Blithgunde

Mag Mell is summer garden in a bottle. It smells like an herb bed after a shower when the sun has come out and everything sparkles. Green, clean, and fresh. The lemon verbena is the strongest note on me, flanked by the sage and grass. Ginger is there too, warming things up like a sunbeam. I haven't worn Mag Mell since Fall. I put some on yesterday and found myself leafing through a stack of garden catalogs. Instant Spring Fever!

Hades starts out with deep woods and spicy resins that combine to smell like ginger and allspice to me. As it dries the narcissus strengthens and floats on top. This is a very deep and comforting scent, a spicy woody floral that ages to a subtle resin spice.

A light mixture of mints, vanilla, and musk; cool and bright and refreshing. This reminds me of a floral without having any floral notes I can detect. How cool is that? This winter Snow-Flakes was as satisfying to wear sitting indoors watching snow fall as to wear outside while shoveling said snow. A special treat is wearing it with a hood. The scent rises and pools to mingle with the cold air. Then it smells even brighter and cooler! Snow-Flakes speaks more to me of the radiance of winter than the desolation of winter.

Luminous, otherworldly wet and piquant odors mingling with black incense, the pitch-stench of Yuggoth, and fungal lichens. Bright lime and seawater and something like heliotrope hovering over a deeper scent. Everything merges to a sun-warmed scent. It's like standing in a lichen garden under an alien sun. To me this is a sophisticated, dressy scent with the pleasant side effect of being an imagination tweaker and daydream inducer.

A bright honey and an amber honey poured all over a heap of vanilla and spices. It's an offering to please a sensual goddess. As time passes the honeys mellow into a sweetness layered over deep woody spices. Some days I get a little bit of powderiness but most days not. I loved Womb Furie as soon as I tried it. Now I'm going to get a second bottle to age, because I'm curious to see how this could get even better!

My dear friends Vetiver and Patchouli hop right out of the bottle followed by a whoosh of Grapefruit. White Pepper is a little shy and only joins the conversation when V. and P. quiet down. And a satisfying conversation it is: Grapefruit sparkles, Patchouli hums, Vetiver rumbles, and White Pepper leavens like a bon mot. I can take this posse anywhere.

Squirting Cucumber is spurt of green, lovely green. It smells like young cucumbers being peeled and diced so their delicate breath hangs in the warm kitchen air. It smells like fresh mown grass, like the first Spring-time mowing when the bright green blades clog the mower with their moist lushness. It's lively and bright and absolutely perfect. Having this scent in my life fills the empty spot left when Caswell Massey stopped making Cucumber Lotion and Clairol stopped making Herbal Essence shampoo. But I like it better than either one, and I'm glad to limn another period of my life with bright green tinged memories.

Deep dark unsweetened chocolate floating on musk with a whiff of tobacco. Oh yum. It doesn't change much after I put it on. The separate notes blend together into a rich sensuous odor that envelops me all day. It's sexy, civilized, and comfortable all at the same time.

Blue Moon starts as white flowers steeped in lemon and blooms with wood, resins, and musk as it dries on me. It smells blue to me, deep blue like moonlight shadows on the snow, and the scent is veiled somehow, like seeing the moon through high wispy clouds. It's beautiful and magical. My favorite phase is the final drydown; a woody, musky, rich smell that reminds me of old wooden spermaceti barrels in the basement of the Nantucket Whaling Museum. (I loved the smell of those barrels when I was a kid; went back after more than thirty years and the barrels were still there and still smelt the same!) Blue Moon helps me with divination and inner work. It wakes up that part of my being. On the other hand, it also suppresses my analytical, verbal side, so I don't wear it to work. The one day I did, way too much non-verbal information about my co-workers came flooding into my mind while I could barely put two coherent sentences together. All in all I love Blue Moon and I'm glad I got a bottle.

Evening Cicadas and Red Peppers unfolds like a scroll when I put it on. There's a cool breeze of mint, then dried leaves and sweetness. From the sweetness comes pepper! Just like pepper jelly. For a while every different note is separate. Then musk rises up and it all merges into a single delicate chord, impossible to categorize. This is a poem in scent. A new and wonderful experience for my nose and my mind.

Hemlock is a burst of forest green when I first put it on. If I try I can sniff out pines and eucalyptus and maybe juniper berry. Next comes a lemony vibe hand in hand with a fruit that reminds me of old crabapples. The scents blend to a comforting spicy woodsy smell, tinged with bitters. I love Hemlock. I ordered a bottle in my first BPAL order because of the description. (I love green scents.) I've been wearing it all winter to warm up on cold days. It reminds me of being in a sun-warmed forest.

Ahh, lovely sweet floweriness when I first put it on. Settles into a cool musky floral scent with a touch of bergamot spiciness and a swish of something deeper. Civilized is the word I want to describe this. Civilized and restrained. Oberon could burst forth with waves of patchouli and musk but he doesn't; he lets the orchid lead the way while the other notes support and frame her delicacy. Oberon would be devastating on a gentleman in evening dress. I wear him as a dress-up scent to complement business suits or a little black dress. He puts me in a formal mood and reminds me to use the lady-like manners I was brought up to.

Smoke when I first put it on, scary smelling smoke from something that is burning but shouldn't be. The smoke seemed to die down but then come back in unexpected little whiffs. Then a very familiar smell that I couldn't place at first but every time I sniffed it I had happy childhood summer by the sea memories. About two hours into the day I had a visual flash of the Town Dock and realized that I was smelling sun-warmed creosote without the other Town Dockish elements (salt water, long dead fish, salt marsh and outboard engine exhaust). The creosote by itself is tangy and rich and supports a third element, the industrial waste. It's an odd, sweetly twisted odour like the smells from a chemical plant. I used to commute by the big BASF plant on the Jersey Turnpike and amuse myself by giving names to the various smells it produced. This is similar to the Buttercreme Icing for Robots one, only more of a Lemon Icing. I have to add that the first time I wore Smokestack synchronicity kicked in and there was a small fire in the building where I work! No damage but we spent almost two hours in the parking lot while the fire department checked things out. All in all I really enjoy Smokestack; it smells good to me, it brings pleasant associations to mind, and it's exciting to wear.

Hermia starts out with a nutty yummy toasty smell that I loved right from my first sniff at the frimp. Once on my skin the amber slips in some soft gold, and the honeysuckle some sweetness. I figured that the nutty smell had to be the pink pepper. I got my black pepper out of the kitchen and sniffed at it to see if I could catch that yummy note. Maybe a little, buried in the sharp pepperiness! After about an hour Hermia mellowed into spicy sweetness with a bit of fruit peeking out now and then. The women in my family (self included) believe in the right jacket. If you're wearing the right jacket you are appropriately dressed and ready for anything, no matter what else you may have on. Of course the jacket varies. For Mom it tends to be a navy blazer, for my sister something retro from the thrift store, and for me, something tweedy from LL Bean. This year my perfect jacket is red orange tweed, fitted under the breasts so it has an empire effect, one button and short, to my waist. Very feminine and vibrant! Hermia gives me the same feeling of self-confidence, good cheer, and comfort that my jacket does. I have already ordered a bottle and I hope it arrives soon because I used the last of the imp yesterday.