When I was younger, summertime, to me, meant curling up on a sweaty vinyl chair on the screened-in back porch with a pitcher of powdered iced tea drink and reading stories of ghosts and monsters and possessed children. If I was lucky, the skies would darken at midday, the winds would pick up, and a fearsome storm would thunder through the area; this is a common occurrence on a summer afternoon in central Florida, and normally would not last more than ten minutes.
I avoided the sun when at all possible; I did not relish playing outside with my sisters or the neighbor’s kids, I did not care for trips to the beach, I didn’t like being hot and sticky and gross. And I didn’t really have any friends to do any of those things with, anyhow. But then again, I’d never had many friends, so I really didn’t know any better and I didn’t feel badly about it! These long, sweltering days on the back porch voraciously tearing through stacks upon stacks of cheap, lurid used bookstore finds are some of the happiest memories I have from my pre-teen years. This was how summer was supposed to be, I thought, and at the ages of 11/12/13, I was young enough to have the luxury of spending that time however I liked. And after the daily rains, which were impatiently anticipated and perfectly inevitable -that was my favorite part of the day: a few glorious moments when the humidity dropped the tiniest bit, the air cooled a few degrees, and the sun disappeared entirely, culminating in a rich scent that still tugs at my memories and the edges of my dreams many years later. The musty scent of disintegrating paperbacks, the air heavy with the sweet, musky fragrance of jasmine, the tang of ozone, just before a heavy rainfall. This was the scent of my summers.
Years later when it comes to scenting myself for summer weather, I steer clear of many of the perfumes marketed for these sizzling, stifling afternoons when the evil day star holds sway. I don’t want to smell like the synthetic coconut of greasy suntan lotion, nor do I want to smell like those generic aquatics that are supposedly “crisp and refreshing” or the ubiquitous green tea and cucumber/melon melange which smell like so many country club air fresheners. Yes, I do want something lighter, for anything richer and heavier would certainly suffocate and strangle me in our notoriously murky, muggy Southern summers…but I want a scent that also evokes some sort of nostalgia, triggers a memory, conjured a long-forgotten dream.
Below is a list of my five preferred fragrances in this vein; scents for these summer months that are at turns cooling, invigorating, revitalizing and imaginative: summer scents for those who shun the sun.
Coriandre by Jean Couturier is a light, lovely chypre launched in the mid-70’s. If you are not familiar with chypres, well, they seem to be a rather divisive grouping of scents, with perfume lovers falling squarely in either the Love Them or Hate Them camps. To me, generically, chypres smell a bit cold and astringent, distant; but Coriandre is on the warmer, more familiar end of the spectrum. It does remind me of something from the 70s; it’s got a hazy Polaroid quality to it. A warm, grassy summer day recalled through the yellowed veil of memory. It’s dry and woody and musky and I think it smells a bit like a lovely little secret that you might never be ready to share.
Annick Goutal’s Mandragore reminds me of a scene in the 1980’s vampire film The Lost Boys, when the main characters’ grandpa says “….well that’s about as close to town as I like to get.” My perfume shelf is filled mostly with deep, dark, resinous fragrances, and Mandragore, with its bright lemony/peppery opening that quickly fades to a soft, minty bergamot, is as close to a “summer scent” as I like to get. It’s a lovely, (softly) zingy scent that calls to mind some sort of mildly alcoholic herbal shandy one might drink to refresh one’s self at the close of a balmy June afternoon. Unfortunately, much like the buzz from this weak cocktail, the scent lasts but a moment and is gone.
Safran Troublant by L’Artisan is a wonderfully restorative, heart-warming/opening scent. It should be part of a comforting bedtime ritual at the end of a long, hot day where one has done a lot of yard work or gardening. There’s a comforting sweetness to it, though not at all sugary or cloying. A creamy sandalwood pudding, a lukewarm bath lightly infused with milk and rose petals and a deep, enveloping hug. You’ll sleep quite well and be visited by the loveliest midsummer dreams.
Danube, by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is a beloved scent that is, for me, more about memory than the actual fragrance itself. It is a deep blue aquatic scent – but not salty, ozone-y, beachy aquatic, nor is it murky, swampy aquatic. Like a cold swimming pool on a hot day (maybe if you were adding grapefruit to your pool instead of chlorine) with every blue flower imaginable floating on top of it. Imagine being 6 years old and holding your breath and submerging yourself in a swimming pool, then slo-o-o-wly sinking to the bottom. The water is chilled, you feel like the only person in the world and everything is totally silent. Imagine peering up and seeing the sun streaming down into the water, between all of the blue petals. It’s calm and soothing and serene and is an absolutely a must for hot, sticky weather and for people who haven’t got a swimming pool. Unfortunately, I do believe that Danube is discontuned. For other other unique summer scents from BPAL, sniff out Fae (sweet, floral, peachy), and Zephyr (light musk, soft lemon and florals), and Aeval (dried herbs & sweet pea & tonka and it smells like all of my favorite occult bookshops at once -herbs and oils and stones and crystals and and the crisp pages of unopened books filled with unlearned knowledge.)
When I was 18, I was dating the boy who used to live next door to me, but who had since graduated high school and moved to Indiana to attend Notre Dame. We spent a week together on summer break, during which time he had flown down South to stay with me and my family. It was early in this visit that he proposed to me on the beach one night, and I accepted…though something told me that this was a doomed venture. I knew it was not going to last, and yet I agreed anyway; I suppose I just liked the idea that something interesting loomed in the distant future for me. One late afternoon a few days later, we took a drive; the sun hung low on the horizon, the windows were down, and on the wind that ruffled our hair was the musky, sweet scent of orange blossoms, as we had just driven past a massive orange grove. Jo Malone’s Orange Blossom smells like that summer afternoon, sweet blooms and dying suns and the melancholy of tears yet to be shed for reasons you’re not quite sure of.
A bonus scent, which I have mentioned before, so it didn’t seem quite fair to list it above: Comme des Garcons Incense Series: Kyoto. To be honest, Kyoto is my go-to fragrance no matter what the season; it’s austere and meditative and calls to mind a dark prayer in a cool, shadowy forest temple. But there is something exceptionally wonderful about it in the summer months. On a day of wretched, heated summertime oppression, do this: draw the curtains, dim the lights, strip naked, and liberally spritz yourself with Kyoto. Lay on your bed, mid-afternoon in the dark. Nap for a time. Dream of cooler places. And for what it’s worth, I just purchased my 5th bottle of this particular scent (and you know I have quite a lot of perfumes to choose from) so Kyoto is obviously getting a lot of mileage.
What scents do you dream of in summer time? What cools you down & soothes your brow when the temperatures soar?
Wow, has it really been since the end of January that I’ve compile a list of stinks o’ the week? Lordy. Well, better later than never, right? Though I guess in this case is more like “scents of the month/s” But we won’t dwell on my faults and laziness, okay? Previous weeks: one // two
First up, Kiehl’s Original Musk: I do think this is the perfect musk; it hasn’t got that lofty sneeze-inducing quality that I associate with Egyptian musk, but it does have a feral edge of skankiness, and an underlying bittersweet powderiness that keeps a scent that is mostly warm and clean from becoming bland and blah. Kiehl’s musk is exactly what I imagine 1974 to smell like. Astrology enthusiasts, embroidered caftans, and an endless parade of Tupperware parties through your rust & mustard & olive wallpapered kitchen. {perfume sample pictured alongside the utterly exquisite “black mirror” snake pendant from Flannery Grace}
Mandragore by Annick Goutal. Mandragore reminds me of a scene in the 1980’s vampire film The Lost Boys, when the main characters’ grandpa says “….well that’s about as close to town as I like to get.” My perfume shelf is filled mostly with deep, dark, resinous autumnal fragrances, and Mandragore, with its bright, effervescent lemony/peppery opening that quickly fades to a gently minty bergamot, is as close to a “summer scent” as I like to get.
Absinth by Nassomatto. Bittersweet mosses, green woodsmoke, and sinister woods. It’s a bit of a nose-jarring scent at first sniff, as if the punk-poet green fairy quit bohemian Paris to live amongst the ancient dryads and they didn’t get on well but eventually formed an uneasy friendship. It’s a softly surreal, slightly subversive scent, and I totally imagine Meatface here wearing it.
Avignon from COMME des GARÇONS Incense series. In short, it smells like the melancholy elegance of a poet who writes with terribly expensive pencils. Pencil shavings & poet’s tears. All of CdG’s Incense fragrances smell like poetry to me, so here is Avignon captured alongside some of my favorites.
Pink Sugar by Aquolina. If you’ve not tried it, it’s exactly what you think it is. Which is to say an ultra sweet, teeth-aching miasma of fizzy spun sugar. Marshmallow and a tiny twist of lemon with a barely-detectable licorice spike. It is wretched. It is divine. I inexplicably adore it. I buy the “hair perfume” version so I can spritz with manic pixie dust mad abandon. The dry down is sweetly vanillic and woody, like maybe the bark of the mythic candy floss tree in the dime store candy forest. I know heaps of folks who hate this stuff. Oh well. More for me!
Me, Myself, and I by Ego Facto. I’ve had this bottle for over a year but haven’t really worn it much until recently, and I’m here to tell you, it is strangely addictive. I was initially intrigued by the notes {Hemlock flower, exotic basil, Tuberose absolute, lavender flowers, Java Vetyver roots, Gaiac wood} and I’ve read that hemlock is an unpleasant scent, but anytime it’s listed in a fragrance, I can’t help but to want to give it a go. Me, Myself and I is sort of raw and green and smoky all at once. There is something just this shy of mentholated to it, and though it’s slightly bitter and almost musty at first, hours later it’s a really lovely, flowery-fresh, woody scent. What I love about it most, though, and this is going to sound weird (and maybe gross to some of you), is that it smells vaguely like the handbag or the scarf of a long-time smoker. There was a girl I went to high school with, the sister of my boyfriend at the time, who was beautiful and popular and had her shit super together, and she was, at that time, a somewhat heavy smoker. Every time she’d swing her waist-length, impossibly shiny black hair around, I’d catch a whiff of cigarette smoke, perhaps tinged with her expensive shampoo, (it was probably Origins; a store had just opened in the mall at that time) and I’ll be honest, I thought it was an unbelievably gorgeous, sophisticated scent. (Note: I’m not even a smoker, I have never smoked anything in my life. I’m just a weirdo, I guess.)
Guardian from Solstice Scents. Described as a forest chypre blend and a botanical talismanic perfume, it smells of dense earthy shadows and amber sunlight through a forest canopy, and feels like finally coming home.
Death & Decay from LUSH. I wrote about this back in 2015, for Death & The Maiden, and my thoughts have not changed much. A mass of white lillies, a wreath, perhaps – sweet and clean and full, waxen, and with a dignified clove-like spice, you can almost envision their alabaster form and curve. A calming, quiet, meditative, floral, almost too fresh to call classic, but it certainly evokes a kind of nostalgia. This fragrance calls to mind little girls dressed all in white, playing hide and seek around an open casket because they don’t know yet to be sad at funerals.
Antique Lace from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (discontinued). Many years ago, a friend spilled my beloved bottle of Antique Lace. Which made me awfully sad, I can assure you. I was even more devastated shortly thereafter to discover they had discontinued this soft, sweet, whisper of a scent. Imagine my surprise to learn, seven or eight years later, that they are offering it again! It may have sold out already, but you can bet your fluffy pantaloons I hastily procured a replacement bottle for myself.
Inviting us to celebrate the warmth of passion in the dead of winter, the smut peddlers at BPAL again deliver stimulating, scintillating scents for the lovelorn and lustful, the depraved and the intemerate. Whether you see these lurid delights as a dare, or as merely as a to-do list, and no matter how singular your tastes may be, there is all manner of delightful debauchery here to appeal to aficionados of arousing, amusing aromatic experiences.
Speaking of smut, let’s begin with Smut 2017! (three swarthy, smutty musks sweetened with sugar and woozy with dark booze notes) My first thought is that this as not as aggressively smutty as Smuts of yore (my boss made me go home when I wore it to the office in 2008). Like, maybe Smut went to rehab and detoxed a little. While the older versions of this scent I have are heavier on the booze and musk, this version seems lighter and sweeter and …fruity? While this smells nothing, of say, blackberries, I’m reminded of the syrupy, glazed bits of the fruit mixture crusted to the edges of a cobbler dish after the dessert is removed from the oven. I think many people are going to find Smut 2017 a touch more wearable than it might have been in the past.
Luperci (patchouli, Gurjam balsam, and essence of Sampson Root, beeswax, virile juniper, oakmoss, ambrette seed over honey and East African musk); inspired by rites of the Luperci (“brothers of the wolf”) this opens with raw, powerfully earthy patchouli, piercing and damp. The grassy soil which cradled the She-Wolf, suckling the Sacred Twins, shaded by the leaves of a fig tree and made rich by its rotting leaves and fruit, and the blood of the sacrifices spilled there. Luperci remains green and wooded and though it does not sweeten with time, it softens and becomes muskier, murkier.
Womb Furie(an itch that needs to be scratched: Snake Oil and three types of honey) I don’t know if this happens with everyone–or anyone, even–but usually anything with prominent honey notes ends up smelling like pee on me. As you can imagine, I am very saddened by this because honey is divine and delicious. However! Though this initially exhibits the sharpness I associate with most honeyed scents, there are none of those pungent, ammonia-like associations, so I suppose I can breathe easier. Snake Oil by itself, is, I believe, a rather divisive scent; there are those who love it, and there are those who are wrong. But the general complaint I hear is that it is a incredibly potent, sometimes headache inducing scent. In Womb Furie the harsh edges of Snake Oil’s exotic Indonesian oils and intense vanilla are tempered by the delicate, powdery honey and strikes a pleasingly satisfying balance; it conjures feelings not so much of itches that needs scratching but rather the warm afterglow of desires sweetly satiated.
The good folks at BPAL like to remind us “We’re not always all about death, sex, and debauchery. We like chocolate, too!”
White Chocolate, Marshmallow, Honey, and Goat’s Milk Straight from the bottle this smells of cocoa butter and marshmallow, and something else I can’t quite put my finger on–a cookie-like quality. Something with a cloying graham cracker crumb. It conjures a treasured confection from childhood, a sacred, special treat which I have just now remembered: Mallowmars!
Dark Chocolate, Whiskey, and Cardamom-Infused CaramelWhoa. This is some business, here. Rich dark chocolate, the intensely bitter sort with the amped up percentage of cacao that you don’t even have to hide from your significant other because they can’t even handle it. The whiskey is so smooth you can barely detect it, and layered with the goopy sweetness of the gently spiced caramel, this makes for an incredibly decadent bonbon of a scent.
Milk Chocolate, Cacao Cream, Ceylon Cinnamon, and Coffee AbsoluteWhile I have insisted for years that I am not a lover of foodie or gourmand scents, this may be the one that changes my mind. I’m going to give you a visual, okay? Imagine an amorous encounter with your sexy barista crush, (the one who works really long hours because they hand-grind a lot of beans), while rolling around in $240 worth of creamy, milk chocolate pudding.
Lupercalia Single Note: Riding CropThis is an exquisite “worn in” leather scent, but I don’t mean to imply that it smells somehow beat up and rugged like cowboy boots, or a horse’s saddle that has seen many denim clad bottoms across it. No, this is the scent of madam’s favorite corset– smooth and black, and perfectly fitted to her elegant curves. A handsome, tight-laced thing whose strict shine has dulled over the years but in whose reflection can still be seen countless memories of hours spent meting out untold pleasures…and in the exquisite instruction of delicious pain.
Pleasures of the Imagination I(black amber, leather, and myrrh) Clean, powdered skin, and shiny black leather and oddly enough, the delicately antiseptic smell of an expensive lingerie department. Imagine wearing your Agent Provocateur scanties underneath a leather moto jacket with just the right amount of silvery zipper accents.
Pleasures of the Imagination V (black leather, red sandalwood, orris root, tobacco absolute, oakmoss, and sweet patchouli) This is an inconstant leather, at first, lined with the softest cotton, and then, filled with strange, sweet earth. A marvelously mutable scent, I soon detect a watery greenness and sharp, metallic freshness. At the end we are left with not the pin-up girls in Art Frahm’s campy illustrations, but rather the surprise stalk of celery that is lurking, ever present, as a poor woman’s skirts fly up and her underwear, inexplicably, fall down.
Ah, my favorites. The scents I look forward to all year round because they combine my love for the beautiful and the absurd and elevate to sublime art: the Shunga scents. Novel Ideas for Secret Amusements is “a limited edition Salon series celebrating the joy, humor, playfulness, and thrill of sexual intercourse through scent interpretations of Japanese erotic art”
Kitten with Shamisen Daydreams of a Phallus Palanquin (rice milk, white musk, and pear) It is not pear I smell at first, but strawberries. Or perhaps some other twinkling, pink, “youthful” smelling fruit. The longer the scent wears, the more I feel I am aging backwards, and I am surrounded by small, plastic dolls whose, fruity, synthetic, multi-colored hair I sniff obsessively and no doubt rudely, as I am serving an imaginary tea and that’s not the behavior of a polite hostess. In our small teacups with the curly-cue handles I still dream about as an adult, we are drinking a shimmering champagne spiked with dollops of lightly sweetened cream. I apologize for the hair sniffing.
Delightful Visitor Among the Haystacks (chrysanthemum incense and red carnation) I was keenly interested in this scent in particular… I found unexpected beauty in the brevity of the notes listed; it pierced my heart with a fleeting sort of sadness. And too, this fragrance is strange and sad, musty and full of ponderous longing. Years of incense woven into threads of a poet’s pillow and perfuming their final inhalations as they pen their last words in this world: Rusu naredo // tou hito mo kana // notorikigo? — Kizo, 1851 When I am gone // will someone care for // the chrysanthemum when I leave?
Consoling Pussy of Horse Face Mountain(tuberose incense, blue wisteria, and oakmoss) A cool, creamy, intimate floral that conjures a flood of memories for me, none of which have anything to do with each other, or with anything in particular. The fragrance of my mother’s carved wooden boxes that held sticks of nag champa and faded tarot cards; the chlorinated, rubbery scent of a pool supply store that we used to frequent when I was very young. I don’t think this is a scent that I will reach for very often, but not because I don’t care for it. Rather, it is the perfume of a life that I have already lived and know quite profoundly.
Finally, The Devil’s Lovers: the Erotic Art of Félicien Rops, a collection which showcases the work of the renowned Belgian illustrator, engraver, and printmaker, and which is a celebration of death, sex, and political and social rebellion, all reflected through a distinctly Mephistophelean lens.
Le Vice Suprême(leather and a splash of gin, whiskey-swirled tobacco, rose petals, and bourbon vanilla) What a nose-tickler this is! While I don’t smell gin, per se, I smell something a bit effervescent and dry and not quite boozy, but somewhat woozy. It’s the olfactory version of a gleeful gulp going awry, laughing and gagging until your eyes swim, and the prickly little cough that remains for the rest of the evening. At this point, you’ve also got the hiccups. Light, fizzy, giggle water.
Les Incubes et des Succubes(blackberry pulp, Bordeaux wine, grape leaves, and wild patchouli) This, my friends, is the Kool-Aid fueled orgy that you have been dreaming of. Sugar-macerated berries and wildly overripe grapes squelching amongst heaving, naked bodies as an oversized anthropomorphic plastic pitcher MCs the depraved festivities. I won’t end this sentence with his iconic phrase. It’s just too easy.
À Un Dîner D’athées(white lavender and ambrette seed, grey patchouli, rum absolute, and vetiver) A somber, sobering scent, with an initial blast of lavender which oscillates between cool and medicinal and sharp, salty licorice. The vetiver and rum add a dry, bitter, molasses-tinged edge to what, at its heart, remains a brittle, humorless scent. It is a fragrance that borders on unpleasant, but leaves me intensely curious as to its inspiration. “À Un Dîner D’athées”, or, At a Dinner of Atheists, is an illustration by Félicien Rops to accompany a story of the same title in Les Diaboliques (The She-Devils), a collection of short stories written by Barbey d’Aurevilly. According to my two seconds of research just now, the acts committed by the characters in these stories are induced not only by their extreme passion but also by their boredom–and it’s strange to say, but this fragrance does conjure images of ennui and tedium, but also of rage and revenge and other manias not given proper outlet, but allowed to fester, silent and hidden. I can’t quite think of who I would recommend this scent for, but whoever this person is, they are both fascinating and dangerous.
My week in fragrances, week two. (Which is more like a week and a half’s worth and I am now on week three if you’re being really picky about it, but I’m not, so you shouldn’t be, either!) I am almost to the end of January and so far I have not purchased any new fragrances, not even tiny samples! Let’s see if I can keep this up for another month.
Morocco (formerly “Old Morocco” from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab). This is one of the first BPAL samples that I ever received, and one of their first scents that I fell in love with, but it took me a while to commit to a full size bottle. When I did, it was no longer “Old Morocco”, but instead, just plain “Morocco”. This is a scent of tender comforts, of being swaddled in plush saffron robes after a long, dusty day of travels, and sipping a honeyed, milky draught of something unfamiliar and yet strangely comforting before slipping into bed. Your pillow is filled with carnations and sandalwood shavings, lending a gentle spice and dry warmth to round out the sweetness. You dream for days.
Courtesan by Worth. I purchased this many years ago, and sometimes I seriously question what I was thinking. It’s a frou-frou, one-two punch of pineapple pixy stix and a feathery poof of some sort of vanilla jasmine laundry powder that manages to be creamy, cloying, and yet very sheer. It’s like being smothered in a veil of phantom custard.
Niki de Saint Phalle, a light, grassy chypre interwoven with dry, autumn floral accents. It conjures imagery of late summer afternoon daydreaming on a mossy hill and brushing dried blooms and other herbaceous detritus off your sun-warmed skirts when you’ve finally roused yourself to head home.
An informal reporting on the scents I’ve been wearing lately, in a concerted effort to appreciate and use what I already have, as opposed to continually adding another fragrance to the collection (and another, and another). Previous to now, this collection has grown, unchecked, and has reached a point where I will never wear all of it, even if I had ten lifetimes to scent.
As strange as it sounds, I think Arsenic smells like fresh marjoram, which, in turn, reminds me very much of Christmases when I was a little girl. I think that’s because when I first smelled fresh marjoram (which to my nose smells a little sweet, slightly piney, maybe a touch of citrus, and vaguely musty?) I realized it smelled exactly like the worn, cardboard box of Avon Christmas ornaments, gewgaws, and tchotchkes that we’d haul down from the attic, dust off, and disperse throughout our home every year for the holidays.
Mississippi Medicine opens with an astringent, peppery cypress, and gives way to a pine-crackling, smoky fire, sweet birch, muddy grass and scorched leaves… and dries down to a sweetly herbaceous, woody, resinous scent that would smell devastating on either a man or a woman (I mention this because it is marketed toward men.) All told, this is the scent of waking with strange incense in your hair and the vague dream of descending into the dark, dancing and divining with ancestors, and having been part of rituals older than you can imagine. A scent of potent magics – both sacrificial and healing
Chanel Sycomore. Foliage and tall trees and rich, gritty dirt; soft smoke and damp greenery, and all the best smells of a forest ramble–but the hiker is garbed in expensive elegance, Prada boots, an Hermès scarf, Burberry coat, that sort of thing. This scent of a woodland spirit turned posh socialite; a dryad who quit the forest, now living on the Upper East Side.
It was my intention to write about fragrances on a monthly basis in 2016, but I’m afraid I rather lost the thread of that back in November. I suspect this can be forgiven. November, for my family at least, has always been The Worst Month–relatives die, addiction and depression run rampant, all sorts of good stuff–but this November was, as I think we can all agree, particularly horrid.
And so, as it happens, I have only posted 10 installments of A Year In Fragrance– which I will link to below, if you missed any and wanted to catch up. I began this project envisioning that it would be mostly fragrance reviews, but I think it ended up being more than (and perhaps a little less than) that. It was a year of scented memories, scents that I utterly loathed, and even some of my beau’s thoughts on certain fragrances. I suppose I will never get to the point where my thoughts coalesce into precise, well-thought out reviews; I’m doomed to ramble, and meandering rambles these perfumed ponderings shall doubtless remain.
For November, I will tell you that I purchased a full bottle of of Apoteker Tepe’s The Holy Mountain. Notes include “…over seven precious woods and resins along with a rare extraction of Lapsang Souchong tea smoked slowly over pinewood fires”, and if you are in the market for a smoky fragrance that smells like maybe the smoke cleared after a super-beardy wizard threw a mystical resin into a fire to conjure an ancient dragon lord or something, but the dragon flew away and the wizard has gone to bed and the fire has burned down so that only the embers are smoldering and the deeply scented, resinous smoke has seeped into all the old wooden beams in the top-most tower room where all the magical shit is locked up…well, The Holy Mountain may be the scent for you.
In December, I tried to resume the practice of “shopping my own stash”, a handy idea and phrase I first heard over at EauMG; I mean, I am of course familiar with the concept of using up your own stuff before buying new things, I just don’t think I’d hear the process called that before. Clever! Anyway, I rediscovered some samples I didn’t even realize I had, and some of them are astonishingly gorgeous, Myrrh Casati by Mona di Orio and Etat Libre d’Orange’s Attaquer le Soleil Marquis de Sade chiefly among them. At the year’s end I realize: yep, still love those churchy incense scents. Perhaps 2017 will bring new loves?
(If you receive email updates from my blog, and this one shows up for you today in 2022, and you’re like, “what the heck? this is from 2016?” Yes, it is, and I am sorry. So much of my content was lost when Haute Macabre closed the blog portion of the site. I am slooooowly trying to retrieve a lot of it. This is one of those things.)
There’s something strange and lovely wafting in the wind, and it’s not just the rustle of the dying leaves or the murmurs of the restless dead in their unquiet graves. Can you feel it, too? Can you smell it?
Can you smell the boozy swoon of ripe harvest fruits and the smoky crackling bonfires to light the cold nights? The acrid tang of animal musks, those small beasts gathering stores for the upcoming winter, while other, less fuzzy wee creatures forage for sweet-smelling chocolate and candies? The aroma of freshly baked pumpkin pie, redolent of warm spices? The mournful reek of the tomb, damp with rot and tears of the bereaved?
Something wicked, weird, and whimsical this way comes and ’tis the season to anoint oneself in all of these fantastical fall fragrances! Who better to assist in achieving our October olfactory goals than Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, with their much anticipated annual Halloween collection?
Since at least 2004, beloved perfumer Elizabeth Barrial and The Lab have been celebrating the most wonderful time of the year (“goth Christmas”, as it is known in some circles) with their splendid presentation of the strangest and most beautiful scents the season has to offer. Inspired by world mythology and history, autumnal poetry, ghostly art, and playful, sugar-laden treats, previous years have reveled in variations on such hallowed themes as the haunted house, pumpkin patches, and bobbing for apples, along with their “single notes”– cheeky interpretations of iconic seasonal sniffs.
To those for whom Halloween remains an anchor point for the entire calendar year, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab in 2016, has once again presented their fans with collection that will keep even the most die-hard enthusiast in awash Halloweenie sights, smells, and visitations for the foreseeable future.
In the years that I have been obsessing over BPAL, I have tried a great number of the Halloweenie offerings: Samhain is truly the scent of autumn, bottled, with notes of damp fir and needle, warm pumpkin and spices, sweet apple and mullein. Witch-Bride is pale and lovely, cool and floral, with nightshade kisses, wound in hemlock blossoms, draped in wisteria veils. Sugar Skull (not available this year), a blend of five sugars, lightly dusted with candied fruits was vibrant with the joy and sweetness of life in death and redolent of musky brown sugar and rummy jellies.
For review purposes, today I am mainly focusing on their Spirit of Halloween scents which are part of the ongoing Black Phoenix Salon Series wherein classical works of art are masterfully rendered in fragrance form.
The Ghost of a Woman Confronts Her Murderer on a Stormy Night (blackened cypress tar, bleached white cedar, asphodel, patchouli, and night-black musk). Caustic, like acid erosion on metal–straight from the bottle this does smell very much like a bloody curse, an enraged accusation. It shortly becomes pungent and tarry with a chilly bite, and then, inexplicably, a sweetly earthy, heartbreakingly delicate scent.
The Drowned Man’s Ghost Tries to Claim a New Victim for the Sea (black kelp and opoponax, silt, and dark things dredged up from the depths of a seabed). Admittedly, I am all a-swoon for anything that lists notes of opoponax, and it lends a honeyed, balsamic quality to this lightly oceanic fragrance. As the scent lingers on the skin, it smells less and less of salt spray against gull-flecked skies and more like sun-warmed resins, a chunk of myrrh sunning itself on a splintered piece of driftwood.
The Ghost of Clytemnestra Awakening the Furies (opoponax steeped in black wine, spindle tree sap, nightshade accord, yew needles, and a drop of blood). Opoponax plays a different role in this aromatic summons to the Erinyes; a bitter brew, a toxic temptation, this ghost lures us with a syrupy sweetness under which lurks a poisoned bile. This is a fragrance that attracts and repels in turn.
Four Grave Robbers Awaken a Ghost (dragon’s blood resin, olibanum, galangal, bdellium, and myrrh). To be honest, I don’t know the difference between olibanum and frankincense and I haven’t the slightest as to what galangal or bdellium are, (they’re related to ginger and myrrh, respectively–thanks Google), but this bone dry scent conjures visions of shadowy mounds of dusty dark chocolate shavings with slivers of sandalwood tucked between the sheaves, and the once you’ve fallen under it’s spell, the more arcane details just don’t seem to matter.
The Gambols of Ghosts (Rivulets of beeswax and amber flame illuminating a pale blue midnight, eddying with phantom violets, olive blossom, and moss) is all tangy dairy and cool, green florals, as if a compound butter were made with fresh cream, the lightly bruised petals of spring flowers and slightly sweetened with their verdant nectar. As the scent dries on one’s skin you can smell hints of the wax paper it is wrapped in, and the viscous violet essence that has been drizzled atop in dulcet presentation. If this were an actual food, I would desire to spread it on crumbling oatcakes, served alongside afternoon tea in a fairy ring.
Have you tried any of the 2016 ‘weenies from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab? This year’s Pile of Leaves scents and the series based on Edith Wharton’s poem, “All Souls”, sound particularly enticing! Tell us your thoughts about this year’s offerings in the comments!
Otherwise knows as: Sweets for the (person who hates) sweet(s).
It is generally known (mostly because I know I am obnoxiously vocal about such things) that I am not a lover of sweet or foodie or gourmand fragrances. I do not want to smell like a cake or a toffee or a tropical fruit salad, thankyouverymuch. Nor do I wish to smell of chocolates or coffee or a banana split. Most days, even the thought of such things causes me to suppress a shudder and gag quietly.
Most days.
Preferences aside, I am sure it has a lot to do with the fact that most days, temperatures where I live hover at around 90 degrees Farenheit or higher, and really, who wants to smell like a dessert table in that kind of heat? But on the rare, dazzling autumnal afternoon when there is a whisper of chill in the air, or perhaps on a damp, drizzly grey November morning, well, now, that’s a different story,and a sweet scent can be warm, comforting, and most welcome on these occasions.
There are three such fragrances that I reach for when the weather kindly permits.
1.
Hermèssence Ambre Narguilé by Hermès, created by perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena, is a scent that blends the “honey of amber with a swirl of the Orient”. Says Ellena: “Amber, the Western expression of Eastern fragrances, has a warm, sensual, enveloping, almost carnal smell. I wanted to imbue this idea of amber with the memory of the East I love by recreating the ambiance of those lively places where tobacco – blended with the smells of fruit, honey and spices – is smoked in narguilés, or water pipes, and where swirls of smoke diffuse a sweet sense of intoxication.”
Ambre Narguilé gets a lot of apple pie references from perfume reviewers, but I don’t quite sense that myself. Pie filling, perhaps. Dried fruits–raisins and plums, stewed in honey and rum and spices, and left on the stove very nearly too long. It’s been cooked down to a syrupy essence of its former self, and if you hadn’t pulled it from the flame, the caramelized sugars might have started to smoke and burn. I don’t know if I smell the tobacco, but then again, many people think tobacco smells like raisins, so…
This is as sweet as it gets for me. It calls to mind a cozying up by firelight with a charmingly old timey book, while wearing an oversized sweater with thick cables and toggle buttons. If Ambre Narguilé is overly burdensome on your wallet, Fille En Aiguille from Serge Lutens is in a similar stewed fruit and spices vein, and can be found for much less.
2.
Chanel’s Coromandel is a “spirited oriental fragrance that reveals itself by interrupting its amber vibrato with dry notes and finally settles into a long, restrained, voluptuous accord.” What are you even trying to say here? OK, marketing people. You’re drunk, go home.
Created by Christopher Sheldrake and Jacques Polge, Coromandel is part of the Exclusifs colletion and was inspired by the exotic Chinese lacquered screens, that, when Coco Chanel first observed their their “blend of opulence and austerity, of dark sheen and bright gold embellishments” (via), she proclaimed that she would “faint of happiness” and that she will live surrounded by them. Depending on where you get your information from (the Chanel site isn’t very helpful on this point) Coromandel is comprised of jasmine, patchouli, woody notes, amber, benzoin, frankincense and possibly citruses, bitter orange, neroli, rose, orris, incense, musk, and Tahitian vanilla. Oddly, I never see white chocolate listed, but it is what people seem to love most about it.
There is something nose-tickling and sharp, almost camphorous and earthy when the first spritz settles on your skin. Soon, a dark sprinkle of pepper atop a mug of palest milky cocoa, smooth and rich on the tongue, but tinged with that underlying musty bitterness. The strange interplay between those primordial notes and that velvety decadence does somewhat call to mind dueling impressions of opulence and austerity; imagine thoroughly enjoying a delectably elegant beverage…on the damp, cold floor of a limestone cave.
3.
In Irish folklore the Dana O’Shee are a fae, elven people, eternally beautiful and eternally young. They are said to be vengeful and treacherous and possess a streak of mischievous malice, and offerings of milk, honey and sweet grains were made to placate these creatures. This is the basis of Dana O’Shee, thescent created by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.
I won’t sugar-coat it–of my three sweetly scented choices, this one is the least complex/most linear among them. But, I think, there is much to be said for simplicity; what you smell initially is what you get for the duration, and if you’re in need of a comfort scent that is not too heavy or cloying, this is a good one to have in your collection. Reminiscent of rice pudding with a soft pour of cream on top, and/or perhaps a honeyed milk custard, and stir in some sugared marizpan… but imagine dreamy spoonfuls of all of this while a faint incense lingers in the air. Or, perhaps, envision a a stick of sugared milk custard incense! It sounds delicious, but don’t eat it! Tempted though ye may be.
*Bonus Sometimes (shhhh!) I actually wear Aquolina’s Pink Sugar which is admittedly teeth-achingly sweet at the onset, but if you give it some time, it dries down to a vaguely woodsy, lightly musky, and …okay… still very sweet scent…but it makes me think of a make-believe forest, with cotton candy trees and maybe you are having a secret rendez-vouz with a sexy marshmallow satyr. No doubt something I read in a saucy fairy tale a long time ago.
Are you a lover of sweet fragrances, or, like me, do you save your sugary scented treats for more tolerable climes? What are some of your favorites when you wish to live deliciously? Whisper your sweet nothings in the comments below!
Alice Sweet Alice (1976) officially licensed poster by Nikita Kaun
This has been a strange month so far. After the excitement and panic of the hurricane, while things have calmed down a bit, they still don’t feel “normal”. I haven’t had the energy or motivation I need to finish (or, ahem, start) many of the things I would have hoped to have done now that the month is almost over, and as melodramatic as it sounds, I feel as if I am languishing under the threat of some unnameable doom.
In the meantime, here are some movies I have seen recently, and my one word assessments of them.
We also watched season one of Ash Vs. Evil Dead which was a lot of fun, although a great deal…saltier than I expected? Maybe I am getting old. Gosh.
*these titles can be found on netflix
RE: Books/reading…
I was loathe to delve into any book at all after finishing the very excellent Southern Reach Trilogy, but as it happens, everything since I’ve read since then has been wonderful. The Night of the Hunter was unexpectedly, profoundly beautiful, and come to think of it, I might use those same words to describe Michael Schmeltzer’s book of poetry, Blood Songs. Monstress boasted exquisite, intricate art, complex characters, really fantastic world building, and a thrillingly mysterious story; I cannot wait to read more. Giant Days (Volume 3), Wicked + The Divine (Volume 4), and Over the Garden Wall were all just as much fun as I would have expected, and I think I also read every gorgeous, weird thing that Tin Can Forest ever published. Oh, and also–The Girl With All The Gifts, which was an uncomplicated, but still pretty engaging read (I wasn’t even going to pick it up, but the film was receiving such great reviews, and if I am going to see the movie, my general rule is that I must read the book first!)
At the beginning of October, my hair dresser was supposed to give me purple hair. Somehow I came out of the salon looking exactly as I had when I walked in. I guess it’s been that kind of month.
What are you up to this month? Has it been all weirdness and strange times for you, as well?
There must be something exceptionally splendid and special in the air right now (or could it simply be that we are now in the month of October– the most wonderful time of the year?) My beloved friends are really outdoing themselves with regard to their current creative ventures and artistic endeavors, and I wanted to take a moment to spotlight, (for all of my twelve readers, haha) some of the remarkable things that are available right now from these dazzlingly brilliant visionaries. See below for an array of outstanding projects and collaborations resulting in needful things of the most enticing and uncanny sort.
Whispering Death by Becky Munich
Munich Art Studio and Casketglass Art have teamed up to celebrate a month of haunted days by releasing an extremely limited set of art prints inspired by the mystery and magic of Halloween. An intimate experience, only 20 print sets are available for purchase and will not be re-released, and in honor of the joyously macabre traditions of the Halloween season, each order is shipped with additional ghoulish treats for you to keep or share with others.
For the scented tapophile: in what will be an on-going collection, the new Haute Macabre + Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab collaboration is launching with two new fragrances, Burying Point and St. Louis #1. Made exclusively for Haute Macabre by master perfumer Elizabeth Barrial, the collection is based on favorite cemeteries around the world; the first installment features St. Louis #1 (drooping Spanish moss and crumbling marble, sweet olive blossom, 13-year aged black patchouli, and offerings of Bay Rum, Florida water, and tobacco), located in New Orleans, and Burying Point (damp clusters of brown patchouli, dried maple leaves, black sage, spikenard, and curled, misshapen mandrake roots), the oldest cemetery in Salem.
Friends who have visited our house and wondered at the ghostly chamber music and dark, dreamy sounds we sometimes haunt you with? It’s Meredith Yayanos‘ eerily beautiful music from The Parlour Trick’s Blessed Unrest album …and right now you can get the digital version on bandcamp for a mere $6.66–OR!–you can pre-order the vinyl repress (which you should do, because it will sell out in the blink of an eye!)
Visit Haute Macabre to read the introduction to the bloodmilk Book Club for this season, with Sonya Vatomsky’s “Salt Is For Curing” as the current selection. Also included in the post are two special giveaways: one, a chance to win a copy of Sonya’s book, and a second, a chance to win a jewel from the bloodmilk shop. The giveaway runs until November 1st, so there is still plenty of time.
As you know, we sold out of the Occult Activity Book Volume Two even faster than anticipated! Neither this volume or the previous will ever be re-printed or re-created, so if you missed out on the opportunity to purchase this rare tome full of fantastical arts and word witchery, you will never again have another chance. HOWEVER! Don’t summon the demons to do your freaky time travel bidding just yet! Our friends at Haute Macabre are giving away one deluxe edition of The Occult Activity Book Volume Two, which includes the book and all the goodies. If you missed out on this exceedingly special project and are hovering at cusp of committing dire and dangerous magical crimes to acquire one for yourself, why not enter the giveaway instead?
AND, a few upcoming things that you need to keep an eye out for!
Artist: Dana Glover
Morbid Fantasies is a richly illustrated reader’s guide to Gothic literature, guiding fans both old and new over the ever-changing face of this most ghoulish of genres. In its pages, scholar Jack Shear covers the history, key themes, and major books in the Gothic movement from its inception through the current day. It’s a love letter to this often misunderstood and under-appreciated form of entertainment, hand-bound and designed by Tenebrous Kate with featured illustrations by Dana Glover, Becky Munich, and Carisa Swenson. I hear this may be available as soon as next weekend, so be sure to check over at hereticalsexts.com to grab a copy for yourself!
California sprawls across a multitude of landscapes and has amassed a history full of the strange and unusual. There are secrets in the desert. Secrets in the cities. Strange and unusual happenings in the odd, dark places of the coastal state.
Strange California is 26 tales of strangeness, lavishly illustrated, that will pull you into another world, a world where migrant girls stand up to witches who live in orange groves, where trickster magpies try to steal souls from Russian sisters in the early days of Fort Bragg, where water is both currency and predator, and Gold Rush-era ghosts wander the streets of San Francisco alongside panther ladies.
Courtesan by Worth
Niki de Saint Phalle
