Much has been said about this, or any other, Christopher Brosius scent. That they're unusually evocative, that they don't smell like perfume (duh!) but are more like olfactory art. Black March smells like dirt, specifically classier dirt, otherwise known as humus, and very specifically in the wet spring with green shoots of weeds growing out of it. What it specifically evokes to me is the Dirt flavor jellybeans from Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Its scents of humus and young greens makes other perfume bloggers go into flights of purple prose about "Springs From My Childhood", but not me. Springtime where I'm from generally happens in April, the dirt isn't humus, it's clayey-sandy DIRT, and there's a lot more harsh wet wood, more noxious smelling weeds, and at least one dead animal rotting in a ditch somewhere.
This scent is refined, gentle, childlike in the innocent unaware-of-death sort, like a portrait painting that discreetly removes the subject's moles and wrinkles.
It's also obviously artificial. You can see thru the scent, if you get my drift. I don't mean it's light & sheer, I mean you can see its structure, and none of it is either dirt or greens. This scent is constructed out of vetiver, musk, and labdanum, as far as I can tell, and I'm sure much more, ...and Chris Brosius isn't bothering to hide this fact. Not at all! It's the scent equivalent of a still life painting of a fruit bowl. It looks extremely realistic, you know exactly what the things depicted are, but you equally know (because it's inescapable) that it's fake, it's a painting! It's so obvious, but it's still lovely.
I give Mr. Brosius great respect for his amazingly restrained use of vetiver (if I am nailing that scent correctly). Usually I hate vetiver, patchouli's upscale cousin, due to the complete lack of restraint all other perfumers on the planet have with it (I'll reserve a Vetiver Hate Day for another post). This is a unisex scent, as are all others he makes. You would think it would be especially appropriate for men, being based on dirt, *refined* dirt for a grownup at least.
I just accidentally licked the finger I used to apply the scent. It even tastes like the Dirt jellybean!
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