Moonwind

So trying out all of these vintage Avon scents has taught me something about myself: I smell great in chypre fragrances. I didn't have the fragrance vocabulary as a child to know that that's why I liked Moonwind so much. Whereas Sweet Honesty and Zany are clean powder scents, and Persian Wood and Cotillion are spicy Orientals, the most surprising scents for me this week have been Somewhere, Candid, Occur! and Moonwind, all classic chypre fragrances. Of these three Moonwind is the lightest, but she's still lovely. Here's the breakdown: First drops applied by pipette to wrists, neck, and pits. A warm, gently soapy scent hits. There's a definite slightly sour citrus punch too, initially a strong grapefruit. Don't worry, she doesn't hang around too long. By hour two she's dried down into a cozy bergamot, lightly mossy, cedar, sandalwood, white musky scent, and I mean cozy. This scent is relaxing. I also realize something else I didn't know as a kid. Like many Avon scents this one is vaguely familiar: Miss Dior! Definitely Avon's sister scent. I think classic Moonwind smells closer to classic Miss Dior than the current pink version Dior makes. By hour 4 she's gone, but I don't mind reapplying early. I have a couple of these little bottles from the 80's. I'm going to make the absolute most of them. Moonwind is one of those rare "anytime, any place, any season" scents. Sadly, they stopped making this one too. However, bottles can still be found all over the place so if you find one out in the wild for $5-10 it's worth a shot. You're not going to find classic Miss Dior for that, or new Miss Dior for that matter either. Night Magic was similar, and they still make that one, though I have no idea what the current version smells like. I really should remedy that. But Moonwind is a definite win for me. Hubby absolutely loved it too, so that's always a bonus.

Thrift stores stock them, and they only set you back a few dollars, but I am always reluctant to sniff Avon perfumes. To call them "hit or miss" somehow feels like an understatement. Some of them are on par with Guerlain et al, and some smell like strange chemical abominations. Fortunately, "Moonwind perfume concentre" is a $5 stunner, a classic chypre floral. It goes on with an aldehydic sheen, gentle herbs and florals peaking through. Lavender, sage, a honeyed, pollen-like note of narcissus, iris powder, softened by an undercurrent of sweet ambery musk material. Alongside their signature "Avonade", the base contains some raspy oakmoss & angular vetiver. Avon perfumes generally time out quickly, but Moonwind has enough going on to keep it interesting. If you can imagine Dior releasing an extension line of products for 1947 Miss Dior; Moonwind would approximate the talcum powder. Hopefully this comparison paints a clear image. Like most Avon perfumes, Moonwind has a cosmetic aspect to the scent. It's a rather powdery and soapy wearing experience. I find it nostalgic and endearing, and if you don't mind these qualities, the perfume has an otherwise gorgeous DNA; some natural materials, good progression, and a distinctive trail. It's quite beautiful, certainly among the best vintage Avon perfumes I've sampled. I see why it's so popular and highly rated on the database. I wish it would last longer, but otherwise I have no complaints.

When this fragrance debuted, I was a young child and my mother sold Avon. So I must have smelled this back then, but I don't remember it. Fast forward to the 2000s when, after her mother's death, a friend of mine gave me a 'senorita' bottle of this that had been her mom's. I was touched just to have the bottle, and didn't realize that perfumes could survive for so long, so it didn't occur to me to sample the fragrance until some years later. And then I discovered...something I feel is unique, and very hard to describe. Moonwind, the lovechild of the Age of Aquarius and the period of the moon landings, a fragrance that simultaneously inspires from the past and exhales into the future. As other reviewers have noted, a perfume that is green, serene, and meditative. And...is there musk in this? Because I get musk, which enchants me all the more. Moonwind is a potion to put on a cotton ball and tuck into your pillowcase to induce beautiful dreams, to apply to your corsage and wrists and dream of unicorns, to inhale to relieve you of the stresses of the modern world. Everyone should experience it at least once.

Moonwind is the smell of my early childhood visits to my grandmother. She and my grandfather had quite a few Avon colognes, soaps, talcum powder, and aftershaves when I was little. They all merged into one smell in the bathroom unless I picked them up and smelled them individually, which of course I did. My grandfather's aftershaves all had what I now know to be a lot of oakmoss and vetiver. My grandmother's colognes were either powdery florals, like lilac, or a bit more like my grandfather's scents. Now I understand why. She clearly had Moonwind. Today I got lucky enough to find a beautiful 4 oz peacock-shaped bottle of it at a thrift shop. It couldn't have been opened before; the cologne is vintage, but not degraded. the aldehydes, spicy oakmoss, soft floral, and green notes are intact. Scent has the ability to put your mind solidly into a setting from the past, and Moonwind has done that for me. I thought I was just buying a beautiful bottle today. Instead, a cologne reminded of my grandmother.

Cool, mossy, blue green. A little contemplative, a little lonely, a little sad. But also euphoric, and nostalgic. Beautiful. There's definitely musk in this one, and I'm not sure if it's animal or nitro,but it's a variety that isn't used any more. It's in the old avonade, and definitely present here. I have a small strawberry full of the pure perfume and a large blue plastic aresol(sp?)of the colonge mist, which I layer. These are chock full of natural ingredients I wager. That oakmoss is just heavenly. I recommend getting some of this while you still can on eBay. The prices are going up and stock is going down,it seems. This is a magical perfume from a bygone time. They don't make em like this too much anymore! I love it!