The warmth of your love is like the warmth of the sun...

So! Work has been having me for lunch. Between my full class load and my 25-30 hours a week (that is really only supposed to be 20) at the D.A.'s office, I am, in a word, overwhelmed. Plus there has been an intense amount of family drama lately, which does not help my stress levels. Plus there's the election...the economy...my pending exams... It just never seems to end.

I've been sampling, though, and while these deserve full length reviews, I just want to say Kai = good, Tauer Perfumes L'air du Desert Marocain = WOW!, and I apparently won the drawing for the Perfume Posse Top 25 of 2008, which is about the only thing good to happen to me in a couple of weeks. Which is truly awesome. Really and truly. And I promise to get on top of my reviews again, as soon as my ethics midterm is out of the way next Tuesday.

While I'm here, though, I just wanted to say that living in the PNW, there is a fragrance I have latched onto for fall I never expected: CB I Hate Perfume's Black March.

Black March, from Christopher Brosius's collection, was inspired by a poem by Stevie Smith of the same name. CB says the following of Black March:

A fresh clean scent composed of Rain Drops, Leaf Buds, Wet Twigs, Tree Sap, Bark, Mossy Earth and the faintest hint of Spring Flower Bulbs as pretty and bright as rain drops on black twigs in March.

The description is pretty dead on. It's wet and wild and earthy, like the PNW in fall and winter.  There is a great green wildness to Black March, which I find so oddly comforting, like someone bottled the Green Man himself. At a time when I expected to be reaching for intense incenses and orientals, here I am reveling in this rich dirty-ness. The only thing that I don't get as much is the "spring flower bulbs," which I smell more in CB's Wild Hunt than in Black March. Instead I just get this subtle sweetness in the dry down, which reminds me more of a sweet sweat smell than a flower. Like the sweet smell of a baby, mingling with the sweet smell of earth in bloom after rain. This scent, which so uniquely captures life, has turned out to be a welcome counterpart to the natural cycle of death and decay around me. So compelling...so hopeful.

And with the economy in a shambles and dire news all around, both personal and external, maybe hope is exactly what we need right now. 4 of 5 nods.

And I won't forget the way you held me up
when I was down
And I won't forget the way you said,
"Darling, I love you,"
You gave me faith to go on.

The warmth of your love
is like the warmth of the sun.
And this could be our year;
took a long time to come.

~The Zombies

To buy Black March for its very reasonable price of $75 for 100ml, you can get it straight from CB or from Lucky Scent. For additional reviews, see Perfume-Smellin' Things' review.