Snow Moon

[grifyn_whiffs]

In December, the skeletal, ice-rimmed fingers of winter take hold, and the nights are long, chill and dark. The first flurries of snow touch the land, and the earth itself becomes quiet. A scent of purity and silence, soft with falling snow, as dark as Midwinter: an icy flurry over the winter blooms of narcissus, pansy crocus, dahlia, tulip, chrysanthemum and white rose, with a hint of fir and birch.

Oh! OH! I am in and I'll tell you why. My favorite MMU scent EVER is "Cherubs in the Snow" (created by Andrabell!).

Snow Moon smells JUST like Cherubs in the Snow, or I should say... it amps all of my favorite notes in Cherubs in the Snow. It's a layering dream!

It's cool, fresh, a bit "pine-y" (fir or juniper?) and just... crisp! All of that with just chilly sweetness. I applied it about two hours ago, and it needs to be re-applied now, but I love it so much that I just don't care. I already have a back-up bottle on the way! Edited November 28, 2007 by Shollin

[little_galaxie]

I think it's just time to admit that me and cold/snowy/winter scents just don't get along.

Somehow, they all end up smelling like pinesol on me.

 

Ah well, off to swaps with you!

[siddal]

Wet, this is very piney and medicinal on my, with a coldness that really does remind me of snow. But the medicinal overwhelms. As it starts to dry down, I can detect a sweetness that is very pretty and must be the floral notes. I love the way they peek through, but I am still getting a very bracing medicinal/tree note that doesn't work for me. To the swap pile :-)

[metaldog32]

Snow Moon….sounds wonderful no???

 

The lunar light bouncing off snow drifts and bathing everything in it’s silvery light..while the snow makes everything twinkle with a nighttime sparkle…it feels like magic…like anything is possible in the cold moonlight. Cold and clean and sparkly…I love that imagery.

 

Initial sniff from bottle: To me..the most overt whiff I get is…the fir and birch. Not exactly what I was hoping for..but I am willing to give it a shot. It smells..almost medicinal in some sort of way..but I suspect that just must be the wood notes…right??? No flowers…no lunar oils..at least not yet..it’s all just overwhelmingly bracing wood/pine with the cold and dark winter note..and maybe..maybe a wisp of something sweet..but it’s really way in the back.

 

Applied wet on skin: For the first 5 seconds it’s overbearingly pine/fir/birch..whatever those woods are…and then my skin feels tingly…it’s the chilly cold wintry note…and I am still stuck with the pine/fir/birch trio basically amping up to the point of world domination on my skin. Where are the lunar oils??? Florals??? MIA my friends..MIA. If you are wood/pine lover..you will be in heaven. I, for one..do not fall into that category. I don’t mind them as an accent..but this is full frontal and still really bracing and again..kind of medicinal. I will be patient..as things have a way of changing.

 

Couple of minutes on skin: Okay…this is kind of like a pine/camphor mix…it’s medicinal and strong. Kind of reminds me of when I first moved into the house my family bought…going up the stairs..wooden stairs..it had that pine/evergreen waft that made me feel homey. As much as I loved how the house smelled..I kind of don’t want to smell like a combination of that and Vapo-rub. I don’t mean to be blunt..but it’s what is translating on my skin. Darn.

 

Ten minutes later: It’s softened up considerably…but it’s still the wood/camphor/medicinal medley..but emerging from this finally is the floral. A bit of a sweet floral…and this is nice. It’s an improvement. Maybe there is a berry of some sort sweetening this up??? I can’t tell.

 

Half an hour later: Okay..so it morphed a bit…pine/camphor duo has exited to the backroom and left on the dance floor in a nebulous haze is…some sort of floral??? Fruit??? It’s all so…sheer…kind of like lace…old delicate lace..but the lace is made up of snowflakes and it’s a chilly snow lace..with some sort of soft floral and darn it..is it a sweet berry??? Bayberry??? Sigh…I can’t tell either way but it’s an about face to what it what this was 40+minutes ago. I like this stage MUCH better.

 

Definitely a bit more girlie-like..but it is a paler scent now..like other reviewers observed. A softer, paler, girlier scent. Fascinating really..considering how it started out.

 

Drydown: It’s all about a snowy floral over the base of wispy lunar notes…and that elusive sweetness again. Very soft.

 

Lasting power on me is about 2+ hours..with throw strongest at it’s wet phase..but even then..it hovered close to my skin..didn’t waft out aggressively at all.

 

Bottom Line: Snow Moon definitely was a surprise for me…and in the beginning not a surprise I was thrilled about. It ended up being actually quite an interesting blend..but since I am not a huge fan of overbearingly bracing or medicinal scents to wear as fragrance I am kind of on the fence on whether to keep this blend. I love lunacies..but this one might be better off with someone who can enjoy all of it’s phases..but it certainly was a bit fascinating nonetheless.

[hackess]

Imp smells like juniper bushes and that lemony snow scent. It's like going for a sleigh ride through the forest at night, only your companion has a cold and is sucking on lemon menthol cough drops. It dries to something much more tolerable - almost like these lemon mints my grandmother would give me when I was a kid - but it takes forever to get to that phase on me.

[stellans]

OK, finally Snow Moon rotated back around through my nighttime Lunacies box for last night's application. I so love this formulation, I'm trying to buy up additional bottles so I never run out. This is the perfect cold weather night scent for me, even DH commented on how 'right' it smelled last night.

 

In the imp: Lovely, cold evergreen smell, with a promise of sweetness underneath.

 

Wet on skin: Deep breath and ahhhhhhhhhhhh - this is a wonderful snuggle-up and keep warm scent which is perfect for a cold night's sleep. The evergreen note I so love is everpresent, but the floral notes are more prominent though in addition rather than instead of the fir/birch.

 

Dry: More floral, but still second to that lovely evergreen scent. And 7 hours later when I woke up after a wonderful night's sleep, the hint of evergreen scented by white flowers was still there.

 

Verdict: My favorite Lunacy of all, and I must have lots. Must.

Edited December 28, 2010 by stellans

[myoubi]

I don't understand why this one doesn't get more BPAL fandom love... it's beautiful! Fans of Ice Queen, Skadi and possibly Snow White should all at least /try/ this one.

 

Scent: In the bottle it has that cold, delicately lemony scent that all BPAL snowy blends have, along with what I think is juniper. I smell one of the crisper florals as well -- definately not the rose, maybe the narcissus. Immediately applied, it smells -- mm! like a kinder, gentler Ice Queen, Ice Queen sans those hard pale musks. After about ten minutes of frozen forest it sweetens abruptly, and enters a phase of surprising warmth. It's some interaction of scents that I can't name that actually smells warm and mellow, not floral-y at all, almost berryish. After abut five minutes of that, the florals become more apparent, and it's like a gently-frosted forest full of spring flower shoots. The crocus in particular is prominent; curiously, the rose stays in the background, as does (thank God) the dahlia. It stays like this -- warm florals in the foreground, frosted pine behind them -- until it fades.

 

Tone: This isn't a cold scent. As many people have said, although it's pine-y, it's also warm and sweet -- which is odd given it has such a strong snow note. I'd wear this more in winter, it's not quite a summer cool-down scent. This reminds me of my favourite parts of Ice Queen and Snow White -- Snow White's mellow sweetness without that coconutty smear, Ice Queen's cold berry forest without those brittle musks.

 

Verdict: Beautiful. I don't need more (I have too many cold scents already :/) but I'm keeping my bottle.

 

 

ETA: After a couple of hours, this reminds me strongly of Snow White without that coconutty sweet note.... which is what I disliked most about Snow White. Perfect!

Edited April 13, 2007 by myoubi

[GoldenRubee]

Snow Moon is a beautiful winter scent that reminds me of a Northern Minnesota winter.

It smells like icy snowball fights, and the crisp winter air that is so cold that you cannot breathe. It don't smell pine at all but rather the beautiful frozen woody birch smell that I will never forget as I dodge the snow balls. Then off I go to the part of the forest where it is a bit warmer. To the fresh earth and trampled leaves in the places where the snow has melted and new flowers have started to just peek through and start to spread their fragrances. This scent has really brought back wonderful memories for me- Thanks Beth!

[Christine Daae]

I'm going through and re-testing a lot of bottles and imps I never reviewed before, but I can't believe I never posted about this one, I got it when it first came out!

 

In the bottle: Sweet holy mother of Christmas trees! Very sweet evergreen.

 

Wet: Minty-sweet evergreen. I honestly smell like a freshly-cut Christmas tree. There’s a hint of something floral behind this, too.

 

Drydown: This has some serious throw, which I didn’t notice when I’ve worn it, but I keep getting wafts of sweet evergreen. (My chemistry amps anything sweet, though, which is nice, because that’s what I like!) It’s lightly floral behind the icy-cold evergreen and really very pretty.

 

Verdict: This turns into serious Yankee Candle-type sweet evergreen on me with not a whole lot else unless I huff my wrist, where I smell a bit of the florals (which, I think, is the reason I got it in the first place). It gets sweeter and less evergreen and more floral as the wear goes on.

[Mimicake]

This one has some elements of my favorite, Snow Maiden. I loved that it has a bit more tree to it. It is a soft pine though, and not a pine cleaner scent. I think it is yummy, and can't wait to wear it some at Christmas.

[DifferentDances]

Bottle: Piney sugar.

Wet: This seems to be a very sweet, very clustered scent. There's a rolling wave of pine, but a hint of something sweet and lemony running parallel to the woodsiness.

Drydown: Some other kind of wood is coming to the forefront. I presume this is the birch or fir. It's like there are tiny ripe berries --really tiny-- that are dangling all over the place coyly screaming "Bite me!"

Dry: The berries have been picked off, leaving behind sugared trees.

 

My rating: 5/5. It is with great surprise that I confess I love this. My skin tends to amp woods, and I think perhaps the snow note is interpreted by my brain as pine, but it's such a delectably sweet pine. Ooooh. Keeping my bottle. So happy I bought this during my newbie craze phase of buying every bottle I saw.

[alicia_stardust]

I get a sense of purity, stillness, a silent winter's night with the bite of pine, a soft hint of winter blooms, and slushy snow. There's even a slight hint of berry there that almost reminds me of Skadi. This is one of my all-time favorite winter/December scents!

[hellomoonglow]

In Imp: Bayberry, menthol. Christmas.

Wet: Christmasy, no more menthol, but I do smell the fir.

½ Dry Down: Something I’d really enjoy at Christmas, but not suitable, really, for the rest of the year.

[darkblade]

Snow Moon 2005 (A Little Lunacy)

 

Bottle: That smells.. kinda sharp. Hrm.

 

Wet: Wha? Yes on the icy frost.. and evergreen, yep, fir!

 

Dry: It's definitely still chilly and cold, but there's soft flowers in the snow.. yaysopretty! A nighttime walk with gloves, boots, and a hooded cloak, snow that you have to march a bit more to keep going in because it comes up to midcalf, and coming out of the trees to a bit of a clearing with little winter flowers that are peeking out of the snow.

 

Verdict: Definitely keeping, it smells lovely, and there's a bit of variance in liking it for personal reasons.

[Styx]

Snow Moon (light yellow oil)

 

Imp: sugared fir.

 

Skin: This is like a uberfeminine dracul sweetened up and put in a pretty white dress. I like the sweet chrysanthemum I catch every now and then!

I never imagined fir and flowers would smell this good together. There is something almost vanilla like in the sweetness.

Sadly I got something raw and a hint powdery...I'm guessing its the narcissus, because that smells funny on me, but even so I thought this was beautiful.

It doesn't smell cold, but its snowy in a sense that it has something similar to the feeling you get when you step on a sheet of fresh snow. Its so hard to describe. I like this a lot, and am thankful for my sniffie!

 

Light weight, cool to touch, Winter and Spring scent.

[Gwydion]

This fits the concept pretty well. When I uncapped it to sniff, Mache woke up and gave me "The Look." It is very strong and bracing. It does smell rather like Northern forest in late winter. be warned that the fir and birch are very strong in the aged version. It smells like trees with a hint of early flower. I can't detect the rose at all, which is just fine with me. Likely the rose degrades faster than the other elements. The effect of the flowers is to add a sweetness to the sharp woodsy smell, rather than screaming "floral" at one.

 

ADDED Dec. 5:

 

In the bottle: Surprisingly green. Crocus and chrysanthemum are on top. Wet: the woods give it an unexpected bite. I'm surprised there's no vanilla or mint in this, as the ghost of them hovers. It smells a little like new car and a little like icing. I don't know what Dahlias smell like, but I'm betting that's interesting floral that's rising to the top. Dry: light, sweet pleasant little floral. it really does give the impression of purity and silence.

Edited December 14, 2007 by Shollin

[Ningal61]

Mmmm, all I smell in the bottle is the fir and birch. I can't smell anything else. And when I first put it on, the woodsy scent is almost a bit too much. After a little while it tones down, though, and after about an hour I notice the flowers start to creep through. I still smell the woods, even hours later, but it's like the woods are sheltering the flowers from the snow, and their scents are having to fight their way through a canopy of fir needles. Very lovely blend. Just perfect for me. Must get more someday.

[spicyelenore]

I honestly haven't had much luck with the snow scents, so when I was frimped this I just assumed I'd be passing it on to my best friend along with her Snow Maiden, Snow Storm etc. that I got her for xmas. But I figured I'd try it on anyway. It surprised me. At first I smelled the fir and birch, and something almost peppery-like white pepper, in fact. After a while it started to warm up and the florals came through, but very faintly, which is good because usually I can't do florals.

It seemed for a while there it was flirting the fine line into soap-y territory, but it never actually crossed over.

Unfortunately, it disappeared after about 20 minutes. Hmmm. I might keep this and try again...

[Veresti]

In the Bottle:

Good fucking hell - this scent scared the shit out of me when I first sniffed it. Ugh, fir does not agree with me *cringes* I was sort of weary about putting it on. All I can smell is fir and chrysanthemum with that sort of medicinal back ground, which must be the "ice flurry."

 

On Skin:

Gah, fir, fir, fir, and more fir, with chrysanthemum and now a bit of the narcissus. Narcissus is usually my friend, but it has betrayed me.

 

Thirty Minutes Later:

I still have the pounding migraine that I got a few minutes after slapping this on. Not getting any better, and certainly not fading any.

 

An Hour And A Half Later:

Okay, I braved that migraine out for another hour - still not diminishing much, just a lot more fir, but the medicinal back ground note has utterly disappeared, which is a pity- it was the only saving grace in it. I had to wash it off at this point, because I couldn't stand the pain any longer.

 

Verdict:

This is the type of perfume the little missy from the secretary pool has put on to be adventurous and in season. She doesn't notice that she has literally bathed herself in this scent, and thus is making the more sensitive noses of those around her suffer. People debate about whether or not to actually say something, but in the end the only one who bothers to say anything is the cleaning lady, who notes that it smells remarkably similiar to the toilet cleanser. She then asks the secretary if she accidentally fell into said toilet earlier in the day.

 

I'm sure it is lovely on some skin types, but it certainly wasn't for me - the fir definately killed the entire oil for me.

Edited December 20, 2007 by Shollin

[yokaitenchi]

I have to say, not many scents make me melt, even from precious BPAL. One of the few that managed was the LE bath oil, Ice Prince.

 

And my dears, Snow Moon 2005 smells pretty darn close to Ice Prince (though it could be my skin amping that delicious pine note. Upon opening the bottle, you get that same sweet (berries?), rather flat-cola smell that isn't all that delicious. When applied though, the 'flat coke' morphs into a this sweet pine/eucalyptus sort of scent...it reminds me of a massage oil my mother used, just add a slightly sweet note.

 

The throw is quite impressive, and the smell stays true at almost any distance. HOWEVER, I did notice that if I pull my wrist any closer than where it rests on the desk, I begin to get that metallic note that rose always brings out in me (and not the sexy one like Mechanical Phoenix). This tendency seems to die a bit as the oil sits.

 

Wearlength hasn't properly been tested yet, so no comment quite yet. Its strength seems to hold out longer than Ice Prince's; though Ice Prince lasts nearly all day, it's one of those scents that vanish, then suddenly you get a whiff of. Snow Moon is there strong for at least two hours (whereupon I washed my hands to make dinner).

 

Rating: 4/5

[cranberry]

For a long time I thought this was a typical snow scent. I even lost my bottle for a while but didn’t worry. Heck, I didn’t even notice for who knows how long. Well I was wrong. This is gorgeous and it may be my favorite snow scent period. I love the shirt, now I really love the oil too.

 

At first this is snow, ice, evergreens. Beautiful, cold, smelled similar to all the others. But as it wears and dries, something happens. I swear it’s like maple sugar and snow. Think Sugar Skull plus snow. This smells delicious. Now I really regret getting rid of my extras of this scent. This scent has aged really well.

 

This is just YUM! Damn.

[carrickfergus]

Wow, I hadn't realized this one was so old!

 

This is one of only three full bottles I own. It's that good. And I can describe it very simply:

 

If you have ever in your life walked past or through a Christmas tree lot in cold weather, you have smelled the contents of this bottle. It is EXACTLY the same. A gorgeous scent for me because I grew up in a house next to an empty lot that was used to sell Christmas trees every December. My siblings and I used to play in it. We climbed the piles of extra trees when no one was looking to shoo us off, and we built nests with the discarded branches.

 

This is the smell of us doing that.

[moonstonemama]

this is crisp and piney with some berries and a lot of coldness. it becomes a lot sweeter after applying than in the bottle, the pine is still there and its sharp, but it's tempered by the cold and berries.

[marared]

In the decant, Snow Moon smells vaguely piney and not much else, but immediately upon application to skin, it starts acquiring some complexity. Now, I'm not a big fan of evergreen type scents (it's one of those things that I enjoy smelling for real, but it always seems to lack something in a bottle), but it's got an interesting floral background that I thought would keep it from being too ... piney.

 

My initial impression was that of walking through snowy woods. As it dries, the evergreen steps into the background and the flowers come out - it's a surprisingly warm aroma, but certainly more suitable for that time of year than midsummer. I think I'll hang on to it for Christmas parties.

[Heeroluva]

In the bottle it smells floral but not. It's not like anything I've smelt before so it's hard to describe. Wet it went to soap. But as it dried some notes came out that just remind me of winter, but with a bit of spice. I'll definitely try it again this winter.