Snowy Owl

Fresh cool dewy grass and a hint of expensive department store smell (at first). This scent is already a lot more wearable than many Zoologist perfumes, in fact I'd like to smell like this. The opening is a pretty grassy scent, and the sample says it has 'Snow Accord' in it, which I see Fragrantica says is 'Calone.' I don't think I particularly smell "snow" here, but I do imagine crisp winter air on a sunny day with the snow beginning to melt and shining. There is something there that also reminds me of the smell when you walk into a department store and there is this sort of fresh new leather-y smell around. I know there isn't any leather in here, but it's the closest I can think of how to describe this scent relating to a department store. I also feel like the mint and coconut are not in your face and just subtly give a hint of coolness and sweetness to this. I can smell it within 4" of my skin, but it's lighter. 10 minutes later and it's become a bit more 'earthy' green scented. It makes me think of winter turning into spring, with again some snow melting and some greenery starting to make its appearance finally. This may be the snowdrop. 20 minutes later and I feel like this smells more nature-y and I imagine the ground of woods mostly. Like others have mentioned, having the autumn leaves from the previous year now exposed out of the cool wet ground among some melting snow. 30 minutes later and it's a skin scent, but stronger and I feel like I can imagine a "dirty" smell of the wings or feathers of the owl. It still absolutely has a freshness to it, but there's also this natural "dirtiness" to the scent as well now, which may be the oakmoss and the musk. There's still a coolness and sweetness to it as well. By dirty, I don't mean like a dirty patchouli, it's more like just what you would smell in the air in nature, not unwashed human dirty. I do feel this leans slightly more feminine, especially with the touch of sweetness and coolness, but I'm sure this could smell elegant on a man as well, especially the "musky dirty" dry down. I'll see how long this lasts, but I'm really enjoying this one. 2 hours later and it's a cool sweet musky vanilla scent with some woodiness and a lightness to it. 5 hours later and it's a faint skin scent I can only really smell with my nose to my arm, but it still smells the same. 8 hours later and it's gone

I was seeking a unique wintertime scent. Something that could get me into the spirit of the current frozen season as I sprayed it on, whilst wrapped in an oversized white mohair sweater and watching the snow fall...indoors...on a TV screen...ideally from Florida. Snowy Owl seemed to fit the bill. Much like with Zoologist’s Seahorse (a favorite of mine), my nose isn’t refined enough to pick out all of the individual scents mingling here. Among others, this fragrance includes notes of coconut, mint, and lily of the valley. I mean, I think I can maybe detect those. But then it also contains scents of...*checks notes*...snow accord? *Glances up from notes with confusion* What the hell does snow even smell like? Apparently it must smell delicious because, also like Seahorse, this scent is magical and transportive upon immediate spray. Like a white Christmas, Snowy Owl is a mystifying wonder. Now, I don't know exactly what fresh fallen snow in a quiet forest smells like, because I avoid going outside in cold weather at all costs. But I do imagine it smells like this fragrance – icy, wintry, aloof, and yet somehow soothing. To my mind, it reminds me of classic black and white movies like A Christmas in Connecticut, or the wintry album cover from Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm. This scent has largely been endorsed as a winter fragrance, as one might naturally conclude from a fragrance that’s meant to evoke the thawing snow in a damp forest. Best worn in daytime underneath a cold sun, indeed. However, I think this scent might also be just as ideally suited to summer, because upon spray it offers such a refreshing blast that I could see it perfectly cutting through the humidity of summer to land on your wrist like a melting ice cube. At the same time, it’s so utterly unique and indescribable that it can’t possibly be for everyone, and so I highly recommend sampling before purchasing. In five words or less: A Christmas in Connecticut, revisited.

Have you ever gone skiing? Have you ever been on the top of a snow-covered mountain? This is that. Ice-cold, damp snow all around you. You can feel the coolness on the inside of your nostrils, the tiny twinge of soil packed underneath all that snow. There's a wetness here--it doesn't SMELL like celery, but you know how when you take a bite of something crunchy, with a high-water-content? This fragrance has that abstract "crunch." It's more stemmy, though--not in the sappy, sweet, milky, sticky tree resin way--in a wet, fresh, split stem. Maybe like you pulled up a stalk of celery, with dirt still on the root, at the top of a snowy mountain. I bought a full bottle because I wanted a cooling, refreshing scent for summer: my collection is lacking that. With my skin chemistry, though, Snowy Owl develops a strange underlying sweetness. The wet, crunchy, icy elements somehow become humid, like ice-caps melting. My sweat ruins this fragrance, turning it quite overwhelming, at least in the summertime. What a shame. Luckily, when I spray it on my clothing, no such issue occurs--I got several compliments when I wore a half-spray to work. Love this fragrance, through and through. I hope my body enjoys it better in the cool winter.

The woods are quiet at night. Every step you take is laden with awe. Snow imprints the memory of your foothold in the slow wake of your walk. Pine needles shiver with snow and ice and gently you sweep some off with your warm, mitted hands, alleviating the weight of winter from their ancient arms. Stillness strikes you with a nostalgia for life beyond your grasp. Your senses are alive and awake to every small crack and call, none will go unanswered under your steady watch. Your mind alights with the passing of a silent wing. No call will be carried by this silent hunter. Pure luck has allowed you to witness her secret passing. She lands on the nearest tree and you try to sink into the snow unseen. But cold, wise eyes stare into your soul, purifying it. A Snowy Owl, serene and impenetrable, the guardian of the forest passes her gaze over you on to the next subject of her nightly reign. Obsessed with this, nothing else out there like it. When I heard "walk in the forest in winter" I was a bit skeptical thinking this could be just a heady pine fragrance but it's not at all. Artistry truly, it takes you into this winter scene.

I got this sample from Lucky Scent about a year ago. At the same time I got Bee and Hummingbird. Bee swooned me with its intense and pure honey note, and I thought Hummingbird was very pretty. They kind of eclipsed the far more subtle Snowy Owl in my mind, and it didn’t make that much of an impression. I registered it as a fresh perfume, with notes of calone and musk, and something green, and put it aside. Taking it out today and putting it on after it matured for a year was a revelation. It’s one of the purest, strongest Iris scents I remember smelling in a long time. A true silver Iris. It’s cold and beautiful. My husband commented on it right away and that’s rare since he’s used to the various perfumes I constantly cycle through and it takes something remarkable at this point for him to comment on it without being solicited for his opinion. I’m so impressed I’ve ordered samples off this creator’s website, DSH Dawn Spencer Hurwitz. Sometimes the best things take time.