Black Annis

[enderfem]

... Black Annis' perfume is a mixture of damp cave lichen and oak leaf with a hint of vetiver, civet and anise.

Bottle: Smells like licorice. That's it. This isn't going to go well.

On me: Well alright then. Color me surprised. And happy. Some of the anise backs off and lets the oak leaf and civet come through. And the vetiver isn't controlling, which it tends to do on me. What I have is a deep spicy, somber fragrance. I'm a fan. I might not do a bottle of this, but I'll probably do another imp at some point. Staying power like whoa.

[hipslike___cinderella]

Reading all these reviews, I feel bad. Poor Black Annis gets a hell of a bad rap. This was fascinating and I think, pleasant... and it's a scent I could only review in steps.

 

I picked this out because I thought it would be thick, scary, and animalistic. Initially I was right about the animal part, but to my surprise I found this oil to be alluring, and dare I say, nearly delicious. In the imp, it was a creamy vetiver, anise, and green notes (must be the oak leaf and lichen). So I tested this on my skin. Mmmm... smooth musk attraction, anise (aka, black licorice. It's similar, but I hate saying it because they aren't entirely the same, and I think it's not fair to compare anise with a sugary confectionary), vetviter... I wait to see where this takes me.

 

10 minutes later... JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO INTO THE WOODS! The anise is no longer creamy, but sharp, black, and twisted. This tickles my nose and it's as though the anise and vetiver are in a shouting match on my skin. This is the scary waft I was looking for. Later on, I'm surprised by the arc of this. An hour or so after application, it has come full-circle back to the creamy, musty, anise and vetiver. The fight is over. The note that I think is lichen is more prevalent in the end, leaving a warm, and again, VERY animalistic, musky green fragrance that is subdued, pensive, and sluggish. I have to say "fragrance" because this is the most unexpected perfume ever, and at the same time completely natural smelling. This tells a story; the approach, the attack, the afterglow after the kill, all from one oil. I don't know if the general populis would take a liking to smelling this off of me, but damn, I love it.

 

I can only guess that many people don't like Black Annis because many people don't like the notes themselves. Civet, anise, and vetiver are notes that don't necessarily have a big following. I say, don't let this one scare you; if you can handle those notes alone, this is all worth the try.

[themerrybaker]

All I can say is that the "hint" of vetiver must have been a pretty broad hint indeed. Black Annis is probably the darkest scent I've ever smelled: very woody, damp and musty. Perfect for those days when I want to snack on little German children.

 

Very glad I got to try this anti-hero of the forum favorites. If used sparingly, it dries into a nice heat-busting vetiver number.

[CrystieSC]

In the imp this smells smoky and woodsy. On me, it still smells smoky and woodsy. As it dries it begins to smell more rich, almost like the tiniest hint of caramel, and nutty rather than woodsy.

 

Completely dry, it smells deep, and rich, but not sweet. Musky (the vetiver?) and bitter (the anise?) The scent is very strong and heady. Not unpleasant, but not something I'd wear everyday.

 

I think I like vetiver

[dreadeddragon]

In the bottle: Sort of an earthy root like scent. I can't really distinguish any particular notes.

 

First on: OK, right now this is gorgeous, but I can smell the civet in the back and I know it'll go sour milk on me like always. I still can't distinguish the notes, but it's heady and dark with a sweet note in the background.

 

Drydown: This is officially the only civet that has ever touched my skin that isn't gross in minutes. I can pick civet out in oils that have no mention of it in any review, but I wouldn't have guessed it in this had it not been listed in the ingredients. I would have guessed a powerful musk, because it's toying with the idea of going sour, but it's not quite there. It's dark and sexy and brooding. I like.

 

Overall: Who'd a thunk I could ever wear this when I hate anise and I hate civet. I'm keeping the imp and I'll love it, but it won't be a bottle of anything with civet for me ever, since different batches can smell different.

[JennyGardener]

Black Annis lurks in the darkest of places. This is the scent of a cave, with old leaves and dry bones. It is the scent of the basement in the old house that scared you so much as a child. Faerygirl described it as the scent of a rock shop. It is the earthiest of scents. This is not wet earth, it's dry earth, dessicated, with something like the tang of old blood that seeped in long ago. It's a very dark scent. Very scary, in the most visceral way. The thing that lives in the place smelling of Black Annis is NOT your friend. It wants to, and indeed it will, eat you. That's it, end of story. Black Annis smells like death and the utter finality of living. I think it is perfect for Halloween and other dark times of the year. It would make a great room scent for a haunted house. It just adds that creepy edge. I do love Black Annis, but I can't wear it for too long because it makes me feel a little spooked. I don't want to summon her, which I feel this scent does. This scent is the exact scent of the last scene in The Blair Witch Project.

[aquazoo]

Anise is right! Oh, I like the licorice in this very much! Mysterious, not too dusty, and a lovely spice overall. I can’t stop smelling this!!!

[Ajila]

In the bottle – A green furry scent toped with civet

 

Wet on me – Weirdly this smells of sweet almonds and balloons

 

Dry on me – A soft powdery green scent like talc and fresh cut herbs

 

Overall – Surprisingly light and pretty, but not really me

[spanishviolet]

This scent is the exact scent of the last scene in The Blair Witch Project.

 

It's funny how different this scent is on different people. When I wore it, my friend told me I smelled like lemon cookies! Which led to much puzzled wrist-sniffing on my part. I think the anise had biscotti associations for her, maybe ... Perhaps cookies in a cave. I smelled cool rocks & a light sweetness.

 

Vetiver seems to love me, and I like licorice ... the only question for me here was the civet, which apparently doesn't act up too much.

[Mirabila]

Ok, this is my first review, so bear with me. I'm not to the point where I can pick out many individual notes yet.

 

I got this in my second pack of imps. The first group I got had lots of light woods and amber-y stuff in it, which didn't really work on me, so I went for much darker smells this time around.

 

And I'm so glad I did. Black Annis may be the most delicious thing I've ever smelled on myself.

 

In the bottle--nice, completely lacking in anything I usually smell in a perfume: no florals, no fruits, no foods. Just a smell that's...carnal? I get the oak and lichen for sure, and something very soft too.

 

On my skin, wet--awesome. Earthy and sensual, but I'm not getting any of the anise or civet others seem to smell.

 

Dry--Lasts a long time, but turns very soft. Not quite powdery, but very feminine and comforting, with a primal edge.

 

I think I've found my first big bottle!

[Cariad]

I have a bad head cold, so I might have to add some more coherent comments when I can actually smell again, but... oh my god! This is a scent I would *never* have picked out on my own, but it's so... me. All I can smell through the cold is slightly chocolatey, earthy, sensual goodness. It's not as in-your-face SEXY as, say, Snake Oil; more like "I know exactly how sexy I am; it's up to you if you want to find out..." And that is more or less exactly how I want to smell.

[KaliVerra]

Ohhhhhhh, this is such a dark little monkey!

 

In the bottle: Anise... nothing but... like being slapped across the face with a licorice whip

 

Wet: Anise w/a little vetiver peeking through... hmmm... things are getting interesting...

 

Drydown: A big brooding sexy lovebomb... ungmph! Can't. Stop. Sniffing...

[jolarocknrolla]

I never ever thought i would love this (look at the notes O_O ick!) until i randomly tried a frimp ... and loved it/ the ultimate scent for fall/Halloween, smokey and leafy, dark and mysterious. the anise makes it almost spicy/peppery in the way that October and La Mort Qui Dance are (totally different notes in those, but aq similar *feel* somehow). Anyway, give Annis a shot, you might be surprised!

[Sealgair]

I got to try this imp through the Civet Evangelism Sniffing Circle courtesy of JennyGardener!

 

in imp: moss, touch of ivy, touch of pine... anise underneath it all, swirling in & out

on wet: 1:40 - anise and moss come up stronger, pine gets darker, is that vetiver underneath it all now? And ivy note singing a descant on top.

drydown: 1:50 - yup, that's vetiver, which is VERY bitter when mixed with anise. This is a very cold scent, icy winter wind freezing your nose off as you walk through a pine forest.

2:15 - it's gotten sweeter, I believe that's civet coming up all sweet & musky, grounded by a bitter vetiver and surrounded by a descant of twining ivy and anise.

2:40 - waft is bitter & cold, anise and ivy and moss, up close is civet & vetiver. Overall this is quite bitter, so I'm not sure I like it. Rank it somewhere around 2.5 of 5.

3:21 - it's starting to fade now except for the high bitter notes... which alone becomes soapy. If I put my nose right up to where I put the oil, I can still smell the sweet musk and woods, but the waft is all bitterness and soap.

[Ilex]

I got this imp in the summer and had high hopes for it, most BPAL turns to candy on me and I thought this might be dark enough to fight off my super sweet skin chemistry (and I don't even really eat sweets!). If I could smell like a fresh cut plank in the mud I think I'd dig that, but my skin seems to eat all woods and mosses.

 

It sort of did work, or at least the sweet isn't intolerable. I tried it first in the summer, and it was cloying, like a cat who wants to be right next to you when you are sticky sweaty from the heat and won't leave you alone. Not so good, but kind of endearing, in its way.

 

Now, its fall, so I gave it another go. Its yummy. The civet is there, I occasionally get, hm? is this really working moments from it. But there are also wafts of chocolate and licorice and spice. It is a bit male cologne-y, but its an unusual enough male cologne that it isn't annoying.

 

I also started thinking it smelled like black tea... and realized part of that was the reminents of lavender face scrub (honey and a little lavender oil, works well btw) that I used last night. So I recommend a light layering with lavender and seeing what that does for you if its not quite working.

[Chapanis]

In the imp, it is dank musty cave with something nasty.

Disturbing.

 

Wet on skin, same as in imp. Makes my stomach a bit ill if I get too close.

 

Dry on skin, okay it is better now. It reminds me of a warm foggy Northwest morning walking down the mossy path in my mothers garden with the anise plants in full bloom. So that is good. But there is still something sinister (maybe sinister and dead?) lurking about.

[Torrain]

In the imp, this smells like vetiver and something musky/grimy—like bad chocolate, somehow. Not picking up any of the plants. It hits my skin and goes to a kind of fizzy soapy smell, some kind of country-scented industrial strength cleaner.

 

I'm beginning to pick out the anise.

 

4 min: damp moss (which is a very nice smell) and heavy anise. Radical improvement. Hopefully this will keep getting better.

 

10-15 min: moss and anise and something soft and sweet. It smells like coconut, actually.

 

Overall impression is currently “Get your licorice out of my Shanghai Tunnel.”

 

1 hr: baby powder with anise. Hell.

 

Things I have learned: anise comes out very very strongly on my skin. A *hint* of it? Good grief. It's practically all I can smell.

 

Love and coffee,

Frances (who was hoping for something creepy. *sneef*)

[voodoocatwoman]

Ick.

 

In the imp: Very grassy

 

Wet: Cedar

 

Dry: Cedar shavings and bandaids

 

Ick.

[ranyart]

I got this as a lab frimp in my most recent order. When I initially sniffed all the imps that came in, my note was: I can really smell the anise in the imp! This should be interesting.

 

In the imp: murky vetiver and a little spicy kick from the annis. I've never worn anything with civet and that makes me a bit nervous, but I'm willing to try. After all, vetiver seems to scare some folks (including me) the way civet does, and it's turned out to be a great note on me.

 

Wet: this does smell kind of cave-y, but the anise throws off that feeling a bit. It's almost like very sinister baked goods. My skin seems to be eating this up but I'll wait and see how it dries. The vetiver is apparent at first but seems to be fading into the background. I wish I knew what civet smelled like, but I'm pretty sure the note I'm not quite able to pin down is the civet. Interesting.

 

Dry: the anise is still there, happily, but it's part of a really odd and dark scent. The vetiver has blended into everything else and I can't pick it out, and there's an almost-musky, animalistic smell I assume is the civet. This is dark and sinister and still somehow very sexy. I highly approve.

 

Despite my worries about this fading quickly, Black Annis had a lot of staying power. About nine or ten hours later, it's very faint, but I know it was still going strong at the 7/8 hour mark, which is pretty good for me.

 

I know this scent isn't for everyone, but I'm really impressed. As always, the Lab knows what will work on me better than I do!

[Inanna9]

From JennyGardener and the Civet Evangelism sniffing circle:

 

Black Annis has got to be in the BPAL Top 5 of Most Evocative Scents.

 

Wet, it's dank and feral. Every time I put this one on I can just see this clawed, disheveled crone stooped over in some dark cave, smelling like she hasn't seen a bath in a few centuries Not that I want to scare anyone away from this one. Because it doesn't smell bad...just musky dank and scary.

 

The anise saves the day, surprisingly enough. It gives this a cool, almost sweet edge and seems to counteract the civet so that the musk isn't overpowering. Same goes for the vetiver: it's dark but not too oily -- it almost seems sweet as well -- and gives this a nice depth, grounding all these crazy notes into one spooky whole.

[alsatia]

Expectations: I dislike every one of the notes in this. *sniffs warily*

 

In vial: Crumbled leaves and licorice.

 

On skin, wet: Mostly leafy, and the licorice keeps veering toward a chocolate scent.

 

On skin, dry: Musky leaves. Licorice. Bleh.

 

After time: It hasn't morphed since I applied it half an hour ago, which is one of the few positive aspects of this scent.

 

Conclusion: Are there seriously people who choose to smell like this?

[donnatron]

Imp: Dusty anise. Sort of smells like coming across some random licorice while cleaning a rarely used corner of the house.

 

Wet: There is something incredibly familiar about this scent. I don't know quite what it is, but it reminds me of summers at the cabin in my childhood. It's not quite the scent of the cabin or the woods, though--there's something... distinct, but sort of drifting at the edge of my perception here. From a clinical standpoint, when this goes on the skin, the anise actually backs off a bit, letting the lichen and civet fight it out.

 

Dry: This is still a really familiar scent. It's not a nice scent, though. It smells very decayed and sort of scary. I could see wearing it as a Hallowe'en scent when I am intent on staying home and scaring children as I open the door. I will note that lichen/moss notes and civet are both abhorrant on me but somehow they manage to keep each other in check here. The anise is quite lovely, and I get something of a rocky cliff or cave scent from this.

 

Throw: Strong. If you choose to wear this among humans, you will have to take great care in yoru application.

 

Overall: If this scent had a literary companion (other than Ms. Annis, of course), it would be Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily." This smells like the creepy old lady down the street who all the kids said was a witch died and your mom volunteered to clean the house out, roping you into the job in the process. It's a very evocative scent, but it doesn't really like my skin chemistry and doesn't jibe with my tastes. I would recommend trying it, though, because it is a very complicated scent to wrap your head around.

[SueDonym]

Go Civeteers! Yaaaaaay JennyGardener!

 

Black Annis. At my first MnS, I'd heard someone mention this scent with a kind of infinite horror. At that point I believed I'd already tried it, but of course rushed right off to try it again, at which I was, hey that's not a bad scent, that's even nice...then blithely went about my business.

 

So, when finally reviewing the infamous scent of someone else's horror:

 

Imp: Nicely powerful! Usual earth-y suspects at the top, a bit of anise at the bottom. Reminds me that licorice is used in herbal medicine to root treatment, to bind it in. And that I tend to spell licorice with an s in there somewhere.

 

On skin: Wet, fresh, cedar-y, licorice (remember two c's) floats low.

 

As it dries it gets kind of creamy, smoky and yes, still a bit of herbal licorice (not candy licorice). It's almost sweet!

 

On me this is a nice, creamy, smoky, dark herbal.

Very pleasant! Lightly sweet. Fresh. Almost comforting.

 

Now to blithely go about my business.

 

The horror...the horror...

 

 

 

 

ETA: OMG! On full dry down this is a light, almost flower-like very fresh licorice. It's wonderful!

Edited May 26, 2008 by SueDonym

[kakiphony]

In the imp: Black licorice with a bit of vetiver.

 

Wet on skin: Much soapier than in the imp. A bit floral. Something pungent and a bit spicy at the base. Civet? This is much more standard cologne smelling than I expected from the imp.

 

Early dry down (10 minutes): Hmm. This is getting spicy on me quite quickly. There's something high and astringent against a backdrop of something deep, woody and a bit peppery. I can see how some folks think this smells "bad." The high astringent thing has a bit of an ammonia vibe to it, but it's not nose stingingly bad to me, just odd for a perfume. It's like ammonia mixed with musk! It's definitely not one of the skin wedding bpals that make me smell like "me" only better. This is definitely its own thing. I get very little annis from this at all, if anything I'd call the annis a grace note. The dominant note is vetiver, and that high ammonia-like scent which I'm betting is how civet develops on me.

 

Half hour mark: I'm dithering about whether or not to wash this one off. It's not horrid and hasn't made me sneeze yet, which are my two usual benchmarks of wash-off, but it's...not right. My right wrist is very soapy with that musky ammonia over it, and my left is vetiver with molding leaves. I'm finally getting the whole "dank" vibe that other people have mentioned. This doesn't smell awful, it just doesn't smell good or appealing to my nose. I can equally understand why some folks despise this and others find it to be a surprise hit. I'm ambivalent, but leaning toward not liking it because I'm afraid others will smell it on me and not like it. This scent makes very self conscious, which is the opposite of what I want a bpal to do.

 

One hour: Still not my favorite, but still not hideously awful either. The right wrist is now all deep woods (cedar closets) and just a hint of the musky ammonia. The left wrist (watch hand) is actually milder and more dank.

 

This is not one I'll ever use, but I'm glad to have tried it.

[taramarie]

On me, Black Annis is just black licorice for an hour or so after I put it on. I'm guessing that's the anise. Then something musky comes through, and I assume that's the civet. I can't stand black licorice, so this will have to go.