Enraged Orangutan Musk

Today is Koninginnedag, Queen's Day, in The Netherlands. April 30th is the birthday of our former Queen Juliana. Queen's Day is traditionally a public holiday (although more and more stores are open each year now) and another tradition is that citizens are allowed to sell whatever they want to sell on the street. This has resulted in the very popular free markets, first in the larger cities but soon just about every town wanted to have their own free market. My home town has made the restriction that only children under 12 may sell on the free market, because there is not enough room for all professional sellers who also like this chance to earn some money.


Now you may wonder what this has to do with an enraged orangutan. Nothing, really, but another tradition for Queen's Day is that we dress in orange. The name of our royal family is 'Van Oranje' and although the name Oranje originally is connected with the county of Orange in France, it also means orange in Dutch. This still has nothing to do with orangutans, enraged or otherwise, except perhaps when one considers the colour of their fur. And this fur colour was probably what inspired Beth to add the scent of orange peel too the perfume Enraged Orangutan Musk. I wanted an orange scent today and although some 10 days ago I suggested that La Calavera Catrina would be a good choice for an orange scent, today I felt more like wearing the orangutan's orangepeel scented musk.

An earlier post about this scent can be found here.

A Day of Testing

Today was a day of testing. Yesterday a long awaited scent arrived, Possets' Cambienne - Bête Noire, and the recently ordered samples from The Perfume Garden. Because The Perfume Garden has a Spring Sale which ends tomorrow, I wanted to test these scents first. I did not remember the descriptions and I chose one without previously sniffing it.

Jewel

The first impression was a light waft of citrus against a sort of sweet resinous background. I thought I recognized perubalsam, so I looked at the notes and saw that it was not among them. The scent's description is:

A warm base of Sandalwood, Organic Vanilla from Madagascar and Patchouli, a floral heart of Damask Rose, Egyptian Orange Blossom and Indian Jasmine, and top notes of Bergamot from Italy and Sweet Orange.

So perhaps I took the sandalwood, patchouli and vanilla combination for perubalsam. The initial citrus notes did not linger long, which is as one expects for citrus notes. What remained was a warm rich slightly sweet resinous wood scent which I enjoyed very much. It had a rather good staying power. But I was curious, so in the evening I tried another scent:

Sacred Woods

I expected much from this scent because I love wood scents. But among the wood scents there was one note that disagreed with me. I think it must have been the jatamansi (not a wood although it was mentioned in the list of woods, but a plant from the family of Valerianaceae) because I can not imagine any of the other notes having this effect on me:

A blend of Himalayan and Atlas Cedarwood, Jatamansi, cultivated Agarwood from Assam, Ho Wood, Sandalwood, Myrrh and Frankincense resins, with floral notes including Pink Lotus, Rose and Ylang Ylang softening the strong woody scent.

I am very sorry this one didn't work on me and I shall try it again on another day.** For today I changed to:

Butterfly

Butterfly from the vial smelled exactly as described:

Like the flight of a graceful butterfly, this light floral fragrance is delicate and feminine, and perfect as a reminder of sunny spring days.

Main Notes: Lavender Absolute, Neroli, Geranium, Rose, Jasmine, Bergamot and Clary Sage.

But after it settled on my skin it changed. The lightness was lost and it smelled like a bunch of bottles of essential oils. Or like something I made myself and was not pleased about. It makes me think that some of my creations may smell better on someone else, because obviously Butterfly must smell differently on others than it does on me. This one too I shall try on another day.* I changed to another scent for the last time for today:

Cambienne: Bête Noire

The Possets' scent which I bought through eBay. The seller advertised it as 

one of the ever-changing bottles of Cambienne from the company Possets; this fragrance changes its name and ingredients over the course of the year, but it had an incarnation in late 2011 that was extremely popular and sought-after. 

I did some research and found that the creator of the Possets scents has a very interesting way of making the Cambienne scents. She creates a scent which changes with the season and/or when little is left. Or perhaps even when she is inspired to change it. At that moment what has not been sent out to customers yet is the start of a new scent. This particular edition was described as:

Blackest musk and blackest vanilla, black leather and black coffee, black pepper and black amber. Again a lashing of black vanilla (Bourbon).

I loved the way it smelled in the bottle, but again on my skin I liked it much less. However, it is a very interesting scent and I shall test it again on some other day. I think it is the pepper that makes it hard for me to like it on this day when I am tired.

* * *

This makes Jewel the only scent I immediately liked today. And of course it is the one with the highest price. I have an expensive taste.

* I did try Butterfly on another day and it smelled like lavender then. Which makes sense, because my skin seems to amp lavender.

** Sacred Woods I tested again the day after Butterfly and this time it was the wonderful wood scent I had expected. I do wonder what happened on my testing day, when both Butterfly and Sacred Woods did not smell as they should to me. What has not changed for any of The Perfume Garden's scents is that they are very light scents that stay close to the skin and that I tend to reapply more often than any other perfume I have used.

The Zadok Allen Vineyard

THE ZADOK ALLEN VINYARD
Innsmouth, MA
Ut Sementem Feceris Ita Metes. Founded by the Esoteric Order of Dagon, and named after the man encased within the foundation of the winery, this fertile bastion of haphazard viticulture has been providing superb wines to the Miskatonic Valley since 1927. The site of the vineyard has been used for hundreds of years as an abattoir, and this environment lends a peculiar and exceptional terroir to all their wines and liquors. Visitors are welcome to observe Fishmen priests engaged in pigeage once a month. Please contact the vineyard for information on this as well as their scheduled wine tasting events.

The Zadok Allen Vineyard has a subtitle: Valentine's Day in the Miskatonic Valley. It was a 2010 Lupercalia LE inspired by Lovecraft's story The Shadow over Innsmouth. Zadok Allen is one of the few completely human residents of Innsmouth which is inhabited by strange hybrids who are half human and half some unknown creature that looks like a cross between a fish and a frog. The inhabitants of Innsmouth worship Dagon, an originally Assyro-Babylonian fertility god whom Lovecraft incorporated into the Ctulhu mythos. Zadok is an alcoholic who in his drunken ramblings tells the reader much about the secret background of the city. I still have to read the story, which can be found here: The Shadow over Innsmouth.


The scent with this name is described as if it were a wine:

A deep velvety Cabernet Sauvignon with hints of plum, black cherry, rose petals, coffee bean, and smoky oak. Barrel and bottle aged, with a smooth and spicy hit mid-palate. Hints of Dagon's tarry black incense and clotted blood complete this well-rounded, robust indulgence.

It is interesting that the first time I tried it I did not like it at all. I thought I recognized a note from BPAL's choclote scents which turns to some kind of plastic imitiation of chocolate on my skin. But today I tried it again and after a few minutes in which it was not very nice but not as bad as the plastic chocolate either, it slowly changed into something divine. I may even like it more than Mme Moriarty (for which I make my apologies to her).

Tanuki No Dôke Daruma

This is a raccoon dog having his scrotum painted in imitation of a daruma doll. A Daruma doll, also known as a Dharma doll, is a hollow, round, Japanese traditional doll modeled after the founder of the Zen sect of Buddhism, Bodhidharma. These dolls are usually red with a bearded face after the image of Bodhidharma.

Above is the image of Bodhidharma in a woodprint by Yoshitoshi, below is the picture of a Daruma doll:

The scent's description is:

Red currant, champaca flower, apple blossom and apple pulp, goma, tomato leaf, and brown grasses.

The red current for the color of the doll of course and perhaps the tomato leaf too although only the tomato is usually round and red, not its leaves. I am sorry to say that I do not smell tomato leaves at all in the scent. Nor any brown grasses, nor champaca flower. Goma I suppose is sesame, which I do not smell either. What I do smell is a fresh almost cologne-like scent. It is not unpleasant (and I admit it is rare for me to find a cologne-like scent anything but unpleasant), but that is all I can say about it now. I'll give it some time, I could imagine the sesame and tomato leave to need some time to age. But I think this Tanuki fooled me.

Tanuki No Yudachi

PON POKO PON NO PON

Sho-sho- Shojo-Ji 

Shojo-Ji no niwa wa 

Tsu-tsu-tsuki yo de minna dete koi koi koi!

Oira no tomodacha 

Pon poko pon no pon

Makeru na, makeru na

Oshosan ni makeru na

Koi koi koi koi koi koi

Minna dete koi koi koi!

Sho-sho-shojo-Ji

Shojo-Ji no hagi wa

Tsu-tsu-tsuki yo ni

Hanazakari.

Oira wa ukarete

Pon poko pon no pon.

Stuffed full of beans and sake, the big-bellied, big-balled, magical shapeshifting Tanuki are harbingers of joy, prosperity, and change. They are clever schemers and irrepressible tricksters that conjure illusions and play pranks on the unwary, often raising up the downtrodden and casting foolish, prideful, and despotic people low.

Bring a little more light and laughter into your life with our Pon Poko series! The garden is bright under the moonlit night! Let's thump a snazzy little beat on our golden drums together!

 To begin with, there is indeed such a creature as a raccoon dog and there is a Japanese subspecies of this animal: Nyctereutes procyonoides viverrinus. They look like this:

The tanuki has played a part in Japanese for ages. It is a 'mischievous and jolly, a master of disguise and shapeshifting', but somehwat gullible and absentminded.' (source) Of course the  tanuki in literature is not at all like the natural animal, as all animals in literature get special characteristics. The first thing that is written about them is that in spring they turn into humans and sing songs.

Later they are described as shapeshifters, much like the kitsune tsuki (Japanese fox). Until Buddhism took over in Japan, the tanuki was a deity governing all things in nature, but in Buddhism there was no space for animal deities and they turned into some sort of demons. The difference between Kitsune tsuki and tanuki is that kitsune tsuki shapeshifts to tempt people, whereas the tanuki likes to fool people and make them seem stupid.

Then there is the characteristic of their large balls. I have not found yet where or when that originated, but in the source mentioned above I found this Japanese children's song:

Tan Tan Tanuki no kintama wa,
Kaze mo nai no ni,
Bura bura

which would translate as: 'Tan Tan Tanuki's bollocks ring/The wind stops blowing/But they swing, swing'. The large testicles appear to be one of the 8 lucky traits of the Tanuki, which are:

§  a hat to be ready to protect against trouble or bad weather;

§  big eyes to perceive the environment and help make good decisions;

§  a sake bottle that represents virtue;

§  a big tail that provides steadiness and strength until success is achieved;

§  over-sized testicles that symbolize financial luck;

§  a promissory note that represents trust or confidence;

§  a big belly that symbolizes bold and calm decisiveness; and

§  a friendly smile

This is a very long story and I still haven't come to this particular Tanuki picture and the scent it inspired. But the picture should tell the story: In Tanuki No Yudachi the large testicles serve as protection from an evening rainstorm. The description of the scent is:

Lilium speciosum, rice wine, white grapefruit, lotus root, bourbon vanilla, and vanilla orchid.

When I ordered decants I was too late for this one. That is to say: I was late and the bottles were all booked and for most scents there were second bottles but not for this one. Perhaps because it is not an extraordinary scent. But it is very very good, with fruit and flowers and the friendliness of vanilla. I know this because my decanter sent me a testable sniffie with the full decants I bought.  I shall need quite some self control not to order a bottle of this. 

Lilium speciosum

Hairy Toad Lily

The real Hairy Toad Lily (the plant, Tricyrtis hirta, not the perfume) naturally grows in Asia, from the Himalayas to Eastern Asia. They are especially well known to grow in Japan. They grow at the edge of forests and prefer (partial) shade and rich, moist soil. (source) Alas, this is about all the information I could find about this lovely flower.
There are several tricyrtis lilies and they all are spotted, but the hairy toad lily is described as a hairy plant. I just discovered that my favorite online seeds store has Hairy Toad Lily seeds, so nothing should stop me from growing my own hairy toad lilies now! Fortunately the picture that comes with these seeds shows the same lily as shown here. I have seen several with less or even no spots at all, new variations that have been cultivated. But what is a hairy toad lily without its purple spots?

Another entry about Hairy Toad Lily.

Blue Lotus

The blue lotus has been appreciated for its scent for thousands of years. It shows up on ancient Egyptian murals and papyrus manuscripts. It also showed up for me the first and only time I saw something while scrying in a black bowl filled with water. I had to search for pictures on the internet to find out what the name of the flower was that I had seen. This makes it a rather special flower for me and I hope one day I shall see it covering the surface of the water as I have seen on photographs:

Alkemia named a scent Blue Lotus and of course I had to try it. The scent has the kind of sweetness that often puts me off in a perfume. I haven't found out yet what that sweet note is, it might be sweet flag root which I have not smelled on its own yet. However, I have had this scent for almost a year now and today the sweetness has subdued enough for me to really like the scent. Alkemia's description is:

Blue lotus flowers are some of the deepest and most ancient symbols for luminous beauty of the spirit. A delicately mysterious blend of Egyptian blue water musk, blue lotus flowers, antique papyrus, pale white Nile flowers, sweet flag root, and white sandalwood. 

It stays rather close to the skin and it fades quickly, I am already thinking of reapplying and it hasn't been on my skin for more than two hours now. But it is a quite beautiful scent, watery as is fitting for a flower like the blue lotus. But watery in a different way from most perfumes. This is a kind of watery scent that I like.

Tea and Tarot

I have had a sample of this scent for months and now I wonder if I ever tried it. I don't remember it. It is a light and pleasant scent, but not at all what I would think of with tea and tarot, so perhaps that is why I don't remember it. The description is:

A curious sweet and smokey green tea fragrance with touch of orange blossoms made with essential oils in ginger, vanilla, sandalwood, orange blossom and lemon, infused with black and green tea, mint leaves, lemon and orange peels. An amazing mind awakening blend that one will predict a future of enjoyment and habitual use.

The first note I smell is the lemon, the fresh smell of lemon rind. But it has a softly sweet base, not candy sweet, not the kind of sweet that hits you in the face, a soft sweetness. I can smell the vanilla there. And the sandalwood too although that is not really a sweet note. The mint adds to the freshness but it is not overwhelming. The green tea builds the bridge between the lemon and mint and the vanilla and sandalwood. I like this more than I had expected and I wonder if I should try and add a bottle of it to my recent order.


The picture is the picture that comes with the scent in Midnight Gypsy's Etsy shop. The old lady is obviously reading tea leaves, not tarot cards. Looking for pictures on the subject I found there is an oracle deck with over 200 cards picturing symbols one might see in tea leaves at the bottom of a cup. The cards are round, like the bottom of the tea cup. It would be like reading tea leaves without having to make tea and drink it and then turn the cup around without spilling the last drops on your table cloth and see symbols in the leaves. It's a lot easier, and less fun I would think. Even the meaning is written on the card.

 

I have also seen some images of a Tea-Tarot, which is a work in progress. From what I have seen it is a collection of images, not painted but collected. Because of that they do not always look as if they belong to the same deck. But that may change while the deck developes.


I also found a site where you can have your virtual tea leaves read online: tealeaves.

Le Serpent Qui Danse

Le Serpent Qui danse is the title of a poem by Charles Baudelaire from Les Fleurs de Mal.

Le serpent qui danse

Que j'aime voir, chère indolente,
De ton corps si beau,
Comme une étoffe vacillante,
Miroiter la peau!

Sur ta chevelure profonde
Aux âcres parfums,
Mer odorante et vagabonde
Aux flots bleus et bruns,

Comme un navire qui s'éveille
Au vent du matin,
Mon âme rêveuse appareille
Pour un ciel lointain.

Tes yeux où rien ne se révèle
De doux ni d'amer,
Sont deux bijoux froids où se mêlent
L’or avec le fer.

A te voir marcher en cadence,
Belle d'abandon,
On dirait un serpent qui danse
Au bout d'un bâton.

Sous le fardeau de ta paresse
Ta tête d'enfant
Se balance avec la mollesse 
D’un jeune éléphant,

Et ton corps se penche et s'allonge
Comme un fin vaisseau
Qui roule bord sur bord et plonge
Ses vergues dans l'eau.

Comme un flot grossi par la fonte
Des glaciers grondants,
Quand l'eau de ta bouche remonte
Au bord de tes dents,

Je crois boire un vin de bohême,
Amer et vainqueur,
Un ciel liquide qui parsème
D’étoiles mon coeur!

If you do not understand French, you can find several translations of the poem here.  Black Phoenix uses only the last part of the poem as an illustration for the scent that was inspired by it:

When, as by glaciers ground, the spate
Swells hissing from beneath,
The water of your mouth, elate,
Rises between your teeth --

It seems some old Bohemian vintage
Triumphant, fierce, and tart,
A liquid heaven that showers a mintage
Of stars across my heart.

The perfume of the dancing serpent has an old-fashioned, powdery smell. I am not sure if it is really old fashioned but that is the idea it gives me. I see it as a purple, dull with age, but still elegant. I have learned that it is the violet note that reminds me of these things. The description of the scent is:

A sinister, darkly seductive scent inspired by poetry of Charles Baudelaire. Violet entwined with vanilla and gardenia.

More violet than gardenia here, which is good because gardenia can be quite overwhelming. I sometimes wonder if I can wear this in bright sunlight, it smells like shaded rooms. But perhaps the sun is hiding now because I am wearing Le Serpent Qui Danse...

Vixen

Vixen is originally the word for a female fox. However, the meaning of the word has moved to first 'a woman regarded as quarrelsome, shrewish or malicious' and then to a 'femme fatale' or just a 'sexually attractive woman', just as foxy has come to mean sexually attractive. I don't know what makes a female fox sexually attractive, they certainly don't look like the picture above. I have even found the suggestion of the vixen as a succubus-like demon.
And then there is The Cunning Little Vixen in the opera by Leoš Janáček. She is more like a free spirit who refuses to become a house pet and follows her nature by killing the chickens. Once she is has regained her freedom she manages to lure the badger out of his den and takes it for her own.


BPAL perfumer Beth had the flirty variation of the vixen in mind when she made the scent with this name:

Lascivious, flirtatious, and vampy as hell. A true heartbreaker’s perfume. The innocence of orange blossom tainted by the beguiling scents of ginger and patchouli.

If I ever get my hands on a fresh bottle of this scent I think I shall have to get used to it or put it aside to age for a long time. Because the imp that I have must be very old. The oil has the viscosity of a syrup, it is thick and dark. The patchouli is very well aged, but it has taken the ginger and orange blossom with it. They are still both there and make the patchouli less heavy, whereas the patchouli no doubt has kept the ginger from going stale.

Searching for pictures of Vixens I found one more, the comic book superheroine Mari Jiwe McCabe who debuted in Action Comics #521 and was created by Gerry Conway and Bob Oksner.

La Calavera Catrina

Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central , de Diego Rivera, fresco (1947).

La Calavera Catrina is said to mean "The Elegant Skull". My knowledge of Spanish is too limited to confirm that, I know calavera means skull but I can not find a dictionary that confirms that catrín (catrina being the feminine form) means elegant. The image of the elegant skull comes from the Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada who made a zinc etching with the title La Calavera Catrina in 1910. Or, as another source tell me, the name was La Calavera de la Catrina which would mean 'the skull of the rich woman'. Again, I can not confirm nor deny this. If anyone with a better knowledge of Spanish can help me I would appreciate that. The etching however is without any doubt the one below:

Since then this image has been an important part of Mexican imagery and it is often used in the artwork for the Day of the Dead (the first days of November, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day). But the Mexican festival is quite different from the European celebration of these days, because it has roots in the Aztec festival of Mictecacihuatl, the Queen of Mictlan which is the Underworld. She keeps watch over the bones of the dead, which makes La Calavera Catrina the guardian of the cemetary.

So I am wearing this scent out of season, but it is too good to keep it confined to such a short period. The description is:

The Lady of the Graveyard! Autumn leaves, wild roses, bourbon vanilla, dry chamomile, and a bouquet of bright chrysanthemums and Mexican marigolds.

I smell tagetes in this scent, which is exactly what Mexican marigolds are: Tagetes erecta.

I think the colour of the Mexican marigold is a good image for how this scent smells. It is a strong scent, almost strong enough to wake up the dead. I can't say that I smell roses or vanilla, but I am sure they soften the strong tagetes scent. It is without a doubt a floral scent, but very different from what you would expect from a floral scent. Tagetes is nothing like fine roses or jasmine or tuberose. It is more like a raw kind of scent. But smelling as yellow-brown-orange as it does, it is also a festive scent. I think I'll wear it for our Dutch Koninginnedag, when everybody wears orange.

Bayou

The reason why I wanted to try Bayou is that my friend Voodoocat (which is as much her name as Zorra is mine) strongly dislikes it. We have much the same taste in scents, but not always. Some of her favorite scents I do not like much and I like a few she doesn't like. But we agree on most, both in likes and in dislikes. So it was a bit tricky to buy a scent that she really dislikes, but I was too curious about this one. 


Now what I have may not smell like what she tried, because I have an aged bottle, a blue one and any BPAL user knows that blue bottles are the really aged ones. What I get at the start is a strong gardenia and/or night-blooming jasmine smell. I have the bad habit of confusing the two in a perfume. But unlike Pannychis the strong flower scent slowly sinks back into a more green scent. I don't get any citrus in the start, nor do I get a real moss scent. It doesn't smell as green as the description promises:

A lazy, warm deep green scent with a thick aquatic undertone: Spanish moss, evergreen and cypress with watery blue-green notes and an eddy of hothouse flowers and swamp blooms.

I would like to compare it to the fresh, not aged, scent now. Perhaps one day I'll have that too. 

A bayou is an American term for a body of water typically found in flat, low-lying areas, and can refer either to an extremely slow-moving stream or river (often with a poorly defined shoreline), or to a marshy lake or wetland. The name "bayou" can also refer to creeks whose water level changes due to tides and which hold brackish water which is highly conducive to fish life and plankton. Bayous are commonly found in the Gulf Coast region of the southern United States, notably the Mississippi  River region, with the state of Louisiana being famous for them. A bayou is frequently an anabranch or minor braid of  a braided channel that is moving much more slowly than the mainstem, often becoming boggy and stagnant. Though vegetation varies by region, many bayous are home to crawfish, certain species of shrimp, other shellfish, catfish,  frogs, toads, american alligators, american crocodiles, and a myriad of other species.

The word was first used by the English in Louisiana and is thought to originate from the Choctaw word "bayuk", which means "small stream". (source)

 Bayou Teche by Meyer Straus (1831-1905)

Ancient Oak

Yesterday I tested The Witch's Garden and I had the idea that it had some similarities to Ancient Oak from Midnight Gypsy Alchemy. And I was right, some of the green notes must be the same in both. But which? The description of Ancient Oak is:

A mystic green yet powdery sweet scent that captures the magical and mythical element of the ancient oak. A blend made with oak moss and balsam peru resin, vanilla absolute, infused with fig fruit extract, real figs, green tea leaves and vanilla beans.

I am quite sure they must share the oak moss and perhaps the tea. I would say the peru balsam and vanilla are not in The Witch's Garden, the Ancient Oak is sweeter. And I think they might share more notes than just the two mentioned. But I shall have to learn more about green notes before I shall know which.


I love Ancient Oak not only for how it smells but also for the image of the Oak. Oak is a special tree to me, or perhaps I should say there is a special Oak in my life. It is not quite as ancient as the one in the photo above, but it is a tree I have to visit whenever I am in its country. Ancient Oak reminds me of my friend the Oak. Although it is not possible to follow the advise that the Ancient Oak of the scent gives:

"Come lay beneath my shaded leaves as the sun is setting in sky, listen as the wind tells the story of many ancient days gone by."

My friend the Oak stands on the side of a mountain, a bit to the side of a path with other oaks and with many hazels and other trees and shrubs that together build shade. At its foot many ants live and they do not appreciate it when a human lies down on their dwellings. You can see them walk up and down the trunk of the Oak, his presence the ants appreciate as much as I do.

The Witch's Garden

`What ails you, dear wife?'

`Oh,' she answered, `if I don't get some rampion to eat out of the garden behind the house, I know I shall die.'

The man, who loved her dearly, thought to himself, `Come! rather than let your wife die you shall fetch her some rampion, no matter the cost.' So at dusk he climbed over the wall into the witch's garden, and, hastily gathering a handful of rampion leaves, he returned with them to his wife. She made them into a salad, which tasted so good that her longing for the forbidden food was greater than ever. If she were to know any peace of mind, there was nothing for it but that her husband should climb over the garden wall again, and fetch her some more. So at dusk over he got, but when he reached the other side he drew back in terror, for there, standing before him, was the old witch.

This is the garden of the witch from the fairy tale of Rapunzel. It is interesting that the man gathers leaves that his wife eats as a salad, because I could only find the use of the roots in a salad (they would help in the production of milk and as such were eaten by nurse maids). It was also one of the witch plants and the German name can be translated as devil's claw.


The scent The Witch's Garden is described as a garden with many poisonous and witch plants (although carrots and parsley seem innocent enough):

Morning glory vines twisting around a patch of rampion, carrot, and parsley, with monkshood, hemlock, elfwort, sage, wormwood, and mandrake.

However it smells rather friendly, like a green garden with some flowers and trees. When it is very fresh it smells mostly green, but the flowers are already there. The flowers get a bit more space when the scent dries. Then later the trees spread their branches, I think I smelled cedar. It is not a heavy scent and it fades in a few hours so I reapplied several times. I wonder if most green scents fade sooner than the more spicy scents. They probably do. 

Aphrodesia

I started today with Aphodesia from Alkemia. It was one of the samples I got as a freebie in my first order. It was quite different from what I expected when I read the description, but at the time I couldn't say what it was that I had not expected or what I had expected that wasn't there. When I tried it again today I immediately said: it's patchouli! Of course there is more in the scent, it has sweetness and I do smell faintly some spices, but it is in fact decorated patchouli. Perhaps it is the aging of the scent or perhaps I amp patchouli, but that is what I smelled today. The description, however, is:

Pure bottled lust. An intoxicating blend of deep eastern spices warmed with creamy vanilla and a few drops of golden frankincense.

Patchouli may be one of the deep eastern spices and the vanilla must be the sweetness I smell, although I could imagine something like cinnamon in it, but only very very little of it. Still, to me this is patchouli and patchouli does not mean lust to me. I have to admit I haven't found a scent that does mean pure lust to me, not even the one that carries that name. But there are scents that at least I could imagine to be connected with lust, patchouli however is not one of them. This is probably personal, nothing is a  personal as scent perception. 

I was not in the mood for patchouli today, so I changed my scent to:

Lady in Speckled Pink Kimono

And that made me wonder. Lady in Speckled Pink Kimono is inspired by a Shunga and shungas are supposed to arouse lust. Such a light sweet scent, could that be considered an aphrodisiac? Could it have that effect? After all, it is all in the mind, the connection between a scent and lust. Which may be why Love Potion Magickal Perfumery adds pheromones to many of their perfumes. Just to make sure (and I wonder if it does make sure) that it will work to arouse lust. 

Flamenco

Today I chose a scent from Midnight Gypsy Alchemy, my favourite scent of this small natural perfume apothecary. What I like about Midnight Gypsy is that the perfumes are completely natural, but I trust that the perfumes from Black Phoenix are so too. But Midnight Gypsy's perfumes always have something that has been steeped in oil in their own apothecary. The scents are less concentrated than BPAL's, but they come in a roll on bottle that can easily be carried along to reapply. Recently a more concentrated version has also come available, but mine are from before that time.


Flamenco is a festive summer scent to me. And indeed in winter I was less inclined to wear it, although I have worn it at night hoping it would give me pleasant dreams. This april day was cold, but there was sun and Flamenco was like a herald of summer. The description is:

Sensual and bold, yet soft and feminine. A unique and dark blend of creme floral notes made with jasmine, vanilla and rose absolutes, essential oils in sandalwood and sweet orange, benzoin and amber resins infused with vanilla beans and orange peels . 

This is a very well blended scent that never fails to lift my spirit. There is the rose of course, rose is a well known lifter of spirits. But rose can be very strong in a scent which often puts people off. This however is a soft rose, as it is softened by the sweeter notes. But it is also made rounder by the orange. I often think of this scent as the colour orange, but then I smell the rose and think it must be pink. Perhaps it is both, with a bit of green too and below it the brown base of the sandalwood. Like the guitar gives a base to the moving colours of the Flamenco dancer.

Saw-Scaled Viper

The Saw-Scaled Viper is from the Genus Echis. These are venominous vipes found in the dry regions of Africa,  The Middle East, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. They have a characteristic threat display, rubbing sections of their body together to produce a "sizzling" warning sound.The name Echis is a Greek word that means "viper." (source) There are several species within the genus, the Echis carinatus is the only one that has no addition to the name saw-scaled viper. Another name for the Echis Genus is carpet vipers, I think because of the pattern on their skin which looks a bit like a carpet pattern. But the scales of the sides indeed look like sawteeth:

The perfume Saw-Scaled Viper is special to me because it was the first one I had a full bottle of. I had been given a half decant of it (Thank you Voodoocat!) and I had taken it with me to a concert. When I arrived I found out that the decant leaked. I loved the scent, so I didn't mind having my bag smelling of it, but it left me little to use on myself. So I found someone at the BPAL forum who was selling a bottle. My first bottle. 

Saw-Scaled Viper is one of the snakes in the Snake Pit of the Carnaval Diabolique, which at this moment "has gone dark" but "will return when you least expect it." All the snakes in the Snake Pit have Snake Oil as a base to which other notes have been added. Snake Oil itself is always available. I inclused its notes in the description of Saw-Scaled Viper below.

Snake Oil (a blend of exotic Indonesian oils sugared with vanilla) with cinnamon, cassia, and red ginger.

Saw-Scaled Viper is rather sweet. Of course Snake Oil is already sweet, but somehow Saw-Scaled Viper smells sweeter. I think much of the sweetness is suggested by the cinnamon which in itself  is not sweet, but I think it gives a sweetness to the other notes. If you read my posts about Opuhi you may remember that one of the gingers that goes with that name is the red ginger. So it is perhaps not surprising that I like both Saw-Scaled Viper and Opuhi.


A very strange thing about Snake Oil is that to some people it smells like baby powder. I had the oddest compliment when I was wearing Saw-Scaled Viper, that I smelled so nice 'of babypowder'. I searched the BPAL forum to see if other people had the same experience and found that it happens with all Snake Oil carrying scents. So not only do scents react differently on different skins, but also do different nosed perceive them differently even when on only one person's skin.