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The Dark Side of the Goddess
Темная сторона богини

8.2 / 10 30 Ratings
A popular perfume by Anna Zworykina for women and men. The release year is unknown. The scent is woody-resinous. It is still in production.
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Main accords

Woody
Resinous
Spicy
Smoky
Earthy

Fragrance Notes

MyrrhMyrrh TagetesTagetes PatchouliPatchouli CedarwoodCedarwood FrankincenseFrankincense MyrtleMyrtle CassiaCassia JasmineJasmine LaurelLaurel NutmegNutmeg SandalwoodSandalwood

Perfumer

Ratings
Scent
8.230 Ratings
Longevity
7.027 Ratings
Sillage
6.227 Ratings
Bottle
6.324 Ratings
Submitted by TIA1971, last update on 10/27/2025.

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Reviews

2 in-depth fragrance descriptions
Marieposa

90 Reviews
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Marieposa
Marieposa
Top Review 38  
The Dark Side of the Goddess
I have scattered bitter blossoms along the path like pebbles.
Radiantly, they release their scent, wilting into dark medicine beneath the green camphor flashes. They say it is the sparkle of my eyes, but you need not hide. I have long overheard your racing heartbeat, the pulsing blood beneath your heated skin, your damp forehead. Let me cool them with my hand when your eyes are heavy and burning.
I have breathed nutmeg dust into the wind.
Do not be afraid. Step closer and forget all the old stories of wreaths made of myrtle or even laurel. So pure and green. The price is high. For you, but also for me. I will not lie to you about that, but it is never higher than the value, never more than you can spare. I will pay it too. With every touch, every gesture, every fiber of my heart that weaves itself with yours.
I have splinted the crack in your soul with cassia.
Take a look into the myrrh-blind mirror, in which I no longer see, listen to its words, and then let yourself sink into the dark earth that I once rubbed on my limbs. The smoke threads, bound in the blackness of my hair, the fine scratches from thorny branches, and the glimmer of hope from the cedars.
Follow my drop of blood into the night, until you become one with me.

**

“Try Anna Zworykina's fragrances if you like true vintage; or if you like complex challenging scents which are like a riddle or a labyrinth and it's easy to get lost in the ultimate complexity of natural materials vs clean simplicity of synthetic compounds,” it says on Anna Zworykina's homepage - and, yes, who could possibly say no to that?
Personally, I do not place an exaggerated value on scents consisting solely of the most exclusive, rarest, and highest quality natural raw materials. It is much more important to me that the result is original, smells good, and is so balanced that I can understand the idea behind it, the structure, and the story that the scent tells me. I am flexible regarding the path that leads to this result. However, I greatly admire it when olfactory artists achieve exactly that without resorting to the synthetic trick box, and manage to master that little bit of unpredictability and heightened complexity that working exclusively with natural raw materials entails.
Anna Zworykina's olfactory playground, who as a PhD biochemist could presumably draw from both worlds, but has clearly and unequivocally chosen natural scents, does not convince me in this regard for the first time.
The Dark Side of the Goddess starts with a somewhat chaotic, medicinal top note, which settles somewhere between indolic, human-like jasmine and bitter marigold after a few minutes. Above the floral notes, a green camphor storm flashes, which could be composed of the menthol facets of patchouli, myrtle, and laurel, while the (spicy) aspects increasingly work their way to the forefront, and I distinctly perceive nutmeg with its slight sharpness. Frankincense forms a bridge to balsamic-sweet and dark myrrh, which is brightened by cassia (I smell the mimosa-like flowers, not the cinnamon bark) and cedar, while the patchouli develops ever more earthy.
What an exciting ambivalence between warm-soft-balsamic darkness and harsh-green notes that repeatedly flash up somewhat demanding, yet also illuminate a path through Anna Zworykina's complex scent labyrinth! And although these constant calls for more durable scents drive me terribly crazy, I must admit in this case that I would love to enjoy this skin-close scent longer than the few hours it accompanies me.

Thank you so much, dear Dark Goddess Brida! What an experience. This cries out for more.
38 Comments
Floyd

572 Reviews
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Floyd
Floyd
Top Review 59  
At the Rise of Night
Arcane seem her black eyes, indistinct the Delphic gaze, impossible to read her, unknown to me are space and time. Her face opened above me like the night. She whispers and yet her lips do not move.
She cleanses my mind with menthol from myrtle, rains down on me with flowers of bitter marigold, the strictly aromatic snails of anise, and covers me with leaves of herb-spicy bay. Ethereal shimmers the semi-silk balm, her dark eyes like dimming stars. Eucalyptus hisses she with a stern face. I do not yet understand her words.
Then she beds me in bitter earth of dark patchouli under mists of myrrh, which balsamically already brush over the balm, in it small cinnamon dots of cassia glowing, she rubs dry shoots and twigs onto my body, herb-sweet and woody and sharp like fresh nutmeg.
Patchoul eucalyptus she conjures my balsamic bed, which now becomes boggier, softer, and deeper. I sink on a cedar bark into the eucalyptus earth, resinous, warm and balsamic and yet medicinally ethereal. Am I connected with the goddess forever, anointed, preserved, and immortal?
After six or seven hours she has quietly disappeared, so long she had stayed close to me.

(With thanks to PallasCC)
48 Comments

Statements

16 short views on the fragrance
28
24
The goddess touches me
with glances of resin and smoke
spicy worlds emerge
flowers blaze, hissing menthol
I float on balm clouds
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24 Comments
26
17
Lavender floats through myrrh
Herbaceous.Quiet.Medicinal.
Wears a laurel crown.Without shine
Eucalyptus hums
Chews nutmeg
Loves cinnamon.The night
The day
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17 Comments
23
20
Hellfire - apocalyptic smoke
Jasmine shimmers through bay + nutmeg
Patch grounds with myrrh wood
I know, I can leave again
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20 Comments
20
13
The goddess is a healer
Fallen leaves
Cover her with earthy moss
Mix in essential oils
Incensed
Nestled on sandalwood
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13 Comments
19
22
With incense, the shadow power awakens,
Myrrh tells of flowers.
In nutmeg and wood, you find peace,
In the darkness, you find yourself.
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22 Comments
13
10
Inhale
The sound of incense deepens
the dark spirit of cassia
Menthol etheric awareness
in bright jasmine mantras
patching being
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10 Comments
5 years ago
13
7
Patch-dyed laurel, spicy-sharp, is accompanied by a light myrtle-citrus. It varies between rough and dark to bright cedar.
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7 Comments
12
9
Starts sharp and ethereal with eucalyptus, bay leaf, and cinnamon, grounded in a sweet patchouli bed. Myrrh and soft incense swirl around. It's really something.
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9 Comments
9
7
I mainly get the laurel at the start, before the resin takes over. Patchouli is very subtle and I actually don't find it that (...)
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7 Comments
9
7
Wow! Resinous conifers, dark-smoky and quite naturally woody, sticky, fibrous. The Dark Side of the Forest? Quite well done.
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7 Comments
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