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.