. People two rows back in the theatre last night were teasing me about my perfume, and I had to go to the bathroom and scrub some of it off. But just as well it's strong, because I'm going to have to ration what I have ever so carefully.

Edited November 12, 2006 by em_h

[myoubi]

IN BOTTLE AND WET ON SKIN: Spicy resiny dark. H'mm.. I don't usually love scents this dark. It doesn't seem distinctly masculine to me, but it's definately not femme-y. We'll see.

 

[NB: while it was drying my roommate -- who is normally indulgently indifferent to my smellies -- sniffed, said 'mm! I really like that!' and glued her nose to my wrist for about fifteen seconds. This is the first time she's actually expressed an opinion, other than a nod-and-smile 'that's nice'...

 

DRYDOWN: quite sweet on me! maybe it's my skin chemistry, everything comes out too sweet on me; I wonder what this would be like on a fellow. This actually kind of remidns me of the drydown of Freak Show, which I already have a bottle of.

 

 

EDITED A SECOND TIME: I picked up another bottle of this on a whim. If I give it an hour or so, it dries down to a resiny softness that I actually quite like -- and it didn't go supersweet on me this time around. I could go either way, but now that I've got another bottle I'll keep it I think.

Edited January 13, 2007 by myoubi

[Eros]

In the imp there's something of a Coca Cola thing going on, the sweetness of it, mostly. On skin it becomes a thick, sweet, earthy resin, more masculine than fem. As it dries the scent deepens, then lightens, going from less masculine to back again. It only gets better as the minutes tick by and in the end, it's a gorgeous, syrupy resin, slightly smoky with a touch of what comes through as a light, sweet vanilla. Stays teasingly close to the skin. A wonderfully dark, seductive blend =)

Haven't tried this on the man yet but I imagine it'll be even more beautiful on him.

Might have to jump on the next bottle that comes along looking for a new home since I decided to be lame and not order one :/

 

Brian, beautifully done!

[sophia_helix]

At first it's the oily, spicy musk of Smut, but as it dries it softens and becomes more golden. I can pick out amber and patchouli for sure, and a hint of what I think must be myrrh, given that it's got that same "cola" note as Voodoo did. It's sweet, rich, and lovely, and I'm quite surprised that this is Brian's creation because ordinarily I'd say this has Beth all over it. (Although... I guess the same might be said of Brian. *ducks*)

 

Anyhow, it's quite delicious, and a nice counterpoint to the cool, heady florals of Black Moon. I like this type of resinous skin scent, so my imp is a keeper for sure

[Miss Lynx]

It's strange -- I've had this scent for almost three weeks now, and worn it several times, but am only just now posting a review... I really like it, but it's hard to describe, and every time I've sat down to try and write about, I don't seem to be able to come up with the right words.

 

Schwarzer Mond is a really fascinating scent. Heavy, resinous, dark, incensey and musky... It's intense and powerful, sometimes a little too much so. It needs to be applied fairly sparingly, which considering its cost and scarcity, is probably a good thing.

 

The images and impressions it brings to my mind vary considerably from moment to moment. At times it has very much a sort of church incense feel, and at other times smells more like something you would use to summon demons or communicate with the dead. Sometimes it's kind of masculine, veering almost a little too close to the "Hi! I'm a men's scent!" territory, but other times it seems sweet and almost feminine, albeit not conventionally so -- a Dark Goddess kind of scent.

 

There are echoes of Al Azif, The Pit & the Pendulum and other similar scents, but I think what it reminds me of more than anything is a darker, more complex Fenris Wolf. And since I very much like Fenris Wolf, that's a very good thing. Overall, through all its changes, it's dark and heady, mysterious and complex. And absolutely gorgeous.

 

Grade: A

[luna65]

Thanks to Blood onmy hands and princessbeena for the decants.

 

Decant: It's interesting that the Pimenta racemosa would cause this blend to have an effervescent quality, as others have noted, like sarsaparilla. I'm guessing that the sharpness has to do with it not being tempered by any other notes, as Bay Rum normally is in a blend. But it's not sharp in a headache-inducing way, at least not with me, just that nose-crinkling sense of "ooh fizzy!"

 

Skin: Maybe it's just my quirk, but I love the weight of this oil, how thick is it when you apply it. . .like syrup. And there's a syrupy quality to the way it evolves as well, little by little, although the Pimenta racemosa burns off fairly quickly upon application. Resinous scents tend to have a "weight" to them as well, which I attribute to the opponax, terebinth, and myrrh.

 

Drydown: The fact that we've got the "dark side" of all these notes makes this blend potentially sweet, but it never quite reaches that point on me, there's always the weight of shadow pulling it back from the point of resolution. Even the zdravetz - I find it amusing that the one floral element is equally as dark as its' companions. I love the vibe of secretive mysterious occluded presence, the shadow which holds so much potential simply because it is a mystery. It's masculine, as it contains many notes traditional to male perfumery, and yet beyond that it's dark and therefore appropriate for anyone wishing to cloak themselves, so to speak.

 

Bravo Brian!

[emzebel]

Based on the notes...based on the reviews...I should love this. Love love love, I say.

 

So it is with great sadness that I report that on my skin, Schwarzer Mond smells like a resiny floral, similar to All Saints, perhaps a cousin to Al Azif, neither of which work on me in the slightest.

 

Pout.

[arabella]

First Impression: Resin and incense.

 

Dries down to: There's not much change.

 

Additional Comments: Another dark, heavy scent. Not bad but not really my cup of tea.

 

Lasted: 5-6 hours.

 

Rating: 2 out of 5

[Koumori]

PATCHOULI! But sweet, "thick" patchouli; I agree there's something cola-like and syrupy about this scent. The resins underneath peek through every so often to help cut the hippie associations, but patchouli is still the dominant note on me. It's a step up in sophistication from your basic head-shop patchouli, but it seems like you'd almost have to have an occasion to wear it. 3/5.

[Brianne]

In the bottle:

Smooth patchouli

 

On me:

The patchouli and myrrh are most evident to me right away - luckily, that patchouli is super smooth and keeps the myrrh from going into pencil shavings on my skin. This is a sweet resin - very incense like so anyone who is a fan of incense scents - this is for you with no doubt.

 

This is a little hard for me to describe because the scents all just kind of meld together to make a generally incensey scent on my skin. After a while, I can't even really specifically pick out the patchouli, it's all just melded together. The amber actually makes this a little powdery on me and definitely puts it on the sweeter side of the spectrum.

 

Final note:

I like this one, though it isn't a favorite. It's very resinous and a little sweet - I suspect that a lot of people who like things like Sugar Skull or Grog will be fond of this one.

[grrrlennyl]

at first: very strong, dark, and earthy, with a bit of sweetness.

on: patchouli with a lot of other dark notes and a hint of amber.

1.5 hours later: sweeter with something almost floral. still earthy.

5 hours later: very deep, earthy, and sweet. wonderful.

overall: this is nice, but i have other oils that are similar on me.

[grifyn_whiffs]

Because I LOVE Black Moon so much, I had to get a whiff of this one to see what the "other" interpretation would be.

 

The initial smells of pepper and licorice/anise excited me, as well as that deep resin-y COLA smell, as those are all notes I love. I have to admit, it was frighteningly pungent at first. Scary pungent. "Where's my wipie?" pungent. It kicked my ass.

 

When my husband sniffed, he said that it made him feel "challenged", i.e., he wanted to suddenly arm wrestle me. (Hmmm... maybe I should try it everywhere...) It would be a great scent on him actually. But he doesn't "do" smells on himself. If it's on him and it's not soap or shampoo, it's something that I transferred to him.

 

The patchouli kept amping, amping, amping... patchouli and I don't get along. And I think I conveniently ignored it in the notes ("oh, ANTIQUE patchouli... it should be fine then") to justify my HAVING to try this one. After about half an hour, it is smooth and boozy-caramel-y. It comes closest in my mind to Magus -- another "night at the library with the leather-bound books and midnight oil" smell.

 

I agree with a previous poster than when layered with Black Moon, it is something complicated and lovely, to the point of distraction (bravo!). But alas, Black Moon on its own is still one of my favorites. Schwarzer Mond is for someone a bit darker, resiny and herbally than myself.

 

I can see what my husband was saying though... it DOES make me feel a bit combative. But it's just not my thing.

[theseagrows]

this is dark and dry and resinous. i am getting a slight powdery thing, perhaps from the opoponax? this one sure is a morpher. one moment i sniff my arm and think 'eh this is ok, and too masculine.' the next 'ooh i think i might really like this!' so i dont know how i feel about it yet, and i may have to try it again. thankfully the patchouli is mellow and i am mostly getting the Opoponax, myrrh and amber. it reminds me a lot of a solid amber perfume i wore in high school, actually.

[kakiphony]

In the bottle: Patchouli is the top note, but there's something very sweet and resinous mingling with it. It hits me at the back of the throat as a sweetness much like good (unlit) pipe tobacco does. (Note: It doesn't smell like pipe tobacco, but the sweet quality is the same thick, resinous type of sweet.)

 

Wet on skin: Sweet patchouli. This is immediately even sweeter on my skin than it was in the bottle and has the deep, thick, sweetened molasses quality that my favorite patchoulis from the lab tend to develop on me.

 

Early dry down: This isn't developing into a particularly dark scent on me at all. Instead, I'm getting a very sweet patchouli with a little bit of bitter herbs underneath it. I'd say it's more playfully secretive than it is dark.

 

Late dry down: As this one lingers on my wrists the amber rises to the surface and the sweet patchouli ends up almost powdery. The aged patchouli is very mild, and has much less throw than the patchouli in my daily-wear bpal (Vixen). The overall scent in this seems to fade fairly quickly too. It's very pretty, but I imagine I'd need to keep an imp of it with me at all times for reapplication if I wanted to wear this frequently.

 

This reminds me of a small, smoky grey kitten that likes to hid under sofas and then jump out at random occasions and attack your ankles. It's sly and secretive, but also sweet and soft.

Edited January 30, 2007 by kakiphony

[lushlovely]

Weirdly enough, Schwarzer Mond smelled exactly as I expected it to smell, and I was afraid I might not like it. It reminded me of something right away, but it took me a while before it hit me that this is a perfect blend of LUSH's Red Rooster and Karma soaps. Not that it smells 'soapy', but it reminds me of an exact blend of them. So any fans of LUSH's now departed Red Rooster soap will love this, even though this doesn't even list cinnamon in the description. Very interesting scent, not sure it's me though.

[Kimocean]

Dark, deep gorgeous patchouli and rich opoponax. Gorgeous musk and a whole lot of other sexy things!

 

This one is strong and lasts and lasts on me. At first I thought it was too masculine but as it has aged it has softened a bit I've really come to love it. And as one fellow who was getting close to me said when I asked him if he thought it was too masculine, "You definitely don't smell like a dude." :-)