Betty0714

Claude Montana embodies for me a warm, nurturing, receptive, self-assured, and mysterious femininity that today almost resembles a kind of myth or deity from a long-gone era. A woman who needs to prove nothing, only to be. Yet the longing for her seems great, as one can see how she is often only sought after or imitated. In countless videos, tutorials, and coaching sessions, one is taught how femininity works.

The warmth is rooted in the woods and balsams that hold the floral notes in dignified balance. This gives the perfume its understated and stylish elegance. No staging, no childish play, but a woman who naturally embraces her sensual, wild, delicate, and at the same time royal femininity.
Like expensive peach body lotion on luxurious skin, enveloped in silk and the finest stockings.

A scent like the golden light and deep shadows of sensual 90s photoshoots. Those images that I love to look at, where women gazed into the camera with a raw, surrendering look. Delicate and vulnerable, yet therein lay their strength. It takes courage and inner strength to share such a vulnerable part of one's soul with the world. This form of strength and vulnerability cannot be faked - it comes from within. Claude Montana reminds me exactly of the shoots and images from that time.
Of the unfinished, the unfiltered. I often search for a kind of truth in these expressions on the faces of these beautiful women. Claude Montana brings me a little closer to that.

This is the first fragrance from Zoologist that I am testing.
As far back as I can remember, I have loved animals. I have been fortunate in my life to experience the affection and trust of a cat for 14 years. To be loved by an animal, a different species, in its own unique way is something special. This fragrance transports feelings that can only come from an animal, like my cat.
This cozy warmth, the soft fur. That purring. The cuddling. The moist, pink nose that wakes me up. Falling asleep with me at night. The twinkling, bright green eyes. What wouldn't I give in the world to bury my face just one more time in its sunny, deep black fur and to smell its most beloved aura. To feel its rough angel tongue on my skin. This feeling is deeply intertwined with my self and embedded within me. I cherish these precious memories of perfection and hardly dare to enter this space within me.
"Bee" has a different plan for me.

Every time I can win the trust and favor of a (wild) animal, I am happy. It is a cozy, pure, innocent feeling of happiness that I only have with animals. For a moment, I feel complete and whole.

Thus, "Bee" sends me on an olfactory astral journey into the heart of a beehive. The walls made of honeycomb welcome me with warmth. I am in the womb. In the beehive womb. The many furry bees radiate cozy warmth. I feel maternal affection and sweet, gentle spicy love. That kind of love that doesn't suffocate you. Warm honey flows, harvested from the noblest, prettiest, and rarest flowers of what seems to me a heavenly realm. In my honor! Here, I am a bee princess resting in this refuge in the garden of heaven. The bees protect me, revealing my hiding place to no one. I can burrow here, and no one asks me why I am here or who I am. I am allowed to simply e x i s t in this place. The honey soothes my soul's wounds. I am loved, I am healed, I am whole, I am good enough and valuable. I feel the deepest goodwill, I am embraced, I am nurtured. I am allowed to rest. The smoky buzzing calms me.

What is it like to be a bee? What if it spoke to me?
In this fragrance, the language of bees is encoded. And I want to reveal to you, dear bee,
sometimes I am so afraid of the shadows on the walls that always form at night when I lie lonely and abandoned in bed.
Sometimes I don't know how to escape from certain spoken words.
I just don't know what one does as a human
and what others honestly feel deep in their hearts
and what they mean
I eventually learned to dance
with the creepy shadows on the walls.
Dear bee, I feel the same way,
I also can't communicate very well with spoken language.
But I believe, I am sure that the whole beehive only wants the very best for me and that everything was, is, and will be good. I can smell it clearly.

In the dusty desert, long-dried wood is already sweating.
Struggling through heat and sand,
quite unexpectedly,
a spring opens up to the longing gaze.
All around, it greens and blooms.
The juice of ripe fruits on the trees is almost dripping to the ground.

This scent unites the seemingly insurmountable boundary of "dryness" and "juiciness." Byredo has once again successfully played with contrasts and delights curious noses.
Especially in sultry-hot weather, it is a gracious companion that makes the wearer feel well-groomed and clean.

The shady metropolis
and its treacherous shine,
its mass universities
and educational services,
to hell with it!
It lures and advertises with possibilities,
tears apart and disappoints.
" (...) how fortunate is he,
whose world is no larger than the market square,
where he was born
and whose horizon only reaches to that point
where the barrier of his hometown lowers." ¹
Three times cursed striving for knowledge!
I never thought it, but
the bearable knowledge has its limits.

Cold cigarette smoke has
infested the long heavy jacket,
into heart and lungs
into body and soul.
With trembling hand, he inhales the dense, stinking, gray smoke deeply.
It has almost something spiritual when the smoke I exhale
dissolves without resistance
and is swallowed by darkness and distance.
I extinguish the butt
on my dark, thick leather jacket.
A fair,
a necessary,
a natural,
a completely normal
and justified struggle,
so everyone says,
between beast and Promethean fire.
I press so deeply,
that the glowing thing
penetrates my buttered skin a bit.
A surprisingly soothing and stimulating sensation,
so I am still a little alive!


¹ Mary Shelley Frankenstein or The New Prometheus, p. 62

So much fruit at home, who is supposed to eat all this?
I'm making jam.
They are a bit rotten, but that doesn't matter; with a lot of sugar and long cooking, it will work out.
While chopping the mushy brown fruits, I pop a piece of pineapple into my mouth.
A small spot looked fresh.
I must have picked the wrong piece:
Like poison, it eats away at my mucous membranes.
If only I hadn't bitten my tongue just before!
It's all due to the enzyme bromelain, I read somewhere.
While the sweet-sour juice of the pineapple digests my oral mucosa, I notice a smell that is somewhat familiar to me.
What on earth is that smell again?
I really need to take out the trash again; it smells like fermented citrus fruits, it's almost unbearable.
Didn't I just tell him yesterday to please stop by the... on his way to work?
My thoughts are interrupted by another, even more alarming smell: The jam!!
It has boiled over and burned.
Overwhelmed by these impressions, I seek out the bathroom.
The cosmetics cabinet with the men's grooming products was left open.
Opened tubes and bottles of men's hygiene products are lying on the edge of the sink.
I'm looking for something to moisturize my dry hands and lips after the pineapple attack and find a container of shea butter.
It is supposed to be naturally moisturizing and smoothing. If only it didn't always have that nutty-earthy rotten smell! But I didn't want to buy refined shea butter now so that the good ingredients wouldn't be lost.
That would be such a shame!
The shea butter smells totally disgusting somehow, but that's supposed to be normal for unrefined shea butter, although it smells a bit worse than usual.
I really think it has gone rancid.

I throw everything into the stinking, fermenting trash can. I really don't care about waste separation today. Yes, even the men's cosmetics go in. I don't care. This should be a lesson for him.


Final thoughts:

Half-digested by the pineapple
between alive and dead
I open the trash can
fermented citrus fruits
neither dead nor alive
rotting, toxic fruit medley
is processed into jam with a lot of sugar
everything boils over and burns
Spicy fresh men's cosmetics bring a bit of lively, bitter freshness
rancid nut butter