Flossing

If it hadn't been for the description of this Possets scent, I would never have known flossing could be something else than dental care. 

A pretty, dear and yet spicy little blend. Flossing is named after the dainty stitching put on many corsets to keep the stays in place. A comforting blend of gingery peppery small vanilla and wood, Flossing is very cheery and is like being the Queen in a Sewing Bee! This is a marvelous everyday perfume which can lift your spirits immensely. Highly recommended as a first Posset for the persnickety or those who want to try Possets but are diffident about it.

In the picture above you can see how the V-shaped embroidery is keeping the 'bones' (preferably iron these days though plastic is also used) in place. I suppose the 'bones' used to be the whalebones. I like the Dutch word better, it's more mysterious because it doesn't tell you right away that they are whalebones: baleinen. 


I must say that the scent works for me as a new Possets user who is diffident about it. Or perhaps I should say I was not overly pleased with the first scents I tried. My problem with Possets is (I think) the use of synthetic components and the fact that apart from a small all-natural series which does not sound very tempting (at least two minty scents there) I can never be sure how large or small the percentage of synthetics is. I tried Eva, a scent with a rhubarb note, and although I liked it when I put it one and it didn't really change, I had to wash it off because I would have gone mad if I hadn't. It was like a sound that goes on and on, something that keeps pulling at your awareness. That is what synthetic scents do with me (or electrical buzzing sounds, for instance). I suspect there is a synthetic vanilla in this Flossing, but this is a scent I can live with. In fact I still like it and I have been wearing it for about three hours now. But I am still a little suspicious. 


By the way, the corset inspiration makes it rather obvious who are the buyers of Possets scents. There must be a large cross over with BPAL, but it seems to me that Possets buyers must be younger in general, and fond of corsets, vampires and Victorian dresses. Which no doubt goes for a lot of BPAListas as well, but BPAL also has a more literary inspiration and it attracts old ladies like me as well as young girls.


Just in case you now want to know how you floss a corset, I found a tutorial here and some information here. Good luck!

Screeching Parrot

I started the day with Titania's partner Oberon, but he was too much a men's cologne for me. The reviews differ on this, to many it's a wonderful scent and some compare it to Old Spice. I must be in the last group. I would not have guessed it from the description: "Orchid, white musk, and bergamot wafting over juniper berries, with a gentle touch of soft, earthy patchouli", and I have no idea what makes it so for me. Perhaps it is the combination of juniper and bergamot, or perhaps the white musk. Whatever it was, it made me go for something different which was the loud parrot.

The day was warm and sunny which goes really well with the tropical Screeching Parrot. I much enjoy its bitterness which is probably more than just the grapefruit.

Golden rum, apricot liquor, pineapple, pomegranate, ginger, brandy, grapefruit, and pink lime.

It is hard to say with notes so obviously created from material different from their name, but I think the lime may add to the bitterness, although lime in itself is not bitter and I have never heard of pink lime. Or it may be any of the alcoholic notes. I don't really smell ginger in the parrot's scent, but it may very well be part of why I love it.

Screeching Parrots must be a real problem outside the tropical paradise scene. I found many websites on the subject and particularly on methods to make the parrot stop his noise. I suppose parrots kept all alone in a cage or on a perch must be bored to a stage that in humans  would be recognised as a psychological condition. Their screeching can probably be compared to a zoo confined polar bear's continuous head movement. But of course it is much more annoying to its surroundings. Which in fact gives the parrot more power than the polar bear.

Titania

BPAL's Titania is part of the Illyria series, a series of scents inspired by the writings of Shakespeare. I bought an imp (sample) of it because I am rehearsing for Purcell's The Fairy Queen which is in fact Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream cut up into parts connected by music that fits the theme. It is a semi-opera which for some time was the English compromis between the Royal wish for opera and the English aversion of the French idea of a play in which people do not speak but sing. 


The name Titania for the Queen of the Fairies was not used before Shakespeare. In traditional folklore she has no name. Shakespeare took the name Titania from Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which it was a name for the daughters of the Titans. After Shakespeare named the Fairy Queen, others (Spencer, Goethe, Tennyson), used the same names for her and her husband King Oberon.

Black Phoenix's Titania is a mix of nocturnal scents, probably for the same reason why Titania is often pictured while fast asleep. She then was enchanted by Puck who took this order from his master Oberon. She would fall in love with the first person she would see when waking up, which was the mechanical Nick Bottom who had been given an ass head as part of the scheme.

A nocturnal bounty of fae dew-kissed petals and pale fruits: white grape, white peach, iced pear, musk rose, sweet pea, moonflower and snapdragon.

The scent started out rather faint but grew in strength until it was rather penetrating and had me wondering if this was something that I could like. I am not sure what the penetrating scent was, as most of the notes mentioned must be accords because there are no essential oils of grape, peach, pear, snapdragon or even sweet pea. But in fact the perfume is rather fitting for the strong willed Titania: the lightness of the fairy is deceiving, after a while she shows her real strength. 

Oak Moon

This is rather out of season for Oak Moon (which was the full moon in November) and in fact I went to my scents to wear Atlas, but as so often I suddenly changed my mind and Oak Moon it was, the first scent I bought directly from the lab and unsmelled too, because for a moon you only have three days, the days of that full moon. But somehow I knew I would love this scent and I was right. The perfume came with the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson:

 The Oak

Live thy Life,
Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;

Summer-rich
Then; and then
Autumn-changed
Soberer-hued
Gold again.

All his leaves
Fall’n at length,
Look, he stands,
Trunk and bough
Naked strength.

Of course I love oaks in general and one special Oak in particular. And the move from Atlas to Oak Moon was not too strange either, because another reason for me to buy Oak Moon was that it had notes similar to Atlas, which I had not bought when it was available. 

Eternally evolving, blooming in power and grace: acorns, oak leaves, oak bark, and oak sap rising through a mist of traditional lunar oils.

Well, in fact it is only one note, the oak bark, but it was an extra reason to take the risk and buy Oak Moon unsniffed. And I did not regret it.

Purple Spotted Swallowtail

Of the Purple Spotted Swallowtail or Graphium weiskei only the male is black with purple and green spots, the female is brown. It is a butterfly of the highlands of Papua New Guinea, it rarely flies below 1200 m (4000 ft).  The underside of the butterfly has the same spots, but it is brown where the upside is black. There is another Graphium butterfly that looks much like it, the Graphium stresemanni:

The Purple spotted Swallowtail was another butterfly of BPAL's  Metamorphosis of 2011. I chose it because it had a castoreum accord as one of its notes, I was curious about that. Castoreum is a traditional perfume note that was originally taken from the castor sacs of beavers, who used it to mark their territory together with their urine. Modern perfumes usually do not contain ingredients than come from animals and BPAL certainly doesn't use them, so the scent is imitated by a mixture of essential oils or often by a synthetic imitation based on the chemical formula. Since I never smelled real castoreum I can't tell if Beth did a good job on her accord, but I trust that she did. And at first I rather liked the perfume, but after some time it started to annoy me. So when it had faded (and fortunately the warm weather made it fade more rapidly) I put on a different perfume. No castoreum for me, and I am so glad it wasn't the real thing: I have read that these animal ingredients last very long.

Pannychis

It is not easy to find a picture of Pannychis online. In BPAL's description she is an attendant of the goddess Venus, but of course being Greek she is an attendant of Aphrodite, Venus is the Roman Aphrodite after the Roman incorporated her in their own pantheon.

An attendant of the Goddess Venus. She presides over nocturnal pleasure, nighttime festivities, and all the joy and delight that can be found in the darkness. In later ages, it became the name of the all-night festival that closed the Eleusinian Mysteries. Night-blooming jasmine, moonflower, cardamom, sandalwood, black currant, ylang ylang, frankincense and lily.

Pannychis as a perfume has been discontinued, but I managed to get a bottle of it through eBay. She is very strong on the lily scent and that seemed appropriate because all day I had been smelling the wonderful lilies in the bouquet my partner was given after a performance. So when I went to the opera on the evening of the 25th of May it was Pannychis who went with me, not the purple spotted swallowtail butterfly.

Semiramis

Semiramis has been a popular subject for paintings in the style of the one above which was made by Christian Köhler in 1852. I don't know if this was a result of Rossini's opera Semiramide, or if both paintings and opera were prompted by another cause. As Semiramis must have been:

a mythical Assyrian queen, noted for her beauty and wisdom. She was reputed to have conquered many lands and founded the city of Babylon. After a long and prosperous reign she vanished from earth in the shape of a dove and was thereafter worshiped as a deity, acquiring many of the characteristics of the goddess Ishtar. The historical figure behind this legend is probably Sammuramat, who acted as regent of Assyria from 810 to 805 B.C.

I have my doubts if this was how Assyrian Queens dressed in the 9th century before we started counting. I think I prefer this statue:

although I have to admit that it looks more like a dancing queen than like a warrior. But of course even a warrior queen must have had time to dance.  


The perfume was one in the series of Warrior Queens that was issued in 2009 by Black Phoenix Trading Post. The story that comes with Semiramis's perfume is this:

A legendary Assyrian queen, often identified with Sammu-Ramat, the wife of Shamshi-Adad V, she was believed to be the daughter of the goddess Atargatis. Her youth was filled with mythic adventure, and her otherworldly beauty and voluptuous sexuality ensured her two advantageous marriages. When she took the reins of power of Empress of Assyria, she expanded her kingdom by conquering much of Mesopotamia and Asia. She beautified and revitalized Babylon, and implemented improvements in Nineveh that helped to moderate the flow of the Tigris. She was renowned for her military and political prowess, as well as her ferocious and merciless sexual appetite.

HER PERFUME
Red musk, pomegranate, orange blossom, and melon.

The legend of her sexual appetite seems to have sprouted form the story that in order to have her power safe from men making presumptions because they had a relationship with her, she had each lover killed after one night of passion. (source) 


It may be because the perfume has aged for three years now, but unlike the first reviews I read the first note I smell is the melon note and I think the orange blossom, not the red musk or the pomegranate. And in fact the color of the perfume is no longer red (if it ever was), it is a rather dark brown. It has a lot of staying power. I find that scents disappear fast when the weather is warm, but although this is a very warm day Semiramis stayed strong and I only reapplied once.

Mama-Ji

The name Mama-Ji also exists outside Neil Gaiman's book American Gods, but I could not find much more about it than that it is another name for Kali or Kali-Ma (except for one source in which the mother of a family was lovingly called Mama-Ji, but this probably also points to the mother goddess Kali). Of course the perfume Mama-Ji was named after the American incarnation or appearance of Kali as she appears in this book. There are series of perfumes named after characters from several books by Neil Gaiman, I earlier wrote about The Marquis de Carabas from the book Neverwhere.


I have wanted to try Mama-Ji for a long time, but since these series are special there are no regular imps (samples) of any of these scents. In fact I have read American Gods because of Mama-Ji whose perfume I still had not smelled. But I have now, and it is as good as I hoped it would be. I shall one day need a bottle of this.

Shadow saw the old woman, her dark face pinched with age and disapproval, but behind her he saw something huge, a naked woman with skin as black as a new leather jacket, and lips and tongue the bright red of arterial blood. Around her neck were skulls, and her many hands held knives, and swords, and severed heads.

Spices, cardamom, nutmeg, and flowers.

To me Mama-Ji is sweet and spicy and very comforting, obviously more the mother part than the destroyer part. 

Tiki Queen

Let me begin by telling you that the the statue in the middle of the picture above is indeed a Tiki, but the woman to the left of it is not a Tiki Queen. Black Phoenix had a Tiki Queen, Tiki King and Tiki Princess in their Atomic Luau Lounge series, but there don't seem to be or have been people bearing this title. I found a restaurant with the name Tiki Queen and a shop for ukeleles and an Etsy shop called Tiki King. Also a lot of pictures of scantily dressed women draped horizontally in tropical surroundings showed up when I googled for Tiki Queen, but none of them looked like they came from Tahiti. So this picture, which may be a postcard the way it is designed, was the best I could find. 

So I'll go to the description of the scent, which is:

Monoi de Tahiti, vanilla, white coconut, tuberose, ylang ylang, white musk, red hibiscus, and neroli.

I am sorry I don't really smell the monoi de Tahiti and I am glad I don't smell coconut. In fact I smell mostly something I thought was a red currant note but which is probably the red hibiscus (although I never caught a red hibiscus on being very scented). It is a perfect scent for a warm day and today was uncommonly warm for our country. I enjoyed both the humid warmth and the perfume. It was a 2008 Limited Edition and I only have a sample of it, so when it's gone it's gone. I think that is a good way to deal with something as fleeting as a good scent and a warm day in May.

Tenochtitlan

Tenochtitlan was a Nahua altepetl (Nahua is the name of the people, altepetl means it was a city-state) on an island in Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. It was founded in 1325 and in the 15th century it became the capital of the expanding Aztec Empire, until it was captured by the Spanish in 1521. The ruins of the city of Tenochtitlan are in the central part of what is now Mexico City. The name Tenochtitlan is a combination of the Nahuatl words tetl (rock) and nochtli (prickly pear) and it would mean something like 'among the prickly pears rocks'. Another altepetl on another island was Tlatelolco.


Tenochtitlan was situated on the western side of the lake and connected to the ainland with causeways leading north, south and west of the city. Where the three causeways came together the temple was found, which was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the sun god (but also god of war) and Tlaloc, the god of rain and agriculture. 
The causeways were interrupted by bridges that could be opened to allow canoes to pass freely or be pulled away to defend the city. The city was interlaced with a series of canals so that all parts of the city could be reached by canoes. (I imagine some sort of Venice here.) Parts of the city were built over the lake on a foundation of poles. There is a lot on interesting information about the city of Tenochtitlan here.

Where once was the temple now is the Cathedral of Mexico City and the ruins of the temple are still below it:

All this I did not know when I ordered a used sample (imp) from the perfume Tenochtitlan, which is one of the series of Wanderlust of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. I simply chose it because I was intrigued by the notes. I now know why prickly pear was included, which by the way is a genus of over 200 cactus species.

The complete dezcription of the scent is:

The greatest of all Aztec cities, and capital of their empire. Amber, hyssop, coriander, epazote, Mexican sage, prickly pear and Mexican tulip poppy.

I also searched for epazote, which I found to be Dysphania ambrosioides, also known as Mexican tea, Jezuit's tea, wormseed or Herba Sancta Mariae. In Dutch (probably only interesting for myself) it is welriekende ganzevoet.

And because I had never heard of a tulip poppy, I searched for that too. The Tulip Poppy is a poppy from the highlands and its Latin name is Hunnemannia fumariifolia.

Unlike I had expected with hyssop and coriander as notes, this is a light fruity kind of scent, the prickly pear I suppose although of course there is no essential oil of prickly pear. It is very nice and a scent I could console myself with once I am out of Water Dragon.

La Mariposa  

Today I am again wearing La Mariposa from Midnight Gypsy Alchemy. It was quite a change from what I had been wearing the days before and it took me some time to fully appreciate it. But the blue lotus, vanilla and labdanum are very pretty together and they are what I smell strongest in this scent. Although I do get the basil when I put my nose to my wrist. The grapefruit no doubt adds to the freshness of this blend, but it is not overwhelmingly present.

When I posted the name 'La Mariposa' on Facebook I was asked 'Did you call me?' by someone who used the name Mariposa as a nick on an internet forum where we both used to be active. I hope this will not hurt her feelings, but if I thought about anyone with the name La Mariposa it was not her, but a young girl who loves to dance and who shall one day play her part in a book I still mean to write. Mariposa is not her real name, but it is the name everybody calls her. Perhaps because she dances like a butterfly. Or perhaps because for some reason people often smile when she is there, as if she lightens hearts just like a butterfly does. By which I do not mean to say she is like an angel, she knows much too well what she wants. Which is, when you think of it, not a bad habit at all.

So this is to Mariposa the girl, who once painted with make up a blue butterfly on the head of a very patient man who allowed this because he knew it would make her mother smile.

The Zadok Allen Vineyard

Yesterday I needed a strong scent as I had slept little and I needed to be as awake as possible. Strangely enough The Zadok Allen Vineyard is such a scent, which one might not expect considering the usual drunken state of Zadok Allen. On the other hand, he probably needed something very strong to knock himself out.

Looking for pictures I found two cards picturing Zadok Allen, from two card games. Or perhaps it is the same card game only in different languages, but they do look different to me. I did not go into any further investigation, but I may do so later. For now, I shall just show the cards.

Voodoo

I have been trying to write this blog daily, starting with the scent that I wear, but I have not been able to keep this up for the past two days. However, since Voodoo was the subject of my very first entry, i really wish to write more about it now that I have more writing practice.


I may be wrong, but since there are more BPAL scents of which descriptions point towards Louisiana Voodoo rather than Haitian Voodoo, I expect that it is indeed Louisiana or New Orleans Voodoo that was the inspiration of this perfume. My knowledge of Voodoo is limited, so I had to do some reading and as so often this led to more confusion and more reading. So I can not say that I really know about Voodoo now, but what i learned is this;


Louisiana Voodoo or New Orleans Voodoo is one of the many religions rooted in West African Dahomeyan Vodun. The Kingdom of Dahomey was a powerful West African country from the 17th century to 1894. From 1894 to 1960 it was part of French West Africa and when it regained independence it was first called the Republic of Dahomey and in 1975, because this was more neutral, the People's Republic of Benin. So when you are looking for the place where these religions have their roots, look for Benin. (The republic, not the kingdom because that once was where now Nigeria is. Did I confuse you?) The West African Vodun religion was practiced in a much larger area, but the Dahomeyan kings were very active in the slave trade, which may be why the Dahomeyan variation of the religion found its way to Louisiana.


Louisiana Voodoo can not be completely separated from Haitian Voodoo, but it is not the same although both are religions. Hoodoo, which also started being practiced in the Southern states of the US including Louisiana, is less structured than Voodoo and more like a folk knowledge traditinally passed on from person to person, usually lay people within a Christian community. And to make things more complicated, Hoodoo is often a part of New Orleans Voodoo. It was through New Orleans Voodoo that concepts like gris-gris (a talisman or voodoo amulet consisting of a small bag originally with Islamic scripture) and voodoo dolls became more commonly known. The structure and hierarchy in Louisiana Voodoo seems to start with the Voodoo Queens and once the Voodoo Queen is mentioned Marie Laveau has to be mentioned.

Marie Laveau was believed to be born free in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the daugher of a white planter and a free Creole woman of color. On August 4, 1819, she married Jacques (or perhaps his name was Santiago) Paris, a free person of color who had emigrated from Haiti and who died in 1920 under unexplained circumstances. In fact, there are more suggestions and stories about Marie Laveau than there are fact, but it seems quite obvious that she has been very important in the development of New Orleans Voodoo. Although in popular culture Marie Laveau is often referred to as a witch, she would be properly describes as a Voodoo priestess. (But of course all modern witches will tell you that they too are priestesses, so there seems to be no real contradiction there.)


Lets not forget to save some space for the description of the perfume:

A midnight scent, evoking images of flickering golden firelight reflecting off the sheen of glistening skin and the jerking shadows of bodies suffused with spiritual ecstasy. A deep, powerful, resonant blend of myrrh, patchouli, vetiver, lime, vanilla, pine, almond and clove.

I remember that the first time I smelled it I was not pleased with it at first, because of the lime. Lime can be very sharp in its initial stage, but after a few minutes it softens and blends in with the other components. And in this case it makes this a very favorite scent for me. In fact I think I like it more than some that I have bottles of. So it's name may show up more often in the future.

Harikata

Harikata was not the first perfume carrying osmanthus that I smelled, but it was the first time I knew it. It made me search for more perfumes with osmanthus. So for today I found some pictures of the fragrant osmanthus, Osmanthus fragrans. There are several other species of osmanthus, even one called devilwood, but I think it is the sweet osmanthus that is in my perfume. And this species can have flowers in a few different colors: some shrubs or trees have white flowers, some have pale yellow flowers, some have yellow and some have orange flowers.

In Chinese, the plant is called xī (樨) or guìhuā (桂花), and its flowers, called guì huā (桂花, literally "cinnamon flower" or "cassia flower") are used, infused with green or black tea leaves, to create a scented tea called guì huā chá (桂花茶). (source)

The name 'cinnamon flower' is interesting, as the same article tells us the flowers carry the scent of ripe peaches or apricots. But perhaps the scent is perceived differently by different noses.

Another entry about the perfume Harikata can be found here.

Sed Non Satiata

This scetch was made by Henri Matisse as an illustration for Baudelaire's poem Sed Non Satiata. Many artists have illustrated Les Fleurs du Mal over the years, and Matisse was one of them.

Sed non satiata

Bizarre déité, brune comme les nuits,
Au parfum mélangé de musc et de havane,
Oeuvre de quelque obi, le Faust de la savane,
Sorcière au flanc d'ébène, enfant des noirs minuits,

Je préfère au constance, à l'opium, au nuits,
L'élixir de ta bouche où l'amour se pavane;
Quand vers toi mes désirs partent en caravane,
Tes yeux sont la citerne où boivent mes ennuis.

Par ces deux grands yeux noirs, soupiraux de ton âme,
Ô démon sans pitié! verse-moi moins de flamme;
Je ne suis pas le Styx pour t'embrasser neuf fois,

Hélas! et je ne puis, Mégère libertine,
Pour briser ton courage et te mettre aux abois,
Dans l'enfer de ton lit devenir Proserpine!

— Charles Baudelaire

The poem has been translated  more than once also, but I shall show here the translation that was used by Black Phoenix, as this was the one that inspired the perfume:

Strange goddess, brown as evening to the sight,
Whose scent is half of musk, half of havanah,
Work of some obi, Faust of the Savanah,
Ebony witch, and daughter of the night.

By far preferred to troth, or opium, or sleep,
Love vaunts the red elixir of your mouth.
My caravan of longings seeks in drouth
Your eyes, the wells at which my cares drink deep.

Through those black eyes, by which your soul respires,
Pitiless demon! pour less scorching fires.
I am no Styx nine times with flame to wed.

Nor can I turn myself to Proserpine
To break your spell, Megera libertine!
Within the dark inferno of your bed.

I think this was a time when many artists discovered colored women and portrayed them, be it in words or in paint. Think of the paintings of Gauguin, who was more a contemporary of Baudelaire than Matisse who was born after Baudelaire died. 

  
I had not worn Sed Non Satiata for quite some time and now that I do I am sorry that I did not try to buy the bottle that was available at eBay last week. It is a very lovely scent, a bit like Vixen which I love also. Although I only see patchouli as a note they share, there seems to be more in which they are similar. Apart from the fact that both scents are supposed to be the scents of lascivious women.

A pounding heartbeat coalesced into scent: demonic passion and brutal sexuality manifested through myrrh, red patchouli, cognac, honey, and tuberose and geranium in a breathy, panting veil over the darkest body musk.

To balance all this I would like to show a photograph of Matisse scetching a Haitian model for, probably, the some of the pictures in Baudelaire's poem collection Les Fleurs du Mal. 

Mme Moriarty, Misfortune Teller

I am a day behind, because Mme M was my scent yesterday. Yet I would like to write what I intended to write yesterday. It is inspired by the text that comes with Mme M and the picture above.

A colorless woman bursts from an elaborate gold and ruby tent and faints dead at your feet. Soft laughter emits from the dark entrance to the tent, and the scent of musk, black fruits and incense touches your senses. Looking up, you see that the sign hovering above the unconscious woman is adorned with images of the Major Arcana’s Tower and reads:

“Mme. Moriarty, Misfortune Teller.
No fate too grim, no future too bleak.”

A tiny woman with floor-length black dreadlocks walks out of the tent, stepping over the prone body. She is clothed in deep red wrappings, and is bedecked in golden ornaments bearing alchemical symbols and charms representing eternity, chance, and wisdom. She pauses, looks you over slowly, and then flicks a tarot card at your feet.

Some time ago I used the word Tarot in the presence of a friend who reacted as if she was stung by a bee. Tarot cards were bad things, they could ruin a person's life, she told me. And if you read the story above, it might be an illustration of such a life ruining experience.


Yet, although there is no doubt that there are people who find pleasure in ruining the lives of influenceable young women with a lack of self confidence, or rather in the feeling of power that it may give them, this is not at all what Tarot cards are about.

I would like to compare Tarot cards with road signs. When you are traveling, the signs on the road tell you where you are going when you continue to follow that particular road. When traveling in France, you might see a sign telling you that the road leads to Paris. Now perhaps you don't want to go to Paris at all. Would you be shocked and think you are doomed, because the sign tells you that when you keep on following this road you would end up in Paris? Perhaps if you have no idea of where you are, where Paris is and where the place you really want to go is, but in most cases the sign will be helpful. If you know that where you want to go is exactly the other way, you can leave the road at the next exit and enter it again driving in the opposite direction. In other cases you'll probably know that you want to leave at a certain exit to take a new direction. 


Tarot cards never predict a fate that can not be escaped. In fact they don't predict anything. What they can do, is show you where you would end up if you would continue on exactly  the same route as you are on now. If that is not what you want, take the next exit and try another road.

More about Mme M can be found here and here.

Marae

I had no idea what the word Marae means. The decant label shows a dancing woman and a Tiki. But a marae is 'a communal or sacred place that serves religious and social purposes in Polynesian societies'. (source) The word also means 'cleared, clean of weeds, trees, ect.' and that is what it generally is: a cleared area, usually rectangular, bordered with stones or wooden posts. It can have terraces which are used for ceremonial purposes and there can be a central stone. In Tahiti marae were dedicated to specific deities and also connected to specific lineages said to have built them. The war god 'Oro, who as 'Oro-of-the-laid-down-spear was transformed into a god of peace, was ritually demanded to stay at home in the marae when the people set out on a journey, to safeguard them. (source)

Vanilla orchid, Monoi tiare, gardenia, and light incense.

That is the description of the 2008 Atomic Luau Lounge LE Marae from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. Not surprisingly the first thing I smell is gardenia, but not quite as heavily as gardenia can be. After a while it retreats a little and I smell the monoi tiare and vanilla orchid. I know I smell monoi tiare, because I recently bought a very lovely cream from Romantic Nature which has monoi as a base (tiare flowers are put in a semi-wax coconut oil until they have given it their scent and then the oil is used). The tiare is the Tahitian gardenia, monoi means scented oil but it is always scented by the tiare. The second stage is much lighter and has less throw than the earlier stage with the more obvious gardenia smell. I wonder if there is actually monoi in this perfume, which I would expect would make it more greasy, or if there are merely coconut and tiare notes in it. 

Water Dragon

This picture of a Water Dragon comes from The Druid Animal Oracle. The oracle is made by Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm and the illustrations are made by Bill Worthington. The Water Dragon shown is the Stoor Worm, a great sea-sragon whose 'head was like a mountain and his eyes were like round lochs, very dark and deep'. The dragon had quite an appetite and was finally killed by a young man who entered the sea dragon with his boat and set fire to its liver. During its death struggle the dragon's tongue made a deep slash in the earth that made the Baltic Sea, its teeth fell out and formed the Orkneys, the Shetlands and the Faeroe Islands and finally the dragoncoiled itself up tightly and crashed into the sea forming Iceland with its body, the smoldering liver being responsible for the fire beneath its crust. The story can be read in more detail here.


In The Druid Animal Oracle the Water Dragon is one of four Dragons, one dragon for each of the elements. Although the dragons are connected with the elements, they are Otherwordly creatures. 

In psychological terms Water represents the Unconscious and the emergence of monsters or dragons from sea, well or lake represent unresolved complexes, repressed and distorted drives and desires, welling up into awareness. The destructive Water Dragon symbolizes perfectly the damaging nature of certain contents of the psyche, which, for the healing of the self, require a transmutation that may be depicted as a symbolic death. (source: the book that accompanies The Druid Animal Oracle)

This Water Dragon is very different from the one that was the inspiration for Black Phoenix's perfume. As can be read in my earlier entries about Water Dragon, it was the scent for the Chinese New Year and this year is the year of the Water Dragon. Chinese Dragons are symbols of power and good luck instead of forces of destruction. I am sure that the Stoor Worm would have inspired a much less joyful scent.

Earlier entries about the Water Dragon can be found here(1), here (2), here (3), here (4) and here (5).

Two, Five and Seven

'Would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, 'why you are painting those roses?'

Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, 'Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore she comes, to — ' At this moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called out 'The Queen! The Queen!' and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.

Of course I have read Alice in Wonderland, but loving the scent named Two, Five and Seven from BPAL's Mad Tea Party made me want to reread it. Alice in Wonderland is probably one  of those books one can not read too often, but for me it was about time to reread it. I could not even remember when I last read it. Still, the characters from the book have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I can not remember when I first saw the picture of the caterpillar smoking a waterpipe on a mushroom, or those of the Cheshire cat disappearing until there was nothing left but his grin. I did not like the Cheshire Cat much when I was young, I thought he had a scary kind of grin.

A huge bouquet of squished rose petals: Bulgarian rose, Somalian rose, Turkish rose, Damascus rose, red and white rose, tea rose, wine rose, shrub roses, rose, rose, rose…

…and just an itty bitty bit of green grass.

It's not because the description says so, this really smells like roses and green foliage to me, not so much green grasses but rather the green leaves of the roses. Two weeks ago I bought Rose otto essential oil from Romantic Nature and it smells to me like roses and their green leaves, so I wonder if one of the rose oils in this scent is like the one I bought. I couldn't think of what would give the green part of the scent if it were another plant. But there is much about essential oils that I don't know.
What I do know is that this is by far my favorite rose scent and I have tried quite a few from BPAL as well as other perfumers. It smells like roses after a short summer rain storm, very fresh and alive roses with fresh green leaves.

Atlas

The Attacus Atlas is a moth from the family of Saturniidae, all very large and spectacular moths. They can be found in the tropical and subtropical forests of Southeast Asia and the Malay Archipelago. 

The Atlas moth is a very large moth with a wingspan that can be over 25 cms (10 in). Females are larger and heavier than males. It is not known if the moth is named after the Titan Atlas from Greek mythology who supported the heavens, or after the map-like wing pattern. Personally I would think it is named after the Titan, because I find the wing pattern not very much like a map. In Hong Kong the Cantonese name of the moth translates to snake's head moth, because of the extensions of the forewings that indeed look much like the heads of snakes. 

In India the Atlas moth is cultivated for its silk, but not as commercially as the silkmoth. The silk of Atlas is brown and in broken strands which gives it a structure like wool. It is thought to have a greater durability than silkmoth silk and it is called fagara. In Taiwan the complete cocoons have been used as purses.

Atlas was one of the moths of BPAL's 2011 Metamorphosis release and by far my favorite. I have been very sorry that I did not get a bottle of it, although I have consoled myself with Oak Moon which has a few similar notes, but not the coffee Atlas has.

Mallow, oak bark, coffee bean, hinoki wood, and khus.

Khus is another name for vetiver, but in BPAL perfumes it is known as a gentler variety of vetiver. Hinoki wood is from the Chamaecyparis obtusa, a Japanese cypress species that grows very slowly and as a result has a very high quality timber which is used for temples, palaces, shrines and noh theaters. 
I know there is a coffee bean absolute (an absolute is like an essential oil, but it is produced by solvent extraction instead of steam destillation). But I don't know if there is any scented oil made from mallow or oak bark. They are however notes that are more often used in scents of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.
The perfume Atlas is a strong, warm scent unlike any other scent I know except Oak Moon, but Oak Moon has the greenness of the tree, Atlas has the brown softness of the moth.