Squirting Cucumber

I have not been writing much lately, but this discovery screamed to be documented. This was one of those days of experimenting. I started out with Fae because I am wearing green, but Fae definitely goes off the list of favorites. She smells of anise. Then I wore Bayou over Fae and I liked Bayou more than the first time I wore it. But after I washed the henna out of my hair and all the previous scents from my skin in the process I searched for something else to wear. Still in the experimental mood I picked up the box with scents I still have to try or wish to retry and there I found some old ones from the box of very first scents. I had forgotten that I put them there when I went through all my boxes in search of scents my son might like. On top were The Caterpillar and Squirting Cucumber. I sniffed first one, then the other and the cucumber decided to live up to its name and squirted itself over my fingers. And I can tell you this is quite an achievement from an almost empty imp! So it is Squirting Cucumber today.

Now I thought that this was just a silly name Black Phoenix had come up with. But I googled for pictures like I always do when I post a scent's name on facebook. And guess what? There is a plant that is called Squirting Cucumber! It is from the cucumber family and it's called Ecballium elaterium. The name squirting cucumber it got from the fact that ripe fruits squirt a stream of mucilaginous liquid contaning the seeds. Don't try to eat the gooey fruits, they are poisonous, even more than the rest of the plant is. In the ancient world they were considered to induce abortion. Although the caterpillars of a small moth seem to be able to live on it, but they otherwise eat white bryony which is also quite poisonous.

The fact that there was a plant called squirting cucumber wasn't the only exciting thing I discovered. I also discovered that I had actually seen the plant and discovered that its fruits squirted goo when I was in Andalusia in 2005. The plants grew in abundance on an area at the end of the camping in Vejer where we stayed, a wonderful camping by the way, where I also saw my first pomegranate trees. Also lemon trees and orange trees but they weren't quite as exciting as the pomegranates. The squirting cucumber plants that I saw there looked exactly like this picture:

Apatouros

In Greek vase paintings depicting the Gigantomakhia, Aphrodite is sometimes depicted driving the chariot of Ares into battle.Strabo, Geography 11. 2. 10 (trans. Jones) (Greek geographer C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : "In Phanagoreia [in Mysia] there is a notable temple of Aphrodite Apatouros (Deceiver). Critics derive the etymology of the epithet of the goddess by adducing a certain myth, according to which the Gigantes attacked the goddess there; but she called upon Herakles for help and hid him in a cave, and then, admitting the Gigantes one by one, gave them over to Herakles to be murdered through ‘treachery’ (apate)."

In 2011 Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab had a Lupercalia theme "Ode to Aphrodite". Apatouros was the name of one of the scents in that theme and I now understand that the names must all have been names under which Aphrodite is also known. I did not buy new releases at the time, this scent was sent to me by a very kind and generous woman from the Dutch Lush forum which has a BPAL thread. She sent me some scents for my son to try and some for me too. Apatourus happens to be one I like a lot. BPAL gives her the title Deceptive One.

Black fig, green tea, opoponax, ciste absolute, myrrh, carnation, nutmeg, and Brazilian vetiver.

And deceptive she is, for I do not smell nutmeg or myrrh or vetiver which I would expect to easily pick out as they are all strong scents. I get mostly green tea and ciste, I am not sure about the opoponax, I must sniff my opoponax oil again to remember its smell better. I don't know what black fig smells like, so I don't know if I smell that. I don't really smell carnation, but I do smell something floral that is not ciste. However, no matter what I do or don't smell, the Deceptive One has a very nice scent that I am sure I shall not hand over to my son. (He is already getting Odin, which is perhaps an even nicer scent, but at least in name more masculine.)

  

The Chicken Legged Hut

I have always loved the image of the chicken legged hut of Baba Yaga. So I was delighted when someone sent me the BPAL scent with that name. This time I am not going to write about it. I found the story of Vasilissa who meets Baba Yaga and her hut on another site and I am going to share a link: Vasilissa.

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!