Nocnitsa

[kjirstiben]

... Her scent is that of a lightless fir wood, nighttime air, wet forest mosses and upturned earth.

First on, this scent is a bright, almost citrussy evergreen scent. As it dries down I can smell a hint of loam underneath it. It turns into a foresty scent, with evergreens and green leaf scents mixed together in a way that reminds me of Jersey Devil or Black Forest, but underlaid with the loamy scent of Graveyard Dirt or Death Cap. It's earthy and damp-smelling.

A few hours in, it had a brief (~15 min) stage where it smelled slightly sour underneath the evergreens, but quickly emerged out of that transitional stage as a dark evergreen. At that point, all of the "dirt" had disappeared on me (it's a short-lived note on my skin) and the scent became a slowly-fading deep evergreen forest scent.

Recaplet: Forest and earth, then pure forest.
My rating: 4 of 5 (I really like this!)
Color impression: Dark green and dark brown.

[WidgetAlley]

Imp: Sweet dirt and woods, I think fir and birch and maybe a little cypress. There's definitely moss in here, too, and some florals. Smells a whole lot like Jazz Funeral, but not as sweet. It's kinda funky.

 

Wet: Sugary, spicy dirt and soap for a second, then strooooooooong woods and evergreens. Like a less summery, less jubilant version of Jazz Funeral still. The soap makes me think there's a floral in this, but I don't smell flowers, just... soap. The evergreens go sweet on me after a few minutes.

 

Dry: Much the same. Too-sweet wood, a little spiced-dirt, and soap. It's.... okay, I guess. Not terribly keen on it but it's not actively unpleasant.

[ephemera]

I'm always leery of "green" scents, but this one seemed to have fir which doesn't always hate me on impact. The fir is deep and resinous in this, and oddly comforting for a scent about the nighttime hag. It's rather nice, but I don't think it's a "me" scent exactly. I'll keep the imp, though.

[TheOneTheyCallLuna]

Oh wow! This is delicious...pine needles on a bed of earth with a bit of fuzzy sweet moss, fresh air, and a background of something that reads as crisp, sweetly tart, and juicy like a hint of apple. I adore this! The pine is so soft, not sharp in the slightest. The earth is a very subtle note, not overpowering at all as earthy notes can sometimes be on me. Everything in this blend is balanced to perfection, like it was made just for me. This is the darker, spookier and less piney side of Hexennacht, and the softer, subtler non-alcoholic side of Jazz Funeral rolled into one. Yes, please! Thank you, thank you, thank you generous frimper! I love this!

[Kikkervisje]

Wet: My initial impression is evergreen and rich, wet, recently turned soil (very like that in Destroying Angel).

 

Dry: Oddly sweet. The soil and fir are less pronounced. There may be a floral of some sort in here (to approximate the night air accord?). Pleasant, though. The remaining forest scents with said floral? create a gentle spicy-sweetness. Lightly masculine or an earthier feminine.

 

Fits Description?: It does remind me of a forest at night, rain-dampened.

 

Overall: A darker scent, but comforting. The fir and moss balance well with the soil. That is, the soil is a welcome note; but, unlike with Destroying Angel, I don't feel like I smell like I've been gardening. Instead, in this case, it adds another layer to the overall composition.

[Tess]

In the bottle - This has lots and lots of fir. I'm not getting any of the Graveyard Dirt earth I'd hoped for (damn), but there is a touch of moss and decay to this.

 

Wet - FIR TREE. Wow.

 

Drying - The evergreen is just overpowering everything else in this. There's just a bare amount of moss in the background, but it's almost a single note. There's also a good amount of throw here. The throw is, of course, fir. All fir, all the time. The dirt had better start kicking in soon.

 

Dry (1.5 hours) - This is just... evergreen. A bit, happy evergreen. Truly almost a single note.

 

Overall - Very boring in the end, sadly. Oh well.

[HeidiAnn]

Of all the BPAL scents I own, this is my #1 most-often-reached-for bottle. While I'm not big on the lab's earth/dirt scents, the earthiness in this blend just melds so well with the fir and mosses. To me it's like taking a walk in a forest filled with evergreens damp with early morning dew. As other reviewers have mentioned, this is a totally gender-neutral fragrance, and I think this is perfect for year-round wear. Unlike other reviewers, I do not detect any fruit or mint. If you like Hexennacht, Black Forest, Slobbering Pine, or Golden Priapus, I'd definitely recommend giving this one a try.

[djsiberia]

ozone and mud.

 

i'm sure this scent is extremely complex...but to me...its just ozone & mud.

Edited June 6, 2009 by djsiberia

[blacklacestatic]

In the imp: Earthy,wet and sweet. Mossy, a bit more pleasant than a typical earthy blend.

 

Wet on skin: Spicy earth, hint of something aquatic, a forest at night. Too earthy and piney for me to wear as perfume, but the nicest dirt blend I've tried.

 

Drydown: Too much pine, too masculine. Bet it would smell wonderful on my guy.

 

Overall: Nice as a scent, but not for me. Pine scents tend to be too manly for my skin. A great composition though, perfectly captures a forest at night.

[Champagne]

It`s dark pines and fresh air at the start and then the soil note emerges and after the berrish, sweet note settles down, without taking place to the night air. It`s totally evocative of a night in the mountains with some flowers and berries scattered for a good measure.

Good for both sexes and explosive as room scents. It`s the father of the sweeter Yew-Trees.

[Jupita]

Nocnitsa.... Ночнитса...

 

This was a freebie from the Lab, an unexpected one...

 

Despite being russian, I didn't order any oils inspired by my heritage - was too afraid to be disapointed, since none of them had notes that I usually care for...

Yet, this just...

 

Let's see...

It's a very early morning, and you are walking in the woods, all alone... the sun has just started to go up, and coloured everything this deep forest blue. The birds have started to sing... each telling it's own sweet story.

And sudenly, far away, you see a red light... you think it's a person, and you run to it... faster, and faster... and it gets, brighter, and brigter...

Before you know it, you step out of the woods, and you see the sun, go over the hills in front of you, a red halo around it, colouring everything a beautifull shade of peach...

Everything around you, scents the air... the fir trees behind you, the berries, moss and grass at your feet.

It's summer, it's morning, it's beautifull and warm...

 

On me, this scent, has nothing to do, with the dark character it was named after... it's bright, happy, green and warm.

It's a beautifull scent, and totally bottle worthy.

 

On my bf, on the other hand, it was a deep, sexy fir tree scent.

Very manly, very chilly and cold.

[Siberia]

I love the scent of fir, so this is wonderful. It is almost all a big, fruity and sweet fir scent, with a bit of earth underneath. The earth is very understated, but enough to invoke this oil's namesake. Try this if you love fir.

[March]

Just for your information: I tend to liken all piney scents to Loup Garou, because that was the first BPAL pine I ever tried and I still (I tried 2 or 3 more) like it best.

 

So far, Nocnitsa is what comes closest. It goes on a little more complex and earthy than Loup Garou, and on drydown it contains some faint traces of things I can't quite place, something floral perhaps. So far, I'm not quite sure that's actually an improvement, but I have an extremely low tolerance for florals. One thing that could get me to skew to the Nocnitsa camp, is its wearlength. If this actually lasts a few hours, that'd be a definite plus!

 

[crebbsgirl]

Wet, this is dark and oppressive fir. As it dries, the earth and moss notes come out more, softening this a little. The moss lends a little sweetness, and cuts the scariness of the fir. The end result is quite nice, a little dirty and earthy sweet.

[iletaitunefois]

Nocnitsa was a scent that I was incredibly anxious to try. Growing up in Ohio, I grew to absolutely love quiet forests. After I moved down to Florida, there wasn't much of that same sort of landscape and I missed it more than anything else. This scent sounded like it'd be a walk down memory road, and I was super excited.

 

After putting it on, though, it's very different than I expected. Wet in the bottle, it reminded me very much of dried herbs and some grassy accents. Once I put a little bit on, though--WOW. This is an incredibly strong scent. I don't dislike it, per se, but next time I apply it I need to make sure to put on even less. It was overpoweringly pine, almost to the point where it made me dizzy. It has a slight sweet edge to it, but other than that it was just pine, pine, pine. After two showers and a day and a half (!!!) it had died down, for the most part, and I was finally able to my finger on what it reminded me of. More than anything else, smelling Nocnitsa is like walking into a Christmas store. Lots and lots of pine, but also some sweet spices like you might find in eggnog or a Christmas pie.

 

I'll have to use this extremely sparingly as my family is very sensitive to pine scents, but I think that I'll take it out around Christmas this year. It makes me a bit jolly just thinking about it.

[hkhm]

imp: mossy dirt.

 

wet: the fir is present at first, hovering over the dirt and moss notes. it starts to fade pretty quickly though.

 

dry: the fir note is what sticks at the end, the dirt and moss are very soft. this is bottle-worthy for me.

[Violaine]

There isn't too awfully much that I can say here what hasn't already been said. Nocnitsa is a gorgeous scent, all loamy, moist dirt and pine. It's a transporting scent, one that sends you straight into a dark forest when you close your eyes. Slightly cold and oddly comforting at the same time, despite the folklore behind it.

 

However, after a while something in the blend goes sweet. I see why people say they smell berry in here and honestly, I wish the sweetness would stay out of it. I also which I knew which note it was that was going sweet! I'm really intrigued by this blend - it's not something I would normally wear, but I find I'm quite liking it. Perhaps not a bottle buy, but I am definitely going to keep and use my imp.

 

ETA: Aaaaaand 3 hours later? I might be wrong about this one not being a bottle buy. Such a lovely scent.

Edited November 6, 2009 by Violaine

[HamletsKeeper]

I'm not at all a fan of BPALs dirt note. I find it harsh and sinus destroying. Yet Nocnitsa is different. It's softer, green and velvety in a way I really enjoy. It smells greatly of a shampoo I once used, or maybe my hairdresser used. And that's a good thing. There's a pure perfume undercurrent to this scent that makes it smell less like a woodland and more like something you could wear. Don't get me wrong, I love the smell of an actual woodland, but I don't want to be wafting moss and dirt and decaying leaves as I go about my day.

 

When I smell this I get wet, dark mosses that are thick and plush, the kind that grows in the dark parts of a wood where ice cold water trickles down a mountain. And yet it smells clean, not fetid at all. It reminds me of Tasmania and the eerie woodland that shrouds the side of Mt Wellington in the morning mists and ice. As this settles into my skin it becomes slightly sweeter and a little dewy. I don't know if I could wear this as a daily perfume but I find it intriguing and something I don't want to let go of actually.

 

It's not masculine in the least but it's dark in the way a forrest is dark when the sunlight hasn't reached under the canopy. It's strong but not particularly huge throw. Interesting...

[SophieCedar]

Unintentionally, I started to get sleepy right after smelling this. Very strange. Pine, dirt, and a soft blanket of mosses. Reminds me of laying down for a nap at the base of a tree in my local Maine woods. Watch out for nymphs and sasquatches. Paul Bunyan doesn't exist though. He's just a creepy 50 ft tall statue across the street from a sad casino in Bangor.

 

 

 

Update.. I tried this again today and WOW it smells amazing on my skin. There's a floral undertone on naturally sweet/floral skin (like mine). This is my new favorite. Cleared my head too! Aahhhh.

Try it layered with a touch of Ladon.. amazing.

Edited January 18, 2010 by SophieCedar

[impolight]

:::NOCNITSA:::

This is a magnificent fragrance!The lore behind Nocnitsa isn't one that is familiar, and the elements that combine to make this fragrance are elusive.

Nocnitsa could be classified as a green scent. While there is a definite coniferous feel to this, there are also notes that seem to flit betwixt jonquil, say, or perhaps, sweet pipe-tobacco...

There is also a hint of what might be an underlying layer of a stonefruit; Peach, Plum, Apricot, or cherry...

No? Oh, fiddle-dee-dee!

At any rate, Nocnitsa is a strangely beautiful fragrance; a holiday on Mars.

Freshly applied to the skin, Nocnitsa's floral component amps... Battery powered boquet!

The fragrance is chilly sap, nectar, blooms and chlorophyll mixed with a bone crunching bite and malicious intent.

Though either sex could prosper from the impression made from wearing Nocnitsa, this is intricately engineered to make boys go gaga for girls.

Hot!

[CitizenBree]

I don't like wood scents so i wouldn't have gone for this on my own. I got this as a frimp somehow. Honestly, all the other notes aren't my favorite, but it sounds so good. I think this really smells exactly like what you would expect. This is a forest at night. I would say the fir wood is the most prominent note, but I really feel like you can get a whiff of each note.

 

This isn't my style, but I think it would work good for a man.

[FathomBelow]

In the bottle, Nocnitsa is a strangely, cloyingly sweet fir/pine that somehow still manages to be compelling. Syrupy is right. On my skin, however, the syrupy-ness mellows out, and this becomes merely a very sweet pine. Very straightforward and simple, not much of a morpher at all.

 

A little less sweet and this would be the scent of a forest floor blanketed in coppery dried pine needles on a hot summer day. A tad sweeter, it would be the scent of a Christmas candle. As it is, it's perfectly balanced between the two. I like it quite a bit - it's almost a nostalgic scent, somehow. And although it does have that Christmas candle likeness at times (I think it depends on the interpretation of the sniffer), for me it's just dissimilar enough that it could be used year round.

[Vega]

Sniffed: Dark pine with an edge of sharp, wet decay.

 

On skin: Dark, damp evergreen with a wet, mossy/leafy smell that borders on the edge of decay. This same unpleasant note was in Ulalume, so they must have a dirt/"dried leaves" note in common. Over time the sharp, wet earth/decaying notes burn off, leaving thin and damp evergreens. Overall, Nocnitsa is sharp, unfriendly and damp. The pine note isn't as dark and rich as, say, Black Forest, but it's more sinister and oppressive.

 

Verdict: I dislike the Lab's dirt/wet earth/dry leaves note -- it really smells like wet decay -- so Nocnitsa is going straight to swaps. I must say though, it is quite an evocative scent. I definitely don't want to meet the Night Hag anywhere!

[Djaeno]

Nocnitsa was really hard for me to define. The smell didn't evoke any images of dark woods or moss or earth. In the beginning it seemed a little medicinal, which might have been the fir. But when I put it on my skin...

 

Suddenly there was a sweet note! It took me a while to nail it down, but I think it's like... plum. A single, solitary fruit note and I don't know where it comes from. It reminds me of the fruit scent in my beloved Dionysia, but much, much weaker and subtler.

 

It's a pretty fruit note, but it just seems so out there.

[lahdeedah]

Nocnitsa was a frimp from the Lab. It started out promising: I like weird, damp earthy smells, and that was well captured in the open of this fragrance. But a rather odd note, something fruity like the above poster mentioned, throws the whole thing off. A hint of fir wafts in after a few minutes, but soon the whole shebang turns into a rather odd and cheap male cologney sort of deal. Not really my thing. This one just misses the mark for me, I'm afraid.