Smoky Moon

The Smoky Moon must be a name only used by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, because I can not find any other sources on the internet using the same name for a certain moon of the year. The only concept the expression  is used for, is the moon viewed through smoke or fog. At Black Phoenix the Smoky Moon seems to be the full moon in the first week of June. I think this, because there have been two Smoky Moons: one in 2009 when full moon was on the 7th and the one we just had which was on the 4th.

Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,
Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight,
Lark without song, and messenger of dawn
Circling above the hamlets as they nest;
Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form
Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;
By night star-veiling, and by day
Darkening the light and blotting out the sun;
Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,
And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.

This is how the Smoky Moon is introduced this year. I found that this is a poem by Henri David Thoreau, called Light-Winged Smoke.  

Aged champaca, golden amber, guiac wood, dusky patchouli, twilit oudh, and feathery orris, with a touch of grapefruit, davana, and elemi to help lift it to the heavens.

Although there are enough notes in this scent that I like a lot, like champaca, patchouli, oudh!, grapefruit and elemi, it was not so much the description as some intuitive reaction to it that made me buy this unsmelled. Since the Moon scents are only available during a short period around the full moon, one has to order these unsmelled. Oak Moon had not disappointed me, so I did not hesitate and answered the call of this Smoky Moon. Although if there had been tobacco in this one as there was in the Smoky Moon of 2009, it could have called all it wanted but I wouldn't have bought it. Any amount tobacco in a scent makes me smell like I have been rolling in wet sigarette butts.

This year's Smoky Moon however is a good one for me. At first it smelled oddly incensy to me, like there was frankincense in it (which may still be the case although it isn't mentioned). I did not really smell grapefruit, but there was a certain sharpness in the very beginning that might have been grapefruit. The frankincense however was stronger. 
Then, after a while, there was a spicy smell that made me think of the Indonesian shops we have here, selling ingredients for Indonesian food. I wondered if there was galangal in the scent, which I use in my cooking as laos. Again it is not in the description, but it might well be there. Slowly the champaca began to come through. I decided to reapply, knowing that a second application after several hours helps me to distinguish more different notes.
The second time the champaca was obvious, but it was still a rather spicy champaca. Like I was still in the Indonesian shop, somewhere between the incense area and the spices.


Al together this is a strange but very nice scent, different from anything else I have tried, warm and indeed a smoky kind of scent but not in the way of tobacco smoke or wood smoke. It is more like a spicy flowery incensy kind of smoke. It would do well in an Asian temple.

Magnolia Champaca