Smoky Moon

Before I wore nothing but Passion Butterfly for weeks I did the same with Smoky Moon. Apparently I tend to fall in love with a scent and wear nothing else, until I fall in love with another one. But they remain loved and so I am happily smelling of Smoky Moon again. I have to admit it is kind of a hippie scent, strong on the champaca flower. I am sure most people will think I smell of the incense I have been burning, which is quite alright with me.

Today I used Smoky Moon to cover up the remaining smell of Tanuki No Yudachi, a scent which I liked very much last April, but which today seemed very different and almost like aftershave. Smoky Moon however will not change for me, it seems to me that this is a scent I can always wear. I just read somewhere that the Moon scents are available a moon before they are actually there, which would place the Smoky Moon at the end of June or the beginning of July. In that case it would be very close to my birthday which is in the end of June, so perhaps it is only natural that Smoky Moon and I go so well together.

Smoky Moon in June

Semiramis

I like this picture of Semiramis better than the pictures I could find through Google, perhaps because this picture fits the scent, which is still:

Red musk, pomegranate, orange blossom, and melon.

It is interesting that this time I do not smell the melon first. I think it is the red musk I smell first now, the melon seems absent until my skin has warmed the scent or perhaps reacted with it. Then it flares up (if melon can flare)  and it stays for a long time, so long in fact that I began to wonder if it were a natural scent. Obviously it can't be an essential oil of melon as there is no such thing, it must be an accord. Perhaps it will show up as the single note of the moon some time. The imaginary melon must have orange flesh, because this is to me a very orange scent. It may have red musk, but the scent is a vibrant orange.

The history of Babylon's Queen of War can be read here:  The story of Semiramis as told last May. It can be read there that after her death Semiramis was worshipped as a goddess, thereby acquiring many of the characteristics of Ishtar. So the painting below depicting Ishtar, although a little more red than orange but as vibrant in colour as the scent is, will not be out of place here.

Passion Butterfly

When I was searching for images of the Passion Butterfly, one of the first photo's I found that I liked turned out to be one in my earlier post about the Passion Butterfly. I think that shows I made a good choice then.

This summer has been the summer of the Passion Butterfly for me, not the butterfly but the BPAL limited edition scent of this year's Metamorphosis series. And to think that at first I thought it was interchangeable with Enraged Orangutan Musk for me, just a very nice citrus scent but not something I needed a bottle of. It turned out to be the scent I chose day after day and the only reason I didn't wear it while I was in Venice was that I only took scents with me that I had more than one imp of, so any loss would not be disastrous. Right now a bottle of Passion Butterfly is on its way to me. Summer is almost over, but I imagine that in the bleak days of winter Passion Butterfly can bring back the atmosphere of the sun and warmth of this summer, the summer in which it seemed that my life started flowing again. What else is passion than lust for life?

Mama-Ji

Mama Kali - Dany Salme

This picture comes closest to how I imagined Mama-Ji when I read American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I imagined the red of her dress to be deeper and the woman herself to be older, but from all the pictures I found until now this comes closest. I like the two women in the back, in my mind they are different faces of the same goddess.

Her scent is:

Spices, cardamom, nutmeg, and flowers.

I realized today that it has become the scent I want to wear when I need extra power. The scent brings comfort too, but Mama-Ji, of course, is about power.

Earlier post about Mama-Ji: http://scentwise.blogspot.nl/2012/05/mama-ji.html

Jazz Funeral

It has been quite some time since I left the daily routine of writing a post that was in some way connected to the scent I was wearing or its name. I have been wearing scents all summer, but I preferred being outside to my writing routine. However, the weather has changed and schools have started again, so I think I'll resume my daily posts. Although I am already a day behind, writing about Jazz Funeral which is the BPAL scent O wore yesterday.

Jazz Funeral originally was a name given by outsiders to the New Orleans 'funeral with music'. Jazz was part of the music, it was not what the ceremony was about. The tradition was built up from the Louisiana tradition of military brass bands, Yoruba spiritual traditions, early twentieth century African-American Protestant and Catholic churches and the Haitian Voudoo idea of celebrating after death to please the spirits who protect the death. The tradition has been spread across ethnic and religious borders for most of its existence, although during certain periods it was abandoned by certain groups. However, the majority of jazz funerals are for people who have been jazz musicians themselves.

This is what Black Phoenix tells about the jazz funeral:

Considered a great honor, this is one of the most distinguished aspects of New Orleans culture. Its roots lie in the customs of the Dahomeans and Yoruba people, and is a celebration of both the person’s life and the beauty and solemnity of their death. The procession is lead by the Grand Marshal, resplendent in his black tuxedo, white gloves and black hat in hand; almost a vision of the great Baron Samedi himself. The music begins with solemn, tolling dirges, moves into hymns of sorrow, loss and redemption. When the burial site is reached, a two-note preparatory riff is sounded, and the drummers start the second-line beat, heralding the switch in music to joyous, upbeat songs, dancing, and the unfurling of richly decorated umbrellas by the ‘second line’: friends, family, loved ones and stray celebrants. Strutting, bouncing, and festive dance accompanies the upbeat ragtime music that sends the departed soul onto its next journey.

This is followed by the text of the Louis Armstrong song 'Didn't He Ramble':

Didn’t he ramble
... he rambled
Rambled all around
... in and out of town
Didn’t he ramble
... Didn’t he ramble
He rambled till the butcher cut him down.

His feet was in the market place
... his head was in the street
Lady pass him by, said
... look at the market meat
He grabbed her pocket book
... and said I wish you well
She pulled out a forty-five
... said I’m head of personnel.

Didn’t he ramble
... he rambled
Rambled all around
... in and out of town
Didn’t he ramble
... Didn’the ramble
He rambled till the butcher cut him down.

He slipped into the cat house
... made love to the stable
Madam caught him cold
... said I’ll pay you when I be able
Six months had passed 
... and she stood all she could stand
She said buddy when I’m through with you
Ole groundhog gonna be shakin yo’ hand.

Didn’t he ramble
... he rambled
Rambled all around
... in and out of town
Didn’t he ramble
... Didn’t he ramble
He rambled till the butcher cut him down.

I said he rambled
... lord
...’ till the butcher shot him down.

You can here the song here, without text, but the video shows nice old images, even in their oddly compressed state. In this video Louis Armstrong gives his own description of the jazz funeral, both in words and in music (still without the text of the song). For the text, I could only find the version by Kermit Ruffins (and I thought Kermit was only the name of a show frog!).

Bittersweet bay rum, bourbon, and a host of funeral flowers with a touch of graveyard dirt, magnolia and Spanish Moss.

I think the choice of notes is not surprising. What is interesting is that it indeed smells like all that. The graveyard dirt after the second reapplication of the day smelled like the rotting plants note in Nocnitsa to me, but it is rather light, not at all as overwhelming as in Nocnitsa. In fact I can only smell it in the wet stage, after that it is only booze and flowers with something candy-sweet underneath that I can not further identify. Again, candy-sweet is not a note I like but in Jazz Funeral it is so light I do not dislike it. 
The strangest thing about Jazz Funeral is that to me it is a 'funny' scent. I am not quite sure what it is that makes a scent 'funny' to me and it seems odd that a funeral scent should fit into my category of 'funny' scents, but it does.

Jazz Funeral for Didi by Judith Schaechter 

Pearl Diver

Pearl Diver is a Villainess scent. Villainess makes primarily products for facial and body care, but they also have a small line of oil based perfumes and my friend jarvenpa sent me some samples of these. I was very curious about another one that I shall discuss some other time because when I tried it the first time it was too sweet for me. The next day, which was the 22nd of June, I tried Pearl Diver, another one I was rather curious about. 

A delicate play of bergamot and jasmine, orchid and violet, over a sensible wash of sandalwood, and salty kelp.

Very interestingly I recognised immediately a type of scent I usually do not like, yet this particular variety I found myself liking. I liked it enough to reapply when it wore off. Although two days later when I picked up a piece of clothing that the scent had rubbed off on, I did not as much like the remains. It was closer to those scenst I do not like.
I can not yet say what makes this scent different. I am not very willing to test a lot of scents that I usually don't like, only for differentiating purposes. And I don't like the Pearl Diver enough to want a bottle of it. Not yet, anyway. But I'll wear her again as long as the sample goes.


The Pearl Diver, if you did not recognize her from the picture, is the Ama, the Japanese woman who dives without any diving gear or air tanks, to gather oysters and other sea food, but they have become famous because of the pearls that can be found in the oysters. Amas can continue their diving job well into old age and in fact the older women can stay submerged longer than the younger ones. But they usually have another job as well. It is believed that women are better equiped for this work, because the way body fat is distributed  on a woman's body better protects her against the cold of the sea water.

The Apothecary

An Apothecary Grinding Herbs, from The Illustrated Library Shakespeare,

published London 1890 (litho)

This I should have written on June 21st. I am way behind. June 21st was when I wore The Apothecary, of which a bottle arrived together with Smoky Moon.


The Apothecary comes from the Illyria series, scents based on characters in plays from Shakespeare. This is the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, the one who provided Romeo with the bottle of quick-acting poison he asked for, so that he could 'die with a kiss'. I think we all know the drama of that story.


The lab description of The Apothecary is:

Tea leaf with three mosses, green grass, a medley of herbal notes, and a drop of ginger and fig.

This newly bought lab-fresh bottle did not smell quite as I remembered the probably very aged imp that I once had smelled. It was (how surprising) a fresher green scent. I remembered it to be darker with the mosses, but I am sure it will get this quality with time. Most of the green scents I have tried lately had a very light, fairy-like quality (which wasn't surprising as they were Fae and Leanan Sidhe, to name two). The Apothecary is much more grounded. And then it has the ginger note! I have found that I much enjoy ginger notes and in this scent the ginger gives a nice fresh-spicy twist to the mosses, tea and herbs of the apothecary. I am not sure what the fig note is. I would have to compare a couple of scents with fig notes to figure that out, I suppose. Or just wear The Apothecary more often.