Observe the blood, the rose tattoo, of the finger prints on me from you.

Aftelier Perfumes Wild Roses EdP

Dear reader:

I am currently captivated by a song called "Marlene On the Wall." Suzanne Vega wrote it about a poster of Marlene Dietrich she kept on her bedroom wall, and what Marlene might think of Vega's life if Marlene could talk. It is an intriguing song about the elegant and coldly beautiful Dietrich's observation of Vega being her own worst enemy in love:

Marlene watches from the wall.
Her mocking smile says it all
as she records the rise and fall
of every soldier passing.
The only soldier now is me.
I'm fighting things I cannot see.
I think it's called my destiny
that I am changing.

The song is about a woman with serious trust issues, a woman who's inability to connect is makes it impossible to know when/if she's met someone she can really trust. Though she seems to be breaking out of this pattern, it is unclear how that will effect her current relationship. I've listened to the song more than a dozen times, and I settled on two different and conflicting meanings.

In the one sense, Vega seems to be unable to reach beyond her own boundaries, the walls she constructs for emotional safety, to reach a deeper connection. The song seems to ask if she will be able to muster to the courage to be vulnerable with her current paramour, to allow him to reach into the heart of her, not keep him at arm's length.

My second reading is of a woman who cannot break out of a bad pattern with a man she loves, but whom she remains in a self-destructive loop with. Whether that loop is one she repeats with different men who are all lacking in the same specific way or the same man she can't break free of seems ambiguous. The point is that, whomever the soldier(s) is/are, he is interested in Vega for her body only, and Vega cannot keep herself from falling into bed with a man/men who have no interest in her beyond what he/they can get from her physically.

I love the tension in the song. Will she be able to love? Will she think well enough of herself to demand love in return? If she is changing, is it for good or for ill? The narrative arch, left unresolved, allows the song to contain both hope and hopelessness in tension, both the bitterness of betrayal and the disappointing knowledge that one has allowed oneself to lose something potentially stunning out of fear.

I also enjoy the (admittedly mildly) feminist overtones I find lurking in the text.

"Don't give away the goods too soon," is what she might have told me.

I consider myself a sex positive feminist. I generally think that talking about sex clearly with your partner is good, that reproductive freedoms are fundamental, and that shaming people around sex is counterproductive to health and safety. At the same time, I think it's worth admitting that, emotionally and physically, we have a tendency to give ourselves away sometimes thoughtlessly to people who neither respect or deserve what we have to offer. I think women in general are often inclined to do this for a variety of reasons that revolve around the historical commodification of women's bodies, mass media messages about beauty image that are anathema to self-esteem, and competing messages about the value of virginity and the desirability of sexual prowess. There is something to be said for thinking highly enough of yourself to believe - regardless of whether this is your first, fifteenth, or fiftieth partner - that you are worth of love, attention, admiration and respect on your own terms. Virginity isn't magical, but human intimacy is a valuable experience, and not one worth wasting, as Laini Taylor's surrogate father Wishbone so accurately puts it in the terrific YA novel Daughter of Smoke and Bone, on "inconsequential penises." Or inconsequential partners, for that matter.

I like the idea that Marlene Dietrich, if she could talk to Suzanne Vega, would tell her, "if he's using you, don't give in, or at least have the good sense to be aware of what he's using you for." I always think of it as the Norma Jean approach to navigating the sexual pitfalls of modern pop culture commodification. You only have two options: don't play at all, or decide what you want to get out of it and play on your own terms. While I find it odious that the world constantly decides a woman's value based, at least in part, on sex appeal, I have a hard time telling the girl who would be Marilyn that she's a sell out for attempting to harass her own sexual agency for benefit and profit. Instead, I'd rather tell her to keep in mind that you have to know what your giving and what you're getting in return, and you better be sure it's worth it it in the end. Also, stay away from the Kennedys.

What does all this have to do with Mandy Aftel's new perfume, Wild Roses, well, in my mind, a lot actually.

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: I love rose scents. Roses and vanillas are the two kinds of scents you can almost bank on my running toward. As a result, I've smelled a lot of roses on the market at a lot of different price points, from low dollar minis of Demeter Fragrances Pruning Sheers to L'Artisan Voleur de Roses and Drole de Rose to niche scents like Teo Cabanel Oha, Agent Provocateur EdP, and Juliette Has a Gun Lady Vengeance to true independents like DHS Perfumes Beach Roses and the now sadly defunct American Beauty. And that's just naming the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Name a rosy category -- patchouli roses, dirty roses, leather roses, powdery roses, realistic roses -- and I've probably got a fav or two.

So when I tell you Mandy Aftel has created in Wild Roses an inventive take on the rose that might merit the creation of a new subcategory, it's worth taking note. Aftelier Perfumes describes Wild Roses as follows:

I wanted to capture in perfume the experience of walking around my garden and smelling each rose, as their perfumes blended in my nose. Wild Roses perfume evokes the garden in our imagination and memory -- the book of a hundred petals unfolding: balsamic, spicy, apricot, and honeyed roses, mixed with the smell of warm earth and herbs.

The apricot-rose heart is perfectly rooted in a base of tarragon absolute -- its herbal round anise aroma giving a nuance of both earth and leaves. The balsamic vanilla absolute and the whiskey-ness of aged patchouli support tarragon’s warm, powdery aspect. Indole contributes the almost animal aspect of ripeness in a rose. The heart is punctuated by pimento berry, lending its nuances of clove, ginger, and cinnamon. The candied-orange flower aroma of methyl methyl anthranilate, the soft powdery floral of heliotropin, and the slightly floral citrus of bergamot contribute a modern freshness to the opening.

Top: rose CO2, heliotropin, bergamot, geraniol, m-methyl anthranilate, damascenone.
Heart: apricot, Turkish rose absolute, pimento berry, p-ethyl alcohol, rose petals attar.
Base: tarragon absolute, vanilla absolute, indole, aged patchouli.

Upon application, Wild Roses is a sweet, dark cocktail of rose petals swirling in a sweet berry liqueur and strong shot of vodka. Slightly stringent or medicinal, this largely candied opening slides across the olfactory palette like a good drink or a terrible poison, the kind one imagine was concocted by a dark Queen with a serious grudge. It is a kind of biting sweetness, a traditional beauty that cuts, the thorn of the proverbial rose that, pricking a finger, sends one off to a dark sleep. As it ages on the skin, the medicinal aspect fades, leaving a berry-oriented jammy rose.

Wild Roses has a realistic quality, but clearly isn't meant to be exactly like a smelling a rose. It's more wearable than sticking a bloom in your hair. It's a rose plus a sweetness that draws you closer so it can take a bite. It manages to be both pretty, strong, alluring, and vulnerable, but without the direct sexiness of a patchouli rose or the delicate femininity of a powdered rose. 

Lots of terrific samples!

And the reason I told you that whole thing about Suzanne Vega and her Marlene Dietrich poster and my general sex positivity being tempered with a desire that we simultaneously promote sex respect is this: Every time I tried Wild Roses, I heard the song in my head. I imagined this vulnerable woman acting tough and trying to protect herself from being hurt and acting like she doesn't care when she really does, and this is what she smells like.

Beautiful. Vulnerable. Strong.

It's a heartbreakingly lovely audiolfactory experience.

So let's all welcome the new world of the candied rose! It's decidedly worth trying. Wild Roses EDP is available direct from the perfumer in 30ml for $170. Samples can be purchased $6.

And even if I am in love with you,
all this to say:
What's it to you?
Observe the blood, the rose tattoo,
of the finger prints on me from you....

Other evidence has shown
that you and I are still alone.
We skirt around the danger zone
and don't talk about it here.

I tried so hard to resist
when you held me in your handsome fist
and reminded me of the night we kissed
and why I should be leaving.
Marlene on the wall...

___________________
In the interests of full disclosure: this perfume sample was provided by the perfumer.

Sunday Night Sad Bastard Music

Jessica Lea Mayfield Edition

No new blog today as I am in the midst of NaNoWriMo and trying to catch up, but you can expect some postage later this week.  I'm thinking -- a little perfume writing, a little holiday shopping recommendations, a little music, and of course, a little pop culture feminist critique, because this is Feminine Things, dear reader, and you know I cannot help myself. <g>

I'll probably also write something about writing itself at some point in the next month or two. Until I grace you with my multitude of ramblings, however, enjoy the beautiful darkness of this song, from the AH-MAZING 2011 album from Jessica Lea Mayfield, Tell Me. I'm mildly obsessed with it right now. If you don't have it, and you are feeling impulse shop-y, grab this while you're at it.  You won't be sorry.

Hate has brought me up the stairs into your house.
I will not let hate 
be the one to make me naked for you.
My self-esteem is heating up the room.
You're intimidating as all hell, 
but I ain't scared of you.

I know how you work;
I am just like you.
No matter what you say, 
our hearts are wrong.
Our hearts are wrong.

Love has brought me down 
like love's been known to do.
I try to deny with all my heart 
that I'm in love with you.

"I don't really care."
You knew that's what I'd say.
The only time I miss you is every single day.

I know how you work;
I am just like you.
No matter what you say, 
our hearts are wrong.
Our hearts are wrong.

~ Our Hearts are Wrong," Jessica Lea Mayfield

Let your love cover me; you are my family.

Naked Leaf Perfumes First Breath

As I am writing this, my niece is about to be born.

Okay, yes, she is my second niece, and also, yes, she isn't really my niece.

It's technically my 'adoptive' sister's second daughter. It doesn't make it any less exciting to me, though. Also, I'm technically writing this piece a few days ahead of pasting it because I'm having some weird health issues this week and I like to stay on track. I'm posting this piece today because I am hoping they don't have to wait until next week to induce.  If I am lucky, Ximena will be born today, on All Soul's Day, because it is a special day, a beautiful day. It is a day of remembrance, a day that connects us to our past.

A lot of people feel that our pasts way us down, but I'm a big believer in honoring where you come from, even the less pleasant parts, because they help you know where you're going. Trust me, my past ain't no picnic, but even I can find and pick out the good parts from a distance, and if I can, then I have hope for everyone. The good parts are still back there, and they are good.  And the bad parts?  They are parts I survived, and that makes me strong.

All of it is part of me, and I am comfortable enough in my own skin to be grateful to all those who made me, those who came before.  Every year, on this day, I try to honor that, and to honor the memory of those loved and loathed and lost, but who still live here, in every breath and heartbeat.  For that reason, I'd like to think of little Ximena coming into the world on a day where the wall between the past and the present is thinnest, a time when we honor our ancestors as we look toward the coming year.

But whether she is born today or not, I've been thinking about her and my sister Erica, particularly as I've been sampling our sixth and final Primordial Scent Project: Air Set offering, Naked Leaf Perfumes First Breath by perfumer Suzy Larsen.

In honor of midwifery, First Breath is a liquid prayer to empower when you need an unshakable inner strength and resilience--whether beginning new projects and challenges or birthing new ideas. The mysterious and sensual First Breath is clean, fresh, expansive, innocent and green while being a little sweet and comforting. It's your own midwife in a bottle giving you courage to take that first tentative step in a new direction. Let your inner sage-femme (midwife) guide you.

First Breath is an AIR element-inspired perfumer for Perfume Pharmer's 2012 Perfume Project: 'Primordial Scent'.

Notes: Sage, Lime, Lavender, Amroise, Bergamot, Clementine, Red Mandarin, Green Pepper, Rose Bulgarian, Rose Anatolian, Neroli, Lavender absolute, Black Current Bud absolute, Jasmine grandiflorum, Clary Sage, Fir Balsam absolute, Vanilla, Vetiver, Patchouli, Oakmoss, Benzoin and Hyrax in organic grape alcohol.

Lime, lavender, and bergamot are strong in the opening, which is very green and a little sharp. Ten minutes I start to get some rose and some of the patchouli base. I like rose/patchouli combinations, and the green and citrus notes lighten and compliment the combo, adding a pretty and, yes, innocent quality to a combination that I usually find earthy or sexy or dirty.

This is a pretty scent. A gentle scent. It doesn't have much of a 'skin' quality, or I'd say it was the air of newborn baby skin. This is not the brutal, bloody reality of birth, but the light, fuzzy bliss-fill memory of those first moments, where all you remember of a difficult new beginning is how it was all worth it in the end.

And to Erica and Ximena, and all lucky soon-to-be-moms and their almost-people, may your memories be as pretty as this scent.

You can buy First Breath for $50.00 for a 5ml parfum extrait direct from the perfumer. Samples are also available for $5.00.

You can buy the entire Primordial Scent Project: Air Set for $28.00 here.

For more reviews of the Primordial Scent Project: Air Scents, try: Perfume-Smellin' Things; The Perfume Critic; John Reasinger, writing for Perfume Pharmer; Indieperfumes; Donna Hathaway, writing for Perfumer Pharmer.


Can you fix this? It's a broken heart. 
It was fine, but it just fell apart. 
It was mine, but now I give it to you, 
Cause you can fix it, you know what to do. 

Let your love cover me, 
Like a pair of angel wings, 
You are my family, 
You are my family. 
~ "Family," Dar Williams

We're one, but we're not the same.

Coeur d'Esprit Natural Perfumes Ele-Metal Alchemy/One

Here we are again, dear reader, exploring the wonderful world of Air. I'd like to pause briefly and say, now that we are on day 5 of 6 days of Air, that one of the most interesting challenges in reviewing the Primordial Scent Project: Air Set is that there are a lot of different ways to interpret Air.

I loved each and every one of the Water scents, but there was a a thread I could discern running between them. Each take on water was, in some deeply fundamental way, always water. Air, however, has been all over the map, scent wise. And that is good, I think. It's forced me to broaden my impression of what Air might mean.

Each scent has taken the concept of the word and stretched it, tweaked it, made it more than I'd imagined before I'd opened the tiny tin with the yellow label. For that I'm grateful. It's always nice to be challenged. It's nice to take the moment to reconsider. And nothing has challenged me more in this set than Coeur d'Esprit Natural Perfumes Ele-Metal Alchemy .

Ele-Metal Alchemy is described by perfumer Lyn E. Ayre as follows:

This five-layer fragrance was born in the Earth, forged in the Fire, cooled in the Water, and dried in the Air. Then it was blessed by Spirit with the number Three, the Infinity symbol, colour & crystals, toning, and a prayer that it be worn for the highest good of the wearer. It now lives in the Ether around the wearer, balancing and harmonizing the inner and outer elements.

The perfume plays out backwards to how it was created. We detect the first whiffs of scent through the ether. It brings up images of airy clouds in the light blue sky and the ethereal whiffs of pine and spruce bent over from the ocean winds; the honeybee winging from flower to flower; and the green leaves, hanging by a thread and flittering in the wind.From Crown Chakra to Third Eye, to Throat, then Heart down to Sacral up to Solar Plexus down to Root up, it spirals in Fibonacci fashion.

Crown – the dream is given through Clair-gnosis, as I sleep.
Third Eye –the vision is inwardly viewed and constructed before pen goes to paper or a bottle is even opened. Accords are what is needed for this project.
Heart –The Air accord of pine and mints refreshes the senses and opens them up to the water experience.
Sacral –The Water accord of Ocean tincture (sand, shells, seaweed, sea grass in alcohol), Ambergris, and aqueous White Flowers such as Frangipani, Blue, Pink, & White Lotus, Jasmine sambac, and Neroli remind us of our birth place in the deep primordial oceans of time.
Solar Plexus –The Fire accord of hot spices and balsams burn in the heat of our passion to be more of who we are meant to be.
Root –The Earth layer of Vetiver, Cedar, Hyraceum, Frankincense grounds the wearer into Gaia.
Throat –Ether: This perfume breathes the concept of ‘ONE’ – organized network of energy; It lives the notion of ‘I AM’ – it all matters; it tones the theory of the ‘OM’ – only me. In essence, it says, ‘I am only one but I am one, and only I can take responsibility for my life’s path, and the ultimate ensuing, journey until my last exhale.

This scent is complex. The opening has a kind of zing to it that reminds me of the taste of fresh horseradish mixed with mint, which slides into a lot of warm spice and wood within about a minute of application. This is the place Ele-Metal Alchemy lives on my skin the longest - in a woody, minty, warm spice area. It also has a strong rubber note at times, that at other times reminds me of Cheerwine?

Ele-Metal Alchemy is an unusual scent. It doesn't remind my of anything else I've tried, which is impressive, and it seems a little different every time I wear it. Maybe that means it is really reactive to whateveer is going on with my skin chemistry right now, but it could also be that, at different points when I wear it, I'm in need of various parts of the spiral Lynn describes.

I've tried Ele-Metal Alchemy a couple of times and it is an interesting Air indeed. It bubbles, it fizzles, it pops. It's pretty, but that's not all it is. It's also warm and sizzling and layered. And yes, pretty. But pretty seems like a bonus in the midst of all this interesting substance. On the whole, a curious scent worth further exploration. If you're into perfume and feeling like you never try anything new, I encourage you to try Ele-Metal Alchemy. It's an awakening all its own.

Ele-Metal Alchemy is available direct from the perfumer in a 10ml atomizer for $37.20. Please note that when the Primordial Scent Project is complete, this scent will simply be called "One."

You can buy the entire Primordial Scent Project: Air Set for $28.00 here.

For more reviews of the Primordial Scent Project: Air Scents, try: Perfume-Smellin' Things; The Perfume Critic; John Reasinger, writing for Perfume Pharmer; Indieperfumes; Donna Hathaway, writing for Perfumer Pharmer.

One life,
but we're not the same.
We get to carry each other...
One.
"One," U2

Perfume photos taken by me. Photo of Cheerwine taken from NYTimes. All Rights Reserved.

There's no place like home for the holidays.

NPG Home for the Holidays: Mermade Magickal Arts EverGreen Incense 2013

November First, dear reader! We have reached November! First! I can now unabashedly run toward the winter holidays with open arms. FN1.

I love winter holidays. I love Thanksgiving and Solstice and Saturnalia and Christmas, and I'm sure I'd love Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, too, given the opportunity. November 1 to January 1 is always my most wonderful time of the year. Also, when I'm super lucky, there is SNOW!

My winter good mood got an early kick off this year when I received the following scentvitation from the Natural Perfumers Guild:

The holiday season means it’s cold outside and everyone is spending more time indoors, with the windows and doors closed.  It’s time to feature beautiful natural scents to highlight the festive spirit.  The Guild members are dedicated to using 100% natural aromatics, and for this season, members of the Natural Perfumers Guild created ambient fragrance for the home and office, using incense, candles, room sprays and wax melts. 

Eight Guild perfumers and associates have independently created lovely ambient scent products to celebrate “Home for the Holidays” 2012.  The natural scents work hand-in-hand with the idea of fragrant Christmas trees, boughs and wreaths fragrancing the homes and offices.

Now I ask you: who could say no to such an offer?


I received a beautiful an exceptionally generous package from Katlyn Breene of Mermade Magickal Arts, which included EverGreen Incense 2013, along with a beautiful electric incense burner, foiled paper, and a carved wooden incense server stick to use with it.  EverGreen is described as follows:

A rich Resin Incense Blend created to celebrate the Ancient Forest. The best of the woody, balsamic and green scents, it is a wonderful blend for the Winter months and seasonal celebrations. It has a base of resins and woods with notes of green fir, pine and cedar. Fresh and invigorating and filled with the scents of the wilderness, of tree resins and growing things. Burn this incense to let the forest in, and enliven your space with the spirit of the holidays.  

Contains: Hougary White Green and Black Frankincense, Copal Blanco, Pinion Pine Resin blended with Cedar tips (wild crafted), Himalyan Juniper, Grand Fir,  Fir Balsam and Western Cedar oil.

EverGreen smells like...evergreens? Ha! How succinct of me. Truly, though, it smells like the beautiful green trees I love among. The primary scent is the smell of dried pine needles and tree resin.  If someone made the floor of the forest into an incense, this would be that scent.  It has that peaty smell of layered greenery moldering and mulching and becoming the death that helps make new life. It has a gently medicinal quality with hints of good dry straw, like the smell of a pile of fresh hay piled onto a cart for a harvest hayride.

This scent is perfect for the winter holiday season because there is nothing commercially 'Christmas-y' about this scent.  It smells like the evergreen woods: dark, lovely, and deep.  I haven't had a chance to try the body incense yet, but I suspect it will be terrific.

In the electric burner provided, set at only a heat setting of 10, less than a teaspoon of EverGreen filled our entire two story house with beautiful scent in under fifteen minutes.  It's been a couple of hours now, and though the incense has been spent for about an hour and the burner has been off for almost two, the house still smells wonderful.

EverGreen is available for only $10.75, and is one of a number of fine quality incense blends available for equally reasonable prices, any of which would make an outstanding stocking stuffer.  While we 'fumies are constantly bombarded with pitches for matching perfumed candles and fragrant oils and reed diffusers, there is something to be said for a well made incense, a scent that is strong and beautiful and requires a little heat to bring it to life.

Also, I'd like to make a pitch for the electric burner. I have never had an electric burner. I have been using incense for probably about twenty years, and both the quality of scent and the method of burning is far superior to anything I've ever experienced.  If you like or use incense or resin, I really recommend getting an electric burner from Mermade Magickal Arts.  It is a beautiful, handcrafted item available for only $59.95, and would make an excellent gift for the scent lover in your life.

I am really grateful to Katlyn for introducing me to this option.

To read about the other NPG Home for the Holidays offerings, check out these other fine bloggers:
~ Ca Fleure Bon
~ Perfume Critic
~ Perfume Shrine
~ The Passionate Perfumista
~ That Smell

Other Natural Perfumers Guild members participating are:

Andrea Shanti of Holistic Body Therapy : Anita Casamento of Happy Herbs Soaps : Anya McCoy of Anya's Garden Perfumes : Elise Pearlstine of Belly Flowers Perfumes : JoAnne Bassett of JoAnne Bassett Perfumes

______________________
FN1. Shut it, holiday haters. I don't want to hear a single word about how it is 'too early.' It is never too early for winter wonderland magic for me.

Over the lilies there that wave and weep above a nameless grave!

Esscentual Alchemy Moon Valley

Dear reader:

Happy All Hallow's Eve! Today is the day that all things spooky, scary, eerie, unsettling, and otherworldly come out and have a heyday. And while we're celebrating the unexplained mysteries of the world, let's talk some more about about primordial scents, particularly those that celebrate the mystery of the unseen, shall we?

Today we reach Day Four of Six in our exploration of the Primordial Scent Project: Air Scents. As befits our holiday, I bring you a dark and lovely perfume for this, the Day of the Dead. Esscentual Alchemy Moon Valley, created by Amanda Feeley, is a natural perfume that...

...opens with a hint of the dew that falls at night. Following with a fresh heirloom muskmelon scent, and exotic herbs. Mouthwateringly enticing. Next comes the smell of well-travelled luggage, that has seen alluring, glamourous, and out of the way ports of call, and has stood the test of time, and the rigors of the journey. Ends with a spicy dry down 

Perfume Ingredients: Vetiver, Antique Oakmoss, Hyrax, Orris, Jasmine Grandiflorum, Lilac, Tuberose, Carnation, Peach Accord, Virginia Cedar, Heliotrope Accord

The first time I tried Moon Valley, it reminded me of standing on my front porch on the first real night of winter, wisps of cold night air bringing me the mixed scents of fireplace and woodstove fires inside homes all over the neighborhood, people burning up the night to warm themselves. The smoke snap freezes in tiny crystals that float, unseen, toward me, each one a tiny orb carrying a view into the lives of others, like the floating bubbles of dreams in Jim Henson's '80s classic Labyrinth. FN1.  That smell is one of my favorite winter smells, and it is always best the first night of every season.

The second time I tried Moon Valley, I thought of death. Specifically, I thought of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Valley of Unrest."

Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley’s restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless—
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.

The third and final try before I ran out of perfume because I liked it so much, what I thought of constantly was the smell of cracking a fresh package of bleached white lined paper, taking out a sheet, and writing on it in a rich, thick, black blue ink with a fountain pen. Heavy words flow from that pen, words of sorrow or ending or resolution.

Overall, this scent is air meets darkness. It is a kind of liquid night, dry and bitter. Is it wrong to say this is, for me, the perfect perfume for a winter funeral? It is. It is rich and lovely and foreboding. I'd recommend it for Halloween, but this scent lacks the candied fun of children trick or treating. This is the real stuff of spirits, mean and serious, not in the modern torture-porn horror way, but in the way the classic Mexican surrealist film The Exterminating Angel is deeply unsettling without any of the gore that seems to be required today. FN1.

Musically speaking? I can think of no better music than this:


The scent reminds me most closely of INeKE's Evening Edged in Gold, but less fruity or sweet. This is darker, earthier, and more, well, primordial. Less pretty, more...guttural. It comes from a place somewhere in the core of the self. Fundamental. The Quintessence, if you will.

Moon Valley is available direct from the perfumer. You can buy samples for $5, 5ml EdP for $22, and the perfume in 1oz spray for $115, 1/3oz gift presentation for $150.

You can buy the entire Primordial Scent Project: Air Set for $28.00 here.

For more reviews of the Primordial Scent Project: Air Scents, try: Perfume-Smellin' Things; The Perfume Critic; John Reasinger, writing for Perfume Pharmer; Indieperfumes; Donna Hathaway, writing for Perfumer Pharmer.

_____________________________

FN1. The film is available for watch for free on Hulu and I recommend it highly to any of my readers who like art films.  Directed by Luis Buñue, it is considered one of the top twenty films in all of Mexican cinema. Without going too much away, I think is a deeply interesting exploration of group psychology and human beings ability to create hell here on earth that likely exceeds anything we'd have to fear is a traditional hell.

FN2.  P.S. How GREAT is this cover of "As The World Falls Down"? Allow me to answer for you. Really f-ing great.


All photos taken by me, copyright 2012. All rights reserved.

Of cloudless climes and starry skies...

Neil Morris Fragrances Spirit of Air

Once upon a time I had an enormous crush on a woman because she always smelled good.

Don't get me wrong. She was a generally lovely woman. Attractive, funny, good-hearted, bright minded, sweet. There was a lot to like about her. But at the time, what I liked about her was that she smelled so good.

The best thing about it was she didn't smell good because of a particular shampoo or perfume or body wash. She wasn't really into fragrance. She didn't consistently use particular hair and body products. She just smelled good. It wasn't her clothes of soap or hair spray.  It was her. The essence of her. She carried this loveliness around her like an aura, floating in the air around her, a cloud of beauty. Like the famous Lord Byron poem, she walked in beauty.

I never could properly describe her scent, but I still remember her loveliness. Though we were never more than friends, I will always remember her and the way her scent made her that much more beautiful.

And speaking of the air of beauty, let's talk about our third Primordial Scent Project: Air Set offering, shall we?

Neil Morris Fragrances Spirit Of Air is described as

part of a quartet of perfumes honoring the 4 elements. This scent is the second in Morris' series, after Spirit of Water. Spirit Of Air has notes of "Lemon Verbena, Linden Blossom, Plum Blossom, Lily of the Valley, Sunflower, Light Musk, White Amber, Ozone Notes.

This is a lovely, gently sweet floral. In a world of artful takes on air, this is very wearable, which is quite an accomplishment. Sometimes scent is art and sometimes scent is accent and occasionally, very occasionally, you find a scent that works as both. If Spirit of Air is an essence of air, it is the essence of air captured in the hair of your beloved, the way it smells when you bury your face against their head or at the nape of the neck.

This air is the air of romance.  It reminds me of that lovely woman, whom I assume is still out there, somewhere.  I have no doubt that where she walks, she takes that inherent beauty with her, not unlike this scent.

To purchase, go directly to the Neil Morris Fragrances site, choose any of the Vault fragrances and then request Spirit of Air at checkout. And if you're interested, don't delay. Until November 5, Neil Morris Fragrances are available at 10% off and free shopping for orders over $70.00.

You can buy the entire Primordial Scent Project: Air Set for $28.00 here.

For more reviews of the Primordial Scent Project: Air Scents, try: Perfume-Smellin' Things; The Perfume Critic; John Reasinger, writing for Perfume Pharmer; Indieperfumes; Donna Hathaway, writing for Perfumer Pharmer.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
~ "She Walks in Beauty," Lord Byron


Photo of perfume taken by me.  Photo of woman walking courtesy of the Library of Congress, all rights reserved.

It flutters like soft wings in flight...

Velvet & Sweet Pea's Purrfumery Honey

Dear reader:

Despite my obsessive fantasies of travel, I have only been out of the country one time. It was less than a year ago. My friend LillieMae and I went to Victoria, B.C.

While we were there, we had some plans: we were going to go see a castle (turned out to be a big mansion, but hey, it was still historic and cool), have high tea (delicious!), and go to the Butterfly Gardens. FN1. Though it took a long, bumpy (and in Lillie's case moderate car-sickness-inducing) bus ride to get there, the gardens were worth the trip. In fact, they were pretty amazing. FN2.

There were so many beautiful winged beasties, both minuscule and enormous, and the air scent was a mixture of the cool, wet mist pumped through the space to keep the leaves of all the tropical plants green and flowering and the sweetness of the copious sugar water feeders hanging everywhere to keep the butterflies fat and happ. After the long ride in the massive heat, it was a great respite in an active day. Despite the summer crowd, it felt kind of magical to wander in the dewy air under hanging vines, among huge fronds, and  twisting around trees with fat leaves, supple and heavy with life, while all around you tiny iridescent creatures in more hues than the rainbow has colors swooped and dove through the air.

When I smell Velvet & Sweet Pea's Purrfumery Honey by perfumer Laurie Stern, I think of that place. Honey is described as follows:

Notes: All hail to the queen bee! This regal, opulent composition of French orange blossom, and Moroccan and Bulgarian roses sits on a throne of deep vetiver, Madagascar vanilla, honey, beeswax from the Purrfumery’s bees and my bee guru’s propolis. It is crowned with rare antique clove, pomegranate and pink grapefruit. This royal blend is set in a rich base of sandalwood and vanilla infused alcohol.

Honied and sweet, this scent is the Air of Spring. It has clarity and openness like light glinting on water, like the brush of butterfly wings against skin. I get quite a bit of beeswax, and the floral, fruit, and vanilla sweetnesses blend smoothly, like the warmth flow of poured honey.  As a lover of honey scents, I tend to like these scents, and this one is unique in that it seems less foodie in its honey essence and more the idea of being surrounded by pure honey atomized into the air.

Honey, as the name implies, is a rather sweet scent, but it is truly lovely. Though the opening is quite strong, about 45 minutes in it lightens considerably, so if you like sweet scents on the lighter side, this might be a good scent for you if you can give it a bit. It's an intense experience at first, much like the deep darker wings of butterflies hiding in shadows;  the lingering effect, however, is the image of pale-winged Lepidoptera Papilionoidea soaring through a bright sun overhead, light gleaming through their iridescent skin.

As Laurie Stern states, "honey liquid perfume makes a royal gift, bottled in an elegant Brosse crystal stopper bottle and tucked into an enchanting dupioni silk purse with its own Victorian scent card." It is available direct from the perfumer in three sizes: 8 ml for $185; 15 ml for $325; 1 oz for $550.

Editor's note: Honey is also available in an EdP at 6ml for $75.00 and a solid crème perfume at 10ml for $225.00. Thanks to Monica for the note.

You can buy the entire Primordial Scent Project: Air Set for $28.00 here.

For more reviews of the Primordial Scent Project: Air Scents, try: Perfume-Smellin' Things; The Perfume Critic; John Reasinger, writing for Perfume Pharmer; Indieperfumes; Donna Hathaway, writing for Perfumer Pharmer.

I feel it when you're with me,
It happens when you kiss me,
that rare and gentle feeling that I feel inside.
Your touch is soft and gentle.
Your kiss is warm and tender.
Whenever I am with you I think of butterflies.
~ "Love is Like a Butterfly," Dolly Parton

_____________

FN1. We decided to pass on Butchart Gardens for a number of reasons: expense, time, my allergy to bees, etc.

FN2. Next time, Lil, we will either take the car or rent one. I promise. While the public transit system in Victoria is very easy to use and all the bus drivers were really nice, it was really not worth the additional illness, especially given...the ferry.


Perfume photos taken by me. Awesome butterfly photos taken by LillieMae Stone, 2011. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

When Your Circumstance is Movie-Sized: The Smell of Air

Six Days with the Primordial Scent Project: Air Set

When I was fourteen, I fell in love with a song by Liz Phair called "Stratford-on-Guy." I discovered it on a late night alternative rock show on MTV called 120 Minutes. I was sitting in my dad's room, watching videos while I waited for him to leave for work, and this video came on. I immediately set about trying to find the album, which back then was a lot harder as it required you to have the artist's name and the name of the song (though album was better), then make a physical pilgrimage to a record store or, in my case, music store full of cassette tapes in the local mall, to try to track it down. I had Exile in Guyville pretty much right as it came out thanks to this single, and I played the cassette over and over.

The song isn't particularly profound. It's about the experience of being on a plane. Not like, "here I am separated from my love or going to war and this plane is a metaphor for my loss," but about the visceral experience of being on an actual plane: the stillness of the people, the way the world looks from above, the loud quietness of the space itself, the sense of being connected and disconnected, or moving and not moving, of doing something menial (sitting and reading a magazine, drinking a coke and eating peanuts) and simultaneously extraordinary (flying). The description of the experience got to the heart of me in some deep and fundamental way, like a poem I keep returning to and finding new colors in the words.

At that point in my life, it would be another two years before I flew on a plane for the first time. When I finally did it, I was terrified. I was entranced. It still seems impossible that you don't fall right out of the sky. Impossible that you become surrounded by clouds so that every window in all directions is filled with nothing but whiteness. Above you, below you, left and right, whiteness. It's as if you've entered a strange kind of otherworld, where childhood images of heaven, or the unknown great hereafter, is nothing but pearly clouds and angelic figures.

Even today, every time I fly, there comes a moment when the earth disappears and space disappears and there is only a small room surrounded by whiteness, all manner of whiteness, and the thrum of the engines is barely noticeable on your skin and in your ears and the space has a strange kind of stale coolness. In that moment, I wonder if this is what those first few moments after dying will be like for me. It won't be a tunnel of light or a large foreboding gate or a set of scales with my soul on one side and a blackbird's feather on the other. It will be me, going somewhere unseen and unknown at an impossible speed, not alone but still profoundly singular in the experience, not quite here or there yet, in progress.

After all, isn't that the space we all really live in? Hurtling toward the future at an impossible speed, yet not quite free of the past behind us? If you died there, in that space, would you even know it? Or would you just ask for more peanuts?

That's a lot to get out of a 120 Minutes video. Twenty years later, and I still listen to the album a couple of times a year. When "Stratford-on-Guy" comes on, I feel that profound sense of being outside and yet somehow in the moment, every time.

The thing that makes me tell you about this experience, dear reader, is that we have reached another week of the Primordial Scent Project. For the next six days our focus is the primordial element of Air. I knew I was getting the Air set before it arrived, and the concept intrigued me. Water? Fire? Those are scents I feel like I have a relationship with. Whenever I thought about how to capture Air as an element in scent, I kept thinking of "Stratford-on-Guy" and the liminal experience of air travel.

It took an hour, maybe a day,
but when I really listened, the noise just went away.

What does it mean to make a fragrance that captures the essence of air? Is it a sort of nothing, an almost absence of scent? Is it a particular scent, a moment captured on the wind? Is it a mishmash of all the things one loves best, a kind of everything scent? Or is it somewhere in between?

That's the question we're going to explore this week with the Primordial Scent Project.

Our first Air scent is Michael Storer's Djin. The Posh Peasant describes the scent as follows:

A powerful djin is what Aladdin brought forth when he rubbed his famous lamp.A spectral and prismatic interplay of olfactory sensations is what you’ll set free with just a few sprays of Djin parfum. Djin’s notes range through all the chakras from the base of the spine with very male Aldrone, leathery castoreum, civet, musk, tonka bean and teakwood, to a middle of sweeter woods tempering the bitterness of grapefruit oil, blackcurrant absolute, clary sage, just a hint of vanilla and iris. This all carries on through the upper spine right to the forehead with an aura of ozonic and marine notes, rose and topped with mind-opening spices including cardamom seed and floral aldehydes. This is all we will reveal. You’ll just have to rub the magic lamp yourself to experience all the full-bodied power of Djin.

The immediate opening is green, sweet, and woody, a fresh light scent that would be easily interpreted as either masculine or feminine. The middle section of Djin is a lovely ozone and marine mixture that reminds of me the prettiest aspects of the smell of the kind of recycled air on a plane, but without the stale unpleasant points. It reminds me what my grandmother used to call "store bought air," with a hefty emphasis on a kind of green dewiness.

I tried Djin a couple of times, and there was always something about the scent I couldn't quite put my finger on. When I couldn't place it easily, couldn't find the right words, I kept going back to that concept of liminal space. An in-between scent for the not quite here or there moment, both in travel and in life. It lives in the quiet beyond the busy-ness of our daily lives, that place where we are forced to sit and wait for our external selves to begin again. In that moment of not-quite-here-or-there-ness, we find a strange kind of peace.

Now what could be more magical than that?

Djin is a light, pretty scent lingers over the skin for hours. The sillage is low but the longevity is good, lasting on me about eight hours.

You can buy Djin for $75 from the Posh Peasant. You can also buy by contacting the perfumer directly.

You can buy the entire Primordial Scent Project: Air Set for $28.00 here.

For more reviews of the Primordial Scent Project: Air Scents, try:  Perfume-Smellin' Things; The Perfume Critic;  John Reasinger, writing for Perfume Pharmer; Indieperfumes; Donna Hathaway, writing for Perfumer Pharmer.

The earth looked like it was lit from within
like a poorly assembled electrical ball.
As we moved out of the farmlands into the grid
the plan of a city was all that you saw.
And all of these people sitting totally still
as the ground raced beneath them, thirty-thousand feet down...
~ "Stratford-On-Guy," Liz Phair

________________________________
Photo of scents taken by me; other photos from Creative Commons: Airplane in sky and Clouds from airplane. All rights reserved.

Down by the water, I took her hand.

Sea Scape by Anu Prestonia of Anu Essentials

And here we reach the fifth and final day of the Primordial Scent Project: Water scents. This week we're having our first true rain of Fall, and Anu Essentials Sea Scape is described as follows:

Bring the ocean closer to you with this unique combination of seaweed, violet leaf, Bulgarian rose, Tunisian neroli, ambergris and two kinds of jasmine to start the lapping of the waves smoothly rolling in on your consciousness, relaxing your mind and stirring your soul.

You know what this scent made me think of first? Tide pools. When you hike along the Oregon and Washington coasts, you will find yourself in long pants and hiking boots, scrambling over rocky outcroppings to star down at beautiful tide pools. These little swirling worlds team with life -- crabs and star fish, sand dollars and kelp, moss and algae.

When you stand over them, peering into their worlds, a smell will rose toward you. That smell is green and wet and, well, primordial. It is the scent that reminds me that we once came from the water, and that we may eventually return.

Sea Scape rides very close to the skin for such a potent scent. It manages to be a strong perfume, without a radius that would knock your neighbor down. If your water scent tastes run toward the green and life-giving end of the spectrum, this might be the water option for you.

Samples are available from the perfumer for $5, and a full bottle is $85.00 direct from the perfumer.

If you'd like to try the entire Primordial Scent Project: Water set, it's available here for $25.00.

By far the best/worst part of this for me is that there is no clear winner among the water scents.  They were all really terrific, and every time I tried to pick one I liked 'best' or even that I thought was the most accurate or clearest representation of "water," I couldn't. They all seem to represent slightly different but very real encounters of water in the world to me, and are all a kind of bliss-inducing experience. I feel very lucky to have been part of the project, and I still have the Fire and Air scents to tell you about. So if water scents aren't your cup of tea, stay tuned!

For more reviews of the primordial water scents, try: EauMG; The Perfume Critic; Fragrantica.

Little fish, big fish,
swimming in the water.
Come back here, man,
give my daughter.
~ "Down By The Water," PJ Harvey

Mitt Romney and the Myth of Women's Work

Thanks Binders Full
of Women tumblr!

Last night, while driving back from dinner, David and I pulled up to a light.
D: "Oh no! Mitt Romney has been here!"
Me: "How do you know?"
D: "Look!" *points to papers and broken binder scattered on ground in middle of road* "Binder remains!"
Me: "But where are all the women?"
D: "This is the Pacific Northwest. They knew they could flee for safety here."
Me: "Run, women! Run for your lives!"

. . . . 

Okay, all binder hilarity aside (and there is some good stuff out there, my favorite being the customer reviews on Avery 1" binders for sale on Amazon -- Thanks to Carli R. for the link), there was something former Governor Romney said in the debates, something inaccurate and truly sexist, and it didn't have anything to do with binders full of women, or even a flexible work schedule being required such that working women can get home in time it make dinner. FN1. The moment that I keep returning to with fire in my belly got buried between those two more obviously tone-deaf moments, and because I can't let it go, dear reader, I'm going to talk to you about it.

Okay, here's the critical snippet of transcript, reader. Let's play a rousing round of "Spot the Sexist!"

Romney: "Now, one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort, but number two, because I recognized that if you're going to have women in the workforce, that sometimes they need to be more flexible. My chief of staff, for instance, had two kids that were still in school. She said, I can't be here until 7:00 or 8:00 at night. I need to be able to get home at 5:00 so I can be there for -- making dinner for my kids and being with them when they get home from school. So we said, fine, let's have a flexible schedule so you can have hours that work for you."

Did you catch it? It's probably all those logic puzzles I had to do in preparation for the LSAT, but ever since then, if/then statements really jump out at me. "If" implies a condition, something that may or may not happen. It's only a precedent possibility. It isn't a foregone conclusion. It's something that isn't necessary or inevitable.

"I recognized that if you're going to have women in the workforce, that sometimes they need to be more flexible."

"If."

If.

This is the torn in my paw, the splinter in my skin, the pea under my mattress, dear reader. And I'll tell you why this bothers me so much.

First, it offends me as a feminist because it implies the work a person - male or female - does at home (keeping a home, raising a family, cooking meals, shuttling kids around, etc.) isn't real work, that they aren't part of the 'workforce.' This argument is, of course, completely nonsensical, as we all know that housekeepers don't work for free, daycare isn't provided gratis, personal chefs don't volunteer their services. These are jobs that have market value. We've determined, even under the most mercenary capitalist calculations, that these services have a value.

This is an assumed benefit, you see. Like a hidden cost, it rides for free in the market place, never being thought of for its true value. However, if every person doing home care shifted one home to the left or right, did their neighbor's work, and submitted a bill to said neighbor who in turn paid them, these individuals would no longer be 'invisible' members of the "workforce." The idea that society requires this sort of task shifting in order to fully acknowledge the monetary value to this benefit is, in a word, stupid.

BUT, even if I set this feminist objection aside, the historian in me is appalled by the sheer willful ignorance of this statement. This historian, with her very expensive education in American women's history, is the yelling voice in my head, and her secondary objection actually gets to the far more problematic part of Mr. Romney's privileged point of view.

As far back as this country has existed, women have worked. Puritans like John Cotton and John Rogers remarked as they settled in Plymouth, Providence, and Massachusetts Bay on the work performed by women of the native peoples. Be they Pequot, Narragansett, or Mohegan, these women completed all agricultural work except the growing of tobacco. All the food stuffs planted and reaped and prepared in those times, you know the ones that kept the settlers from starving in those first rough winters? Women created those goods for gift, trade, or purchase.  These same Puritan men set about building a City on a Hill; meanwhile, their Puritan wives canned goods, wove cloth, dried meats, and preserved and created other goods to be traded, sold, and purchased between the colonies and with the natives.

During the American industrial age, women worked in factories and manufacturing from its beginnings in the mid-1700s all the way to its end in the 1900s. Women worked during both world wars. Poor women, immigrant women, and women of color have worked in domestic positions for white families for pay in this country virtually forever. FN3.

Women have always worked. They have always been part of the workforce, even when you limit the definition of "workforce" to work done outside one's own home. They have been paid teachers, nurses, factory workers, craftswomen, midwives, trade persons. Even during the Victorian period, wealthy white women worked as novelists and writers and educators.

National Women's Law Center's report
on pay inequity is available here.

This notion that there was a magical historical past where women did nothing but kept house and raised their children is a myth. If it has ever existed, it was only for the very, very wealthy white women of the Victorian era and for a handful of years to a select group of middle-class white women living in the suburbs in post-WWII America, a lot of whom had been forced out of jobs they enjoyed when the war ended and they  'went home,' giving their positions to returning veterans. And let's not forget, as documented in detail by writers like Betty Friedan, these women were deeply miserable, to the point that they inspired the second wave of the feminism movement and its efforts to obtain equal access to the sphere of public work and employment opportunities for women. FN4.

There is no "if." This fabled "if" has never existed. Women are an integral part of "the workforce," both in the public and private spheres. The work they have done and continue to do remains underpaid, under appreciated, and often unnoticed, but make no mistake: it is WORK. We are part of the workforce. We have always been part of the workforce. We will always be part of the workforce.

That former Governor Romney believes that this fact is at present -  or has ever been - conditional demonstrates how completely out of touch he is with the reality of the vast majority of women's lives. He also seems crazily uninformed about American history for someone who seeks our highest office.

And that, my friends, is what makes me most afraid. How can we expect someone to govern our country with our best interests in mind when he truly does not even see half of us? He is blind to the lives of all but the most privileged women, and he presumes that the work they do is both inherently less valuable and should come second to their familial obligations, as though men do not have to and should not have to share these same responsibilities. He is fundamentally blind to women and to his own male privilege, in the same way he is blind to poor people and his corresponding wealth, to working class people and his corresponding family purchased opportunities, to people of color and his own whiteness.

No wonder then-Governor Romney and his male cohorts 'could not find' any qualified women to join his cabinet. He never saw them in the first place. FN5. And in his own words, as recently as just this last week on prime time national television, Mr. Romney has revealed that he still doesn't.

"Through their own words
they will be exposed. 
They've got a severe case of 
the emperor's new clothes."
~ "The Emperor's New Clothes," Sinead O'Connor

_______________
FN1. Though don't mistake me, all of that was some heinously sexist b.s.

FN2. Yes, a historian, professional feminist, and attorney all sit around, yelling different arguments at me /the world in my head, while the 'fumie just sits in a corner, sniffing at her wrists and muttering, "pretty!" Doesn't everyone's head work like that?

FN3. Well, you know, after we stopped enslaving them.

FN4. Again, it is worth noting here that this 'workplace struggle' was largely lost on their impoverished sisters in arms as well as women of color and immigrant women, all of whom never had the luxurious option of staying home and remaining outside the public sphere of work in the first place.

FN5. And in case this whole binder business wasn't offensive enough, it turned out to contain an incredible amount of spin. The real story involves being approached by a women's group in Massachusetts with a request to include more women in government, not a concerted effort on Mr. Romney's part to find women for his cabinet.

Let the only sound be the overflow.

Ane Walsh's Essaouira EDP

Dear reader:

Here's another weird, formative experience water story.  I met my second boyfriend, with whom I had a whopping total of one date in our whole six-ish months of "we go to different high schools and only talk on the phone" dating, at a water park. FN1. Jim, last name now long lost to the annual of time, I remember only four things clearly about: he was cute; he was a football player (only one I ever dated); he had thick southern accent; and he chose me out of a passel of girls I would have bet good money at the time were all prettier, more interesting, nicer, and better with boys than I was.

This last fact might be the most remarkable, dear reader, because that was the summer that I turned, seemingly overnight, from a pauper to a princess. Seriously. I don’t think a single boy had ever so much as glanced in my direction before that summer. FN2. Then, all the sudden, it was like someone had done a makeover montage set to music, waved a fairy wand over my head, and Bam! Instant acknowledgement.

This was a strange experience, especially for a girl whose mom had decided to take a powder two years earlier, right when I was actually starting to need a mom to explain things to me.  I had no idea what to do.  It took me totally by surprise. I mean, I was the little girl who would give her fourth grade crush a valentine at school only to find it torn up and left on my desk in a clear sign of the boy’s rejection and utter disgust. And if I will remember Jim after all these intervening years, that trip to the now defunct Six Flags: Waterworld will always stand out in my mind as a time I discovered, to no one's greater surprise than my own, that I was...pretty.  Desirable. For that, and for the extreme wedgies those really steep water slides gave me, I'll always remember, and be (at least for the slide part) grateful.

Day four of water world, scent edition, over here.  Today, I am thrilled to bring you a scent from Ane Walsh, Essaouira. The notes include "sweet orange, grapefruit, lemon, lavender, blue chamomile, saffron, coconut, Khao Yao oud, and Atlas cedar."

This is the one who smells the most like a drink of water straight from the glass to me. It is dry, which you might think is a strange descriptor for a water scent, but hey, we use the same word to describe wines all the time, and it is perfectly apt here. Dry, lovely, and really impressively realistic.

It smells almost like dried grasses or wheat, which for me means the saffron and cedar are the strongest notes, with hints of coconut and oud sweetening and deepening the scent. The sweetest notes are truly in the top here, citrus burning off within the first twenty to thirty minutes, until all that is left is the taste of really cold water dancing in my nose.

It feels so fundamental to me, it's hard to imagine wearing Essaouira for a special occasion, but I could easily imagine reaching for it over and over again during the nine months of cool, dark, wet that blesses each Pacific Northwestern winter here. Sillage is low to moderate, but the longevity is good.

If you'd like to try the entire Primordial Scent Project Water set, it's available here for $25.00.

For more reviews of the primordial water scents, try: EauMG; The Perfume Critic; Fragrantica.

Time it took us
to where the water was.
That's what the water gave me.
And time goes quicker
between the two of us.
Oh, my love, don't forsake me.
Take what the water gave me.
~ "What the Water Gave Me," Florence + the Machine
_________________
FN1. We were both too young to drive.

FN2. Okay,  I think there was one little boy in first grade, but that’s another story for another day.

Take me to the river. Drop me in the water.

Lylli Bleu EdP from Justine Crane of The Scented Djinn

Here is another water story for you, dear reader.  When I was young, I had two grandparents I worshiped  FN1.  They had a beach house out on the Gulf. It was out on Bolivar peninsula, a ferry ride past Galveston.  When I think of my childhood, that house is probably the one place I remember being consistently and uniformly happy.

My grandfather, my Papa, he had a massive stroke when I was only five.  Still, I have a handful of memories of him before it happened.  I remember him mowing the front lawn while I saw on the stoop with something sticky on my hands.  I can remember him driving me to the beach in an old blue station wagon.  I know he's driving because I can see the back of his head and his shoulder, clad in this hideous polyester white and dark blue paisley shirt, above the edge of the seat. FN2. And I remember, very clearly, that he used to take me out, way out into the water, all the way to the second sandbar, in an old inner tube that smelled strongly of rubber.

In the clearest of these inner tube memories, I am screaming, caterwauling, because he is dragging me out and, for some reason, I want to go in.  Strong-willed even at age three, I am yelling, "Let me go! Let me go!" I can hear him say, "Okay," with a heavy sigh, and he let's the tube go.  I float with the flow of water away from him slightly as the tide gathers itself a little.

Then the wave comes.

Over I go, flung out of the inner tube and down into the water.  My eyes are open because I don't have the sense to close them. The water is a brownish grey from the heavy silt in the area and murky, clouding my vision. I see seaweed churning in the wave's wake.  I'm flailing, but the water is stronger than my uncoordinated limbs, and I twist and thrash. I think, though I don't know if this is then or now in retrospect, that I am drowning, and it scares me.

Then hands find me and pull me out.  My eyes sting.  I cough and choke as the salty, bitter water clears my lungs.  He's carrying me back to shore now, holding me to his warm skin easily with one arm while he drags the inner tube behind us with the other hand.

"You let me go.  You promised you wouldn't let me go." I scream, crying. "Why did you let me go?"

Laughing, he says, "Because you asked me to."

I think of this memory at least one hundred times every year.

"Why did you let me go?"

"Because you asked me to."

He would have given me anything, I think.  Even if he knew it wasn't a good idea, he'd have given it to me because I asked for it.

I don't know what to do with that kind of love, even as a hazy memory.

When I think of those times, I smell salt and silt and rubber, hot sand and seaweed and jellyfish and picked over corpses of sea creatures rotting in the hot sun. Does that sound disgusting?  It isn't. It's a visercal kind of beautiful. There's a lot of life and death and life again in those warm waters.  The smell of it still haunts my dreams.


Which brings us to Day Three! We have reached day three of the Primordial Scent Project: Water. Okay, who knew it was possible to do so many different realistic well-done aspects of water? Not me, trust me. I've been disappointed by enough 'water' scents to have been a littler nervous when I agreed to review the water-centered scents.

Lylli Bleu EdP's notes include "blue lotus, mitti, sandalwood, and neroli," and it is a sweet, dirty, wet scent that reminds me of the smell of water my backyard for the first time a few weeks ago. I have fruit trees, you see, and when I watered, the smell of tart apples, over ripe pears, and rotting plums all rose up from the grass along with the smell of wet dirt and grass and moss. This is similar in spirit, thought not as sweet or hot as the immediate scent of the rotting fruit flesh under the hot summer sun.

It is stunning, how water can revive scents, bring them out in things that seem spent, or wasted, or dead. When we search the universe for signs of life, we always search for water. When I have moments like this, I understand why. There is something, well, primordial about the scent of water, and for day three in a row, here is another scent that demonstrates that smells is beautiful and wearable. Moderate to low sillage, lasting between six and eight hours on me.

If you'd like to try the entire Primordial Scent Project: Water set, it's available here for $25.00.

For more reviews of the primordial water scents, try: EauMG; The Perfume Critic; Fragrantica.

Hold me; squeeze me.
Love me; tease me
'til I can,'til I can't,
'til I can't tell....
~ "Take Me to the River," Talking Heads

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FN1. I still worship them. They're just not here anymore. But I still miss them and think of them every day.

FN2. This must have been 1981 or 1982, so back off the bad fashion, haters. In my mind's eye it is what we historian's call "period appropriate."