The Snow at Dusk

[absinthetics]

Swirled grey and purple in the gloaming: snowdrifts shadowed with opium tar, wild plum, Siamese benzoin, champaca resinoid, muguet, and carnation.

The snow in this is dry and dusty. There is no mint note, nor pine. It is a darkish scent, definitely purple. The champaca note is a bit bitter and I don't smell any of the carnation until the dry down. It's a little green and odd as it pops out with the wild plum and opium tar.

[Hystrixia]

In the Bottle: The Snow at Dusk is a soft yellow oil that smells richly of cool plum, sweet opium, and lily of the valley with just a nip of carnation. It's a bit hard for me to describe what it smells like as it's so well blended.

Top Notes: Fresh on my wrist, a sticky-sweet combination wild plum, opium tar, and benzoin is dominant while the lily of the valley adds a pretty floral component with just a touch of green. The snow note in this is clean, light, and fluffy, like it's freshly fallen. An image of frosted sugar plums nestled amid fresh white blossoms is fitting to describe it in this stage.

Middle Notes: The plum and opium continue to be the dominant notes but the champaca and carnation have shown up and add subtle spicy warmth to the scent. The lily of the valley is still present and the whole combination is so, so beautiful. It walks the line between both warm and cold, like the sun's warm rays slipping slowly below the snowy horizon.

Base Notes: Six hours later and all that’s left is a glowing mix of plum, opium, champaca, and carnation.

Overall Impression: Out the four Yules I had ordered, The Snow at Dusk was easily my favorite. I’m glad I took a gamble on this one and chose it as my blind purchase bottle! It’s such a phenomenally pretty scent that manages to be perfectly balanced on me. It’s fruity but not overwhelmingly so and is both fresh and warm with a hint of florals. If you are a plum or opium lover like me, this might be a good one for you. The scent colors for The Snow at Dusk are the colors of shadow cloaked snowdrifts against a bleeding winter sky: warm plum, leadened orchid, and soft gray.

The sillage is great on this one and longevity is good as well, so you shouldn't need to constantly reapply it if you plan on wearing it for long periods of time.

Final Verdict: Love, love, LOVE! I will be keeping this one and ordering a backup bottle or two.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Hystrixia

[LiberAmoris]

The Snow at Dusk is gorgeous—my favorite of the new BPAL Yules this year. On my skin, this is the snow note from Snow White, blended softly with notes that smell like pale purples, pale oranges, and pale greys. It's definitely well-blended, with no one note leaping out at me—it smells the way a streaked sky looks at dusk, all swirled together with some warmth and some coolness. There's something hypnotic about this (perhaps the opium tar!) that makes me keep bringing my wrist back to my nose.

 

The inspiration for this Yule sub-series was taken from one of my favorite short stories—James Joyce's "The Dead", which is the last story in his book Dubliners. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it (the whole book). I read "The Dead" each year at Christmas and take something different from it each time. This scent pays homage beautifully—thank you, Beth!

[Catcircus]

This starts out smelling like very well made soap. My grandmother worked craft shows and fresh handmade soap has this beautiful smell and it's very reminiscent of that at first. As it dries down it becomes sooo lovely and just really morphs. The plum comes out and brightens everything. It's still soft and sort of dry. But it's subtly sweet and very pretty. Edited to add a solid amount of time later it smells more resinous and I LOVE IT.

Edited January 4, 2016 by Catcircus

[LizziesLuck]

(left wrist)

 

Wet: Something quite sharp is dominant. Very sharp white floral, and a bit soapy. I am not getting the snow note at all.

 

 

Dry: This turns out really pretty, but not at all what I expected. It's primarily a white floral on me (the Lily of The Valley/Muguet) with a beautiful snow note. As nice as this is, I have other florals that I like much better.

[SimplySyra]

I also get an echo of the soft creamy snow from Snow White at first sniff but it soon because quite a bit drier. There is a definite whiff of ozone (yes, a bit soapy) and lovely florals. On dry down the floral takes over, pushing aside the ozone and snow. The scent sweetens to become primarily florals and soft, almost dusty slightly ozone-y snow. This scent smells gray and soft to me. Faint and quiet. It is a clean, elegant, dusky scent that manages to be floral without overwhelming. As someone who can sometimes find floral perfumes to induce headaches, I find Dusk quite pleasing. It is my favorite of the snows I've tried this year.

[SophieCedar]

Oooh! Sexy oriental snow! Thanks, Beth!

 

Pretty accurate. The ozone-y snow creates physical and psychic space from the basal, earthy notes. This is swirling purple however it doesn't quite capture the ultraviolet blue note I associate with dusk... more of a earthy brown-tinged plum purple. Lovely in its own right, however.

[kakiphony]

I did not pay enough attention to this scent, and I'm afraid this review is not as thorough or insightful as I would like.

 

In the bottle this smelled sort of mildly aquatic and a little bit floral to me. I did get plum from it. At first application is immediately amped and smell strongly of aquatics and old lady in a way that made me sneeze (and may be the "soap" smell that others have mentioned.) It read as wet rather than cold to me -- like a sleety, slushy mess rather than pretty snow flakes.

 

Then, I was in a hurry to leave the house, and managed to not sniff my wrists at all during the early dry down phases, so I'm not sure how the top notes bloomed and developed.

 

Several hours later, it has faded to the point of having zero throw and being a skin scent. It's a very pretty resin, with final powder. On one wrist there is something a little bit sharp, which is probably the last remaining bit of the carnation. It's pretty and unobtrusive, but nothing special. I will come back and edit this post once I have a chance to try it on a day when I can PAY ATTENTION.

[PrinceofcatS]

This really doesn't evoke dusk for me; it evokes snowfall at night, the way it's sort of grey in the dark. It opens with a dominant but soft opium note, then Lily of the Valley, ever fresh and almost-wet, comes to the fore. When plum and carnation show up, initially they're a sweet syrupy note, but they fall away to form part of the base.

 

Later on the muguet isn't so wet for me and the carnation has widely dropped away, but the snow note, swirled with opium, and the lily of the valley (with that sweet base) are the strongest element of the scent. I've never worn an "ozone-y" scent from BPAL before, particularly not in a snow note - I've only tried that really piney snow and the really sweet powdery one - but now I recognize it as clearly an ozone smell.

 

This is alarmingly pretty, very unusual. I think of the Snow Falling Faintly scents I've tried (all but Noon), this is my favorite. Midnight was sadly rather soapy, Dawn sadly powdery, but this one strikes a balance between all the notes. It's not predominantly dark or heavy, not predominantly sweet, nor floral, nor fruity. Just soft grey snowfall in a black night, the resins and opium lending to the darkness and the lily-of-the-valley therefore the contrasting bright snow amidst all of it.

[zankoku_zen]

Cool plum, opium, lily of the valley and snow. In some ways, this makes me think of a purple winter version of Belle Epoque. It's got the same sort of Belle Epoque base with plum and snow throw in. Delicate, purple, regal.

 

Good throw, good wearlength.

[annemathematics]

this plum/champaca combo is my jam, prettied up with a touch of lily, sweetened with a splash of snow from snow white.

this has awakened a great hunger in me for more plum/champa scents.

[Blood onmy hands]

Sharp, floral, and so very soapy. I get no plum, no incense, and nothing that reminds me of carnation or the vanilla-y sweetness of Snow White. Very white, harsh and soapy...

[Cali]

Getting a lot of the snow at midnight vibes here. Soapy, very very soapy and slightly floral. That, but slightly sharper, with that lovely plum note on the side and I think the champaca and opium here give it the darker, sharper twist.