Ambrette
Black caraway
Buchu
Leather
Mysore sandalwood
Pandanus
Patchouli
Yatagan
415 Reviews
Translated · Show original
Yatagan
Top Review
27
Flying Ointment
Uncommented Scents No. 25
“Flying Ointment, the: During the early modern witch hunts, flying ointment referred to a salve that witches used to anoint themselves in order to fly to the ‘Witches’ Sabbath.’” Source: Wikipedia.
Your head is pounding. In the first moment of waking, you can't remember what has happened to you. It's dark around you, a bit damp, cool, and musty. How did you get here? Where are you, actually? It can't have been the alcohol: just a single glass of red wine... but now you begin to remember...
You had ordered a perfume salve of the scent “Figure 1: Noir” from Roxana in America. After work, happy that the friendly postman had handed you the long-awaited package, you took out the salve, set a glass of red wine before you, and with great anticipation applied some to your skin. Your skin begins to warm up a little, becomes hot, but not unpleasant; strange, unfamiliar scents rise to your nose. You want to reach for your red wine again, but you watch as your trembling hand knocks over the glass, spilling the red wine all over you. Then it goes black, as dark as the strange salve named Noir that you had just applied.
Now you lie in this darkness, but you are conscious, able to orient yourself with your eyes, yet still unable to stand up. A small beam of moonlight breaks through a pile of clouds, splitting the darkness; you must be outside. Your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness: a forest. It is very dense here, the trees, mostly conifers, stand so close that at first you couldn't notice the sky above you. Only now do you realize that you are apparently not alone. Silhouettes move around you: animals? Your fear grows. You feel the first signs of panic: fear sweat running cool down your neck, a pressure in your stomach, immobility. Only after a while does your instinct for survival kick in strongly enough that you jump up, still a bit wobbly on your feet, and begin to run, first slowly, then faster.
Fragments of thoughts swirl in your head: How could you have been so reckless as to order this salve? You had heard various things about this American brand: about the wonderful scents that one becomes strangely addicted to. Of course, you didn't take any of it seriously, believing that all this was just metaphorical advertising and exaggerated poetry from enthusiasts. You are rationally gifted, a sober person, but you couldn't resist. And now you are running through this forest that you don't know, feeling surrounded, encircled, besieged: imagination?
As these thoughts race through your mind like a wild army, you feel your foot step on a root, losing your balance. Your legs wobble and you fall forward.
Instead of gathering clear thoughts and continuing your escape, you lie still and listen. Everything is quiet. The silhouettes around you have apparently disappeared. It is as dark as before, but so still that you can hear the nothingness. You decide to remain lying still and hope that no one will discover you in the pitch-black darkness of the night-black forest.
Then, suddenly, in the absence of other sensory impressions, you become aware of the scents around you. Slowly you begin to understand: everything here smells like the perfume salve, the flying ointment, of darkness, of earth, of moisture, the scent of a forest so dense that no light can penetrate. Are you at home or in this forest?
How is this possible? The scent is supposed to contain cocoa and chocolate, musk and patchouli. You had feared a little that it might be a gourmand scent. A scent should not smell like something edible, like individual components, but be a total work of art, a unity. This one is. The individual notes mystically combine into a whole: the unsettling yet also intoxicating smell of the forest.
The chocolate contained must be bitter, and the cocoa too; so bitter that no feeling of sweetness remains.
The patchouli must be of the earthy-brown, green kind; so earthy that the patchouli-laden memory of the cheerful hippie festival you attended last summer seems ages away.
The musk is not of the fine, soapy kind, but rather animalistic and yet somehow subtle, just enough to define the soft foundation of this forest floor, blending with your fear sweat into a strangely numbing mixture, a mixture that has brought you here: flying ointment.
Full of restlessness, fear, and filled with racing thoughts, you eventually fall asleep from exhaustion.
Warning to the wavering: if you do not want to become a victim of this scent, avoid its aura!
“Flying Ointment, the: During the early modern witch hunts, flying ointment referred to a salve that witches used to anoint themselves in order to fly to the ‘Witches’ Sabbath.’” Source: Wikipedia.
Your head is pounding. In the first moment of waking, you can't remember what has happened to you. It's dark around you, a bit damp, cool, and musty. How did you get here? Where are you, actually? It can't have been the alcohol: just a single glass of red wine... but now you begin to remember...
You had ordered a perfume salve of the scent “Figure 1: Noir” from Roxana in America. After work, happy that the friendly postman had handed you the long-awaited package, you took out the salve, set a glass of red wine before you, and with great anticipation applied some to your skin. Your skin begins to warm up a little, becomes hot, but not unpleasant; strange, unfamiliar scents rise to your nose. You want to reach for your red wine again, but you watch as your trembling hand knocks over the glass, spilling the red wine all over you. Then it goes black, as dark as the strange salve named Noir that you had just applied.
Now you lie in this darkness, but you are conscious, able to orient yourself with your eyes, yet still unable to stand up. A small beam of moonlight breaks through a pile of clouds, splitting the darkness; you must be outside. Your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness: a forest. It is very dense here, the trees, mostly conifers, stand so close that at first you couldn't notice the sky above you. Only now do you realize that you are apparently not alone. Silhouettes move around you: animals? Your fear grows. You feel the first signs of panic: fear sweat running cool down your neck, a pressure in your stomach, immobility. Only after a while does your instinct for survival kick in strongly enough that you jump up, still a bit wobbly on your feet, and begin to run, first slowly, then faster.
Fragments of thoughts swirl in your head: How could you have been so reckless as to order this salve? You had heard various things about this American brand: about the wonderful scents that one becomes strangely addicted to. Of course, you didn't take any of it seriously, believing that all this was just metaphorical advertising and exaggerated poetry from enthusiasts. You are rationally gifted, a sober person, but you couldn't resist. And now you are running through this forest that you don't know, feeling surrounded, encircled, besieged: imagination?
As these thoughts race through your mind like a wild army, you feel your foot step on a root, losing your balance. Your legs wobble and you fall forward.
Instead of gathering clear thoughts and continuing your escape, you lie still and listen. Everything is quiet. The silhouettes around you have apparently disappeared. It is as dark as before, but so still that you can hear the nothingness. You decide to remain lying still and hope that no one will discover you in the pitch-black darkness of the night-black forest.
Then, suddenly, in the absence of other sensory impressions, you become aware of the scents around you. Slowly you begin to understand: everything here smells like the perfume salve, the flying ointment, of darkness, of earth, of moisture, the scent of a forest so dense that no light can penetrate. Are you at home or in this forest?
How is this possible? The scent is supposed to contain cocoa and chocolate, musk and patchouli. You had feared a little that it might be a gourmand scent. A scent should not smell like something edible, like individual components, but be a total work of art, a unity. This one is. The individual notes mystically combine into a whole: the unsettling yet also intoxicating smell of the forest.
The chocolate contained must be bitter, and the cocoa too; so bitter that no feeling of sweetness remains.
The patchouli must be of the earthy-brown, green kind; so earthy that the patchouli-laden memory of the cheerful hippie festival you attended last summer seems ages away.
The musk is not of the fine, soapy kind, but rather animalistic and yet somehow subtle, just enough to define the soft foundation of this forest floor, blending with your fear sweat into a strangely numbing mixture, a mixture that has brought you here: flying ointment.
Full of restlessness, fear, and filled with racing thoughts, you eventually fall asleep from exhaustion.
Warning to the wavering: if you do not want to become a victim of this scent, avoid its aura!
19 Comments
