Black Spruce & Pinecone Organic Perfume Girl

Through a spray of red sparks, drops that float and shimmer with a cinnamon-spice, dark berries that, intoxicated by resin, guide you backwards through space and time, you arrive in an archaic forest at a cult site from a distant era. Anamorphosis above the fire, Dr. Pepper mist veils glow in the spicy tar-steaming silver of flying cedar juniper. The shaman swings branches of black spruces, letting their needles shine menthol-green over the embers in the logs. You hear the crackling of pine cones, the earth whispering high in the treetops, sitting with others on the ground among spicy resins and dry barks, you banish your inner demons and can find some peace.
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Dawn Stewart from Huntington Beach, California creates the fragrances for her label 'Organic Perfume Girl' from handmade tinctures of plants, flowers, and herbs, which she combines with high-quality essential oils, resins, and/or concretes, all wild-harvested or organically grown. All packaging in which she ships her fragrances consists of hand-stickered recycled materials, such as old matchboxes for the testers.
Indeed, "Black Spruce & Pinecone" begins with an accord that vaguely reminds me of Dr. Pepper. However, since neither cherry nor cinnamon, marzipan or almonds, which characterize the Texan soft drink, appear in the pyramid, it is likely the dark berry aromas from the black spruce, the warm-spicy-woody components of the campfire, as well as the citrusy-green notes of amyris, which create this impression with the sweet opoponax resins. Soon, the cool-smoky prickly juniper and the eucalyptus-like aromas of the black spruce brighten the impression, and the fragrance travels in the heart towards a dry-earthy forest floor full of needles, cones, and barks (pine cones, amyris) on balsamic resins, which still carry the spiciness of the smoke within them.
This now recalls, all the way to the base, a fumigation with pine wood, cones, barks, and resins, as it was likely used in the Mesolithic by shamans of Germanic tribes as a healing and protective incense. The effects are said to be antiseptic, calming, strengthening, and promoting circulation, among other things. At least for me, the fragrance feels very relaxing. The ritual unfolds moderately to quietly over a span of just under five hours.