Winter Night. Figure on the Bridge

[Belladonnastrap]

Indigo musk, blackened lilac, wild plum rind, opium tar, tobacco flower, and snow.

[Kanra]

This is a very moody, broody scent. I bought four of the Lux Brumalis releases and the four I've tried all seem to have this kind of feel. It could be that these are just the scents I gravitated towards enough to buy bottles of, but if you liked the introspectiveness and introvertedness of releases like A Moonlit Winter Landscape, Winter Sunset, or Sunrise in Winter, this might be another winner for you.

 

Outside of having a broody, contemplative, solitary mood, however, the scent itself is very different. I get a lot of the indigo musk (a similar indigo to the indigo wine in Chinoiserie, but musky not winey), tobacco flower, and opium. I love the lab's opium note and it is wonderful here too. There is definitely plum, but it is indeed the rind of the plum. There's no sweetness or juiciness found in many plum blends here. There is lilac, yes, but true to description it is blackened. I personally don't get any of the lab's snow note.

 

This is very dark, very broody and moody. I think the Lux Brumalis releases are fantastic examples of BPAL's atmospheric scents. Wearing this, I really picture a solitary figure, brooding about on pitch black winter's night, so cold you can feel the chill through your bones. If nothing else, this collection is amazing for atmospheric experiences.

If you tend to go for dark, moody scents and love indigo, opium, and tobacco flower, you'll love this.

[VioletChaos]

Kanra up there said this was a moody, broody scent and I do NOT disagree.

This is making me have ALL kinds of feels, in a deeply profound way.

I'm getting a montage of my adolescence: running down icy nighttime  streets with my friends following some major protest    and

going to punk shows in the grimy, fetid basements of squats on the lower east side   and

smelling all the oil bottles on the carousel in the Body Shop   and 

walking around Alphabet City, my breath making little plumes in the frozen air as I pass garbage can fires and street vendors selling tiny dram bottles of patchouli, all whilst side-stepping dirty banks of old snow and knee-deep slush secretly waiting in deceptive gutters.


It's been a really, really long time since a scent created such a deluge of sense memory for me, but there it is. 

The prominent notes for me are an ozone-heavy snow that's kept in check by the richness of the indigo musk followed closely behind by the blackened lilac (definitely the note causing some of the teen-angst reverie here).

I'm so damn glad that I grabbed a bottle. I suspect I won't wear this one all that often given the intensity of feeling it provokes in me, but I will welcome having it unhand for when I want to deep-dive into the feelings of that exceptional time period (layering with a smear of thick, old punk rock patchouli purely optional

)

 

[Casablanca]

A brooding and wistful, deep-night blend.

 

Blackened lilac is most prominent for me throughout Winter Night's life on my skin, though indigo musk, plum, opium, and tobacco flower blend into its moody night backdrop. Snow glistens dully in the faint starlight of this night scene, but the focus is on the vast deep blues and purples of the sky.

 

I love the rich, dark colors and mood of Winter Night. The lilac's potency makes it too floral for my tastes these days, but it's an experience and I'm grateful for the chance to try it.

[hepkitten]

I don't get brooding here as much as I get wistful and contemplative. I mean, it's certainly more broody than bouncy, but I get calm thoughtfulness.

 

The lilac is a very strong presence, and I don't think you'll like this one if you don't like that scent, but WN:FotB is a lot more than a lilac single note. It definitely avoids the "springtime" associations that often go with that flower. The plum note also stands out, but again, not in a springlike way. I do get sweetness, especially at first, but this fragrance definitely has a grounded low end to it. 

 

This puts me in mind of sitting in a dark room and watching the snow fall at twilight, shading into evening. What light you see is purple, blue, and dreamlike. There's a glass of plum wine in your hand, and you feel just a touch of a chill through the window, but you're comfortable and quiet. 

Edited February 10, 2021 by hepkitten

[RoseThornAndOak]

Oh. My. Gods. Effervescent, snowy, but not sweet or piney, almost like a softer champagne snow note, with a slightly smokey, smuldering purplish resins/musk/tobacco thing going on. The florals soften it a bit too but do feel blackened (Blackened is the end!
Winter it will send!
Throwing all you see!
Into obscurity! lol). The florals aren't sharp or soapy. More adding softness and color (⚡COLOR OUR WORLD BLACKENED! ⚡🎸🎸).

 

An ever so slight sour but fun wine-like note emerges, I'm guessing the plum rind. It is a bit dark and broody, but not in a patchouli or black musk way, it's softer, there's a somber lonesome mood but a gentleness to it, like you're alone but still want to cuddle.

 

It doesn't smell quite like these blends, but it reminds me a bit of how Silence or Melancholia makes me feel, but there's soft snow and hope? I dunno, lol.

 

Basically soft effervescent snow with BLACKENED! florals and opium tobacco musky goodness and sexy, broody, purply plum rind.

 

Anyway I love this and will upgrade to a bottle for sure. 

Edited February 17, 2021 by RoseThornAndOak

[marared]

Dark, musky lilac. This is a really good lilac, too - I grew up in western NY, where lilacs are A Thing, and most lilac perfumes don't smell right to me. The snow note runs almost parallel to the lilac and I don't notice it unless I inhale and think about it - it's much more prominent in the imp but gets absorbed into the floral on my skin.

 

It's really pretty, and it does not go powdery. I only got a decant, but it's on my shortlist for a bottle.

[torischroeder9]

I think I purchased this from a decant circle: a) to help a bottle make; b) because everyone was gushing about it in the Yule thread. Opium and tobacco are notoriously persnickety on me, but here goes. 

 

In the decant: Opium and tobacco, straight out of the gate, shrouded in something shadowy that I think must be the indigo musk. 

 

On my skin:

 

Wet, there's a moment when it's sharp but indistinct. Then it softens into musky lilac. After the initial drydown, the "blackened" aspect of the blackened lilac comes out. It's very lilac-forward, but instead of being light and sweet, it's shadowy and musky. As it develops, I can also pick out the tobacco flower, but it's still fairly lilac-forward... and definitely still in the shadowy, blackened, musky way. 

 

It's very nice, particularly for someone who has issues with traditional florals being heady and overpowering. The "blackened" aspect helps tone done the headiness while keeping the floral true. That said, I don't experience this as evocative -- of time or place or memory or mood -- as other reviewers have seemed to. 

 

Edit: Sadly, a couple of hours later, this morphed to be still strong but mostly tobacco flower on me. Nothing wrong with that for those for whom tobacco is a treat, but I just end up with a lot of tobacco-containing scents that go this way.  

Edited February 24, 2021 by torischroeder9

[BetteNoire]

Deep purple with a breathtaking iridescent sparkle to it. I love all these notes, so it shouldn't be surprising, but still....wow.

 

This is that literally intoxicating lilac smell, made cool (not icy cold though) instead of warm. The plum and tobacco flower seem to be supporting the lilac and adding back in whatever it is that often gets lost between a real lilac bush and the distilled flower oil.

 

Unf. And as it dries down the opium comes in. I'm iffy with musks but clearly I need more of the indigo variety. And possibly a backup bottle of this.

[Kytha]

When I first tried this on, the blackened lilac was a little too dark, but trying it again after it's had a chance to rest...

 

The image this perfume gives me is of a sumptuously dressed woman who's stepped out into the cool night air to take a discreet smoke break before getting back to the madness. Some BPAL scents really like to throw a party, but this one doesn't,  tending to stay close to skin despite the strength of it when you actually give it a sniff. It's 'weighed' down,' so to speak, which matches the contemplative moment it evokes.

 

This is an extremely lilac-forward blend, supported by the tobacco and opium that keeps the florals grounded and subdued instead of springing up all over. I don't get the snow distinctly, but as BetteNoire mentioned, it definitely feels like a 'cool' scent. Once the floral of the lilac fades, the opium sticks around, slightly sweetened by the fruit. It also lasts, it lasted through the night and the next morning when I put it on a few hours before bed. A good thing I love how it smells, but if any of the notes are iffy for you, be aware that it will stick around for a while.

 

 

 

[zankoku_zen]

Moody plum and lilac blend, overlayed by slushy snow. This one smells like the purple twilight on cold winter evenings. Good throw and wear length.

[DiesMali]

Of all the Yules I ordered this go-round, THIS - not the sexy gingerbreads or the sufganiyot - was the one I was most looking forward to! Indigo musk is my favourite of the BPAL musks, and yes. Yespls. 

 

In the bottle: Dark, slightly soapy-aquatic lilac and plum. 

 

Wet on my skin: My immediate thought is "this could be something from The Last Unicorn" series. 

 

Dry: This is a deep, dark, evocative lilac with a gleaming edge of purple-black plum. Indigo musk, opium, and tobacco flower give it a very velvety-smooth, slightly hypnotic quality, and the slushy snow note gives it a very slightly ozonic/aquatic feel, like a snowy bridge over a half-frozen creek that looks black and shimmery under the moonlight peeking out from behind grey-black winter clouds. The dark lilac and plum remain at the forefront, tempered mostly by the opium and musk, which is what I was hoping for, and I love it. Just a beautiful scent, and it will definitely be going into wear rotation as we get into the spring lilac season here.  

[firefae]

So many of the Lux Brumalis scents spoke to me, but the plum/opium/tobacco flower combo here and the overall "purple" vibe this description gave me made this the only one I blind-bought when these scents were released. I pictured a plummy, shadowy, musky scent with some sweet floral backing, a deep shadow of a scent.

 

This is...not quite that scent on me. Fresh from the mailbox, it was so brightly floral to my nose in the bottle sniff, drawing some bathroom air freshener connections in my brain and promising to amp any small hint of headache to screech level. Now that it's rested for a couple of months, that initial lilac blast has mellowed quite a bit, but it is still the first thing that jumps out at me when I open the bottle. On the skin, though, it blooms into something I enjoy more every time I wear it (today is wear #3 or 4, I think). The plum really is tart in the way fruit skin tends to be, and the lilac IS shadowy, particularly as it dries down and settles in, just a more floral shadow than I'd pictured when reading the description. This feels to me like an early spring/late winter dusk, the purply shadows of almost-dark stretched out over a still mostly-barren and chilly landscape (but if you look close, there are snowdrops already blooming, and wood hyacinth leaves pushing their way out of the dirt). There's also something about it that makes me think of moody, gray-sky reflections on concrete after a rain. Sniffing up close to my skin, the "blackened" nature of the lilac and the tartness of the plum skin feel prominent, while further away there's a creamier feel, maybe from the tobacco flower?

 

I'm still not sure this is a scent I could manage on a headache day, but it's settling into itself so beautifully with even this small bit of age that a year from now I suspect I might not get that bright/sharp initial floral blast at all. I think my final thought here is that I'm really glad I blind-bottled this, as I don't think I would have given a decant the same patience and number of "test" wears I tend to give to bottles, and likely would have dismissed this scent as overly floral on first wear and dropped it into my "not for me" pile. I'll definitely be hanging onto this and look forward to how it continues to develop when I pull it back out again to wear in future springs!

 

[VetchVesper]

Figure on the Bridge seems like it's changed a good bit since I decanted it a few months ago and noticed it being delicious.  Of course, my nose could have just been overrun with all the other yules at the time, so maybe it was my nose that needed to settle, not the perfume.    

 

Before, I got tons of deep floral and indigo musk.  Now, the first thing I become aware of is a snow note, mingling with floral.  It's a light, ozoney, minty snow, well balanced by indigo musk a slightly perfumey lilac. I don't recognize the other notes, but I can tell they're adding depth and interest to the lilac. The minty snow melts, but the ozone quality remains faintly, mingling with the opium and ever evolving lilac, with brief flashes of tart, sweet plum skin.  The longer this wears, the farther away from recognizable lilac this becomes, morphing into something darkly beautiful, complex, and elegantly perfumey.  There's still a touch of ozone/aquatic swirling in the mix, but it's wearing well for me. I was a bit worried this wasn't going to live up to my initial impressions when I smelled that snow note, but it does.  It's reminding me a little of the my newly purchased bottle of Rolling in the Deep, so I want to do a side by side comparison, but if they aren't super similar, Figure on the Bridge will swiftly be appearing in my cart.   

 

As a side note, this is pretty different from the other lilac offering this year, "Snow Covered Landscape."  Neither perfumes are super lilac-y, though the note is identifiable, but both are bottle worthy in my book.    This is pretty much the perfume equivalent to the line, "she walks in beauty like the night..."

 

P.S.  My cat even likes it.  There ya go.  Couldn't give it higher praise.  😸

Edited May 9, 2021 by VetchVesper

[fairybites]

Soft snowy lilac musk and tobacco flower with plum and opium in the background. The snow note doesn't stick around too long, so this mostly ends up as a lilac musky opium plum blend. It is pretty faint and is almost gone in just a few short hours.

 

Not bad, but I wish it stuck around longer on me.

[storme]

Wet: lilac and snow and some sweet musk.
Dry: Mostly lilac with a whisper of snow and plum and musk. Very very lovely!

[Minh Scent]

Beautiful dark lilac with a snow note reminiscent of champagne. Usually lilac perfume goes too "bug spray" on me, a far cry from the splendid real blossoms. Here they are tempered with opium and plum, making them much more attractive. (Sadly the label has faded to a blur, which is disappointing).

[Lucchesa]

I love this Winter Night. I’m wearing it because the lilacs are in bloom, which is pretty much the only time I wear the note. But this is a sultry nighttime lilac I can wear year round. The snow note doesn’t last past the opening on me; this is all about deep dark lilac in an opium den, with hints of plum. It reminds me of a lilac Event Horizon though I think opium is the only shared note. (I always misremember Event Horizon as having plum.) Dark and sexy, with better than average throw and wear length on me.