Talvikuu

[VelvetSky]

Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings
To his strong bones, strides o'er the groaning rocks:
He withers all in silence, and his hand
Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.

Skeletal limbs of birch and fir coated in a thick, impenetrable blanket of snow. This is the death of the year personified.

Ahhhh the pressure. My first 'first to review'. Here goes:

Out of the bottle, Talvikuu is strong, sweet and brightly resiny...the way sap would smell if it was mixed with sugar. This is a very perfumey, dense, heady fragrance...not dry and airy like many of Beth's 'foresty' blends.

This scent stays strong and true for quite some time on my skin, and the simple but strong notes morph very little all the way through the drydown.

The one thing that stands out for me about Talvikuu is that it's a perfect example of the absolute brilliant quality of the oils that Beth uses.

I'm so glad I ordered this scent, and I'll enjoy wearing it all winter long.

[sarada]

I've been wanting to review this all day but I had to wait until I could test it at a time when it was the only scent on my skin, since it is rather complex and delicate.

 

Talvikuu balances almost perfectly inbetween Skadi (or its cousin Dublin) and Ice Queen, if you are familiar with those scents from last year. In the bottle it reminds me a little more of Ice Queen, and on my skin it becomes much more like Skadi.

 

It has the crisp fir/birch and crush of slushy green notes that I think I recognize from Skadi and Dublin -- paired with the sheet of pale, musky ice of Ice Queen. I think there is a faint breah of mint, but it fades in and out of focus. It's rather like looking at a reflection in a frozen pond...beautiful, scintillating but always shifting.

 

As it dries it becomes more like Skadi, poised rather delicately on the icy border between those scents before it starts to shift more toward a snowy pine. I think it really has aspects of my favorite parts of both of those scents, very sparkling, cool and refreshing.

 

If you haven't tried the scents I've referenced, think: a frozen, slushy snow on birch and evergreen with a faint breath of mint and the clean, smooth surface of a frozen pond. This would be a great scent to wear to see the Chronicles of Narnia...it makes me think of the White Witch, regal and distant riding in white furs through a snowy wooded landscape.

Edited December 2, 2005 by sarada

[lorajc]

I wasn't sure I'd like this, as I don't really care for birch on it's own....but this is really nice. I bought more than one bottle when Beth declared this to be "Skadi Like" without the pine note. She nailed it (and she should know - LOL). This is snow/slush and ice with a syrupy resin like quality to it. This is quite nice......I'll update when I can smell a little better (if need be).

[Ms Density]

Talvikuu smells pretty aquatic in the bottle, which I believe is the cause of the “snowy” feel I get from it. I can also smell the fir/evergreen notes. I don’t get any pine from this, as I was somewhat expecting from the comparisons to Skadi.

 

Once I put it on, I still get the fir/evergreen but it gets really fresh smelling. Like cucumber or, as Nehushtan remarked when I let her smell it, watermelon. It borders on soapy, but it seems like the trees are trying to keep that tethered. I’m really trying to decide if I like it—it seems pretty masculine and clean. I think I enjoy this scent, but I can’t help feeling a little self-conscious wearing it and having others think I smell like aftershave… That said, I can see that it is evocative of winter imagery, and I do plan to wear this when I see Narnia.

 

I’m not usually turned off by masculine blends, but I guess clean-smelling masculine blends aren’t for me to wear. I do like it enough to keep some of it and use as a home scent. I'll probably imp some out to swap for other Yule blends.

Edited December 6, 2005 by Ms Density

[paradoxicaljlb]

Talvikuu: Pure, snow-covered woods in a bottle; one component in it reminds me very much of a fresh Christmas tree. However, it's not overly evergreen. To my untrained nose there's also a clean, aquatic component akin to but infinitely more delicious smelling than Irish-Spring-Cool-Artic-Blast-Chill-Extreme-Whatever aftershave. We all know Beth takes our senses of smell to that other level and this blend is no exception. Whiffs of Talvikuu evoke visions of moonlight twinkling in icicles and silent, snow-blanketed landscapes. Cold and empty, but peaceful.

 

This is definitely a masculine scent that you could give to someone unfamiliar with the bpal concept and it wouldn't scare the pants off 'em. It's a little too masculine for me to wear but I'd definitely use it as a holiday room scent. Be careful though, Talvikuu might upstage your Christmas tree.

 

Wait...now that it's dried down more, it's a little less "whoa, aftershave!" but still smells the same. I might have to rethink that too masculine thing...

[wolfie13]

This one stays pretty much the same in the bottle and wearing for me:

 

It's really just as it says - I get birch (which has a bit of a minty/eucalyptus quality to me) and the aquatic slushy element.

 

It really does have that chilly, outdoors, melting-snow-in-a-forest scent. These scents can go often go very floral or perfumey on me, and it almost seems on the brink at times, but seems to ultimately hold it's own in that regard.

 

It reminds me a lot of a scent I got from the Body Shop a couple years ago called "Snow" if anyone remembers that. I burned the oil a LOT in my oil burner during the winter months - there was just something about it.

 

And I feel the same way about this scent. I'd probably not wear this, but I keep thinking about firing up the old oil burner for this one. Or swapping it, since I tend to keep only my "wearing" bpals. We'll see.

 

(Also - the late - we're talking hours later - drydown on this warms and sweetens up a bit on my skin and I like it better for wearing at that point.)

Edited December 8, 2005 by wolfie13

[Imbrium]

Okay - I love winter. I love snow. And though I grew up in the snowy Northeast, I now live in New Mexico, and with the rare exceptional snow storm, have to drive up a mountain if I want to come within ten feet of anything resembling snow. Did I mention that I love snow? I love the way it crunches, the way it gleams in the moonlight, sparkles in the sunlight, and I love the way it smells right before a good snow storm, when the air is crisp and insanely cold, and it smells wet, and clear all at the same time.

 

Given my adoration of wintery weather, I've tried every Bpal that lists snowy notes in it, and though they all smell lovely, none of them have really smelled snowy to me. But Talvikuu is different. Talvikuu smells like snow. It's aquatic and cool, in much the same way that Ice Queen was, but it has only a hint of those pale musks that turned Ice Queen warm and snuggly. I smell traces of greenery, but they're really not the most prominent notes. They're almost like silent partners, adding a depth to the blend that makes it smell true to life - like walking through a silent, snowy forest. (Or in my case, like driving 30 minutes to the top of Sandia Peak, where green things grow, and precipitation freezes.)

Edited December 9, 2005 by Imbrium

[shelldoo]

mint, not peppermint, is it spearmint? it actually is chilly to my nose when i sniff it

 

there is an aquatic quality, and a prominent birch note there is also a green fir note but it is very faint. imho this one is more aquatic then woody, however i enjoy the mint pretty much. which isn't the usual for me.

[sarahmarie]

I love this one! It smells just like a fir tree covered with snow. I don't find this too masculine at all - though it is something a man could wear. It's just light and evocative and clean, and I think it suits me just fine. It dries down in to something I don't quite recognize but still really enjoy - I assume that's the birch coming through, because I couldn't tell you what birch smells like. Fresh out of the bottle though, it smells like a Christmas tree when you first bring it in from the outdoors and it's radiating cold. or like going out to the Christmas tree farm and wandering around in the snow looking for the perfect tree (while your toes freeze despite your boots), the smell of cold air and snow and trees mingling.

 

It does remind me very much of Skadi, but it feels colder, and more true to the outdoorsy feeling (Skadi felt like being inside during a snowstorm to me - you can feel the chill through the windows, but it's warm where you are.)

 

I bet it makes a fabulous room scent, too.

[Lucretia]

this is great! I don't really get the masculine scent other have mentioned, it's gender neutral. It's the smell of outdoors, which really, isn't male or female.

 

It's sort of sweet, but no where near as sweet as skadi (which is why I had to disown her). It's cold, and white and green, but not in an artificial pinesol-airfresher kind of way.

 

It really does smell like being out in a snowy forest landscape. This is IT, much better than Skadi to me, Beth really got it down pat this year. Perfect outdoor winter scent!

[tinyvulture]

At first all I can smell is the bold green notes from Dublin (as another poster mentioned). I wasn’t expecting it to smell so green and fresh! But as it dries I can smell a chilly, aquatic, ever-so-slightly minty, “winter air” note. It’s very masculine at this point. Later, it becomes sweeter and more resinous and takes on more depth. At this point, I think it’s a lovely unisex scent. Oh, and it lasts forever! I could still smell it on my husband the next day, after he showered.

[paperdoll]

Initial Sniff: Evergreen and those aquatic snow-slush notes. And sap.

 

Wearing: For the first hour, this is very true to the bottle scent on me. Then the sap note starts amping up a bit and then it turns oddly sweet. They drydown is very unbalanced on me. The evergreen and snow are still there, but they've been smothered with a thick coat of sweet sap.

 

Final Impressions: A beautiful scent which I hope will be beautiful in my oil burner!

[coulrophobe]

Preconceived notions: I was worried about this one smelling too piney on me - a lot of evergreen scents end up smelling like cleaning products to my nose.

 

In the bottle: I don't think this'll be cleaning-product-esque. Whew! Smells chilly, and rather like Skadi.

 

On: I agree with everyone else - this is in the same family as Skadi, Ice Queen and Nuclear Winter, and I'd say a cousin to Dublin and Snow Bunny, which are sweeter to my nose. They're all scents that smell very pleasant, but I prefer to wear them when it's really hot outside.

[Little Bird]

Talvikuu, Mistletoe, and Snow Bunny all smell like they'd be in the same family to me. In the whole snowy foresty blend aspect. I like Talvikuu a lot more than Snow Bunny (which was sharp and kinda dirty smelling on me), but nothing can match the wonderful chilly greenery of Mistletoe. Anyhow. Talvikuu is insanely hard for me to describe, but I'll give it a try...

 

First on, I think that I smell eucalyptus here. It has a very chilly/menthol scent. This doesn't go soapy on me at all as it has on a few other people, but it does have a sort of perfumey quality. It makes me think of bare tree trunks and fir trees in the forest. This is very aquatic, but not in the way that BPAL aquatics usually smell to me. It has that pure wet smell of melting snow.

 

So... the best way that I could describe this is aquatic, yet not... and wooden, yet not... it also has a pleasant sweetness to it, but that's not really a sugary sweetness either. It's very hard for me to pin down at all. I'm not getting any mint (thankfully, I'm not fond of mint).

 

It loses the perfumey qualities after an hour or so and this was something that I really enjoyed catching whiffs of throughout the day. Sweet, chilly, and pleasant.

 

I'm probably going to decant a few imps out of my bottle, but keep enough for me to wear every once in a while. I think that this would be heavenly on a man as well.

[Spring Snow]

I bought this one for the boy on his request, but as he won't be arriving to collect until Thursday, I snuck a little bit on myself.

This scent reminds me of when I was little, and we had pine trees in the yard outside. When they got covered with snow, it looked like icing, and made me wonder what it would be like if you could cut off a branch and munch on it, Willy Wonka style. This scent is what I think pine tree candy would smell like just before you took a bite. The snow "icing" note is sweet, and the pine is crisp. It's a lovely scent, and one that I look forward to smelling on him!

Alas, I cannot wear it by myself for two reasons: one, it smells a little too "manly" for my personal taste (I'm a girly floral lass), and two, it has eucalyptus, which makes me itchy.

I find the drydown is similar to Neo Tokyo, which I adore. I layered a little peppermint oil on top after it had dried for a whole new scent. It's a LOT of fun!

[k00kaburra]

In bottle: Cold and icy, with wood frozen beneath. The notes of birch and fir are distinct, but they are not dominant due to the icy aquatic note that coats the entire blend.

 

On me: It's a slightly sweet ice blend. I can barely smell the wood except as a faint yellow base. So weird! It's a nice blend but it isn't unique - it reminds me of Neo-Tokyo, Cold Moon, Blue Moon, and a host of other blends as well. I'll keep it for now - perhaps after it ages it will show more character - but at the moment it's too similar to things that already exist.

[Diana]

In the bottle, and freshly applied, this oil has a beautiful frosty pine smell.

 

Unfortunately for me, that changes after approximately 30 seconds. The piney, frosty top note disappears almost immediately, leaving me with a very sharp, soapy smell. I'm not digging this at all.

 

After about 30 minutes, the soapy abrasive quality simmers down a bit, leaving behind an aquatic base note. I'm not a fan of BPAL aquatic notes (nor any aquatic, really) because they tend to make me either queasy or headachey. This pretty much sticks with the aquatic note, one which my skin amps up to the nth degree. I don't get any other notes. No birch, no "snow," no fir. I guess the aquatic note is kind of cold, so maybe that's my snow, though it is more reminiscent of dripping icicles or cold running water than fluffy winter snow.

 

This is probably a great choice for someone who likes the clean/aquatic blends that the Lab offers, but for me, this is a prime candidate for swap.

[SeaMonkey]

*sighs*

 

The only oil that really popped out at me when the Yule order was announced was Drosselmeyer.

 

But I've been snagging imps from forumites just to try and I've wanted to order every single one of them. This Yule update will be the death of my bankaccount!

 

Fir and Pine can go really bad on my skin, so I was wary of this one. But this is sweet fir and resin, with the sweetness of snow. I almost get some sort of berry? Usually fir SCREAMS on me, but in a few minutes, this has softened up to a really subtle scent.

 

This is very beautiful. Its bordering on a little masculine and I'd like to try it on a male soon

[Scylla]

I was so excited about Talvikuu, especially when Beth had posted that it smells similar to my beloved Skadi when mixed with Yew Trees. Granted, I haven't layered it with Yew Trees yet, but I am not getting anything even close to Skadi from Talvikuu.

 

It's probably my darn chemistry, but I think I'm gonna have to swap Talvikuu. It smells like a clean, fresh men's fragrance on me.

[aedes]

At first, this was very Pinesol on me. Strong, sappy pine. I'd nearly call it a resinous scent. But it's mellowing very well on my skin. Doesn't smell like a Christmas tree, more like Black Forest. I like it and I think I'd love it on a guy. Perfect for the outdoorsy fella on your list.

[CLFilm]

Flurries of snow over ice-covered rattling branches with just a whiff of evergreen. Unreal.

 

It actually feels cold when I sniff it, though I can't pick out a mint or eucalyptus note. It reminds me less of Dublin than Snow Bunny does, but it is definitely in the same green/white family to me. It is also less sweet, more stark, than Snow Bunny. (Sorry to be comparing so much, I have one on each hand, so they're both on my mind.)

 

Oh, how I wish I had a boy to put this on. But I love it for myself as well, and may actually need more.

[LiberAmoris]

Mmmm. Talvikuu is like the older brother of Cold Moon on me! I'm so excited because I love Cold Moon but sometimes the berries and florals that I pick up in that blend are a little too sweet and Talvikuu is a little more wintry and dark.

 

I definitely get the slushy/ozone/aquatic mints and florals from Cold Moon and Ice Queen, along with some dark evergreen notes. It is reminiscent of Skadi, but 'lower' somehow. Skadi has some lighter green notes that bring it up an octave and make it brighter than this.

 

I'm enjoying this blend a great deal and can't wait to try it on my boyfriend.

[Celogrl]

Chilly, snowy, forest laden goodness in a bottle- this is Talvikuu. I absolutely love this scent. It feels like something one should wear all winter; it's a reflective, slightly melancholy scent. I get no pine, but the fir and other evergreen notes mix together beautifully. Oh, this is one beautiful LE!

[maewitch]

*whimper*

 

I LOVE THIS BLEND OMG THE LOVE.

 

I knew I loved it when I first wore it, but the second time confirmed that I LOVE IT.

 

It was so much lighter than I was expecting. Birch is a sweeter wood than I realized. It doesn't remind me of Skadi much, except for that similar cool-yet-warm quality. But this is definately not as pine-y, and it doesn't have any spice. It's just a soft, sweet wood under melty snow.

 

On me, the sweetness really stands out, developping this wonderful, almost floral sort of scent, even as the distinctness of the birch seems to fade and the fir lingers. I was told that this smelled "mature and beautiful" and "feminine" by two different people. I would have to agree. This is a perfume for a cool and confident woman, one who doesn't need to advertize her sexuality or play at being sweet and biddable. This is restrained, evocative, mysterious and complex.

 

LOVE IT.

[Neely]

In the bottle: pine and a berry of some sort? I didn't really get snow, but "clean."

 

Wet: more pine, more berry, still clean.

 

Dry down: Pine, the sweetness of the berry has gone to the background. Something very cleansing to the nasal passages? Must be the eucalyptus. In fact I am now getting the snowy aspect as the eucalyptus amps up. But that is only on my right wrist. On the left it is sweet berry with pine and eucalyptus in the background. My left wrist smells like potpourri! DOH! I want it to smell like my right wrist! It is sooooo clean, and snowy!

 

30 minutes: Ok, the left is behaving! The berry is just there, peeking out from behind snowy pines. This isn't pine with a captial P, like Black Forest, which I didn't like on me.

 

Conclusion: I don't find this dark or foreboding at all. In fact, it sparkles on me. It is clean fresh, and lovely. I must confess that this was the second time I tried this one. The first time I didn't get any berries. I did however get a scent I wasn't expecting, a subtle hint of ode d' dog. Not wet dog, or sweaty dog, but a dog that is slightly damp from snow. I am glad I am trying it again. I need a bottle of this.

 

After a couple of hours, the doggie smell came back, stronger than before. I think it is the eucalyptus . So, no bottle of this for me, unless I want to reapply often so I don't smell like dog.

 

OK again, I can't help it, this one intrigues me. On the right wrist this time I get doggie smell (it was left the last time) and on the left this has faded into a very nice smelling scent. I am going to have to try this again!

 

Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok, k, k, k. I promise to quit editing this. But I had to try this one again. I don't know if I am just a stubborn idiot newb BPALer, or if anyone else has had this same thing happen. I just couldn't leave this scent alone. It intrigues me.

So, I am trying it, yet again. I love it. I can't help myself. It is cold, crisp, clean, piney with a hint of sweetness. I feel like the Ice Queen in Narnia. Standing, regal, cold, in all white, amongst the pines. I must have a bottle of this before the Yulies are gone. I will order this from the lab. It seems the longer the imp ages, the better it gets. I don't know, it just rocks! So, this goes to prove, sometimes you just have to give a scent and your chemistry a chance to make aquaintances into good, or best friends!

 

On a scale of 1-5, this is a 5

Edited January 1, 2006 by atropos