Into the Gourmand - Number 3: Gleam of the Moon Zara 2023

to my nose this is a delicate cross between Blanche Bête and Moonlight In Heaven, radiating the airy, slightly eerie milkiness of both those scents, but with a citrus-adjacent zing in place of B.B.’s feathery tuberose.

i agree with the other reviewers that this scent offers really fantastic value for its price point.

Gleam of the Moon is a creamy, thick vanilla gourmand with a sweet rice pudding accord and oily tropical florals. It has mimosa in the notes list, but I wouldn't have identified that, the floral notes in here seem richer and more hypnotic than mimosa. Even though it's not a particularly complex or refined scent in my opinion, it still smells nice and grew on me while testing. A cozy gourmand for casual days in colder weather or for relaxed summer nights. Warm, but clean.
I mainly wanted to try this for the rice note, and also because I just love anything moon-themed. Jewelry, clothes, decoration, I have it all. So of course a perfume with this name made me curious! I can't say that this gives me moon vibes in any way though, I think it would have to be more mysterious for that.

At the moment, this has votes as similar to Kilian Moonlight in Heaven and to Liquides Imaginaires Blanche Bête. I think it's somewhere in between and not a true dupe for either of them. It's been a long time since I sampled the Kilian, but I still remember that it was fresher and had a noticeable vetiver note. I have a sample of Blanche Bête at home right now and find that one a little closer, but Gleam of the Moon is simpler and doesn't have that ever so slightly musky-animalic undertone I get from Blanche Bête. It's also not at all similar to Kenzo Amour to my nose, even though both have rice notes.

I can hardly believe how amazing this scent and Give me a sign have become. For the past few weeks, I felt that my favorite perfumes were set in stone, but since I got these two new Zara fragrances, I only have eyes (nose?) for them. Gleam of the moon has something truly relaxing and positive for me. It brings me a feeling that was previously only caused by Rituals of Jing - Relax. The two scents are not the same, but there might be some commonality, as the scent itself even reminds me of the Rituals fragrance. The notes are somewhat recognizable, but I find that you can also smell a bit of coconut. Maybe you can sense mango as well, but not necessarily. I find the scent not as sweet as all the others in the line, so it's somewhat more balanced. Of course, there will be people whose taste does not align with the perfume, but somehow I feel that there wouldn't be that many. I almost feel like it would be hard not to love the scent. So I can really only recommend it. The longevity on clothing is really very good (about 20-24 hours) and the sillage is not shockingly good or anything, but definitely good. I'm not saying it would satisfy everyone, but I believe few would find it shockingly weak. In my eyes, it is perfect. :)

After now eight blind buys at Zara, all of which were hits, I was not disappointed with my ninth blind buy either.

Gleam of the Moon is - as the name of the series suggests - a sweet gourmand. It unfolds quite linearly and overall relies on very few fragrance notes. One cannot expect complexity and multilayeredness here. And yet, I really like this perfume.

To me, Gleam of the Moon smells like a bowl of warm, freshly cooked rice pudding with vanilla. On the table, there are some flowers in a small vase with beautiful light pink blossoms. A floral-sweet scent note mingles in the air with the aroma of the vanilla rice pudding.

The ideal companion for a cozy Sunday at home on the couch, snuggled up in a soft, warm wool blanket. This perfume smells just as soft, warm, and cozy.

Since it has surprisingly good longevity and sillage for the price, I can only recommend using it sparingly. That way, you won’t experience that headache effect. Generally, one should definitely be a fan of sweet gourmand scents. Then, Gleam of the Moon is definitely worth a try.

I feel like I'm in a Raffaelo commercial.
The scent for a white sky daybed at the beach - soft, sweet, creamy, embracing.
But it is also very polished/ one-dimensional and thus lacks any moments of tension.

Longevity is good for me if I take a few more sprays (5x).
Sillage is rather moderate to good.
Overall, the price-performance ratio is very good (12 euros/ 100 ml on sale)

I think I will try layering it :)