The Forest in Winter at Sunset

[Casablanca]

Théodore Rousseau

A wintry tangle of oak and forest mosses against a deepening amber backdrop.

The amber in Forest in Winter is actually no mere backdrop; even in the bottle, it's the most potent note to me, and it's beautiful. Green, living moss is the next strongest note. I sniff this and my mind goes a-swirl with gold and green.

This doesn't change on my skin from the bottle. It just opens out into a warm, deep amber-bathed mossy forest. This amber gives the woods an impression of glowing. (ETA: Actually, on re-applying this, I think I'm picking up champaca, too.) The blend is a little sweet, and quite smooth.

As it dries, the oak comes out, smelling like a wise, old tree still in verdant health.

There's a touch of cool frost so faint it's barely there, mostly adding a lighter tint to the greenery. The rest of the blend smells like mature and lazy summer. Perfect for me. Edited December 12, 2016 by Casablanca

[lookingglass]

Lots of sweet amber made a bit earthy. It really glows. I don't find it particularly mossy or woody. It's very sweet and golden and dries down quite powdery. A gentle, soft, grounding skin scent for amber lovers.

[Foodie]

The Forest in Winter at Sunset is a gorgeous, warm, glowing beauty. The amber is the strongest note followed by a piney musk that adds a bit of mystery. This piney musk is like standing in a forest smelling the fragrant night air rather than a crushed pine needle or sniffing moss.

It all blends together beautifully to create a smooth scent that is golden and snuggly but at the same time has a serious mood, provoking a feeling of being in awe of nature.

I love The Forest in Winter at Sunset. If you like amber, you will love it too!

[patina]

Amber! Sweet amber. It almost smells like pink ambergris. As it dries I can detect a smoky note underneath, which is actually a lot like pine pitch but I'm guessing it's actually the oak. Oakmoss normally overwhelms everything but here it's more a backdrop at least for now.

 

Edit: After some aging, the oakmoss comes out more.

Edited February 6, 2017 by patina

[PrinceofcatS]

This is the richest, thickest, most golden amber to ever amber, with a few notes of mossiness that give it some depth and extra sweetness.

[sqwook]

Whoa, gorgeous, GORGEOUS. Warm and soft-green.

Dry-down is warm oakmoss and amber. This is really beautiful.

 

(Also there is no "wintry" or ice or snow note, if that is something you were wary of.)

Edited January 5, 2017 by sqwook

[sailthetethys]

Oh. This is so soft and sweet. I tend to shy away from powdery scents, but this is just lovely. It's definitely got a glow to it, but it's a cool glow - the perfect evocation of a winter sunset in a quiet wood.

 

As it dries, something spicy-sweet and clove-ish comes out. Does oakmoss smell like cloves?

 

I'm bad at this.

Edited January 6, 2017 by sailthetethys

[freyasfae]

This is just mostly powdery amber on me. At first, I could detect a little of the woodsy scent, but amber just kind of tramples all over that. A lovely and deep amber scent, but I was expecting more forest and less amber.

[Jenjin]

I'm a fan of amber scents, so I jumped on this one. It is a resinous, sappy amber with a tiny bit of smokiness and moss covered wooded pine in the background.

Unfortunately, this also had a weird, bitter aquatic note on me. Must have been the moss note? It was a bit like flower vase water mixed with very thin amber after dry down. I tried aging my bottle a bit, along with warming and rolling but never got enough amber to make it wearable. t has a very woodsy, bewitching quality to it that I can see being beautiful on many people, just not me.

Edited February 6, 2017 by Jenjin

[Lunasariel]

In the imp: Light, soft woods - almost floral and/or citrus-y. I agree with Foodie in that this feels more like fragrant night air than anything else.

 

Wet: I get big ol' wafts of amber as I apply, but a strikingly gorgeous green scent quickly steps up to bat. It's not identifiable as any distinct wood or moss, but instead it's the multifaceted, entwined scent of a living forest itself. There's also a hint of the Lab's snow note, which always reads as cool, crisp air and/or "classic" perfume on me. After a few minutes, it's predominantly amber and/or the snow note, with the greenery taking a step or two back.

 

Dry: The snow fades over time, and the omnidirectional greenery resolves itself into woods (but, again, I can't pick out any type of wood in particular). The amber is present throughout, which I'm 100% a fan of - my skin loves amber, and turns pretty much everything that contains it to warm, sweet, delicious gold. This is no exception. I get a lovely, almost resinous or vegetal amber here - a bit like Philostratus' Phoenix, but much softer (although it initially has quite a throw, it dries down to a skin-level scent) and lacking that citrus element.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Lunasariel

[Upstart Crow]

Aber is iffy to me, but the mosses make this blend deep, earthy, and just a little sweet. Definitely getting a bottle!

[AmyO'Shields]

How strange. I love ambers and they love my skin but I am having an opposite reaction to everyone else so far :-(

 

When I sniffed the decant I actually recoiled a bit...I had been expecting a sweet, soft ambery amber with bits of moss and greenery. This was sharp and medicinal. I figured it might be strong oak/oakmoss and skin tested anyhow. Well, this was super sharp oak / oakmoss (which I normally like) on my skin with a touch of camphorous trees and no amber in sight. I guess my skin chemistry makes me the odd girl out. Glad so many folks are loving it but it is definitely not for me.

 

Eta: Now I remember, this reminded me of Samhain.

 

Eta 2: This is much nicer a few hours later...sweeter and leafier.

Edited January 19, 2017 by Herb Girl

[halation]

A beautifully colored oil, but no amber for me. In some ways, perhaps a blessing, because I often turn ambers to powder, and this stays true and non-powdery as it warms up and dries down on me. There's no snow note, and nothing particularly 'wintry' -- earthy and a little wet, but none of the mint or aquatic or snow notes that usually signal 'cold'. Lots of mossy, green, wet wood notes. I think there's a little evergreen but it's not overwhelmingly piney.

 

To me this is a wintertime version of the GC scent Cathode. Similar lovely oakmoss, but none of the cooling mint. Instead of being chilling, it's cozy -- if Cathode is wading in a shady brook on a hot day, this is a walk past that same brook with all foliage down and the last of the sun peeking through to warm up the banks.

[zankoku_zen]

Moss, amber, and a touch of oak. This one is a weird aquatic (moss) + warm amber blend. Medium throw and wear length.

[blu°]

This is WAY more perfumey than I had thought it would be.

 

Yes, the mosses are kind of aquatic. I don't get that from oakmoss, which to me is more of a brownish dark green than these sharper notes in here.

 

Something in here reminds me of Falling Leaf Moon. A component of the leaf note + something aquatic? I can't do the leaves note, it smells like my grand uncle and auntie's bathroom to me.

 

When I wore this the other day, I had to wash it off. Trying again today.

 

Right after application, it is AQUATIC, rain and green.

 

A bit later, it is not as bad as last time, I think. Close to the skin I can smell the warmer oakmoss, which I love. Farther away, I get aquatic + oak, and it is not something that feels right on me, really reminds me of Falling Leaf Moon. The amber is hiding underneath for now. I am really disappointed by how perfumey this is. I had hoped for a more earthy, forest floor scent. Maybe it'll get closer to that with aging.

 

I'll update after doing grocery shopping.

 

ETA: Re-reading the other reviews, especially the early ones, I wonder if this is a batch variation. It might just be me amping green notes (I generally don't wear those well.), but it seems strange that this blend is sharp/green/aquatic for later reviewers and warm/golden/sweet for those who tested it early after the update.

 

ETA2: I did not wear it to grocery shopping, but washed it off with oil and rubber alcohol beforehand. It made me feel too uncomfortable. Greens. I can wear oakmoss, pine, and a few others green notes, and I thought I would have been safe with the mosses in "The Forest in Winter at Sunset" as I love Zombi and Thanatos, which have moss. The greens in Antony are also fine. But The Forest in Winter goes wrong like ivy and tea go wrong on my skin. Sharp, almost chemical, very perfumey and unnatural. I am happy for everyone that gets warm golden forest from this blend, but sadly that is not the case for me.

Edited January 28, 2017 by blu°

[kattalog]

Wet: Dusty, sweet amber (almost honeylike sweet). Moss.

Dry: Mosses and sweet amber. Its less sweet than while wet, as the sourness from moss and oak has grown. The sweet amber fades a bit and the dustiness has gone. Forest in the winter at sunset goes form a very sweet scent as wet to a foresty scent with bits of fruity sweet bpal-amber.
Through the hours of wear, forest in the winter at sunset continues as a sweet woodsy scent. To me, its more a kind of deciduous forest with autumn leaves and moss, rather than a dark green forest as it lacks evergreens such as fir and pines.
Ends a s a amber sweet and autumn leafy scent.

Dominant notes: Moss, amber
Type: Woodsy
Lasting: 4 hours

[Blood onmy hands]

Bpal's ambers almost always turn to heavy baby powder scent on my skin (which I rarely get from any other companies' ambers), and that's all that I can smell with The Forest in Winter.
I like Ded Moroz a lot more, because the foresty notes are able to shine through the amber in that blend, where this is all powdery amber all the time.

[lucycat]

From first sniff in the decant, this is just lovely. The amber is warm and bright. I don’t have that many blends with moss—offhand, I can only think of Whoso List to Hunt—and they give a very classic feel to the blend.

 

I almost expect there to be a snow note here, because once it dries down a bit, there’s an almost aquatic note that I wouldn’t expect from any of the other notes. As it dries down, it feels more and more like men’s cologne, not the one I usually get from the BPAL leaf note, but a softer, almost fuzzy one.

 

There being different batches of this blend may explain the aquatic note. I ordered my decant from Ajevie very early, and received it at the beginning of January, so this should be an early version, not a later one. The amber, while noticeable at first, is never strong, so I don’t think this is the amber-heavy version: disappointing, because I love amber. It also lasts only about half a day on my skin, while many amber blends have much better longevity.

[LizziesLuck]

I hike several times a week, in the woods by my house. There have been several afternoons this winter where I turned around a corner and was struck still by the beauty of the snow on the trees with the sun going down behind - the feeling of the cold still air. There's nothing like it, it brings me peace like nothing else can. Anyway, I remembered there had been a scent called "The Forrest in Winter at Sunset" and I thought how wonderful it would be to wear a scent by that name on my hikes. So I tracked it down, and here is hoping it works! (I wish I could share a photo I took the other day with all of you - it sums up the name of this scent perfectly. But I have yet to figure out how to share photos on the forum without a great deal of effort and frustration.)

 

 

Wet: The amber is gorgeous. The oak is slightly sweet, not too dominant, and lovely. The moss is a little sharp - hoping that settles. I also yet some faint pine, though it's not listed. It's not great on my skin, and I am hoping that settles too. So far it does smell very forresty, but not quite what I was hoping. Pine smells like cat-pee on me, and this is doing that, and making me want to cry.

 

Dry: This settles into something beautiful. The moss gives it a slight damp edge, very realistic of a forest blanketed in snow. The amber is warm and glowing, like the faint kiss of heat from the sun as it sets. I will be so happy to slather in this before my hike tomorrow. <3