An interesting take on possession and exorcism, The Old Ways follows Cristina, a reporter who returns to her ancestral homelands to investigate the stories of sorcery and healing which take place there, some of which she witnessed herself as a small child. Kidnapped, chained up, and secreted away in a shack by locals who believe that she has become possessed by a local demon, she is understandably terrified, incensed, and intensely skeptical– but after experiencing several grueling days of inexplicable weirdness, she soon begins to believe.
I thoroughly enjoyed this film (I had a feeling I would, just from Felipe Flores’ marvelously lurid festival poster art alone!) It’s a tightly paced, wild trip with snakes, spirit surgeries, Brujeria, visions, lots of blood and pus, and a refreshing and fun take on this kind of story. An aesthetic observation–Cristina’s cousin has a beautiful wardrobe–nothing showy or fancy–but if you pay attention to such things, she wears some really pretty tops and sweaters.
Things take off pretty swiftly in Queen of Filth by V Castro, as something terrifying and unexpected happens to Lourdes and her best friends, after a boozy seance staged on a summer evening before they get on with the business of adulthood and going their separate ways. Because, of course…someone gets possessed. Don’t they always!
This too, is an interesting spin on a possession story, as it’s not a demon inhabiting the body of shy, smart Fernanda, but instead something significantly older, and perhaps not as evil as they would have thought. The bonds of friendship and female empowerment, contemporary realities, religion, and ancient beings weave together in this short novel to create a story that though I read it in the course of an evening, I won’t soon forget these characters or their ordeal.
For the past two weeks, I have been obsessed by the hypnotic, Luciferian splendor of “Angel of Light” from dark folk project Me And That Man, featuring the chilling vocals of Myrkur’s Amalie Braun. The devil in all their guises always counts as horror, right?
Well, if you disagree with that (rude) the Complex Distractions blog has put together a three-parter listing of Songs To Summon The Darkness, so surely you’ll find some amount of seasonally appropriate sonic horror over there! Part I // Part II // Part Three
A few additional horror/Halloween-related tidbits today…
-I am testing out a few Halloween scents from Arcana Wildcraft. Today is Cottage Witch, which of course, OF COURSE, because it’s the one I wanted to share today, it’s sold out! With notes of gingerbread, apple cider doughnuts, honey, pumpkin, fig, this is an autumn dessert cart in full glory– caramel, crust, crumb, and custard, all.
– I recently finished watching Mike Flanagan’s current offering on Netflix, Midnight Mass. I waffle about his stuff. Depending on what day and how I’m feeling, I either love it or find it awful and maudlin. I guess it’s both. I love stories that dive deep into grief and loss and trauma and his works definitely do that. What I have a problem with, and I’ve mentioned it before and perhaps it makes me a little problematic…is that I have a very hard time watching characters deal with addiction or severe mental illness. This is from my own past and what I grew up with in my home and what shaped me, for good or worse. I guess it’s probably in my DNA at some level. And that’s often painful to watch and I don’t always feel up to putting myself through that.
When I was writing for Haute Macabre a few years ago, in another version of 31 Days of Horror, I said something along the lines that I felt “traumatized” by The Haunting of Hill House, another Flanagan creation in which a character struggled with addiction. Someone commented, calling me out on it. I don’t recall what they said exactly, and I don’t want to look it up, because my cheeks are flaming and my heart rate is elevated just thinking about it, but in my memory, they said that I was throwing this word, “traumatized,” around lightly. Like I didn’t know what it meant. Like I had no right to evoke its connotations. I don’t like being called out, which is why I am still embarrassed and hurt now, but of course, if whatever I am being called out for makes sense to me, I can learn from it and do better. But in this case, it just didn’t. I’m not sure I understand why I, an adult child of an alcoholic, an alcoholic who also struggled with bipolar/manic depressive disorder, whose children lived through and dealt with their mother’s multiple suicide attempts and her rages and disappearances and all of her terrifying behavior…why do you feel I don’t have the right to feel deeply traumatized when I encounter some aspect of any of these experiences in the media I consume? Am I using the word “traumatized” incorrectly? Is there some other way I should be couching my feelings to make them less offensive or more palatable? Am I just not up on the vernacular? I still don’t know what this person’s problem with me was unless it’s that I didn’t trot out a list of my trauma credentials ahead of time, before making my observation. Reading over that whole paragraph it sounds really defensive. Maybe it’s because I just still don’t get what I did wrong. And I hate feeling that I have done something wrong, even three years later.
Wow, ok. Anyway. Midnight Mass. If you, like me, are triggered by depictions of alcoholism, you may find this a hard watch (and now that I think about it, maybe “triggered” was the word that this person had an issue with, not “traumatized.” Whatever. Get over it, Sarah!) Also, animal violence. Also LOTS of religion. And lots of monologues. I actually enjoy both…as someone who grew up with a lot of booze-problems in our house, there was no time for religion problems, and also we weren’t religious at all. And so as an adult, I really enjoy watching and reading about all manner of religious beliefs and rituals to see how other people live with and practice their spirituality. And yes, I also enjoy monologues. I don’t spend a lot of time talking to people, maybe that’s why.
I realize I have mentioned nothing regarding what this series is about. An isolated island community starts experiencing strange miracles with the arrival of a new priest. Where’s the former priest? What’s causing these strange and wondrous things to happen? What’s that thing thumping around in Father Paul’s olde-timey travel trunk? I won’t spoil anything!
-Ok, these were supposed to be little tidbit nuggets of things, and in that previous bullet point, I initially only mentioned because I was going to compare to James Wan’s ridiculously stupid Malignant, which I HATED, but I think I am in the minority because everyone else seems to love it. And I don’t even know why I am comparing these two, they have absolutely zero similarities except they both start with an “M”. My only point is, instead of watching Malignant, read Stephen King’s The Dark Half. I don’t want to say why, but you’ll figure it out.
-And finally, I had an excellent conversation with a friend. About horror and why we love it and what it meant to us… and they had all sorts of wonderful insights and thoughts and suggestions regarding these things. It arose from something I had posted on social media wherein I mentioned the following incident. I should note that the questions I am referring to were not directed at me, but rather about me, in a speakerphone conversation that I overheard.
“I have been agonizing for the past 3 days about how to respond to someone’s derisive, dismissive questions about why I watch horror movies. But I think ultimately my takeaway is this: tell me why your first reaction to learning about what someone loves is to make them feel weird and bad about it?”
And getting back to a previous point, I wish now that I had asked my friend in today’s lovely chat for their thoughts about my use of the word “traumatized” (or “triggered.”) as mentioned in the Mike Flanagan conversation above, but I wasn’t thinking of it at the time. Ah well, another chat for another time!
Of course, all of your thoughts are welcome, as well. And please don’t coddle me. If I was wrong, I want to know. And if you are the person who made that comment about my Hill House review so long ago, I am not mad at you. I hope you are not mad at me! If we can have a conversation about it, I would welcome that.
Before I begin this review of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s recently released RPG-inspired perfumes, I need to confess to you that I do not in fact actually play D&D. I tried! On several occasions! Ok, maybe just two, but it was enough for me to know that this sort of RPG is not for me. I was a tiefling bard named Pickles McGillicuddy, and, as you can tell, I took things very seriously. But it all made me very anxious and fretful, having to remember all of my stats and spells and whatnot, and I never knew what I was supposed to be doing or what was expected of me and it was not fun. Nothing against my companions, they were grand! Just… D&D is not the realm in which I find a good time.
Oddly, enough, I like watching movies about it and reading about it? Especially the sorts of stories where things go tits up and bonkers!
I watched a series of incredibly low-budget, ridiculous films from Dead Gentlemen productions a while back, The Gamers & The Gamers: Dorkness Rising and they were a hoot. I recall that the D&D episode from Community was a lot of fun, and I of course totally lived for the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon in the 80s every Saturday morning. I won’t lie. I just watched that YouTube video for the intro to the show that I linked to in the last sentence, and my heart skipped a beat and I felt that very same exhilaration that I did 40 years ago, in anticipation for the adventures of Hank, Eric, Diana, Presto, Bobby, and Sheila! Also, not exactly D&D but if you ever get a chance to read John Coyne’s Hobgoblin, a story of a teenager deeply obsessed with a fantasy role-playing game inspired by Celtic mythology, you’ll become acquainted with one of my favorite books when I was a teenager. It’s one of those lurid, cautionary tale-type books, but I thought it was the coolest, and I wanted a whole bunch of friends to role play with. Even though I suspect I would have found it just as nerve-racking and anxiety-inducing as I do now.
ANYWAY. In 2020, Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast took steps toward building a more inclusive series of fantasy gaming worlds–one that represents a wider array of belief systems, gender identities, sexual orientations, ethnicities, and cultures. One of the major changes they implemented is that there are no longer any inherently evil races. Wizards of the Coast recognized that the monstrous characterization of specific in-game races hit too close to the real-world experiences of many of us who belong to minority racial and ethnic groups. Because I am dating a life-long nerd who D&Ds weekly, I was aware of the shift, but I’m not informed or experienced enough regarding D&D to offer a really nuanced opinion except that it’s a good thing.
In the collection I am reviewing today, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab has celebrated this fresh and complex exploration of the range of ethics, virtues, and cultures in fantasy role-playing games and literature. What stories could now be told? Where might an orc turn to find inner peace? How might a bugbear give back to their community? What challenges can this diverse group of adventurers now overcome?
Kobold Barista(freshly brewed coffee with ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and cream) A seasonal latte from your favorite local cafe; sweet cream, a dusting of autumnal spice melange, and the scent of roasted coffee beans, lightly caramelized and almost nutty, ground with aromatic pods and seeds and bark and roots.
Tiefling Therapist(white and red sandalwood, champaca attar, frankincense, and brimstone) Rich, velvety, vanilla-sweet floral with warm, apricot woodsy tea-like notes, it smells like sacred wine drunk by the moon and sun; a holy gloaming.
Bugbear Doula (motherwort, angelica root, and warm russet fur splashed with chamomile tea) Sniffing this straight out of the bottle, it’s a gorgeously delectable blackberry danish, but that’s so fleeting an impression I almost feel like I imagined it, especially considering that what it soon becomes is a warm, sweetly herbaceous musk, earthy, with a faint but lingering bitterness. The blackberries have all been plucked and it’s almost like they were never there at all. A nap on sun-warmed rock softened by moss. Nightfall, dreams, the cool dusty flights of bats and swallows.
Lizardfolk Park Ranger (pine needle, oak bark, sweet birch, stream-polished stones, lichen, dark mosses, nootka, hazelnut, rivulets of amber, and blackcurrant bud) This is an extraordinarily beautiful scent and tremendously evocative–there’s a whiff of something wild but also so safe and tender about it, when the scent first blossoms on my skin. The rushing creek below and the warmth of an old man’s strong, calloused hand, leaves crunching under small feet, he pauses to show his granddaughter a buckeye tree, tucking a sprig of Queen Anne’s lace in her pocket, telling her a snapping turtle might bite her toes off if she’s not careful! Then: the soft, soapy scent of a grandmother’s bubble bath, the soft pilled fuzz of a flannel nightgown, buttery, pearl-sugared bedtime cookies from the rusted blue tin. All of these memories, that seem so very long ago but also close at hand, like I could reach into yesterday and just as easily tug its sleeve. On my grandfather’s deathbed, he called me by the name of his sister and asked what we were wearing to church on Sunday. His childhood memories, just as near, just as vivid. Will memory always be this strange tug of rope? I’m 45 now and recall that autumn day, 40 years ago, without even having to close my eyes and step back into the byways of my brain. It’s always, always waiting just right there. And now, right here, with this fragrance.
Drow Yoga Instructor(wild plum, indigo lavender, and a tranquil tendril of sandalwood incense) An elegant plummy lavender incense, more breezy than smoky, the sort of scent you could close your eyes and totally space out and lose time while wearing, and yet it’s strangely grounded, too. Something earthy, rooty that tethers you, calls your essence back into your body before Lala Land claims you completely.
Drider Crossing Guard Perfume Oil(fig, black pepper, nutmeg, and black plum tea) This is such a confusing thing…from the notes I wouldn’t think it would smell like this, but: if you are a lover of such things, this is a fresh, fancy fantasy plate of all of the ripest, juiciest fruits you can imagine. I can’t pick anything out in particular, but wet on this skin this is definitely a pulpy, opalescent bounty of sweet, dripping fruit flesh. A few hours later it is a faint fruity-peony-vanilla. I realize neither of those two notes are listed, but I can’t argue with what’s on my wrist. Just reporting what I smell! Actually…in looking at this next scent, I have to wonder if maybe these two were accidentally mislabeled? Hm! A mystery!
Beholder Optician (eucalyptus leaf, white amber, pink bergamot, strawberry, and sheer, crystalline vanilla musk) In rereading this list of notes, all of these bright, electric fruity aromas are definitely what I smell in Drider Crossing Guard. The bottle labeled Beholder Optician carries a scent dry and figgy, woody and plummy and accented with a gentle grassy spice. Over time this just gets plummier, but not in a really fruity way, more like a plum wearing a handknit shawl and a bonnet and a monocle? I don’t know what that means. A Mother Goosey plum? An Ida Outhwaite fairytale illustration of a plum. Whatever it is that I am poorly trying to articulate, it is a freaking gorgeous interpretation of plum.
On a whim, I started looking into lists of fairly recent horror-adjacent graphic novel releases, which is how I happened upon The Man Who Came Down the Attic Stairs by Celine Loup. Surprisingly, I was able to find a digital copy through my library (and in doing so, I was excited to find a few more gems that I will be mentioning over the course of the next month!)
The book follows Emma, who after giving birth, fears a threatening supernatural force in the house. As her husband becomes increasingly remote and less involved in the life of Emma and her baby, she begins to unravel, growing more and more desperate between the lack of sleep and a newborn that won’t stop crying. Loup explores themes of the isolation of postpartum depression and being an exhausted mother with an unsupportive partner, and weaves in elements of unease and eerie horror for a story that is uncomfortable, unsettling, and profoundly sad.
I hope to be writing about some more horror titles before the end of the month, but in the interim, here are a few book lists to augment your scary stacks:
To accompany my spooky reads, I concocted the following pumpkin spice dirty chai latte or some such. I don’t actually know what to call it. I am not even sure if it was good! It…had potential.
Brew your coffee and pour a cup leaving room for extra stuff. Add a splash of autumnal seasonal creamer, stir in some chai powder (I typically use this kind from Blue Lotus but for some reason, I am trying something new and honestly I don’t like it as much), and add a bit of extra sweetener of your choice. Sip while reading this article on How America Invented the White Woman Who Just Loves Fall. If you find yourself becoming defensive, simmer down and sit with that for a while. Thanks, Hayley, for sharing this over on Facebook today!
In August of this year, I finally watched When A Stranger Calls. I didn’t really know much about this movie other than there was a babysitter and some creepy calls. I didn’t even know Carol Kane was in it! But if all someone had shown me was THIS still, and said “here, watch this”–I would have trusted them implicitly. Shadowy and dramatic and beautiful, to me, a movie watcher with arbitrary, low-ish standards– these are all of the hallmarks of a Good Movie.
This is the most comfortably dressed babysitter I have seen in any movie, ever. Also, fuck off, Dr. Mandrakis. Carol Kane is not having your low-fat yogurt. No one wants that crap!
Instead of disgustingly flavored low-fat yogurt, I opted for an autumnal yogurt breakfast parfait. The base is skyr, which is similar in taste and texture to Greek yogurt, and here’s what I did: spoon a bit of plain yogurt or skyr into the bottom of a glass, top with a spoonful of a mixture of chopped apples and raisins that have simmered with pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie seasoning until soft. Top that with a mixture of skyr, cream cheese, more pumpkin puree, and honey, and then repeat the layers for however hungry you are. This is topped with a mixture of packaged granola plus some raw pumpkin seeds and slivered almonds.
I cooked the apple mixture on the stove beforehand so that it had time to cool down, and while that was happening, I stirred up the cream cheese mixture. As I only made enough for two servings, you’re really not using a lot of any one of these ingredients and you’ll definitely have pumpkin puree and cream cheese leftover. Perfect for some pumpkin bread with cream cheese filling! Or pumpkin curry and cream cheese biscuits! I don’t know if cream cheese biscuits are even a thing, but I bet they are, and I bet that would be a delicious meal.
I’ve been excited about Nia DaCosta’s Candyman since I first heard the initial rumblings about it, though I supposed at that time I was still thinking of it at Jordan Peele’s Candyman. It’s finally available, and as I’m still not comfortable with the idea of going to the theatre right now, especially since in Florida, 99% of the idiots here are 99% more idiotic than idiots elsewhere, I cozied up on the sofa yesterday and paid $19.99 to watch it on Amazon. I think it was worth it!
I’m not certain that any version could ever top the original Candyman story of America’s racist past coming back to haunt it, which I know has its flaws, but I also know that Tony Todd is not one of them–and he is eerily, chillingly exquisite in the film. But despite the fact Candyman 2021 has minimal Tony Todd, I really enjoyed this story of its legacy, how Todd’s Daniel Robitaille “isn’t the only Candyman, that Candyman is ‘the whole damn hive’ as the film’s trailer proclaims, an amalgamation of all the violence and horror experienced by Black men in Cabrini-Green, and even in the whole of America.”
And because I love films that move within the spaces of the art world, I found particular interest in the main character’s roles of artist and art gallery director, and how much of the story took place in this exclusive, money-fuelled realm, policed by white critics, agents, and gallerists. Sort of like VelvetBuzzsaw, but …okay nothing like Velvet Buzzsaw, except for the art galleries and critics. (That was a ridiculous movie, but I loved it.)
Oh! And of course, I loved the striking visual storytelling and practical effects of the beautiful shadow puppetry in this new Candyman!
And finally, I loved that this wasn’t just Candyman/Anthony McCoy’s story, but that of his girlfriend, as well. You really get a sense of her backstory and her motivations and she’s just…a really interesting, rounded person. I think my only issue with the film is that the main character doesn’t seem to get that same treatment. He’s both the whole reason for the story, and what movies the story along, but he also seems unimportant? Like…who is he, even? We only find out much later in the film, but even that doesn’t tell us much about him as a person. Maybe we are meant to feel that way? Maybe that’s the intent of the film?
To tell you a truth, and if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you must recognize that I am a pretty shit movie reviewer. Most things go over my head and I miss a lot, and half the time I can’t even tell you why I Iiked or disliked a film. A good chunk of my favorite movie list consists of films that are beautiful and have absolutely zero plot, so what do I know? But I’ll never get any better at talking about this stuff if I don’t practice, so here we are.
Some other things I am very excited about today include finally starting a project with this gorgeous Slutty Pumpkin yarn colorway from Dragonhoard Yarn! I’ve been having some issues with my right hand in the general area where the thumb meets the wrist, probably carpal tunnel or some repetitive use type injury, and so even though it killed me to do so, I’ve taken a few weeks off from knitting. Major, MAJOR sad face. The folks at Elmore Mountain Therapeutics were so kind as to send me a few samples of their CBD balms, and between the rest, the thumb brace I grabbed for keeping my thumb stable at night, and this soothing salve, I am starting to feel a bit of relief. I have tins of both the signature balm (lavender scented) and the “medicool” version with peppermint, eucalyptus, and birch, and between the two of them it’s been a lovely respite–and with all of the nourishing oils packed into them–even a bit of a treat for my poor, sore hand.
And of course, is it even 31 Days of Horror without the Halloween issue of Rue Morgue? Look at this gorgeous cover art! As always, I am wonderfully excited to dive into its lurid delights.
I’m currently rewatching all of the Halloween movies in anticipation for Halloween Kills, which I have zero expectations for, but I’m a dumb fan of the franchise, I guess.
My forever favorite will always be the original Halloween, but the scariest thing in this movie is the decor in Tommy Doyle’s living room. Those orange candles and that candelabra have got to be the tackiest thing I have ever seen. Is Michael Myers truly the soulless creature here? The Doyles have got a lot to answer for. See also that watermelon painting.
I am currently up to Halloween V and I am realizing that I have actually seen all of these movies before…except for Halloween III. Wow. That was something, wasn’t it? As an author that I follow on Twitter succinctly sums it up: “Halloween III is a story about the extraordinary lengths a man will go to in order to avoid hanging out with his kids.” Interestingly, the ex-wife of the main character in this film is played by Nancy Kyes, the actress who played Annie in the first movie! I looked her up and now she’s a sculptor, which is a neat thing to learn. And there’s a scene where the main character is trying to make a frantic phone call to the police and the operator saying that the call can’t go through is voiced by Jamie Lee Curtis, who otherwise is not in this film!
I realize this is stuff that everyone else already knows, but as it was my first time seeing it, I thought that was definitely a highlight of this mostly awfully silly film. I actually thought I had already seen this but I eventually realized that’s because I was recalling having read a paperback adaptation of the film when I was a kid. And even then I was like, well that sure was a lot of nonsense and craziness! And what does this have to do with anything at all?! For nostalgia’s sake, I looked it up on Amazon and apparently I can get a copy for $715. Nah, I’m good.
Some spooky sartorial and stink pickings for over the next few days! My horror tee collection has been pared down quite a bit, but even so, this gathering is but a fraction of what’s stuffed into my dresser drawers. I just grabbed what was easiest to get my hands on for this photo! If you are curious about any of them, leave a comment and I will figure out where they came from if I can. The tees are paired with pants if I am feeling like it and the non-negotiable dab or two of a few favorite and seasonally appropriate perfume oils: Strega from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab and Holy Terror from Arcana Wildcraft.
10 years ago on September 30th, I rolled into my sister Mary’s driveway in Orlando, after a long drive from New Jersey. My car was packed with everything I owned, my baby sister Melissa, flown out from California to assist me, was driving. I don’t know how I talked her into driving the whole way, but of the two of us, I think I am actually the baby. I can drive, I just hate long stretches of highway driving. But she is so brave. Thank god/s and whoever else for her. Thank god for both of my sisters.
I had lived most of my life in Florida (though I was born in Ohio and spent a few years there as a small child.) But from ages 9-28 I lived in Florida. That’s where most of my small family was, and my friends, all two of them. I packed up and left all of that behind, everything I knew, in February of 2004, to move to New Jersey. That… was a bad idea. And for 7 years I tried to make that bad idea work, but ultimately it failed spectacularly. In February of 2011, over the course of a phone call on a lonely winter afternoon, Mary convinced me to come back home. This was a good idea. It was the Best Idea.
I spent the summer packing and divesting, Melissa flew out at the end of September 2011, we stuffed my car as full as it could be, and I left that place and never looked back. When we finally pulled into Mary’s driveway…that was one of the happiest days, most glorious of my life. And every day since, even the tough ones, even the impossible ones? Have been even better. I am so grateful for both of my incredible sisters, for their fearlessness and wisdom, and for their unflagging support of their eldest sister. I mean it in every way that you could mean such a thing: my life is better because of them.
Today (well, actually yesterday but October 1st sounds more dramatic) marks ten years since I have been back!
I made a cake (Nigella Lawson’s Rosemary Remembrance cake) to celebrate with Yvan, who has been at my side for the majority of the time I have been back in Florida, and he too makes my life better in so many ways. I never thought I would have a partner that I could laugh with and share my secrets with and who will enjoy all of my weird, experimental meals and compliment all of my perfumes and support my wildest dreams…but that’s him. I’m wild about him. Turns out he was a good idea, too. (Thanks, past Sarah for being the aggressor in this matter and asking him out on a date!)
Totally unrelated, but as it is October 1st, the first day of the very best month, I’m going to attempt, in my typical lazy way, to participate in 31 Days of Horror. Now…to be clear here, I’m not going to try and fool you into thinking I’m watching and writing about a new movie every day. I mean, there are some days that I might do that! But I think I will be talking about some books and movies that I’ve watched earlier in the year, too. I’m tired, man. I’m burnt out. I just wrote a book. I may soon be starting another one (this is a thing that is super up in the air and not a sure thing, but it’s a possible thing!) So I haven’t got it in me to do 31 Days of Horror perfectly, but I’m going to do my best!
To start with, I am totally half-assing it, and pointing you to some horror-related things from the past! Hee hee! Classic Sarah! Check back throughout the month of October to see what else I think I can get away with!
Because I am a contrarian and refuse to put together a “cottagecore” playlist (even though I listen to this type of stuff all of the time and have for most of my life and I tremendously enjoy it, ha!) I have compiled an AUTUMNCORE playlist. Which, I am sure you understand, is –totally different–
And of course, should you wish to wear these feelings, you can gather some inspiration from the ensemble below, details here.
Lately, I’ve been meditating on An Offering from dark artist Dylan Garrett Smith’s small batch perfumery, BirthBloomDecay. If you’re not familiar with his art, as it happens, the name Birthbloomdecay perfectly encapsulates its influences of occult lore, memento mori and the nocturnal beauty of the natural world. An Offering is redolent of dry, smoky embers and stiff black leather, the soft eerie rot of autumn leaves, and a shrieking electro-sulfur tang of ozone; it calls to mind a lightning-struck flock of witches tumbling and cackling through the air their burnished brooms now a fizzling and scorched incense amongst the midnight treetops.
Heretic India Ink (maybe discontinued?) So this is my pitch for the next season of American Horror Story. So, here goes. It’s about the spooky goings-on that occur during an Adult Film shoot that takes place in an abandoned dentist’s office, and it features India Ink from Heretic Parfum. This fragrance smells overwhelmingly of a mentholated, latex clad hand slowly descending toward your face as a disembodied voice intones OPEN WIDE. But I’m not sure if it’s some sort of mint or or a disinfectant clove oil, or something more camphorous and herbaceous and sour like tea tree oil or cypress. This empty office is located in a run down strip mall, there’s a discount auto store next door and a deserted gas station nearby and a ghostly miasma of carbon, sulfur, and petrol hangs low in the air in this blighted scene of desolation and both urban decay and tooth decay, ruin porn and actual porn. The BDSM Rubber Man has found the laughing gas, and the faint, sweet scent of nitrous oxide fills the studio. As the investors show up to see what their money’s getting them, they are greeted by a chaotic scene too disturbing and gruesome to script and production is shut down within 48 hours. The lead actor is never seen again, but they say you can still see his reflection in a mouth mirror from the set that is currently being sold on eBay.
November in the Temperate Deciduous Forest from For Strange Women is a scent I have worn for years and years and I am only just now attempting to review it. This is the aroma of a mushroom queen surveying their loamy domain on a cool, rainy morning. A soft green fern tickles your gills as your mycelial threads in turn wave at the worms moving through the rich earth beneath you; the ground mist rises through the dense forest canopy as cool trickles of rainwater drip off the oak and beech and fir trees to dampen the velvet, verdant moss carpeting a cropping of stones nearby. Your reverie is interrupted by the scent of expensive leather hiking boots on the breeze, crunching leaf detritus and tiny woodland creatures beneath its self-important tread. You smell the smoke and steam and artisanal resins and tannins of a gourmet flask of tea, and before you can let out a little spore-filled, mushroomy warning, you hear a shrill, nasally human female voice chirp HEY Y’ALL WELCOME BACK TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL. Oh no, you despair, it’s the slow-living mushroom forager YouTube influencers. You sincerely hope they pass you over for your poisonous cousins.
Glossier’s You is a scent I really had no intention of ever buying, but then my curiosity got the best of me. A minor point: I hate this bottle, it’s dreadful. It looks like a small pink lump of quivering flesh. I can, however, get over that, because as it turns out and much to my surprise…I actually really love what’s inside it. It’s possible that I had very low expectations because I don’t like any of Glossier’s other products and also because I am maybe a snob. But I really don’t mind being wrong! Okay, I am a Taurus and I hate being wrong! But I make an exception for perfume. You is wonderful melding of this chilly, ghostly delicate iris musk and a warm, woody, sturdy peachy amber quietly enveloped in a crystalline psychic glow of pink pepper and you kind of wonder how these notes got together but then you think of Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus and it all just makes perfect sense. Yes, this is a queer classic anime power couple of a scent and I absolutely adore it.
Regarding Comptoir Sud Pacifique’s Vanille Abricot, I feel like a clever child- villain has dosed me with some sort of pixie-stick poison and they’re skipping away merrily as I sink to the floor, my lungs disintegrating under the assault of Marshallow Meltdown, a bioweapon based on the classic confectionary formula wherein a foam made up of air suspended in a super-saturated liquid sugar mixture is stabilized by gelatin,but in this version some evil scientists whipped in plastic doll parts and expired cans of Del Monte fruit cocktail instead. The resulting vat of goop undergoes a proprietary crystallization process and the lurid glowing shards are then crushed to a dust, which when viewed under a microscope, resembles tiny Barbie-Pink ninja throwing stars. This is the preferred method of dispatchment used by tiny assassins who whisper BYE BOOMER as they toodle away, engrossed in Animal Crossing or whatever. But I’m GEN X you gasp weakly as you lose consciousness.
Fuegia 1833’s Biblioteca de Babel is a fragrance inspired by Jorge Luis Borge’s story describing the universe in terms of an infinite library in which books contain every possible combination of letters, spaces, and punctuation marks. Everything that has been and will be thought can be found in a forsaken corner of the endless library. Some believe this story is an allegorical meditation on the endeavor to live one’s best possible life in a universe that can seem hopelessly confusing and disordered. I think I had hoped for a bit more mystery with this scent, something reminiscent of clandestine quests for esoteric knowledge, sort of like the film The Ninth Gate bottled as a scent.
But with Biblioteca de Babel, what you get is a lot more straightforward and mundane. A cracked and worn leather chair with a threadbare woven blanket tossed over the back, a handmade cedar chest passed down through several generations, the sort of soap you can buy anywhere for less than a dollar, parchment scrawled not in magical inks but rather in the practical strokes of a no. 2 pencil with directions on how to install a washroom faucet. It’s not even parchment, it’s just a crumpled post-it note, thick with dust, the writing so blurry and faded with time you can barely read it anymore, but you know each word as though time has etched them on your heart. Your grandfather has been gone for twelve years now, and he never saw the faucet you eventually installed and you don’t know if he ever read Borge’s story, but you console yourself by thinking that if you had ever conversed with him about it, it might be recorded in an obscure tome tucked away in one of those imaginary rooms.
It’s true, Biblioteca de Babel is not a really exciting scent, but it’s warm and familiar, sweet and safe in the way a hug is when you need it most, even when the arms are frail, even when you suspect the weight of your body is the only thing keeping the person hugging you on their feet. I would do anything to feel that hug again. And even though this cedary, sweetly vanillic, woodsy musked scent smells absolutely nothing like my grandfather, it somehow conjures the most beautiful ghost of those hugs. I’ll take it.
I’m really conflicted about Delina Exclusif from Parfum de Marly for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with the actual fragrance. But right off the bat, for those people who don’t want to read a whole ass essay, this is a pillowy parfait of jammy roses and dense vanilla cream doused with raspberry liqueur. I am not a fan.
A big part of me believes that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. You’ll never see me popping up in the comments on someone else’s account to say something like “ugh, I hated that.” when they’re talking about a thing they love. That’s the equivalent of showing up uninvited at a stranger’s house uninvited and taking a shit on their floor. It’s rude and also really uncalled for. However, writing my own review of something I hate? That’s where I give myself leeway to say the not nice things that I might be dying to say. However, in this vein, I struggle with ideas of cleverness at the expense of being kind. To soften the snark I often frame my less-than-glowing reviews in whimsical or imaginative scenarios and language so that no one gets too butthurt that I’m hating on their favorite stink. But sometimes there’s an aspect of a scent that’s so connected with something I dislike in real life, that …I kinda have to go there.
I watch a lot of really basic YouTube lifestyle influencers. I don’t know why. Maybe in some weird way, it makes me feel superior. So many of them use a turn of phrase I have been hearing everywhere over the past year or so and I HATE IT. With regard to a rug or a throw blanket or a coffee table book they just acquired they’ll say something like “don’t you just love it? It’s SO AESTHETIC.” And I get that language is always evolving and I don’t want to be a jerk, but people that is not how you use this word. You admire something for it’s aesthetic qualities. For example, you like the coffee table book’s minimalist aesthetic, you appreciate the rug’s rustic, cottagecore aesthetic, you really dig that blanket’s witchy goth aesthetic, you see where I am going with this? Anyway, so many of these YouTubers seem to love this perfume because, and I quote, ‘it’s so aesthetic.” And they don’t even do a proper review for it, they just say it smells nice and it’s like I get that describing fragrance isn’t easy, but why even mention it at all if that’s all you’re going to say? UGH.
My point is that this $350 bottle of a very generic vanilla-rose scent smells like people who buy coffee table books about bland, boring, beige minimalist home decor and sound really dumb when they are talking about them and furthermore, they probably don’t even read them. So if you’ve made it this far you’ve read me at my most unlikeable and I apologize for that. I say this frequently but mine is just one opinion among millions and it ultimately means nothing, but man I really had to vent about this.
Spell 125 from Papillon Artisan Perfumes is a scent entwined and imbued with deep magic, history, and ancient mystery. If I understand correctly, it is a fragrance inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the ritual and ceremony pertaining to the weighing the deceased’s heart against a feather, wherein if one passes this trial, they reach the eternal paradise of the Field of Reeds. If not, well then too bad, I guess. I believe this is meant to be a very atmospheric scent, and while it is, I don’t know that I’m getting what the perfumer intended from it. But who’s to say whether that’s a good or bad thing if one enjoys the result? From Spell 125 I get a strange vanilla salt that’s somehow sweet and savory, bright and dusky, earthy and airy at once, evoking both terrestrial concerns and something lighter and loftier. A sweetly green herbaceous melange conjures imagery of cool aromatic, woodsy marjoram incense, an offering to household gods( such as this scene in a painting by John William Waterhouse) Lit for the afternoon, the smoke cleaning and clearing the domestic spaces, and left to smolder and disperse with the doors open wide, on a cloudless day in early autumn. This is a fragrance which conjures the loveliest peace of mind and sense of well-being, and although I don’t yet know otherwise, I’ll hazard a guess and say it’s splendid to experience such a thing while you’re still above ground
Zdravetz from Bruno Fazzolari. I am not typically someone who likes “crisp” or “fresh” scents. Those concepts and related notes conjure for me ideas of country clubs and corporate culture and sterile, blandly uninteresting environments as well as notions of conformity and impossible standards and expectations. Nope, no thanks. So when I first smell Zdravetz, it does seem like that’s what it’s going for. I believe this is supposed to be a rose scent, but I do not smell any kind of rose here. And Zdravetz is in the geranium family I believe. A sort of aromatic woody herbaceous scent, a little tannic like strong black tea. In the opening, I do smell something vaguely herbal and medicinal and a soft woody floral. But then it gets weird. Imagine fresh but you’ve never smelled what a 21st-century idea of fresh is. You’re just a garden gnome, dirt under your nails, moss behind your ears, sleeping in your earthen burrow, washing your tangled beard every morning in primrose dew. But you want to make your way in the world so you and your brothers spend every cent you have on a nice outfit and you all clean up as best you can with a grain of old-timey laundry powder you’ve been hoarding for 100 years and you interview with some start-up firms but you don’t know what it means to “fungibly innovate leveraged sources” or “synergize team building potentialities.”! And you don’t get any callbacks and you reckon the world of humans isn’t for you anyway and that’s a little depressing but you’d rather be who you’ve always been than three little gnomes standing on each other’s shoulders under a Burberry trenchcoat working on TPS reports.
Stora Skugan’s Moon Milk. The sea, but not the sea. Lemonade and tidepools, bright and brackish, toes digging into the wet sand, palms briefly cupping portions of the sun-warmed infinite and allowing it to sluice through your fingers to wash away because you can’t clutch at moments like that, you have to let the gravity of the tides and tears and the moon take their course. But it’s not the sea. It’s the reflection of the moon in a puddle, a changeling portal to someone else, somewhere else. Another you, another time. The enduring strangeness of where rock meets ocean, viewed through mirrorwater on a stone cavern floor , a finger fluting in soft white calcite and crystalline minerals, a cave painting of the aurora borealis on exposed bedrock, the ghostly carving of footprints that stop suddenly and disappear. There’s a duality in this scent, the soft fall of sunlight tempered by saltwater, earthy cardamom incense, and citrusy floral lime, the bitter chill of petrified moonlight, milky sandalwood, and waxen lily. It’s a strange fragrance that makes me think of encountering countless versions of me across time, and we somehow cross the same path, inevitably make the same choices, wish for the same things under ancient and future stars.
Tom Ford’s Black Orchid, which before you even spray it, like, you just take the cap off, and you get generic ambery miasma wrapped in cloying cotton candy, and not even the thrilling stuff that has the exhilarating tang of the local carnival’s precarious Gravitron. No, this is the stale, sad bottom-shelf cotton candy from Costco. At this stage, it smells exactly like Black Opium, which many folks recommended to me as a “dark, mysterious scent,” and here’s my take on that. Which I hope you will take with a grain of salt. But you know how like…some people think 50 Shades of Gray is sexy erotica? And for them, maybe it is. I’m not here to tell you you’re getting horned up for the wrong things. But it doesn’t do it for me. There’s not enough werewolves or chainsaws or Lament Configurations in that story. 50 Shades of Gray does not even scratch the surface of hot and horny feelings for me. And in this analogy, I suppose, Black Opium feels like putting wet-n-wild eyeliner and a faux leather jacket on a Barbie tutu and calling it dark and mysterious. Good try, I guess? But you gotta work a lot harder to get me on board. But back to Black Orchid, which is what I was actually talking about. Once the pastel goth spun sugar vibe dissipates, it becomes this really understated but perfectly lovely creature of soft velvety musk and dusty woods. I kinda wish this is was the piece of the puzzle they’d focused on, added some other top notes, and connected it via an unexpected heart but I guess that would have been an entirely different scent. If you can sit through the obnoxious opening, you’ll be rewarded with a soft delightful woodland fairytale of a scent, but I don’t know if the journey to get there is worth it
Forest Lungs from The Nue Company is somewhat similar to Dasein’s Winter Nights or Norne from Slumber house in its conjuring of coniferous evergreen midnight splendor. The birch tar and pine sap are present but softer, less sharp and astringent than you might expect, and as a matter of fact, I don’t get any of the camphoraceous herbal medicine chest opening that you find in the other two. It’s the whiff of the woodlands in your hair or clothing after you’re already back inside. It’s expediently atmospheric; you don’t have to brave the forest path to get to the witch’s hut to warm your hands at the softly crackling fire and have a cozy cup of gently spiced cardamom tea. You’re just plopped right at her table, like a witch’s hut holosuite. And then you find out that this person is actually not a witch at all, you’ve made a lot of assumptions based on their haunted cottagecore aesthetic. It’s actually just a local misanthrope fed up with the dumbass yokels in the village so they gathered up their amazing candle collection and moved to a hermitage in the middle of a forest and all of a sudden they’re like,” who even are you and why are you in my house?? GTFO!” And that’s when you realize this wonderful fragrance does not last long at all and the program has ended and you’re back in Quark’s bar and he wants his 2 strips of gold-pressed latinum. I will note that I purchased this from Sephora, and I believe that it is the most interesting fragrance that they are ever likely to carry.
