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