Ae Aegypti

Since I had to wash the henna out of my hair and thereby lost the perfume that was on my wrists, I had the chance to test another one. Some people were in doubt if they would want a perfume with something as scary as a mosquito on the label, but the description sounded good enough:

Five honeys with vanilla orchid, gardenia, dragon's blood resin, gingergrass, and turmeric.

Although it gave off an initial huff of gardenia, this was mostly honey on me. I think Winnie the Pooh's dreams would smell like this. There is also a hint of ginger in it, the dragons blood does something for the color but is just at the edge. I like it better than Jezebel because of the gingergrass that gives a little bit of a bite to the sweetness of the honey. Yet I wonder why the Yellow Fever Mosquito would smell like honey.

Because that is what Aedes Aegypti is, it's the mosquito that spreads yellow fever and is therefore named after it. Aedes albopictus, the tiger mosquito which has also been honored with a scent named after it, can also spread yellow fever, but Ae. Aegypti is its main carrier. It can also spread dengue fever and chikungunya. In the picture above you can see how the mosquito's belly lights up red because of the blood it has just drunk. Below it is shown empty and, if you can think past its capacity to spread a disease that can be fatal, quite pretty.