Unquiet
Things

The above is an image I screencapped from TikTok. If you are someone who has seen photos of my perfume cabinet over the years, you might look at it and think “…hey…that looks like Sarah’s perfume cabinet!” And then you might get confused because you’d think, “Huh, that username says “redacted” not “midnight stinks,” and, “hey, I know Sarah; she would probably never attach a GIF of Ben Affleck’s dumb face to any of her photos, what the heck is going on here?”

Friends, I saw that and was similarly confused. At first, before anything else, I saw my tacky pink sparkly skull and my great-great-grandparent’s antique photo, and I didn’t notice the other stuff. I thought someone had found one of my photos, wanted to know more about the owner of the photo, found my various accounts, and thought, “Aha! here’s a kindred spirit!” In this daydream, the person was posting my photo on TikTok in the spirit of, “Wow, I just found the coolest person! You should all like and follow them!”

Of course, I am terribly deluded and naive about how the world should work. It was just some throwaway post with a trending gif set on the backdrop of my photo, for which I was not credited. For proof ( I mean, you’re following my blog and probably don’t need/wouldn’t ask for proof, but just in case, here is the uncropped 2014 photo below:)

If you know anything about me at all, forget perfumes, forget my books and blog, TikTok, and everything else. You may know and SHOULD know that I am passionate about making sure that artists receive credit for their works. I have built my entire writing career on it. Now, I am no artist, and I won’t pretend otherwise, but that was a photo I had taken of a space that belonged to me, so you can imagine how livid I was when I saw that this morning.

Long story short: I left a comment, and they responded. They DMed me and were intensely and genuinely apologetic, and you know what? I couldn’t stay mad at the individual. I am mad that laziness and incurious people exist in general, but I couldn’t be angry at this particular person. I am still marveling at what they said, though. I asked her where she found the image and she said she “got it from Google,” and it’s like…how can that be enough for you? If you uncovered an image that spoke to you so intensely that you took the time to upload it to social media and caption it and add Ben Affleck’s face to it…don’t you care enough to find out who was responsible for the photo? For the human behind it? I mean, what if they shared other photos that you might like? What if they SAID or WROTE things you might like? What if they were AN ACTUAL HUMAN PERSON that you might like? Don’t you want to find out? How can you not want to know more? I will never, ever, ever understand this. I just won’t.

I was going to use the incident as a teachable moment or a form of behavior modeling and make a video about it on TikTok, but you know what? I am wasting my breath, my time, and my energy. I have seen time and time again that very few people are concerned with this. Also…I mean, the person did apologize, I don’t want to embarrass them. Also…the only reason I even saw it in the first place was because one of my friends reposted it, and I was flabbergasted… did they not recognize my perfume cabinet??? But also, how could this other person, a virtual stranger, whom I have never met in real life and only occasionally chat with on TikTok as of three months ago, recognize a photo of my perfume cabinet from 2014?? HA! I don’t know! But for a hot minute, I was mad at EVERYONE!

At the end of the day though, I am on that app because it’s fun to share my enthusiasm for perfume, and I don’t want to muck it up with something that makes me feel gross. Instead, I retrieved the original photo and several other photos of my perfume cabinet from 2009-2024, and on TikTok today, I shared a little perfume cabinet progression slide show, and I mentioned none of what led up to it.  I reckon it will garner just as much attention and views as the passive-aggressive scolding video (which is to say not much at all, my views are abysmal), but at least it’s coming from a more pleasant place in my heart.

And if you have read this far, gosh, and thank you. It was quite a bitchfest.

P.S. Again, the issue has been resolved. I know you all aren’t the sort to find someone and give someone a hard time but there is absolutely no need. Apologies were made and accepted! If anything, go give a comment and a like to my video 🙂

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I post a lot of goofiness all over social media, but it doesn’t always make its way to my blog. So here is a little round-up of what I have been thinking about or observing lately, as told through various imagery and anecdotes.

Are you like that, too? Do you look at a painting or photo and illustration and give it an entirely out-of-context silly or surreal backstory? Or attach it to a bit of conversation you had with someone, or overheard or made up entirely in your head? I do that a lot. And I do mean a lot.

Anyway, I just saw someone post on Facebook last week that the eclipse “looked cool, but it’s not worth the hype,” and I don’t know why that’s so funny, but I was laughing so hard I fear I may pee myself. Not worth the hype, dummies! You can all go home now, I guess!

Give yourself fun pep talks with weird wizard advice, like, “When the instrument of sleep leaves the space of nourishment, begin the work.”

Which sounds way more magical than “I need to move the mattress out of the dining room so I can concentrate on writing again!” I want to write more, but because we are redoing our flooring and doing some renovations, our guest room mattress and related furnishings are currently in the dining room, and all of that precarious chaos is too anxiety-inducing for my brain to focus on working with words. Gimme my spaces back, please!

I still haven’t listened to Beyonce’s new album, other than her rendition of Jolene. It was fine, and I am sure the album is fine, and I should probably listen to it because it’s culturally important and so on, but first, I feel like we need to fix Jolene. I got my sisters on board with this idea over on Facebook, and we are working on it. That’s one of Mary’s contributions in the second image.

Someone commented on her FB page, “Oh, you mean Jolene, like the Dixie Chicks wrote it.” Oh, no, no. Jolene, if Circe and Mr. Rochester’s first wife had written it. Jolene, if Eileen Wuornos and Loreena Bobbit wrote it. No offense to anyone’s version, but no one is addressing the real problem here.

I also listened to three or four new songs on Taylor Swift’s new album, and it bored me tremendously. I know my baby sister reads this blog and will be sad to hear that because she is a huge fan, and Melissa I am sorry. There was not enough torture in the tortured poets’ department. There was like, zero torture. I feel misled.

“Listen, that’s between you and your pot of basil,” is a thing I am going to start responding with when people are trying to tell me shit I don’t need to know.

I have been irrationally angry at whoever was just before me in library holds line for Diavola. They took the whole two weeks to read that book! Come on, man! But my holds for both Diavola and The Familiar finally became available (at once, of course ) and so far they do not disappoint! I usually read about 10 things at once, but because the queues are so long for the both of these, and I will not be able renew them, I am focusing on them exclusively …no great difficulty there, they both drew me in immediately and entirely.

I have been writing and sharing on the internet for a long time. Both personal blogs and social media, as well as more widely read websites. But. As a writer of things, I could never say something like, “y’all liked my X thing so much, I’m back with another!” I mention this because it was something I saw over on fragrance reddit this week. Man. I don’t know. That seems wildly, toe-curlingly cringe to me. When I read that, I was stricken with the most intense fremdschämen.

But there’s an admirable audacity, too. Like… you truly believe people enjoyed the words you wrote. I love that for you. I want that, too.

On Tuesdays we wear gold. And hearts and moons and eyes. Light aloeswood incense. Find a perfectly preserved moth behind a picture frame. Listen to the owls’s hoot fluttering through the wind chimes. Slurp a scalding soup of bitter greens. Plant a crimson sunflower seed. Tuesday stuff.

A joke, but it’s a recurring nightmare from another life; a joke, but it’s a voice from the moon in the dark; a joke, but it’s a beckoning finger from a broken mirror; ha ha haa ahh ahh.

I forgot the word for “vegan” and was like, “You know…vegetable edge lord?” VEGLORD, if you will.

Something I tried to sneak into each of my books was at least one instance of an image that had been shared and memed all over the Internet without credit. Something that you see people repost all over the place with “artist unknown.” I want people to know there were actual human artists that created these works! I wanted it in black and white, something that couldn’t be lost to 404 errors and lazy reblogs.

These artworks from Ruth Marten (top) and Mr. Werewolf (b0ttom) were two of them, and you can find them in The Art of Darkness: A Treasury of the Morbid, Melancholic, and Macabre, and The Art of Fantasy: A Visual Sourcebook of All That Is Unreal, respectively. There were obviously quite a few in this category, but unfortunately, I did not get permission from those artists. Three others that I had in mind were Omar Rayyon’s The Favorite, this little guy from Lily Seika-Jones, and this owl tea party by Yoshioka.

If you enjoy these musings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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In the weird, woodland magics of of Brett Manning’s art, one will find a labyrinth of moss-covered pathways and mushroom-dotted clearings, where one might imagine hearing the whispers of faeries and the footsteps of forest spirits.

Whimsy dances hand in hand with shadows and decay, creating a thicket of contrasts that defies simple categorization. While her creations exude a playful charm, there’s an underlying hint of shadow that adds depth and complexity to her work. Think Beatrix Potter goes to the Goblin Market, told via the forested strangeness of a gloomy Twin Peaksian folklore, tinged with the cryptic mystery and intrigue of the X-Files; channel that through an impish imagination, a flair for visual storytelling, and an eye for the uncanny, and you begin to grasp the enigmatic allure of Manning’s realms.

Basically what I am trying to say here is that Brett Manning’s artworks embrace the wild and the wondrous, they are the artistic equalivalent of the unhinged urge to disappear from society and rewild as a feral forest goblin, and embody the idea of a gnome riding on the back of a possom, rolling up to you in a little car made of autumnal forest detritus and saying, “get in losers, we’re gonna admire moss and mushrooms in the forest.”

The three images above, let me explain them. The first is “Faerie Music,” which Brett kindly permitted me to include the the pages of The Art of Fantasy: A Treasury of All That Is Unreal.

Here is the caption I wrote for it and which you will find included in the book:

“Fiddling, strumming and tootling through the twilight while lounging about on cosy toadstools, the faerie folk musicians by contemporary artist Brett Manning are a captivating blend of dainty and earthy, and seem envisioned from both ancient books of forest folklore and your favourite well-thumbed local woodland cryptid guide. A maker who wears many hats (probably woven by gnomes with spider silk and beetle wings), Manning’s whimsical, magic creations take the form of illustrations as well as cavorting and capering all over the clothing that she designs.”

The second image is a photo of Brett’s artwork in the Korean language edition of The Art of Fantasy, and the third photo is from where I ran the Korean caption through a translator, and it gave me back an English version. I don’t think this is actually how it reads in Korean, but …I also kind of hope so?

“Modern painter Brett Manning sat on a cosy poisonous mushroom, in the twilight, played the violin, ripped the harp, drew fairy flute musicians, capturing the elegant earthy nature. In this paining, we can think of both ancient folk tales and our favourite guides to unidentified creatures in our woods and our neighborhood. Manning’s quirky and magical creation, which mainly uses a hat (like a fairy in the ground woven with spider’s webs and beetle wings), is not only embodied in illustrations, but also plays cheerfully in the clothes she designs.”

I love the idea of Brett sitting on a mushroom, playing a violin and ripping a harp, and using a hat to create! Honestly, that may have been better than what I wrote.

Through her art, Manning invites us to peek into hidden nooks and corners where we can almost hear the lilting melodies played on instruments of nature, a secret serenade echoing through the twilight woods, performed by faeries, cryptids, spirits, and other strange entities that exist on the fringes and in the peripheries.  So next time you find yourself wandering through a sun-dappled sylvan setting, keep an ear out. Perhaps you’ll catch a glimpse of Manning’s whimsical creations, their music weaving a spell of wonder and enchantment, their whispers urging you to get lost in the woods and never to be seen again.

As you contemplate trading modern trappings for the untamed beauty of fanciful forest realms, and perhaps even become one with moss and bugs, indulge in daydreams of the things between and unseen.

Below, a gallery awaits, showcasing my favorites among Manning’s works, inviting you to embark on your own journey through her weird woodland worlds.

Find Brett Manning: Etsy // Instagram // Book: One Foot In The Green

If you enjoy these art-related writings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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Could it be that our Ten Things feature has returned, for real? Well, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves (I’m a bit superstitious like that and don’t like to make those kinds of declarations, BUT…)

I am extraordinarily pleased that this month we are hearing from my long-time internet friend, Jack Guignol, whose dark, gothic tastes in literature, music, and film are absolutely impeccable, and whenever I peek over at the atmosphere and ambiance of the stories/supplements he shares on his blog, it always makes me wish I were way more into D&D than I actually am. For reference, I am zero percent into D&D–it makes me very anxious!–but his blog posts make me YEARN!

Jack is also the co-host, along with Tenebrous Kate, one of my other favorite internet people, of BAD BOOKS FOR BAD PEOPLE–a podcast where two ridiculously smart people talk about the weirdest, kinkiest, most outrageous books they can unearth. I can count the podcasts I am interested in on three fingers, and these guys consistently invite us into insightful and entertaining discussions on truly offbeat literature. They are the ultimate excavators of the darkest corners of the bookshelf and my go-to for bizarre literary deep dives.

When Jack asked me last month if we might be interested in a Ten Things focused on …well, whatever he wanted to write about… I said HELL YEAH. And now, today, we have ten glorious recommendations from the realm of Euro-Gothic cinema, where classic Gothic themes like vampires, haunted castles, and dark family secrets intertwine with distinct national filmmaking styles and historical anxieties, creating a truly unique and unsettling cinematic experience.

I found some beloved favorites listed below and some thrilling titles I’ve never even heard of, so I think you’re going to have a lot of fun with this one. Thank you kindly, Jack!

Jack is a scholar of all things morbid and literary. He is a cohost of the Bad Books for Bad People podcast, the creator of the PLANET MOTHERFUCKER roleplaying game (better have your “show me adult content” filter checked for that one, it’s outrageous), and has a chapter in the forthcoming book Something Wicked: Witchcraft in Movies, Television, and Popular Culture from Bloomsbury Academic.

Black Sunday (1960): Loosely based on Nikolai Gogol’s Viy, Black Sunday (also known as La maschera del demonio or The Mask of the Demon) was Mario Bava’s directorial debut–and what a debut it is. Barbara Steele, the stunning Queen of the Euro Gothics, does double duty starring as both Asa Vajda, a condemned witch, and Katia Vajda, a haunted and beautiful young woman in danger of having her youth and vitality drained when Asa returns as the undead. Black Sunday is a gorgeous film; from the famous opening scene in which a mask is nailed over Asa’s face before execution to the big reveal of the final reel, you could press pause at any point and come away with a stunning still image that captures the macabre beauty of the genre.

The Church (1989): The literary Gothic tradition is rife with convoluted storytelling combined with a heady brew of anti-Catholic anxieties, so why should its cinematic counterpart be any different? Originally intended as a sequel to Lamberto Bava’s Demons series, director Michele Soavi insisted that The Church be a separate entity with its own filmic identity. There’s a lot in the mix in this movie, but it’s all classic Gothicisms: a gloomy cathedral whose catacombs harbor a dark secret from the medieval past, something-something about Teutonic Knights, and a priest who just wants to watch the world burn.

Dark Waters (1994): Straddling the line between Gothic horror and folk horror, Dark Waters is a dream-like film that should appeal to viewers who have room in their hearts for both H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and Mattew Lewis’s The Monk. Elizabeth (played by Louise Salter) arrives at a convent on an isolated island during a tempest; she is assigned Sarah (Venera Simmons), a young novice, to be her guide. The two women delve into the forbidden mysteries of the convent’s library, the secrets in the convent’s catacombs, and even Elizabeth’s own tainted familial history.

Eyes Without a Face (1960): Who needs “elevated horror” when we have Georges Fanju’s 1960 classic Eyes Without a Face? Dr. Génessier (played by Pierre Brasseur) will do anything to restore the beauty of his daughter Christiane (Édith Scob), who was disfigured in a car accident. And by “do anything,” I mean abducting and murdering young women so he can attempt to graft their faces onto Christiane’s damaged visage. The masked Christiane is a truly tragic figure; even with her face hidden behind a stoic expression, Édith Scob manages to convey an overwhelming sense of sadness that spills over into madness. Despite being such a dark film, it’s also one of the most beautifully shot on this list.

The Gorgon (1964): You could put just about any Hammer Horror joint with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee on this list, but I’m including The Gorgon here for one simple reason: instead of the usual Gothic monsters such as vampires, werewolves, and mummies, this movie has a snake-haired lady who turns people to stone as its central figure of terror. There’s a fun wrinkle with the monster here too–an otherwise normal-looking woman becomes a gorgon on nights of the full moon! You will have no trouble figuring out who the gorgon is (there just aren’t that many women in the movie), but you’re sure to enjoy the schlocky thrills of a Hammer movie made from a story submitted to the company by one of its fans.

Lady Frankenstein (1971): Lady Frankenstein is a film of star-studded madness that features the considerable talents of Rosalba Neri, Joseph Cotten, and Mickey Margitay. Tania Frankenstein (played by Rosalba Neri) arrives home from medical school, but she’s already well aware of what her father’s experiments are really about. No shrinking violet, she wants in on the transgressive mad science action! Of course, like most Frankenstein flicks, this one features a monster running amok–though this one is doing his best “Jason will kill you if you are nude romping in the woods” gimmick. That would be enough for most movies of this ilk, but Lady Frankenstein doesn’t know how to say “no” to excess: add in brain transplants, seductions and murders, and the obligatory peasants with torches and pitchforks storming the castle.

The Long Hair of Death (1964): The Long Hair of Death, which also stars Barbara Steele in dual roles, would make an excellent pairing with Black Sunday for a Euro-Gothic double feature. Steele plays Helen Rochefort, a woman whose mother was burned at the stake as a witch for the “sin” of being desired by a powerful man. Helen, too is killed for confronting male power and its base lasciviousness. But the story doesn’t end there! On a stormy night, a mysterious woman named Mary, who is uncannily identical to Helen, appears at the castle to pursue revenge against patriarchal hypocrisy in an extremely morbid and overheated Gothic way.

Mill of the Stone Women (1960): Hans (played by Pierre Brice) arrives at an obscure island to research a legendary carousel of female statues created by Gregorious Wahl (Herbert A.E. Böhme). During his visit to the mill, Hans falls in obsessional love with Wahl’s supposedly ill daughter Elfie (Scilla Gabel). What follows in the film is an absolutely insane tangle of psychological fixations, corrosive love, and murderous desire. And the titular carousel of statues? Absolutely unhinged when they appear on screen. I can practically guarantee that you will be haunted by the film’s final images.

The Vampire Lovers (1970): Did you really think we’d get through this list without running into a vampire movie? Specifically, a lesbian vampire movie? The Vampire Lovers is an adaptation of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic Carmilla with all the sapphic dials and opportunities to exercise the “male gaze” turned up to eleven; with Ingrid Pitt as the vampiress Carmilla Karnstein and Madeline Smith as her desired prey, The Vampire Lovers is the epitome of “Hammer Glamour.”

The Whip and the Body (1963): We started this list with Mario Bava, and by God, we are going to end it with Mario Bava too. Whereas Black Sunday is an undeniable atmospheric classic, The Whip and the Body is for the sickos only; if you’ve made it through the other films on the list, you can have The Whip and the Body as a little sadomasochistic treat. It really does what it says on the tin–it features both whips and bodies. Make no mistake, this is a vile little movie, but it has got Gothic nonsense like familial strife, transgressive sexual desire, and dubious inheritance claims galore.

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The creations borne of Anna Mond’s marvelously strange brain noodles are gleefully grotesque, wickedly cheeky, ghoulishly precious brouhahas with a through line of the weirdest humor steeped in simultaneous cups of cracked darkness and silliness. A chorus line of goggle-eyed electric blue skeletons pirouette madly; a fuzzy mushroom-homunculi-thing drunkenly rides on the back of a bewildered spider; a celestial diablerie of witchy critters deliriously possess the midnight sky.

All manner of creatures and beings and God knows what else cavort and caper in garish, gooey blurbling blobs of color drooled across the canvas in a vibrant rascality of shenanigans. I stare at these paintings rapturously, my bones all vibrating in a mad, magic jig and they make me want to do something crazy!

…and I don’t think I am the only one! The comment section of the artist’s Instagram account are frenzied fever dream free-for-all digital art raves where everyone’s losing their minds in the best way possible.

Fans are obsessed with the imaginative artist’s work and are moved to express their wild interpretations and emotions. They compliment the canvases, caption them with an imaginary script or song lyrics or meme du jour, analyze the content, the inspiration, the technique; they ramble at length with the fables and fictions the work evokes in them; they share last night’s unrelated dream, and recipes, and various theories and conspiracies!

From what I can tell, Anna Mond is a somewhat enigmatic individual. The artist’s website doesn’t offer much in the way of information, and although the handful of interviews do illuminate various inspirations in the form of artists: Atsuko Tanaka, Clementine Hunter, Zinaida Serebryakova, Sister Plautilla Nelli and music: Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and Elvis and a love of fairy tales and horror, I haven’t found much more insight into the mind of this artist.

One thing I did learn was that Anna Mond refers to the work as “Fantasticalizm”–and really, how peculiar and playful and perfect is that? Fantasticalizm! I don’t need to know anything more, really!

Just let me fill my eyeballs with these visions of wild, wondrous, weirdness forever, please.

Find Anna Mond: website // Instagram

If you enjoy these art-related writings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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Heart Beet (raw, wet beets, pulsating blood musk, and raw wild ginger) I was a little scared to try this one because I’ve read that the same component that gives petrichor, that old rain-whisperer, that wet, mineralic tang, is also present in beets. Geosmin. This irregular sesquiterpenoid explains why I do not care for the scent of petrichor and cannot stomach beets. Except for pickled beets, which I love, but I’m a bit of a pickle fiend; you could probably pickle up an old boot, and I’d love that, too. But in Heart Beet there is only the swiftest, most fleeting whiff of dirt and stony dampness and then the immediacy of what I think of as shampoo ginger. We have a profusion of ginger-but-not-quite-ginger growing wild in our backyard, and when you dig it up, it looks just like ginger, and it has that same fiery-floral tang of fresh ginger too, but there’s something that smells a little soapy about it, as well, which gave us pause and made us think maybe we shouldn’t be eating it! We looked it up, and we are pretty sure it’s “shampoo ginger,” which could be eaten (but it’s bitter) but is more often used in toiletries and cosmetics. And then, at the back of that zesty-floral-freshness is a murky musk, slightly sweet, subtly earthy hum that is so weirdly, unexpectable wearable.  This scent is as if you dug up a magenta-blooded, lumpy, heart-shaped taproot and deemed it a quirky imaginary friend and shared all your juicy secrets with it…and then that dang beet tried to give you some sassy advice.

Pistachio Ambrosia (a whipped green dream, pale and pillowy with multicolored mini marshmallows, densely studded with bits of pineapple, mandarin, and shredded coconut) Well, you thought this was a Tupperware party – Jello molds, covered casserole dishes, PTA gossip. But you knew different the moment you saw those seafoam green formica counters had been converted to a burlesque runway. All your friends do shots of ground pistachio paste lightened with pineapple juice’s fizzing neon effervescence, folded into the creamiest, velvety custard…laced with acid. You don’t want to seem like a square, so down it goes! The last thing you remember is your hostess’s outrageous shimmy and the mesmerizing billowing twirl of her whipped cream pasties. You awake on your front lawn, the technicolor escapades of the night before swimming before your eyes, the taste of an astronaut ice cream tiki drinks on your tongue.

Rhubarb Custard Muffins (tender chunks of tart rhubarb stalks spangled with oven-browned sugar crystals, nestled in a crown of golden cake generously marbled with jet-streams of warm custard) Last year, I bought a quartet of Strawberry Shortcake-themed candles. My excuse for this foolishness, not that anyone is asking me to justify myself, is that I’d had a bad day, which turned into a series of bad days, culminating in a whole-ass bad month. I was excited to illuminate these little beacons of nostalgia, but sadly, each was more disappointing than the last. If I’d had Rhubarb Custard Muffins and unscented wax (and, I suppose, any amount of ambition or motivation to speak of), I could have recreated exactly what I, as an adult now, was seeking in those candles with this scent’s vibrant bracing blush of rhubarb enlivened further by the jeweled, juicy tang of strawberry, and tempered–only slightly so– by a creamy vanilla drizzle of custard and scant dusting of oaty streusel. This is a scent brimming with cheeky, exuberant optimism that rips its tart heart right out of its chest and offers it to you immediately upon meeting you, no questions asked. This is what that drab stable of Strawberry Shortcake candles should have been!

Green Maraschino (peppermint-laced preserved cherries soaking in thick lime syrup, dashed with a sliver of yuzu) Have you ever wondered what the juice of a green traffic light smelled like? A vibrant emerald energy, an invigorating jolt of minty-metallic kisses and 1000% saturation sugar syrup highs, punctuated by the fleeting tang of the citrusy unknown; it’s the electrifying hum before the exhilarating rush.

White Chocolate and Taro Cream A dusty, earthy white chocolate that initially smells, texturally, like the nostalgic magics of those light, crispy, waffle-stamped wafer cookies.  A starchy vanilla-almond floral creme sandwiches them together, and suddenly it becomes something too pretty to eat. This smells both familiar and dreamlike in the way that pictures from half-remembered childhood storybooks still feel like familiar friends, so keep that in mind when I tell you that this scent smells like the art of Amy Earles.

White Chocolate, Orange Blossom, Sugar Crystals, & Champagne Talk about the unexpected! I was expecting a soft white chocolate and orange blossom water scent, but this one is unexpectedly nutty- toasty-malty with a bit of oaky-leathery-coffee and plummy-orchid-florals! But if you wait a bit…that’s when things get really good. On the dry-down, this becomes a velvety soft cocoa butter, warm brown sugar musk, and it’s just the perfect balance of intriguing/familiar and comforting/captivating, sweet-but-not-too-sweet, close-to-the-skin scent.

Roses, Pearls, and Sapphires (lavender rose petals, coconut husk, cerulean blue musk, agave, and blueberry resin) I smelled this one, and I thought so many things all at once! Firstly, this scent and its kin are inspired by one of my favorite fairy tales, “Toads and Diamonds,” by Charles Perrault. It impressed certain things upon me so vividly that to this day, I am not sure if I am nice to people because that’s in my nature, because it’s the right way to act, OR is it because who knows when you might meet a secret fairy and be gifted with pie-hole baubles because you were kind to them! I mean, you never know! So am I being nice to people so that it will result in material gain? That’s not great, right? Conversely, this made me think about how all of my life, even up until now, because I’ve never learned my lesson and I don’t know any other way to be, I give away everything I have. As a child, I’d give my classmates my pretty markers, my plastic jewelry, and my favorite Barbie dresses–all with the hopes of someone being nice to me. I do it still. I love my material things, but I will shove them in your face and shout, “Take them!” if I think there’s a chance it will make you like me. Just last week, someone I barely know DMed me and asked me for money to help pay their rent. I don’t have money to throw around, but I thought, “But what if not helping them makes them not like me!” Then I Venmoed them $200. I thought getting older meant caring less about stuff like this, but somehow it’s even worse now. You might think, hey, Sarah’s written three books; she must be making some kind of money! WRONG! Do you even know how many books I have just outright given away? I haven’t made money, friends. I have lost money. It all makes me feel very foolish, like a big joke if I am being honest, and also very small. And feeling small gets me thinking about little-Sarah and all the things she loved best but never really shared how or why, because she thought giving her things away was the silver bullet to making connections with people. As opposed to giving of myself, sharing things about me and who I am.  So, I will share with you now. Dolls with blue hair, the Mermistas and Frostas, the Ajas and the Stormers, the Blueberry Muffins and Lily Fairs and Sailor Mercuries. These were my favorites. I thought they were like me. Shy, sweet, maybe a little sad, definitely a little spacy. But your spacy friends are your dreamer friends! When you’re being mean to us, you’re being mean to this perfume, which smells of all of the gentle blue haired dolls that we channelled all of our love into, and then gave it all away.

Roses, Pearls and Emeralds (rose sap, gleaming ivy, orris root, sweet oakmoss, pine needle, lime rind, and juniper) In Tiffany Morris’ novella Green Fuse Burning, the author writes, “Spring was an assault that arrived at the door with flowers in hand…” and Roses, Pearls, and Emeralds is the olfactory equivalent of that neon green revelation. The lime, juniper, and pine comingle to create something surprisingly unarboreal, more oceanic, but also unnervingly electric. Massive bioluminescent algal blooms cause ocean dead zones, and ultraviolet radiation runs amok in wild grottoes and caverns. The rose, oh wily troublesome rose! (Me and rose have history!) is the unexpected, benevolent note-wrangler in this composition, reigning in the maritime radioactivity and lending a soft floral haze that settles and soothes and coaxes it back to land. A little cottage garden that sometimes dreams of kaiju.

The Serpent in the Carnations (Snake Oil-soaked carnation petals, spiked with a dash of clove and allspice.) Often times I get an idea in my head that one scent from these collections is DEFINITELY going to be my favorite, but I am often wrong because I’ll get surprised by something else along the way. I think this time, my prediction was correct. I had a feeling I would love this slithery scent, and I do–it smells exactly like being mesmerized by an art nouveau femme fatale sorceress, just like the gal in Karl Alexander Wilke’s artwork we see here on the label art.  The eerie mortuary spice of carnations alongside Snake Oil’s thick, heavily sugared incense makes for the most wicked avant-garde bohemian ghoulishness; I want to bathe in it, poison admirers with it, all the things.

Our Lady Of Pain (Sumatran patchouli, blood musk, white lavender, opium tar, and black orchid) Aloof and alluring, a cool, bitter metallic shiver, like poison painting the tip of a small curved blade; musk and throbbing darkness, like psychic muscles cramped around the remembrance of a wound. The scent of duels lost, blood on the ground, moonlight elegies–all impressively tragic stuff, outrageous melodramas played out on the stage of one’s own mind…as is the wont of those of us who are really good at hurting our own feelings. Our Lady Of Pain is the most beautiful, most diabolical of Mean Girls…but as they say, the calls are coming from inside the house. 

There Yet Shall Be Sorrows (white sandalwood, black cypress, wormwood, creeping willow, and rue) A damp, earthy green and cold minerality like a shroud of moss scraped from a frost-flowered gravestone. A soft, dusty herbal whisper, like crushed leaves scattered in wild, wet weather.  A path of long silence and deepening shadow.

The Shrine Where Sin Is A Prayer (deep purple Syrah, calamus, myrrh smoke, hyssop, opoponax, bitter clove, burgundy pitch, opium poppy, and violet leaf) Thinking about this perfume is akin to thinking about stars, or color; as in, the light we’re now seeing is from a star already dead, or how the color of an apricot is what we perceive it to be because some wavelengths of the spectrum are being absorbed and some are bouncing off and what we actually see in the end is all of the colors that it is not. Speaking of apricots– this is how I know that no matter how many perfumes I smell or reviews I write, I am still no closer to knowing anything at all. Despite not being listed in the notes, apricot is what I smell here. A thickly jelled apricot marmalade into which the slow poison of sweet herbs are suspended and inky drippings of wine swirl like smoke. Imagine dipping a quill into this sticky jam jar; envision penning your deepest buried needs and secret yearnings. Consider that each word preserved in these conserves comes at a cost; know that when you’ve emptied the pot, the bill comes due. Though much like million-year-old starlight and all the colors we cannot see, these are abstract repercussions, problems for future-us to solve. Let’s gather our marmalade wishes while we may, then. The pot is full for now.

Sister Death (pale gilded lilies and roses in the labdanum shadow of a yew tree, a sprig of forget-me-not, the dwindling memory of a genteel cologne, and the honeyed breathlessness of a kiss) A sharp inhale of florals with something, a sweet pang of memory, a tender, fruiting slip of dream, floating just underneath the surface, just beyond your grasp that you can’t touch no matter how you reach for it; the reflection in the pool that no matter how deep you swim, you can never close the distance.

Poets Hearts Break So (bourbon vanilla fougere, violet leaf, iris root, Italian bergamot, porcelain accord, and a trickle of red musk)Sun-leached bitter citrus, vanilla dust motes trembling in fractured light – lace curtains, cobwebbed and frayed. A single wilted violet bears witness to the fleeting nature of affection; a shattered porcelain angel weeps tears of melancholic orris-tinged grief; the air is thick with a euphoric effluvium of malefic ecstasy, the intense overripe sweetness of red musk and ravaged souls, beauty tinged with madness, a poet’s overwrought breakup sonnet forever immortalized in a single, gleefully melodramatic, flamboyantly maddening scent.

Delightful Gargantuan Vagina (red mango pulp, sugared orange blossom, mimosa, pink musk, and sweet incense)  There was a poem I once read that introduced to me how I now consider the mango. This occurred during the years of what I now like to think of as “another life,” and I don’t think of those years often or the person I shared them with because it was not a good time. At any rate, it was this person who shared the piece of writing with me quite early on in our relationship in that love-bombing kind of way where someone showers you with excessive, special attention as part of their arsenal of manipulative tactics. Starved for feeling special, I ate it up. This was circa 2000 or so when Flash websites were all the rage, and it was not an easy thing to copy and paste or print out or whatever, and so I don’t recall the whole thing, and I’ve never been able to find it again. I only remember the first line: “The flesh of a mango…reminds me of rot…” I never forgot that. I also came to the conclusion that mango’s musky, sweet, slightly sour pulp smells very much like kissing the mouth of the person who has just moments ago been intimately tasting you. I told my sisters about this realization a few years ago, and I was shocked at how upset they were hearing this… and, to this day, neither of them has ever forgiven me for it!  I find this absolutely wild because none of us are prudes, we talk about all kinds of stuff, so I honestly didn’t think I was saying anything beyond the pale! And being an obnoxious older sister, instead of apologizing, I have since doubled down on my opinion. I am rambling at this point because I think I am struggling to say anything coherent, let alone clever or poetic about this scent, so I’ll just leave it here: mango, with its unsubtle dissonance between desire and decay and overt suggestions of eros and thanatos…is actually quite subdued in this scent. What I smell instead is the zesty, juicy piquancy of a perfectly sectioned mandarin orange, and the complex, fragrant secrets of orange blossoms in April, and a fizzy, powdery vinegar shrub of mimosa honey. It’s quite lovely, and definitely more palatable than my mango analogy, I guess!

Encounter With A Female Ghost (cypress, immortelle, and white amber enveloping red spider lily petals, dragon’s blood resin, and black plum) A single, spectral bloom tucked amidst the cypress trees; rainwater which has caught the reflection of the moon; the shimmering peal of a cracked bell at the 13th hour–

The Shimmering Mirror (pine pitch brocade, amber incense smoke, Mysore sandalwood, myrrh, red benzoin, inky patchouli, and an oakmoss fougere) The red benzoin and amber incense smoke combine to make a strangely sultry balsamic floral scent that brings to mind some sort of supplication to a saint of dangerous sensuality, a prayer along the lines of, “Poppy crowned queen of night, patroness of thieves and robbers, friend, and light to all that burns.” I wish I could remember where I read that! Which has nothing to do with this next reference, but you know all those romantasy books that are all the rage right now? Like “A Court of this thing and those things?” This is a perfume that smells like the heady promises of those lavishly fantastical, come-hither book covers.

Chestnut Vulva (sweet chestnut, vanilla cashmere, toasted cardamom, and caramel) is an unexpected autumnal fantasy of comforting warmth and intriguing depth. Velvety chestnut puree, smooth and sweet, with a subtle hint of milky creaminess; a touch of unsweetened cocoa powder adds unexpected depth, grounding the sweetness with a hint of earthiness, like fallen leaves crunching underfoot, while geese fly low on the horizon. Cardamom’s delicate floral spice is whipped into a toasted meringue, a luxurious garnish in a thermos full of this enchantingly warming fall beverage in the dying light of an October afternoon when the spring sun showers seem a long way off.

The Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab 2024 Lupercalia collection is currently live and available for purchase. As this is a limited edition series, sample sizes imps are not available.

Need more Lupercalia scents? Have a peep at my Lupers reviews from 2023 and 2022 and 2021 and 2020. Looks like I skipped a few years but we’ve also got 2017 and 2016 reviews as well!

…PSSSST! Did you know I have collected all of my BPAL reviews into one spot? I’m about a year behind with adding new stuff to the document, but as it stands, there are over 60 PAGES of my thoughts and rambles on various limited-edition scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab over the years: BPAL REVIEWS BY S. ELIZABETH (PDF download)

If you enjoy these fragrant musings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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There’s a world veiled in static on the periphery of our vision, where dreams and nightmares bleed into one another. Glimpsed in flickering candlelight and whispered shadows of tangled vines in fairytales, we sense it creeping, seeping into our reality.

We’ve entered the unrestful realms of British artist Stephen Mackey, where his paintings serve as portals to lands of darksome lullabies, unsettling dreamscapes of perpetual twilight evanescence. With each brushstroke, Mackey weaves secret tales of the precious and the sinister, the twisted romance of unquiet beauty.

Beneath the whimsical surface of Mackey’s paintings lies a darkness that lurks, unseen but palpable. Ethereal maidens appear to frolic with fantastical creatures, beauties dream soundly in enchanted canopied beds, and primp before shimmering mirrors. Yet, closer inspection reveals scenes fraught with lurking tension – the subtle dance between predator and prey, the maze of perils and pathways dark and bewitched.

Are these glimpses into a world existing just beyond our perception, where fairytales take a darker turn? Or are they manifestations of Mackey’s own subconscious, a shadowy reflection of the human psyche?

Mackey himself comments wryly about his cryptic creative persona, ‘No information = mystique . . . You can have any facts you want, but you’re sworn to secrecy.’ Keep your secrets then, Mr. Mackey! We’ll develop some haunted and outlandish theories of our own!

Self-taught and inspired by the great French, Dutch, and Italian masters of the Renaissance, there’s a definite echo of Romanticism in his works, a touch of Fuseli’s nightmarish visions and Blake’s mystical explorations. Yet, a distinctly modern disquiet prowls beneath the surface. Peer deeply, and you’ll find unsettling details: the death-curses of butterflies in spring, a somnambulist’s fear of the dark, a crescent moon glowing eerily in a noontime sky. These subtle elements disrupt the tranquility, hinting at a world teetering on the edge of something unknown.

In these scenes of capricious glooms, somber palettes, velvety textures, and hushed intimacy, one also senses that the sleeper may awaken at any moment, and these menacing monsters and melancholic mysteries? Perhaps we’ve shattered the illusion, and they were never there at all.

Stephen Mackey’s The Sandman can be seen in the pages of The Art of Darkness: A Treasury of the Morbid, Melancholic and Macabre. You can find more of Stephen Mackey’s art over on his Instagram.

If you enjoy these art-related writings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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Earlier this month, I was one of the co-hosts for Elizabeth/Reading Wryly’s Midnight Society Book Club, and in her introduction of us, she mentioned I was someone she admired for actively “romanticizing my life.” And that surprised me because I don’t think of myself as someone who does that. But that’s the thing…I don’t think about it. When I paused to ponder for a moment, it occurred to me that, sure, of course, that’s exactly what I do! I’ve just been doing it so long that I never even considered it was a “thing,” let alone a thing I spent time doing.

I’m not even sure I understand what it means to “romanticize your life,” but for me, I think that looks like taking the things I do every day and just making them more…special, I guess? I’ve always wanted to live a life that looked like the pictures in my late grandmother’s Betty Crocker’s New Picture Cookbook. I think a lot of us have those formative memories of what we think/hope adult life is supposed to look like, and somewhere along the way, we realize, nope, adult life is ugly chaos– and that you’ve got to actually work to make it look like a scallop-tiered, charming cupcake cutie carousel. And really, that’s all I am doing. Trying to conjure meringue-frosted, angel food cake feelings as I go about my daily experiences.

At least on the surface, that’s what it looks like I am doing. But then I thought about it some more…

In my early twenties, I was living in a tiny, crappy Daytona Beach riverside apartment; fifteen minutes away was the enormous racetrack that NASCAR fans flocked to, and a two-minute walk away was the Boothill Saloon, where the bikers congregated during bike week. Compound that with living directly in the middle of a tacky spring break town, and you could definitely say I did not feel like I was living the most elegant of lifestyles. At that time, I was in community college, I was working dead-end part-time jobs, my boyfriend was a flaky musician who was involved with some shady stuff with his brother, and they would both disappear for days on end. I was constantly broke, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and I was constantly living with the disappointment and dread that I was going nowhere fast–and I didn’t know the first thing to do about it.

My baby sister and I would sometimes meet up at our local Barnes and Noble, scrape our money together to buy a few coffee drinks in the cafe, and look at beautiful books. We wanted to “live elegantly.” We wanted to create spaces for ourselves that felt not only safe and comfortable but fulfilled that longing to be living a life that felt special, somehow. It wasn’t enough to be living in a world where we were barely scraping by; we knew there was beauty in the universe, and we wanted our fingers on the pulse of it.

And I could, I could really feel that haunting tug of loveliness in the world…but it was just beyond my grasp, constantly dancing outside my periphery and I could never sustain it. Because lived right on the river, where there was a little dock jutting out from the crusty parking lot in the back of the building. Whenever I’d park under the crumbling carport after work in the evening, I’d pause a moment before heading up the dim, narrow staircase to our one-bedroom apartment with the janky AC that was broken more often than not, and just watch the sun reflecting off the water, glittering wildly like a handful of carelessly tossed coins. I lived for that moment, and I wanted more. But I didn’t know where to find it. So, that’s where the books and Barnes and Noble came in. We would sit there for hours reading books we couldn’t afford (we spent our money on the coffee!) And we dreamed.

Two books in particular I remember from this time are Alexandra Stoddard’s Living A Beautiful Life and Living Juicy by Sark. They must have been gifts, either from my family or the members of the poetry society I was part of at college. They have been savagely well-loved over the years, even though something inside me rebelled against Sark with her bright colors and relentlessly cheery affirmations!

Circumstances changed, and a decade or so later, I found myself in New Jersey! Despite working two jobs to pay rent, I had no friends and very little in the way of social life, so I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. This is when I truly began to take notice of and appreciate art and music; I spent a lot of time on Tumblr, curating an ongoing gallery of eyeball-pleasing things, and, constantly seeking new sounds and eager to share them, I would make weekly playlists over at 8tracks. I frequented the MakeupAlley and BPAL forums and became more and more fascinated with fragrance. It was the heyday of food blogs and knitting blogs, so I was forever trying new recipes and patterns, and just blogs, in general, were feeding my curiosity and appetite for learning about new and intriguing things. This was when I moved my blogging from Live Journal to something I built and hosted myself so that I could write about and photograph all of the things I was reading, watching, baking, and listening to, in a way that felt more personalized, that I had more ownership of.

My photography skills were abysmal, and many years later, they are not all that much better, but it was in the attempt to capture images of all the things I had made that I began paying more attention to how they looked. And they didn’t look anything like those Betty Crocker cookbooks! So I kept trying! I still don’t have an eye for balance or symmetry or lighting or perspective, but if nothing else, I think have an eye for detail, and a “more is more” instinct that gives my images a sort of special je ne sais quoi, even if they are not technically great pieces of art. During that time, I had a lot of fun creating little “Adornment Tableaux,” where I would try to artfully arrange and photograph my jewelry and perfume for the day.

I was sad and lonely a lot, and I was in a shitty, abusive relationship with a shitty, awful person…but I had a burgeoning perfume and art collection, I could escape into books and movies, and came to know the terrible joy of throwing oneself into their writing. I took long, long walks in autumnal graveyards and frozen river strolls and immersed myself in neighborhood explosions of spring florals. I experienced what beauty I could, and I survived.

Time flies! Another decade has passed! I am back in Florida. Daytona-adjacent again. But I have now got a partner who is loving and encouraging of my hobbies (which is great because not only do I no longer have to hide them, I have got someone who will actually offer to help me!), and I do not have to pay the rent all by myself, so now I have a bit of discretionary income. My collections of beautiful things grow, and I grow tiny followings on social media sharing these things. My mother gets cancer and dies a year later. My grandfather dies two summers after that. Two years later, the day after Valentine’s Day, my grandmother passes away as well. A lot of turmoil and sadness in a few short years. Still, I have my sisters, and I have Yvan, and I have late summer roses and the ocean at sunrise on New Year’s Day, and I have so many artists, old and new, that I am learning about and obsessing over and interviewing and writing about.

And then I am signing a contract to write a book about some of that art! And then the world goes weird and sick and sideways. People are unwell and dying, and we are quarantining ourselves away for a long time from everyone, even those we know and love best in the world. Now I have more time than ever before. I don’t have to cancel plans in a moment of introverted panic; plans never got made in the first place. We live like this for a year and a half.  My first book is released at the height of the pandemic. Within the next six months, I am contracted to write another. And then another.

During this time, there is also a lot of baking and and growing and knitting–and the arranging prettily and immortalizing the results of these things.  I continue to share them, and to write about them, even though I never know if anyone is listening or if it is just so much throwing flowers into the void. In 2022, with nothing tying us to the area anymore, we decided it would be smart to move closer to Yvan’s parents. They are getting on in years, and it would be better if we were nearby. We pack up house and move two hours north. I collect assorted blooms from our ragtag little gardens and jam them into a McDonald’s cup as we drive away from our old neighborhood for the last time.

We’ve now been in this new house for almost two years. It’s too big for us, so we’ve filled it with too much junk. It’s draped in perpetual twilight, and all of our indoor plants die… which is just as well because we’ve got a hyper-strict HOA and we have to spend all of our time outside trimming, mowing, raking, sweeping. It’s been one thing after another, constant chaos. We’ve had to remove trees because they were growing under the house the the roots were breaking up the garage floor. We had to have the entire house’s worth of ductwork replaced. We are redoing the flooring by replacing all of the nasty carpets with wood (or woody bits; I don’t know the difference) at the same time as knocking down walls and building closets, so all of the stuff and furniture at one end of the house has all been stuffed into the other end of the house, and it’s a big, dusty, messy mess. As someone who loves the safety and comfort of home, this has neither felt comfortable nor 100% safe, and all in all, it’s most unlovely. I was joking with Yvan the other day that the only way I have made it through the past three months is by just disassociating entirely. I was mostly not joking.

But what also got me through it is remembering all of the other things I got through to get here. And here, for all its messiness, is a really good place to be. And to be in this good place with such a good person by my side? I never thought that would be me. Sad, scared 21-year-old me looking out over the Halifax river, wishing for another kind of life, or really, any kind of life at all–she had no idea. 28-year-old me was going to have to go through a lot of shit to get here, too. 20-years later-me gets it. Maybe? But 47-going-on-48-year-old me recognizes the hubris in saying such a thing, too!

I have cultivated a life rich in experience, even when the circumstances weren’t ideal. My story hasn’t been about curating some pristine pretense of perfection, like those retro tableclothed displays of fake cakes–it’s about acknowledging the messiness and finding the poetry within it. I still don’t actually properly know what it means to “romanticize your life.” (Sort of like I never figured out what people are getting up to when they do “shadow work.” Like, I know we have to explore and integrate our wounds and traumas and whatnot, but HOW?!) But I reckon, at least for me, viewing your life through this lens of the romantic has to do with using your dreams as guiding stars, your darkness as a catalyst, and finding a light in the cracks. Finding solace in art, writing, and the beauty of nature; channeling creativity through the darkness. The quiet joy of everyday moments that become infused with a touch of the extraordinary through the active practice of those creative rituals.

Those cookbooks and early Barnes and Noble dreams fueled a lifelong quest for beauty, a journey that unearthed glittering moments in the most unexpected places – a sunset on a river, a meticulously arranged perfume tray. Even during dark times, the embers of that yearning for those moments glowed, transforming sadness and loss into art, stories, and photographs. My life may never resemble a picture-perfect still life, but it’s a weird, wild, wonky knit stitched from experience, resilience, a big imagination, and a healthy dose of accidental romanticism. And that, I believe, is a story worth sharing. Whether anyone is reading, watching, or caring at all.

If a seed is thrown into the void and no one is there to catch it on the other side, does it still bloom? I’ve dreamed these flowers my whole life. They’re waiting for me.

If you enjoy this navel-gazing nonsense, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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Over on TikTok this month, I shared a not-quite-a-review for a bland freebie from Sephora that actually gave me a lot to think about; I share a “get to know me in 10 perfumes“; and I give a peek into how I store my myriad perfume samples. And below are a handful of the things I smelled this month!

19.1 Neroli Ad Astra by Pierre Guillaume Paris is a galactic striptease performed by a dazzling spectacle of radiant holographic beings. ​​The opening is a burst of effervescent pear, the fruity flamboyant fizz of a champagne fountain in zero gravity. Showstopping neroli swoops in, opulent, heady with a teasing coolness, like a sheen of ice crystals on silvery spacesuit pasties reflecting the glitter and glare of a distant sun. There’s a green velvet gloved graze of herbaceous, rose-tinged geranium, a coy peep at jasmine’s rich floral sweetness, and the low cosmic hum of a soft, deep musk, anchoring the fragrance even as it reaches for the stars, a celestial burlesque performance amongst the glimmering expanse of forever.

RE: Tóor Tóor by Régime des Fleurs, usually, it’s a bit fraught with this brand; it’s an “oh, PLEASE, don’t be good!” ordeal because they are usually too good and TOO expensive. But. I needn’t have worried this time. I’m still in the early stages of trying it out, but my immediate and initial thoughts are that it’s like a vampire with a bizarre sweet tooth stumbled into a Precious Moment gift shop and drained all the sugary charm out of a figurine, leaving behind this twee, creepy, bloodless husk at the bottom of the trash bin, slowly dissolving in a puddle of garbage juice. The predominant notes of this unfortunate incident are of this anemic citrus and a wan, powdery floral, and the strange cloying rot, spoiled nectar, and sour candied sewage of something that might have been cute, once? Like the undead remains of a Sanrio character, maybe? I don’t know but it’s not good! Seems like my wallet is safe from you this time, Régime des Fleurs.

Annacamento from Toskovat is a fragrance that I have a difficult time picking the notes apart, but the overall creation is one that resonates with every fiber of my being. How could it not, with the melancholic poetry of its description referencing a kid seeing the sea for the first time…or maybe an adult seeing it for the last, and the observation that “If you look back at that beauty, you’ve most likely already lost it.” This sentiment reminds me of another similar one that I loved, evoking the fleeting purity of a moment, wherein Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog, the narrator opines, “Beauty consists of its own passing, just as we reach for it.” The ingredients list citrusy elements in the form of fruits and herbs and a handful of bakery case items, alongside various woods and marine botanicals- and its overall impression is of a faint, sad sweetness that’s also somehow… not exactly fresh and not quite clean but some secret third thing that’s somehow adjacent. It’s a bittersweet dream you once had of sitting by the ocean and eating a small, cold dish of ice cream as the skies darkened to grey with the promise of rain on the horizon. As the tide rolls in, you realize that the dampness on your cheeks is not the brine of salty seaspray but streaks of drying tears, though you had no idea you were weeping or why that might have been.

Copal Azur from Aedes de Venustas  is a prophecy rustling on the wind, woven from copal and frankincense fumes that billow from temples guarding secrets older than gods. Meditate on these vapors of incense and antiquity, and you’ll find it’s a salty, bittersweet paradox, a wisp of sacrificial smoke laced with the unexpected sweetness of caramelized ambers. A sacred offering – a glistening, balsamic lacquered glaze burnishing a forgotten feast, a tang of something primal, both savory and sweet. A taste of eternity, a sticky fever dream forgotten ritual, clinging to your ribs long after the final swallow. The jungle itself seems to hold its breath as explorers, trespassers who believe they understand the weight of the past, navigate its sun-dappled heart toward the source of the scent. The air hangs heavy with it, a fat, golden sigh that twists through the foliage–which, wary of the intrusion, whispers not of secrets but of warnings from the dusty pages of history, hinting at unknown chapters these interlopers were never meant to be a part of. A golden condor soars overhead, its wings brushing against this intoxicating residue; it, too, is aloft on a dream of following the path of the setting sun.

Benjoin Boheme from Diptyque unfurls like a clinging veil of memory, a scarred ridge of sepia dreamscape where an ache of memories and ancestral yearning shimmers at the edges of perception. The heady, honeyed sweetness of balsam, benzoin, and amber mingles with the dry herbal whisper of rockrose, but it’s a displaced, disconnected twinge of borrowed nostalgia –it’s not yours, it doesn’t belong to you, this dusty incense of melancholic longing, and yet it’s tethered close, entangled with damp, earthy tendrils of patchouli and a woodsy musk,  Beneath it all, a static unease hums like the feel of cobwebs brushing against the skin, like your reflection as it fades into the darkness behind you, like glimpsing the subject of a gauzy, blurred antique photograph and looking closer only to discover your own eyes gazing back at you from across time.

Dirty Rice from Born to Stand Out conjures a gorgeously lensed photo of aspirational bathtime, a clawfoot tub of opaque opalescent milky bathwater (but not in a Saltburn way; this is more like a meticulously curated, aesthetically pleasing Pinterest board of self-care fantasy photo milky bathwater kind of way) with hundreds of fresh, soft petals floating on the surface. It’s the woody-floral sandalwood bath salts perfuming the water, the sweet, creamy almond musk of soaped skin, and the intimate warmth of steamed air. It smells of subtle indulgence and casual luxury.

From Poesie’s Weekend in Paris discovery set…

Au Vieux Paris opens with a gentle wisp of coffee, not the spine-straightening jolt of a morning brew, but the lingering aroma after a long afternoon spent in conversation. It’s the ghost of a perfect cup. As the fragrance settles, a delightful treat emerges – the unmistakable tang and sweetness of a homemade preserve, something like red currant and rosehip jam, filling a barely-there pastry where the real star is the summer-bright, ruby red jelly. In a twist of olfactive alchemy, it is no longer the quaint cafe scent of a sip or a bite to savor but the elegant poetry of a classically beautiful perfume wafting from a sophisticated shop window. It’s a wearable memory that captures the essence of an ambrosial Parisian afternoon in a single, unforgettable drop.

Champs Elysées is a scent for those who see the world through rose-colored, cat-shaped spectacles. In alternate reality Paris, there is a tearoom where you’re urged to give a soft, secret handshake to a sentient cloud of cherry blossoms. Puffs of petals clinging to your fingers, you’re whisked through a tiny rose-trellised door to a pastel Hello Kitty wonderland, where you’re immediately greeted with a towering plate of buttercream sandwiched macarons in every shade of rose quartz and baby pink. A mismatched porcelain tea service is spread before you, mischievously clattering cups of pink lemonade and strawberry milk tea. You realize with a sip that you don’t need a single cube of sugar.

La Vie en Rose — Cicely Mary Barker, as far as I can tell, never illustrated a peony version of her flower fairies, but that’s what I envision with this fragrance, especially since pear and rose notes together in a fragrance always brings to mind the dewy floating floral of peony blossoms in a way that’s both bright and delicate, rosy and soft, with the ephemeral fizz of a spring breeze. If that flower fairy existed, and if she were taking along a signature scent for her weekend in Paris, she would smell of La Vie En Rose.

Marché aux Fleurs is the embodiment of when people say “stop glamorizing the grind and start glamorizing whatever this is” and what it is is Frog and Toad dressed in their dapper corduroy best, perusing a riotous profusion of blooms in a Parisian flower market, little webbed feet slipping through slick cobblestone puddles on a drizzly spring afternoon.

Montmartre, a clandestine gem in this collection, embodies a twilight tryst beneath the city’s soft glow. A whisper of stolen moments, the soft musky warmth of a forbidden embrace, the bitter mystery of absinthe kisses, and the provocative perfume of hidden gardens revealing itself in the illicit magic of secret thrills.

Rue Saint-Honoré – Imagine a Parisian fashion week gone deliciously astray. Step through the portal of an elegant oaken wardrobe onto a runway where the cashmere is woven from brittle threads of vanilla honeycomb, the leather-look boots are actually carved from warm, toasty hazelnuts, and the tiny details on the lavishly embellished clutches are intricate burnt sugar swirls. Would you believe this decadent spectacle fits cozily into an aromatic sandalwood box? “Bite-size haute couture gourmand-adjacent opulence” is a mouthful of a summation for this fashion statement in the whiff of extravagant indulgence.

And finally, I have a little sampler from Dark Tales Perfumery. I ordered a few of the usual suspects I know I will like, woody, incense, or green stuff, and so far I have only tried one: Medieval has notes of lavender, some other florals, black musk, sandalwood, and myrrh. I think the lavender and musk give it a slightly leathery quality, but overall, it paints a shadowbox woodland picture in shades of gray, etched with something desperately melancholic, like this excerpt from Barry Eric Odell Pain’s poem, Ainigmata: 

What could they tell us? We see them ever—
The trees and the sky and the stretch of the land;
But they give us a word of their secret never;
They tell no story we understand.
Yet haply the ghost-like birch out yonder
Knows much in a placid and silent way;
The rain might tell what the grey clouds ponder,
The winds repeat what the violets say.

If you like this kind of somewhat gloomy, dolorous poetry–which I obviously do–this poem goes on and on, you should look it up.  But alternatively, if John Koenig’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows had a scent, it would 1000% be this.

If you enjoy these fragrant musings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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I have been meaning for several months (maybe almost a year now? Le whoopsie!) to continue my “spotlight” series on the incredible contemporary artists that have allowed me to include their gorgeous creations in my books.

Today celebrates a return to that practice and delivering on that promise to myself with a further look the languid dreams and unsettling poetry of Jason Mowry’s artworks. Jason’s splendid watercolor and gouache canvas, “The Sphinx, the Substance and the Dreamer,” can be seen in The Art of Fantasy: A Visual Sourcebook Of All That Is Unreal.

Expressed in the languid dream of a somber, sumptuous palette and resplendent with atmosphere and emotion, the work of Jason Mowry trembles in a thrillingly familiar way, caught between the border of formal and fantastic. We may not know who these subjects are or what they’re up to, but from the monstrous figures to the human characters that look just like us, there is something in their story that we recognize nonetheless.

These strange, sentimental visions combine myth and legend, personal narrative and symbolic imagery in a visual language that speaks a timeless spell. Mowry’s artistic alchemy bypasses the modern viewer’s analytical safeguards and sings to something ancient and ancestral in the blood. It’s a captivating push-pull quiver between violence and stillness, simplicity and opulence, the familiar and the fantastical.

Jason Mowry’s artistic vision draws from a rich tapestry of influences from the Golden Age of fairy tale illustration and its giants like Rackham and Dulac to the dark beauty and natural poetry of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, simmering with primal truths that speak to our fears and desires.

We can feel the shape of this interplay between the fantastical worlds and unsettling narratives in the light and shadows of Mowry’s paintings, and though we may not grasp the entire plot, the emotional undercurrents resonate deeply.

Raised between the hushed halls of art museums and the vibrant chaos of comic book shops, Mowry’s artistic heritage is a fascinating paradox, embuing the figures he coaxes onto the canvas a captivating duality. They flirt with a formality that reveals classical training, yet their surreal, elongated forms and expressive poses hint at a wildness and wonder born from years spent devouring comic panels.

This tension fuels Mowry’s storytelling. Each piece feels like a glimpse into a larger narrative, a dream told by a dreamer still in the midst of a dream; fraught and frozen, a moment of drama and crisis preserved in amber for one hundred years;  each an oracular murmur of impending psychic annihilation–or a trilling song of complete rebirth.

We are left to wonder, are these figures facing oblivion, or a magnificent metamorphosis? And in connecting to that deep wellspring of grace and thrumming vulnerability within ourselves, what, then, are we capable of?

If you enjoy these artsy-fartsy musings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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