The Black Snowman

[zankoku_zen]

And when Rudolph had opened the third seal, I heard the third reindeer say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black snowman; and he had a pair of balances in his hand.

 

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four reindeer say, A measure of peppermint for a penny, and three measures of licorice rope for a penny; and see thou hurt not the egg nog and the gløgg.

 

Snow soaked black with tobacco, oudh, and black magnolia.

 

This one is the scariest Snowman to me because black magnolia turns into wet wool on me, so I'm getting a soggy wet wool with a touch of oudh and tobacco. Great throw and wear length.

 

I actually dislike this so much, it might actually win out as the worst BPAL on my skin in a long long time. But magnolia is a super duper problematic note on my skin, so YMMV.

[ReineDeVampire]

Wow...I really hope this one morphs over time... Decant only arrived today and I've had  this on for only a few minutes but woah... wet it smelled like...holding a stalk of celery to your nose while walking through a hoarder's musty house full of stale cat pee.........terrible description I know... Based on the above review I'm going to guess that's also the black magnolia on me, as I haven't had this issue with the "snow", tobacco, or oudh notes with bpal before.

It's actually settling down now... kind of a light floral, like sticking your nose in a grocery store mixed flower bouquet, with a sort of "maple syrup" kind of smell in the background....this one is odd... I'll have to try it a few more times to decide how I feel about it...

 

 

Edit: Okay, so I tried this again today. Wearing as my full scent of the day and I'm happy to say that horrible scent only lasts for about 5 minutes or so (I rub it into my skin when not just testing, so it gets past the wet stage faster...) before turning into a lovely soft floral. Reminds me a little of Hades or Eostre of the Dawn. I do like this!

Edited January 8, 2019 by ReineDeVampire

[DigitalCoyote]

I tried this at the Lunacy event today and wanted to love this so badly: magnolia and I have been BFFs since Josie.

 

Wet: This hit me in the face.  All I could think was wet and slimy...green? Definitely WET.  The nice lady in the green lipstick that smelled it described it as muddy and agreed with my assessment that my skin was not having it with this smell.

 

It turned in to a floral something several hours later.

 

[donkehpoo]

Wet: Deep, dark tobacco and oudh. It's pretty overwhelming. A little bit of a floral note coming through as well, which must be the black magnolia.

 

Dry: The tobacco is much, much lighter than the wet stage, as well as the oudh. The black magnolia has more or less taken over as the dominant scent. I would almost describe this as smelling... poisonous?

 

Oudh can go pretty terrible on my skin, but it seems to be playing well here. This is a dark floral blend with a touch of tobacco and oudh. 

[Minh Scent]

Hmmm, my experience is a bit different than those above, although perhaps a bit closer to Donkehpoo's description of "dark floral with a touch of tobacco and wood".  I get nothing weird, vegetable or soggy wet wool. My impression: It starts out as a very earthy wet magnolia, but as it dries the oude (very light) and tobacco start stepping up.  The floral has a tad of sweetness in it as it dries down.  The further it goes into drydown, the more the tobacco comes through.  Final drydown is a very sexy, deep, perfumey floral.

 

[RoseThornAndOak]

This was nice and creamy in the vial, a bit of a smooth quality with the tobacco. Unfortunately the oud strikes again and swamps the other notes and goes acrid.

 

If you don't get the acrid vibe from oud, this could be a really nice, deep tobacco/snow blend worth trying!