Oak Moon

Oak Moon is a december moon, yet its scent smells good any time. And although I chose a picture that is rather blue, Oak Moon smells warm yellowish brown, sweet wood. The picture however, shows the typical tangle of oak branches with the full moon behind them. I like it. (And now I wonder if I could make the picture take the colour that I smell in the scent. I need photoshop on this laptop.)

Megaera

Megaera, the jealous one, is one of the three Erinyes, the avengers of Greek mythology. The other two are Tisiphone (the avenger of murder) and Alecto (unceasing in anger. When Cronus castrated his father Uranus and dropped the genitals into the sea, the sisters emerged from the blood while Aphrodite was born from the crests of seafoam. Their waists were entwined with serpents and their eyes dripped with blood, so they weren't exactly a pleasant sight. Unfortunately the painter left these little details out of the painting above. In Roman mythology these sisters are the Furies.

The BPAL scent left me with an unpleasant surprise. I think I chose the scent because of the grapefruit note and at first I liked it, very much in fact. 

Orris, black amber, bergamot, plum and grapefruit.

But after some time it seemed to force itself upon my nose, a thing I have only experienced with synthetic scents. Synthetic scents I can't wear because they seem to push and force themselves in and drive me quite mad. Megaera did the same. Now it may be in the nature of a Fury to drive people mad, but that is not why I wear a scent. So I had to wash Megaera off, which went fairly easy so I don't think she has any synthetic components. But she was quite a shock to me, even without blood dripping from her eyes. 

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