Calico Jack * Jolly Roger

Did you that there is not one pirate flag, but that in the time that the pirate flag got the name Jolly Roger each pirate has his own flag? The one above is Jack Rackham's flag and Jack Rackham was known as Calico Jack. So with one picture I now cover two BPAL scents that were sent to me to give to my son.

Calico Jack 

Jack Rackham was a pirate operating in the Bahamas in the early 18th century.  He got the name Calico Jack from the clothes he wore which were made from calico, a plain-woven textile made from unbleached, often not fully processed cotton. The raw fabric was dyed and printed in bright hues and patterns. Calico Jack was known for two things: the design of his Jolly Roger flag which contributed to the popularization of the design and the fact that he had two female crew members, Anne Bonny who was his lover and Mary Read. Both Anne Bonny and Mary Read got their own scents at BPAL, by the way. I won't go into detail about Calico Jack's colourful life which involved a lot of ships that were taken over. In October 1720 the pirate hunter Jonathan Barnet caught Rackham and his crew while they were at anchor and drunk (there is a story that only the women were fit enough to fight, but they couldn't defend the ship by just the two of them). All the pirates were hung except Anne Bonny and Mary read who claimed to be pregnant. Mary Read later died of fever supposedly connected with childbirth, Anne Bonny simply disappeared from history. Read more about Calico Jack here.

The scent that was made inspired by Calico Jack has a description almost as romantic as his life:

Sea air, driftwood, waterlogged kelp, and the memory of plundered spices sprayed over worn leathers, rough musk, and the salty wooden floorboards of the Revenge.

Unfortunately I fail to smell driftwood, spices, musk or even worn leathers. I mostly smell something like a man's cologne, which may be what happens when an aquatic scent hits my skin. As a result, I did not like much the way Calico Jack smells.

Jolly Roger

Jolly Roger, the flag, got its own scent. Its description is simpler, which seems right as a man is more complicated than his flag, usually.

Sea spray with an undercurrent of leather, Bay Rum, and salty, dry woods.

It is interesting that Jolly Roger seems much nicer to me. There still is the reaction of my skin to aquatic scents, but Jolly Roger seems to have more wood than the man who made such a popular design of it. And there is the booze note. Yohoho and a hint of rum!

The Jolly Roger of Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard

Odin

Oden som Vandringsman, Georg von Rosen, 1886

I like this image of Odin asa wanderer, because it is how he appears in Runemarks by Joanne Harris (yes, the author of Chocolat, but this is a different kind of candy). I have never been much interested in any of the Norse gods, except perhaps Tyr who fascinated me because of his connection with the wolf Fenrir (read more about the wolf and the god here). But Odin showed up in two books I enjoyed reading during the past year. First in American Gods by Neil Gaiman and then in Runemarks. So when I was sent his scent, even when only to pass it on to my son, I had to try it. And I am afraid I like it so much that I do hope my son will not like it at all and return it to me. Otherwise I think I need to get myself some more.

Black Phoenix gives a long description for Odin:

Odin is highest and eldest of the Æsir: he rules all things, and mighty as are the other gods, they all serve him as children obey a father. The All-Father, Lord of Wisdom and War. Odin’s name itself translates to "fury", "excitation" and "poetry"and that is the core of His essence. He is the God of Victory, and holds sway over hunting, verse, war-lust and berserkers, magic, illumination, foresight, death, plots and machinations, and He dispenses the Mead of Inspiration to poets from his sacred vessel, Óð-rœri. He gifted mankind with runes, both sacred and mundane, and the ability to use them for both communication and magical work. He grants glory and madness, inspiration and courage, power and wisdom. He commands the einheriar of his Hall, Valhalla, and the Valkyries that claim the souls of valiant warriors. LordOdin’s favored weapon is the spear Gugnir, which he uses to claim those chosen to die in battle. He is accompanied by his ravens, Hugin and Munin [thought and memory], and his wolves, Geri and Freki [the Greedy], and rides an eight-legged horse, Sleipner, that is, in itself, symbolic of death. His scent is dry elm bark, amaranth, warrior’s musk, and Odin’s Nine Herbs of Power.

The scent smelled like a field of heather on a mountain to me the first time I tried it. Then I tried it again one more time before I would pass it on to my son and this time it struck me as having a powdery quality I would not expect of a god of war. But perhaps it fits the wanderer. And of course we mus never underestimate Odin, even when he tries to fool us with a powdery scent!

    

Gathering Wild Mushrooms

I am way behind again and rather than trying to write about all the stories I missed I limit myself to today's. The picture above is about half of the original shunga, if you would like to see the complete picture, click here. Gathering Wild Mushrooms was one of this year's Lupercalia and one that disappointed me when tried it last spring. Today I tried it again and now it is all I hoped for then. Did it need time or did my perception change?

Wild mushrooms, hay absolute, ginger root, hiba wood, and ginseng.

Perhaps I was disappointed because I didn't smell the ginger, I don't smell it now. But the mushroom note, hay absolute, hiba wood and ginseng make an amazingly different and autumnish scent. Indeed this is more an autumn scent than a spring one. If I go through this decant quickly, I'll try to find someone selling their bottle.

I posted the complete picture on facebook and some people wondered what the text would mean. It may be a description of one of the sexual acts the crown prince had to carry out as an expression of yin yang (source). Or perhaps it is just a naughty poem. 

The Zoom

Ghosts

It is that time of the year in which BPAL addicts think, talk and dream about weenies, more precisely the newly released Halloween themed scents. Some know exactly what they want and order bottles as soon as they new release is available, others are more cautious or less wealthy, or perhaps both, and order decants in one or more of the decant circles that sprout up in numbers unknown for any other release. This year just about all decant circles are delayed because one of the new scents is on back order. Knowing that I shall have to wait several more weeks before the precieous will arrive, I started to try again some season themed scents. 

The first one was a General Catalogue scent, The Ghost. I remembered I liked it a lot when I first got it (a gift from my generous friend Voodoocat if I remember well). It is one of the scents that come with a poem:

Softly as brown-eyed Angels rove
I will return to thy alcove, 
And glide upon the night to thee, 
Treading the shadows silently.

And I will give to thee, my own, 
Kisses as icy as the moon, 
And the caresses of a snake 
Cold gliding in the thorny brake.

And when returns the livid morn 
Thou shalt find all my place forlorn 
And chilly, till the falling night.

Others would rule by tenderness 
Over thy life and youthfulness, 
But I would conquer thee by fright!

This, I found, is one of the many translations of a poem by Baudelaire, Le Revenant. Which is all the more interesting as among last year's weenies there was a scent named Le Revenant, based on the same poem bit in a different translation! This is the original:

Le Revenant

Comme les anges à l'oeil fauve,
Je reviendrai dans ton alcôve
Et vers toi glisserai sans bruit
Avec les ombres de la nuit;

Et je te donnerai, ma brune,
Des baisers froids comme la lune
Et des caresses de serpent
Autour d'une fosse rampant.

Quand viendra le matin livide,
Tu trouveras ma place vide,
Où jusqu'au soir il fera froid.

Comme d'autres par la tendresse,
Sur ta vie et sur ta jeunesse,
Moi, je veux régner par l'effroi.

— Charles Baudelaire

The Ghost has a scent description that is different from Le Revenant. I can not compare the wto as I only have tried The Ghost, but I expect them to be indeed different as Le Revenant had a gardenia note. This is how The Ghost is described:

A thin, sinuous, creeping chill, the scent of glee-filled undeath: white iris, osmanthus, Calla lily, tomb-crawling ivy and a coffin spray of gladiolus, lisianthus and delphinium.

I like lily scents and I like osmanthus, but somehow this scent is too much of a white floral to me and although I used to like these a lot, my taste seems to have changed. However, last year I still liked them and I did choose another white floral from last year's weenies: Ghosts in Love:

GHOSTS IN LOVE
"Tell me, where do GHOSTS in love 
Find their bridal veils?"

"If you and I were GHOSTS in love
We'd climb the cliffs of Mystery, 
Above the sea of Wails. 
I'd trim your gray and streaming hair
With veils of Fantasy 
From the tree of Memory. 
'Tis there the GHOSTS that fall in love
Find their bridal veils."

- Vachel Lindsay

It is easy for me to remember why I chose this scent to try. It must have been the oudh note: 

White sandalwood, tobacco flower, lily of the valley, white carnation, and magnolia blossom with tea rose, labdanum, and oudh.

This scent too I tried again and obviously it is another white floral. However, although it isn't mentioned there seems to be a musk note in it, or if not it must be a combination of the other notes that gives it a slight muskiness. This gives Ghosts in Love a little more body, so to speak. Although that would be a strange thing for a ghost. 

Fenris Wolf

Last night I dreamed about a large black dog that somehow shone a green light from inside. One place where the light came out was its mouth and I knew that at some point I would place my hand in that mouth. The large black dog (its head was as almost high as my own) did not frighten me, he felt in a way as a friend. But I knew I would be taking a risk placing my hand it its mouth. When I woke up of course I saw how this hand-in-mouth part came from the tale of Tyr and the wolf Fenrir. I am not an expert in Norse mythology, but I shall try to tell the tale as well as I can here. If there are any grave mistakes in it, please do not hesitate to tell me how the story really goes.

The wolf Fenrir or Fenrisúlfr (Old Norse: "Fenris wolf"), also know as Hróðvitnir (Old Norse: "fame-wolf"), or Vánagandr (Old Norse: "the monster of the river Ván") is the son of Loki and the jötunn (giantess) Angrboða. Their other children are the serpent Jormungandr (who could wrap itself around the world and is therefore also called Worldserpent. If he ever lets go, the world will end) and Hel who presides over Hel and receives a portion of the dead there. Of Fenrir it is said that at Ragnarök he will kill Odin, but then will in turn be killed by Odin's son Viðar. The story about Fenrir and Tyr is from the Prose Edda (as opposed to the Poetic Edda).

The Æsir (the gods) expected to get a lot of trouble from Loki's offspring, so they threw Jormungandr into 'that deep sea that lies around all land' and Hel into Hel where they gave her a job to do, but Fenrir theytook home and fed. Only Tyr was brave enough to go close enough to Fenrir to feed him. But Fenrir grew rapidly and the gods, expecting nothing but troubles from the wolf, made three fetters to bind him. The first was called Leyding and Fenrir snapped it at the first try. The second fetter the gods made twice as strong and they called it Dromi. The gods told Fenrir that if he could break Dromi that would make himvery famous and Fenrir, who saw that Dromi was very strong but who also knew he had grown since Leyding, took the risk so he would become famous. He had to work hard, but he managed to break Dromi too. Then the gods sent a messenger to Swartálfaheimr (world of the black elves, but black elves seem to be synonymous with dwarfs). They created Gleipnir (open one) which was not made of metal but of the sound of a cat's footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear, the breath of a fish and the spottle of a bird. It looked like a silken ribbon, but it was stronger than anything.

The gods took Fenrir to the far away and empty island Lyngvi and asked him to try and tear the ribbon. Of course Fenrir doesn't trust them and won't allow them to bind him with Gleipnir. After much talking Fenrir tells them that rather than have them question his courage, while they bind him one of the gods must put a hand in his mouth as a pledge that this is all done in good faith. This places the Æsir in a dilemma. None of them wants to put a hand in the monster's mouth, as of course they are not doing this in good faith but to bind the monster. In the end it is Tyr who puts his hand in Fenrir's mouth. And when Fenrir kicked, Gleipnir only closed tighter and Tyr lost his hand. The Æsir secured Fenrir's fetter to the ground and when the wolf tried to bite te gods they threw a sword in his mouth. He howled horribly and his saliva made the river Ván. Fenrir will lie there until Ragnarök.

Black Phoenix has a scent named Fenris Wolf, which they describe as:

The raw, untamable power of chaos. Rosewood, amber, red musk and a dribble of red sandalwood.

I smell dragon's blood and not only that but the oil is as red as any scent with dragon's blood. Having learned that dragon's blood can only enter an oil when the resin is dissolved in an essential oil, I assume that dragon's blood has been dissolved in the sandalwood or the musk to make them red. What I do not smell is the power of chaos. I don't smell any chaos, I smell a rather friendly and well blended scent. Perhaps this is what age does to the raw untamable power of chaos, as my imp is quite old. But the scent Fenris Wolf is more like the friendly black dog in my dream than like the monster in the myth.

Unfortunately, the day after I wore Fenris Wolf the dreaded itchy bumps showed up. Time and experience have learned that some BPAL scents that carry sandalwood (and/or other woods) cause a skin irritation on me. This rarely happens soon after applying the scent,  usually it is the day after. A small indi perfumer told me that it is not so much the oil itself as well as the solvent that was used to get the oil out of the wood. 

Mme Moriarty, Misfortune Teller

I really planned for another scent today. I was going to wear Atlas. But before I was completely dressed I had Mme Moriarty in my nose. This might have been from the minute particles of it that were still in the sleeves of my shirt (which I was not yeat wearing then, but it was close to me). But it might just as well have been only in my mind. It happens: I wake up and I smell a scent that is not there. That is the scent I wear that day. How could I ignore such a clearodorance? (Yes, I made up that word. It might not be the best word in English. I have a perfectly good Dutch word for it, but since I made up that one too, translation machines do not recognize it.)

So I am wearing Mme M today. The day before yesterday I was shocked to find that I didn't enjoy her as much as I did before. But today she is as good as she was before.

http://scentwise.blogspot.com/2012/03/mme-moriarty-misfortune-teller.html

http://scentwise.blogspot.com/2012/04/mme-moriarty-misfortune-teller-i-knew.html

http://scentwise.blogspot.com/2012/05/mme-moriarty-misfortune-teller-i-am-day.html