Lunar Eclipse: April 2013

[violetblue]

Luna's lovely, pale face crowned by a sliver of umbral shadow and veiled by penumbral shadow: white musk, mugwort, iris, white tea, and silvered yarrow with black amber, Indonesian patchouli, fir resin, and blackcurrant.

This is so gorgeous. I always worry about tea notes and don't usually do well with most lunar oils, but this is so pretty. Thin, clear oil not heavy or resiny, you can smell the tea but it's blended so well I can't pick out notes. Light floral and very light on the resins but it has that lunar scent (if that makes sense!) you get in the moons - it's a happy, sweet smell that reminds me of spring/summer. I think this will be popular.
(ETA The dry down is soooo nice, gets more resiny, less floral) Edited May 4, 2013 by Silvertree

[Bookgroper]

So, so, SO glad I took a chance and bought this. I'm not too good at picking out notes, but I think I'm getting the tea and the musk. This is overall sweet with a certain spiciness. Lovely all the way - it's just on my skin now after a few hours (I just tested a little on the back of my hand, so this isn't the best test of staying power) to where I have to put my nose right next to my skin to sniff it... which I keep on doing.

[FragranceLush]

I really like this wet and on initial drydown, though I'll be damned if I'd know any notes in it without reading them. It's gentle and soft but very much present, if that makes sense. Quietly solid, a gentle night air blend with soft florals. After about 20 min it seems just a touch less floral, which is fine with me. i was afraid of the florals, but no worries here. Very well blended and yes, true to its concept has both a dark and light side. Very unusual but I like it a lot, seems rather sophisticated to me. An older woman with much grace would wear this to a fancy tea party LOL. Very different than what I am usually drawn to for body scent, but I am glad I got a bottle.

[FriedaLove]

I was a little unsure about this one but I'm so glad I took the chance! It's so pretty! Out of the bottle, it seemed a little sharp but it immediately softened when I put it on my skin. This is very floral and amber during dry down and I had a difficult time picking out the notes, but once dry the tea, blackcurrant, and musk came out. I like this one a lot after that initial super floral phase, which didn't last too long on me. ETA: Now that it's been another hour, this is getting really heady on me and I'm starting to get a headache I'll have to try it again another day to make sure that it really is the perfume giving me the headache.

Edited May 8, 2013 by FriedaLove

[Gwydion]

In bottle: This is hard to categorize. It is delicate. Iris stands out most. The white tea is pervasive, forming a background with mugwort, musk, yarrow, and amber in support. I imagine this as a canvass with a background and a foreground. In the foreground, black currant is next strongest after the iris, followed by fir, and a hint of patchouli. This is interesting, but I don’t have much hope it will work on me. Wet: It’s still iris dominant. Blackcurrent is now second strongest, followed by fir and mugwort. The white tea is now softer, though still a pervasive background, with the yarrow about as strong. The rest is present, but soft. Contrary to expectations, this actually pops on my skin. It’s still pretty delicate, but the black current and fir being stronger fleshes out the Iris, while the mugwort, yarrow, and tea give it an herbal feel. It’s still a bit to floral for me, but close, oh so close. Dry: Fast fading to mugwort and patchouli.

[OctoberGwen]

Oh. I am so happy I bought a bottle of this.

 

This starts off sort of fresh, with the white tea note very dominant (and it's fecking lovely; I adore tea notes.) The florals are lending a soft and very pretty waft of support to the tea.

 

As it dries, the darker aspects of the scent become apparent but never overpower the soft freshness of the other elements. The result is a complex and very nicely blended scent, with none of the strange undertone that my skin usually brings out of the lunar oils.

 

This is unique; I have nothing like this in my collection. Also, the label art is awesome.

 

[PurringPulsar]

Lunar Eclipse (April 2013)

 

In the imp: pale, cool, musky iris with something sharp and perfumey.

Wet on skin: herbal notes reminiscent of camomile and hay, iris and blue musk.

Dry on skin: this is very pretty! This has a similar ‘chilled pale musk and iris’ note to Yaksh and the Cold Hour of Dawn, but the white tea makes it even sharper. This tea note can be quite piercing, and it is quite strident in here. I think the blackcurrant also adds a tart fruity scent. The yarrow and mugwort have a kind of ‘herbal tea’ smell in here, they remind me of camomile and sage. The white musk is more like blue musk to me; it has that airy freshness to it. It is pretty but I hope that the amber and patchouli make an appearance.

After a while: nooo, my skin is eating this up! I hoped the darker, deeper notes would show up, but it seems not. The scent seems to be disappearing, it’s like a faint iris and white tea perfume now, with a bit of blackcurrant.

Eventually it becomes a bit amber-y but it’s still dominated by that white tea, which is quite astringent, too sharp for my tastes. The scent overall is still too faint. Where’s the patchouli?

Verdict: I tried this a few times because I really wanted to like it, I collect the eclipse scents, but as far as throw/scent strength goes it’s the weakest of the eclipse blends. I suppose this fits the event itself, which was the subtlest of eclipses, the umbra just about touched the moon. But the scent is too faint for me to appreciate it; I’m surprised by how little patchouli and amber I get here. I really like the blue musk and iris combination, but the white tea note used in here seems to be similar to the one in Half Elf, which was a really sour white tea. It’s not as sour here as it was in Half Elf but it’s still too piercing and insistent. I think the currant is sharper than usual, I hoped for dark sweet fruitiness but it’s more like tangy redcurrant than blackcurrant. A shame, I hoped this would be a nice ‘lighter’ take on the eclipse scents, but it didn’t work out.

Is it a keeper? no. I’ll stick to the original Lunar Eclipse, Penumbra and Senelion for now.

If you like this, try: Blue Moon (any), Black Moon 2011, The Phoenix at Midnight, Yaksh, The Cold Hour of Dawn

[hlinspjalda]

One or two iffy notes weren't enough to scare me off this one, with its amber, patchouli, and fruit base.

 

In the vial: Wow, this smells great! Lovely round amber, fruit, evergreen, tea, and soft musk.

 

Wet: Wow, this one's hard to describe. I get a lot of notes fighting for supremacy. It smells very pleasant, though, herbal and unsweet florals with patchouli-amber-musk fruit and evergreens all represented.

 

One hour: A gentle, well-blended scent. I get something I think is the mugwort or maybe the yarrow, an appealingly bitter herbal scent over something almost minty in impression that reminds me of white amber. There is patchouli, there is evergreen, there is the darkness of black currant. There is almost no sweet, even though I think I would probably characterize this as a fruity scent. It is simultaneously dark and silvery; fascinating!

 

Two hours: Yep, definitely a matured dark fruit scent with a lot of silvery herbal underpinnings. Although it isn't as elegant now, I can wear it better than an hour ago. It will probably be pretty stable for a while now.

 

Five hours: Dark fruity-patchouli with interesting silvery herbal notes overlaid. I like it enough to keep the bottle.

[vthesiren]

This is so nice. I really dig the fir resin in this, and combined with everything else, it makes me feel like a fairy in an enchanted woodland or something like that. Also, the label art is awesome.

[zankoku_zen]

Iris, pale musk, dark fruits and darker herbs. This one is an odd mix of dark florals and cooler white musk (I think its the iris + musk convo).

 

It's dark, ethereal, floral.

[Little Bird]

There's too much iris & tea in this blend for me. I was hoping for more of the currant, fir and patchouli to darken things up, but I can't really pick out those notes at all. Lunar Eclipse is mostly sharp, perfumey floral iris, sharp and clean white tea, and sharp white musk. It gives me a headache. Cold, sharp, perfumey floral that turns slightly powdery on me in the drydown. This was still going strong after an hour, but I wound up scrubbing it off.

[milo]

At first, this is quite dark and resinous. It then turns lighter, more luminous. Although this is kind of hard to describe, I'm getting the white musk, something fruity and orris. My daughter is doing Chanel training through work and has a bunch of samples sitting around. I actually thought there was some of those fragrances that I was smelling. In other words, this smells like a high end perfume to me. This is quite nice, but not really something I would wear.