Black Ice

[tinyvulture]

Lovely, dangerous, slick, and bitterly cold: chilly white sleet-like notes with a hint of vetiver, a breath of smoky asphalt, and winter wind.

At first there is slushy snow, piercingly cold, combined with a sharp vetiver note. Then a perfumey, floral sweetness appears out of nowhere and confuses my sense of smell. I was expecting something dark. Pure, biting, cold. But this is kind of girly. The vetiver has disappeared completely. There are a lot of other wintry blends I prefer.

[Astarial]

Oh my, looks like I get the first review of the 2013 version!

 

In the decant, this is a soggy, irritated vetiver - I feel like it's glaring at me because it just had to walk home in the freezing rain. Once on my skin, a rather sharp note appears - at first it vaguely reminds me of bug spray, but I think it's the asphalt. The sharpness wears off after a bit, though.

 

Once this fully settles, the final scent reminds me of standing on the side of the road in the middle of November, after your car has broken down, as a chilly mist makes everything uncomfortably wet. It's definitely a cold scent - this isn't a summer rain - but it's not quite cold enough to be frozen into ice. It's very evocative, even if it's not quite evoking its namesake.

[zankoku_zen]

2013 version

 

Bacon smoke! This dries down minty vetiver blend, but I definitely amp up the vetiver and asphalt notes in this blend.

 

PASS.

[MCS4096]

Unfortunately this made me feel really nauseated. I like vetiver, but I was surprised how much I disliked Black Ice. Something about the way the earthiness of the vetiver combined with the perfumey floral aspect just turned my stomach.

[thekittenkat]

In the decant: Icy vetiver.

 

Wet: More ozone and asphalt now.

 

The dry-down: Another morpher. All vetiver, all the time. SN Vetiver, to be precise. I have some of the previous version, and this is nothing like it. Perhaps aging will help.

[KakashiMorph]

Black Ice 2013.

 

In the bottle: Icy vetiver.

On my skin: Icy vetiver! I think the icy part is supposed to be the sleet, or the wind ( or maybe both). 2 minutes later: Smoky asphalt! I have a burned tire! Kidding, it's just a hint, but it is not as bad as I thought it might - it actually blends well with the vetiver. Another few minutes later, this scent also evolves into a scent I can't quite explain that reminds me a lot of what Death-fires dancing over tombs morphed into. Is this the vetiver being quirky or something in the sleet? I can't explain.

Drydown: Same as death-fires, this scent I can not explain.

[milo]

Ice and vetiver:) Not pleasant at first, harsh and abrasive, but dries down a muted ice/vetiver combo. This would smell pretty good on a guy, I think, but it's not really my thing. Wouldn't be my first choice of scent for a guy either, but it's not too bad once it dries.

[hazakaza]

Reviewing the 2016 version!

 

A tiny bit of backstory for relevant context: I went out of the BPAL community for several years and am just now coming back. I also went off hormonal birth control, which I know changes your body chemistry--I went from hating dirt / grave / wind scents to suddenly loving them and backing way off the foodies I had so many of before. I hated vetiver notes back in the day but have fallen in love with a conventional vetiver perfume (Verde by Nest) and thought Black Ice would be a great reintroduction to BPAL vetiver.

 

And.... baby butt? I am getting 100% baby diaper / powder weirdness out of Black Ice. I am baffled. It smells like a baby wipe in the bottle, on the drydown, and on clothes. If I get my nose reaaaaaally close to where I applied it I can catch a wet pavement kind of smell, which I love, but the throw is all .... baby. There's a lavender-y sharpness going on in the bottle but on me, all baby butt, all the time. Completely bizarre. To the swaps heap it goes!

Edited January 2, 2017 by hazakaza

[halation]

2016 version:

On me, this starts out as a light, white floral and stays floral. It's a pleasant floral -- and I usually don't/can't wear them -- but no smoke, no asphalt, not much in the way of 'cold' at all, just a slightly icy aquatic hint. It's soothing and pleasant enough but I was looking for gritty, icy vetiver and I found soft and pretty bouquets and I am confused.

Edited January 30, 2017 by halation

[evil_laugher]

2016: I could not tell you what the individual notes are, but this is my go-to sexy scent during cold winter days. A figuratively-hot/literally-cold date night scent, if you will. It's intense and feels like it'll be too strong, but no one around me is ever bothered.

I like combining it with chocolate scents as well.

Edited February 9, 2017 by evil_laugher

[Pyretta]

Bottle: The ice/snow note is different than the Lab's usual slightly sweet minty one I get - probably because of the vetiver mixing in? Definitely very masculine. None of the bouquets mentioned above so far!

 

Wet: This is very cold, without the headache-inducing quality that I get from similar non-sweet mints. A little bit of vetiver in the background, and something... smokier? Almost like a hint of incense.

 

Dry: This was 100% masculine in the bottle, but on me it mellows out to something more unisex. The blend of notes is very interesting here, with that sharp mint at the very top and smoke/incense lurking underneath.

 

Verdict: Unusual and a fun experience, since this type of mint usually gives me headaches, but I can't see myself really wearing this!

[starbrow]

100% honest impressions from wet 2019 Black Ice: "I could totally picture pulling off caps in the men's deodorant aisle and smelling a smell like this." Like it just has that blast of "gleaming wet MANNNN" that deodorant scent profiles love to rely on. But it's a deodorant you'd WANT your man to wear. Then as it dries down, it turns to a really lovely resin that's vetiver-dominant. I really love the drydown, but the wet stage is a little too aggressive on me. 

[supreme_c0rt]

Wet Black Ice: A blast of cold white florals. Heavily aquatic and aggressive. It does smell commercial.

Dry Black Ice: There's the vetiver and smoke. Kind of a cool dirty aquatic with an edge of berries, like the type described as "poison" in other blends. I'm not sure why there's florals and berries in here, but that's what I'm getting.

Edited January 16, 2020 by supreme_c0rt

[Soupy Twist]

2019 version:

 

Aqua Velva.

[Casablanca]

2019:

 

Cold vetiver slush on wet black pavement.

 

Dark, icy, aquatic, musky, cologney, and a little oily from the street.

[VetchVesper]

I'm surprised by how much I like this.  I've been curious about it for a while, but I was scared away by the slush note and the reviews saying this is aquatic.  It IS aquatic, with a good dose of ozone, and these kinds of blends usually turn pure soap on me.  In this case, though, I'm dig'n it. 

 

Black Ice smells clean, minty, and yes -- icy.  There's a hint of sweetness, but not nearly as much as I get with most snow notes.  The vetiver (and maybe the pavement) gives it depth and darkness, elevating it above a "generic soap" blend.  It suits its name well. 

 

This is very out of my normal wheelhouse, but I'm happy to have a partial.  I'd put this in male cologne category, but am still happy to wear it.   

Edited December 16, 2021 by VetchVesper

[doomsday_disco]

2019 version.

 

I expected this to be much darker than it is, due to its name and with notes like vetiver and asphalt. But oddly enough, I mostly get a floral-infused sleet note from this with a touch of asphalt that becomes more noticeable after a while. I only got a tinge of vetiver if I went looking for it, which is strange, because usually smoky vetiver likes to be loud on me. There ends up being a prominent ozone aspect to this by the end of the day, probably due to the winter wind, which helps tame the floral component in the sleet note.

 

I really wasn't expecting this one to be so floral! I was really hoping for some more of the asphalt. Alas.

Edited December 15, 2021 by doomsday_disco

[Weirdgirlpilled]

Wow. My bottle is almost ten-years aged, so my experience may be different than someone else's! This one is a morpher for suresies. In the bottle it's like a sinus-punch of vetiver. Wet, it retains that sinus punch, but there's something peeking through that feels slushy and dark. Then, on dry down, all the vetiver burns off and leaves behind something extremely cold and biting. Like going to the doctors office in november, with the knowledge that you definitely have to get blood work taken. You get your bloodwork done and when you walk outside its absolutely pouring rain. Just beautiful, I treasure this scent. ]

 

Edit: After two hours of wear it's morphed into something so soft and clean smelling?? I LOVE it. Definitely still a bit "Cold" smelling (I presume this is going to be perfect for the slushy october-december months) but I was expecting it to go so haywire with how strong the vetiver was out the bottle. So far, my skin has completely eaten the vetiver, and left behind a beautiful, crisp clean scent. 

Edited March 6, 2023 by Weirdgirlpilled