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.

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

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

____________

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."

Here comes the rain again...

Aftelier Perfumes Rain Perfumed Bath Oil

Today is Day Two of Primordial Scents Project: Water here at Feminine Things. And what fortuitous timing, as the first good rain has come to the PNW this week, and it has made everything cool and wet and beautiful.  And speaking of our lovely rain, have I got a scent for you today.

Mandy Aftel is a terrific indie perfumer, and her contribution to the Primordial Scent Project is Aftelier Perfumes Rain Perfumed Bath Oil. The scent is described as:

Fresh, uplifting with apple notes featuring ravensara and a special chamomile from South Africa along with other essential oils. Our bath oils are made of pure essential oils, with no carrier.

Do you ever try to smell water, like breathe deeply into a long sip of water, and smell an almost earthy scent, like a mixture of bark, earth, and rubber? Something deep and rooty, slightly sweet and salty. This bath oil is that aspect of rain. Rain splattering against dirt and matted, fallen leaves, bouncing off warm concrete, steaming off a hot car hood, spun through rubber tires on the highway, sliding down wood shingled roofs, dripping into rivulets that become rivers that flow into the ocean. It's somehow both brackish and clean, as clear as the kinds of mountain streams they show in television commercials  and as dark and dirty as the Mississippi-fed Gulf waters I grew up in.

A little bit goes a long way with this bath oil, which is strong enough to scent you and your bathroom both beautifully with only a few drops. It might seem strange, taking a bath scented like the rain, but there is something so beautiful, so soothing, about being able to take the scent of the water with you, gently clinging to your skin for hours after you leave your soak. Me? I found it terrific right before bed. I'd wake up with the vague memory of rain-scented dreams.

Rain Perfumed Bath Oil is a luxurious experience, and as we head toward the holidays, may I recommend this as a terrific stocking stuffer for the water lover in your life? Trust me. They'll be thrilled. Moderate sillage, but incredibly long lasting, traces lingered on my skin for up to twelve hours.

Rain Bath Oil is available for $45 for a .5 oz from the perfumer. You can also get a 2ml sample for $4.

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.

...falling on my head like a memory,
falling on my head like a new emotion.
I want to walk in the open wind.
I want to talk like lovers do.
I want to dive into your ocean.
Is it raining with you?"
~ "Here Comes the Rain Again," Eurythmics

For the love of water.

A Study in Water by Shelley Waddington of EnVoyage Perfumes

Dear reader:

I love water.

Seriously. And not in the "I'm athletic and water is the drink of life" kind of way. I mean in the "though I'm not into astrology, I am supposed to be a water sign and I do entirely freak out if I live too far from the ocean or go too many days without rain" kind of way. Seriously. My one year of residence in the high deserts of Santa Fe were miserable, and my loathing for Riverside was disproportionate because of the relentless sun. I even preferred Houston over Austin in part because Austin is too far from the ocean and the Lake is not prominent enough in the geography of the town to satisfy my tastes. FN1.

I am one of those people who literally prays for rain, and not because I am a dust bowl farmer or cattleman with a desperate herd. When I was young and they sent me to Girl Scout camp, while the other little girls were making lanyards and God's Eyes out of yarn and popsicle sticks, I sat in the corner, imagining I was a water witch, and trying to summon storms. The last year I went, I simultaneously 'became a woman' (FN2) and managed to bring a huge tropical storm down on us that washed out the road to the camp and closed it down for two weeks. Coincidence? Probably. But try telling that to an eleven-year-old.

So when I was approached to be part of the Primordial Scents Project a while ago, I immediately said yes. What's not to love? Elemental-themed perfumes for the water witch in my heart? Sign me up. While normally I despise aquatics, which is about what passes for 'water' in mainstream perfumery, I was deeply hopeful based on the amazing talents I saw involved in the project. I love a disproportionately large amount of beach/coast scents -- from Annick Goutal Songes to slumberhouse Sana to CB At the Beach 1966 to even a small bottle of Coty Sand & Sable -- but these are 'beach' scents or 'coast' scents, and what I wanted was the smell of water. I wanted the smell of rain, the smell of the ocean, of a lake, a river, a stream. You know those ridiculous face cleanser commercials where women splash water on themselves and half the bathroom as though that ever removed the smallest hint of make-up or soap?

I wanted that, but in a scent. And, as usual, the amazing men and women who traffic in the alchemic magic of perfumery did not disappoint.

First up: A Study in Water by Shelley Waddington of EnVoyage Perfumes

Study in Water was inspired by the element of fresh water. My goal in making this incredibly sheer, wet, and innocent fragrance was to retain the elegance, longevity and sillage of the most excellent of classic perfumes. ~Shelley Waddington

Top notes: muguet, lime, green apple, bergamot, dew
Heart notes: rose water, jasmine, green leaves, neroli, muguet
Base notes: sandalwood, guaiac wood, cabreuva, watery notes, musk

A Study in Water is ahhh-mazing. Do you hear me, reader? Amazing. Like I've almost used my entire sample in less than three weeks and I've already set aside money to buy a bottle before the end of October. That amazing. The first time I put it on, it was that startling slap of instant love for me. I thought, "I should hate this," but while my head said, "Aquatic - bleck!," my heart was like, "Shut it, foo! I WANT MORE!" It's gotten under my skin in the best way.

I'm not going to tell you it smells like a glass of water. In fact, I just sniffed a cup in front of me to make sure. And yet, it does smell like water. Like water dripping from the skin of an apple, from the tip of a flower petal, running down grooves in polished wood. It's water that has taken on the essence of the flowers, fruit and wood listed in the notes, until it seems like an infusion of dew along so those items. Of the five scents in the set, I found A Study in Water to have the highest sillage and duration on my skin.

I really can't say enough good things about this scent. If you like the smell of rain, of the first morning dew, or something that isn't quite, but somehow is the closest I've ever smelled to real water, this is for you. Truly masterful.

You can by A Study in Water for $55.00 for .5 oz, or $80.00 for 1 oz. direct from the perfumer. While I'm on the subject of EnVoyage Perfumes, this is my third or fourth scent of Shelley's, and she never disappoints. If you're newish to perfume or new to indie perfume or merely looking to branch out beyond your local Ulta/Sephora/Nordstrom offerings and into the web based wilds, I encourage you to consider sampling her line. She continues to hit it out of the park for me.

If you'd like to try the entire Primordials Water Set, it's available here for $25.00.

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

The water is wide, I cannot get o'er,
neither have I wings to fly.
Give me a boat that can carry two
and both shall row, my love and I...
~ "The Water is Wide," Traditional Irish Folk Song

____________________
FN1. This is partly why I thought I could handle life in Madison. The city is surrounded by water, it actually rains there, and the great lakes, while a lesser substitute (sorry, Hilary S., but it's true), were at least within a few hours driving distance.

FN2. ...which by the way was the worst, especially since this was a swimming camp, I was eleven, and the camp counselors -- all 16-18 y.o. teenage girls -- did not understand why I was terrified of the tampons they kept shoving in my general direction so I could just get back in the water...