Mead Moon

[zankoku_zen]

Golden mead fermented with gruit, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, ginger root, sweet-briar, lemon, orange slices, and blackberries.

[marared]

2008 Mead Moon is one of my top tier favorites and I'm running low on my last bottle, so I was looking forward to trying the new one. It is noticeably different, but not in a bad way at all.

 

2008 is fizzy and bright like soda, and the spices are more prominent - it has a fairly sharp zing to it, and I would have *sworn* it had labdanum, but it doesn't.

 

2020 is much sweeter, more syrupy, and much heavier on the fruit, but in a good way! It's not overpowering or too jammy. The fruits all blend well, it doesn't announce itself as distinctively berry OR citrus. It smells like a sangria mix without the wine. The spices are still there but they're much further down in the blend. This is delicious, I love it. I bought two, might have to get another couple before they come down...

Edited July 13, 2020 by marared
typo!

[feyofthefellwood]

I blind bottled this hoping I would love it, and it turns out it was a good investment. The honey note is sweet, but light and almost effervescent. The fruit notes are really well blended, and although the blackberry is stronger at first, it melds with the citrus notes as it dries down, making the scent brighter and less syrup-sweet. The scent, at least fresh from the mail, seems to sit fairly close to the skin, so it's less in your face than some honey scents. I do wish I got more of the gruit/herbs and spices, but maybe those will emerge more as the oil ages. I can kind of detect them once the scent has dried down if I look for them, but overall this is more mild and sweet than spicy or boozy, to my nose. Not an animalic honey. This might overtake Lady Una as my favorite honey-centric BPAL, but time will tell. 

 

If I smelled mead like this, I'd drink it.

Edited July 11, 2020 by feyofthefellwood

[VioletChaos]

I no longer have the 2008 variety but I was able to see my review of it to jog my memory. I knew that I had liked that one enough that when I saw there was a new iteration for 2020 I was very interested in getting to check it out, and I'm really glad I did. 

As with the original, there's something distinctly effervescent about Mead Moon- she is legitimately a *sparkling mead*, not just some honey slopped in a jar. The spices, both in the bottle and as the scent warms and blooms on the skin, are extremely well blended- apart from the rich honey base, I can't pull apart any of the notes in this perfume.

But what's important, what I remembered about the original, was that there was something distinctly High Summer about the fragrance- like playing in the hot sun and then lolling in a half-hidden barn, in big piles of sweet hay. The air is thick with the heat of the day, even in the dark of the interior, and the air is so dense and thick, yet there's something cozy and deeply nostalgic about it that it feels only welcoming. 

And so, I welcome Mead Moon back into my life, bringing a sweetness of the past into this chaotic present, to smooth the edges, if just a little bit. ❤️ 

[Lucchesa]

I was afraid Mead Moon 2020 would be too fruity on me, but I was buying the shirt so I wanted to at least try it.  Now I'm considering a bottle.  I agree with everyone here who says this is so cunningly blended that you can't pull apart the ingredients except for the honey-forward mead.  This is a warm golden honey -- it isn't effervescent on me, which is good because that descriptor usually doesn't work for my skin.  The blackberry doesn't turn into candy, and the citrus is a very light touch, as are the spices.  This doesn't read like a Weenie or autumnal scent, nor is it particularly boozy.  It's a gently spiced, gently fruity, midsummer honey, and it lasts all day.  It makes me want to go to a Renaissance faire out in the countryside and pretend that modernity hadn't happened.  

[doomsday_disco]

Mead Moon has an effervescent quality to it on me, which I think is a result of the ginger root. So it smells like some fizzy honey with some fruit (the blackberries are most noticeable to my nose) and possibly some herbs (the original scent copy for this said gruit, and as forspecial_plate noted in another thread, that's an herb mixture used in beer making). The spices in this are very light, which I wasn't expecting, since I usually amp them. And there's really just a squeeze of citrus. The golden honey is really nice, but the mead aspect becomes more apparent after several hours of wear, as the scent takes on a yeast-y quality.

 

I had to try this one because I bought the shirt and felt like I needed to try the scent that matched it. While this is a mead I certainly would drink, it's not something I'd probably choose to smell like. I am glad I decided to try it, though.  

Edited July 27, 2020 by doomsday_disco

[puellacaerulea]

In the decant, very honey-forward mead and dried fruits -- I can't pick out the spices, but they're there. This is really well-blended -- I know there are fruits and spice under the honey, but this is definitely a primarily honey scent. I was worried it was going to be too heavy on the fruit and spice in the decant, but the honey note amps up a lot, so that I get a bright honey scent with a faint undercurrent of fruit and spice. I'm probably good with just a decant of this, but if you like honey blends, this is one to try.

[Casablanca]

In the bottle, this smells like a light, sweet herbal honey with a blend of citrus notes and what I thought was some red fruit before reading "blackberries" in the description.

 

Fresh on my skin -- and whoa, I applied a lot -- the ginger comes out as part of the herbal quality. (But, then I look up gruit, and it's also herbal: yarrow and rosemary. I am Gruit!) I love herbal blends, so I've really climbed onto the Mead Moon bandwagon at this point.

 

But the herbs are just part of it: the honey is light and quite sweet, not overtly effervescent for me, but playful in hinting at it. Blackberries are also salient in this phase, with a little uplift from citrus. The spices are mild and blendy; I can separate clove and cinnamon during the wet phase, but it's kinda more pleasant not to try.

 

I need to be careful not to huff this too much, because I can feel how its sweetness could bring on a headache. But the blend of herbs, fruits, and spices keeps attracting me, like some honeybee, to take more in.

 

This one does go skin-soft quickly on me, but I'm still glad I picked up a bottle.

[zankoku_zen]

Honeyed mead, blackberries, and a whiff of clove and cinnamon. This is a fruity, heady mead. Good throw and wear length.

[DigitalCoyote]

Wet: Honey!!!!

 

Just dry: The honey is all gone.  Literally evaporated.  There's a very pleasant citrus, more lemon than orange on me.

 

Dry: Boozy blackberry.

[Rayleigh]

Smells like summer! Nice, non-cloying honey, lightly scented with a muddle of herbs/spices that I can't easily pick out. No citrus for me. The lab's blackberry works well on me, and smells wonderfully realistic. I don't have many good summer scents, so I'm happy to have this one around.

[bambi]

This is lovely! In the decant I get honey, berries, lemon, and something sparkling, but on my skin it shines. I get all the notes I get in the decant, but there's also something earthy (probably the spices), and something herbal (probably the gruit). It says there's cinnamon in it, but it must be the tiniest bit. Cinnamon does a horrible chemical smell on me, but there's none of that here. It's quite sweet, but not cloyingly so. This is an well-blended, bubbly, warm scent. Perfect for summer and celebrating from Beltane to Mabon. 

[fairybites]

This is super fruity and sweet. Lots of honeyed blackberry and lemon on me with some ginger, oranges, and nutmeg. Does not smell boozy to me at all, then again I've never tried mead so I don't know what that smells like. 

 

Lovely, might hunt down a bottle of this after all. The honey in here is definitely my favorite of the notes!