Blackbird was first an award winning menswear store that opened in 2004 in Seattle. Nicole Miller, its founder and creative director, brought Blackbird to new heights in 2013 when she decided to focus on distributing the Blackbird brand internationally and closed her stores. Today Blackbird is known worldwide for its unconventional and remarkable fragrances and grooming products.
Aaron Way, lead perfumer at Blackbird, described the process of creating these unique scents as coming up with an abstract concept before any notes are discussed. Using a few rare or unusual ingredients ensures that their creations are both beautiful and distinct.
Anemone is a fantasy undersea garden with soft pink undersea flowers anchored to ancient boulders. It opens with the sweetest juice of overripe plums and grapes dripping over the nectar of sacred pink lotus flowers. Precipitation falls on this scent forcing fruits to ferment into champagne and salty oceanic ambergris cures the lotus into a bright pink floral, all while tobacco and honey sting the senses to keep us alert. As the winds pick up and petals drift away, resins of styrax and labdanum hold the fruits in place for the remainder of the storm. With notes of plum, pink lotus, champagne, honey, tobacco, amber, styrax and labdanum. Anemone is an eau de parfum, edp.
eaumg.net: Indie perfume brand Blackbird really needs to keep on keeping on with the fruity themes. Why? Because they’re nailing them. They’re making fruity perfumes that even the fruity/fruity-floral perfume averse will love. I really enjoyed the weird banana Y06-S. Now I’m enjoying the weird plum, Anemone. Fruits, like flowers, are so weird and subversive but brands rarely ever display that delightful side of fruit in perfumes. Anemone opens like effervescent turpentine. It smells like champagne in an artist’s studio. Then it settles into something I would have never expected! It’s a salty seaweed plum. It’s ume-kobucha! It smells like that flavored Japanese green tea that has dried kelp and plums. With wear, the plum intensifies but the kelp stays in the background. There’s tobacco and honey in this. With the plum, these notes remind me of shisa and hookahs. The champagne became flat. It’s still noticeably “champagne”, adding a dry fruitiness. It lacks the bubbles. It’s like the smell of what is left in flutes the afternoon after the guests managed to make it home and you managed to wake up with a not-so-big headache. The dry-down of Anemone is a tobacco with a funky, animalic quality. That kelp note that I picked up before is now a salty, animalic amber (AKA ambergris). The plums haven’t been harvested and made into a jam for winter. They’ve plummeted from branches and now rot or wait to be eaten by some little mammal in the middle of the night. I didn’t know that what my perfume wardrobe was missing was a huge, weird plum until I tried Anemone. I love how it’s salty, savory and sweet. It’s like an umami plum. I also think this is one that would work in any season. Give Anemone a try if you are looking for a fruity fragrance that is different or really like the idea of a plum/fruity tobacco perfume. Or if you like perfumes like Serge Lutens Bois et Fruits, MiN NY Coda, Byredo Bullion, Nez a Nez Atelier d’Artiste (discontinued) and/or Amouroud Oud After Dark. Anemone is saltier with a noticeable ambergris in comparison to all of these. Projection and longevity are above average.
Fragrantica: Yes! I am in love with this perfume!!! Yay Blackbird! Their fragrances are genius in my humble opinion. Overall Anemone smells very natural and refined at the same time. It smells juicy like honey, dried fruit and wet oak wine barrels. But also smells slightly briny and floral. I have reviewed this on Blackbird saying it reminded me of what you might experience if you opened an old treasure chest in an abandoned pirate ship. But recently I just pinned down that it also reminds me of the smell I have experienced when walking into the wine cellar of a vinter where there are many oak barrels, filled with wine, all around - must, wood and fermented fruit. The dry down is dominant in amber, brine and plum. Definitely worth the money and more. This fragrance has been dancing on my mind for at least 5 years. It has major personality, very unique, but also leaves you thinking "Why have I never smelled this before in a fragrance? It seems so obvious, so natural".
Fragrantica: Imagine a mix of Baileys, Martini & Rossi, rosehip tincture and sparkling rosé. Not the headache from it, just the taste and smell. And then there's a graceful and playful short-haired animal, maybe a panther or a leopard, bathing in it. And then some whiffs of menthol cigarettes. Or just imagine having sex and eating a creamy cake at the same time, but no champagne, because it was hot and it has evaporated. Very expensive and beautiful, alluring scent. There's also something tribal in it due to its medicinal and fleshly facets and because of how natural it smells. I don't know if it's dark. I hope people around think it is!
Fragrantica: I am in love with this fragrance. Anemone is such a peculiar scent, but also somehow evokes a strange familiarity. I get almost a hint of cherry cola - probably from the mix of plum and tobacco. I can't put it in words, but I love it so so so much. Right out of the bottle this is a mouth-watering scent, but it tends to hide on your skin very quickly. Throughout the day you'll receive bursts of fragrance to constantly remind you that you smell a-maz-ing.
Fragrantica: This is awesome. It opens with a noticeable seaweed note - think of the ocean, right after a storm - the unique smell of the debris floating on top of the water. Unmistakable. Quickly you get the pink pepper? or some kind of sweetness that pushes out from beneath. These two notes together make something extremely unique. To me, this is unisex. The seaweed note keeps it from leaning feminine. I also noticed that this is the kind of scent that comes and goes - think eccentric molecules (although I think you can smell this more often than not!) - performance is great. projection stays close, but it stays. Love this house - love this fragrance.
Colognoisseur: Anemone takes one of the traditional ingredients of the Holidays, plum, and gives it a non-holiday treatment which I can’t get enough of. Ms. Miller takes the well-known fragrance ingredient and skewers it with spikes of contrasting effects over a flat champagne accord providing its own kind of unusual Holiday vibe. Anemone starts with that plum bobbing on the surface of a watery lotus. It is like looking at a lily pond and finding a plum underneath the green. Then this is where the whole thing turns into an odd Holiday party as the watery effect is replaced by a flat champagne accord. There is a stray teeny bit of effervescence underneath a stale wine which is where the plum happily floats. The champagne accord has sour and sweet pieces. Ms. Miller teases out both sides with honey and tobacco picking up the sweet while amber and styrax grab the sour by the hand. Everywhere I smell there is something which feels part of the Season but twisted around. Anemone has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage. There is no current brand taking as many successful risks as Blackbird.
