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One of the strangest olfactory experiences I can recall from recent times fantastical and awful in equal measure. With my sensible hat on this is a loud, brash overly harsh, fruity oud mess. The opening flits between exotic but entirely unnatural fruits I thought kinda resembled red berries, mango and even pineapple at times. Not surprised to see all the fruits listed and perhaps lychee is exactly it? This is juxtaposed against a strongly animalic, cheese smell of oud in the top notes but it's quite fleeting only lasting 20 minutes or so before a relentless, smoky, dirty leather and synthetic musky, amber accords develop which smells like every cuir base ever conceived of, all mixed together with a dry, tenacious flith of Isobutyl Quinoline and saffron. However, despite this seemingly negative slant to my review so far, I actually think Moon is a pretty original and interesting piece. It's not the meek, uninspiring effort that I thought Rose & Cuir turned out to be and I think you will get some bang for your buck or Dirham? as this is undoubtedly being pushed towards the middle eastern market. The Moon is so bonkers, I couldn't wear it. This is a taste thing purely and I'm in a phase of gentle, Chanel refinement at present and stuff like this just seems like it has neon signs on it and huge thug life sirens going off! The Moon is the precocious drama school kid dancing around and furiously trying to steal the limelight.
The Moon is a fabulous representation of a fruit oud perfume. Raspberry is one of my most hated notes of all time, in fact I hate almost all raspberry fragrances and could probably count the ones I do like on one hand - this is one of them. Whilst it’s not my favourite of the Desert Gems, it is gorgeous. The raspberry is intensely sweet and ripe, almost sugary like a purée, accompanied by other red berries and forest fruits. This sweetness is made velvety and exotic by an overdose of jammy saffron and rose, before developing into its thick, dark, almost powder oud and leather base. It’s not as bold or daring as The Night, which may be a relief to some, but that stinky-ness was a characteristic I loved. I would say this is my least favourite from Malle’s Desert Gems collection, but that doesn’t take away from the fact this is an absolutely stunning perfume.