Marieposa

In misty new moon nights
Your steps are accompanied by the barking of dogs
Camphor green, the glow of their eyes

From world to world

Glimmering like a heartbeat
My frozen breath
Where the paths cross

From world to world

The bundle of herbs devoutly offered
At the roots of the cedars
Anise on crusty earth

From world to world

Where the key slumbers
To forest-wide gates
You wrap me in your leather coat

**

I have great sympathy for Abby Hinsman from Vermont, who hand-mixes her mostly plant-based fragrances in small batches and grows or gathers the ingredients from her garden or her own woodland whenever possible. The holistic artistic approach she takes with her scents aims to capture snapshots of special places olfactorily or to reinterpret mythological figures and fairy tale motifs. The overall concept resonates with a subtle feminist approach that completely enchants me.
Wild Veils Hecate starts with ethereal, shimmering camphor, so bright green and cool that I associate it with the ice crystals of the first frost on bright green blades. After about half an hour, the sharp, cold clinking of the herbal notes settles, the camphor mists transform into delicate wisps of incense, revealing a view of an enchanted cedar forest. A world of velvety dark green on brittle patchouli floors, breathing myrrh warmth against a consistently present cool anise note, ending with a strangely alluring leather note.
For me, this forest green Hecate, with her sprawling herb garden, is more of a Baba Yaga. I can even hear the scratching of the chicken feet of her witch's house. And perhaps this connection is not so wrong: Just like Hecate, Baba Yaga moves in her trifold manifestation as maiden, mother, and wise woman between death and rebirth. However, through Christianization, Baba Yaga has lost her divinity, and what remains is a man-eating witch who is in league with the devil.
All the more beautiful that Abby Hinsman reminds me with this delicate, somewhat fleeting, yet very profound scent of the powerful, life-giving side of a fallen mythological figure and the lost wisdom she guards.

Was it you who stuck an aldehydic glittering tiara into my sweaty tousled hair?

… You are the villain who sends a
Line of dark fantastic passion
I know that you will surrender …

You seem familiar to me, although I don’t believe I’ve seen you today. Or any other time.

… Tonight we’re gonna bring
Tomorrow’s happiness
Gonna live like it’s the end …

Of course, I’m not wearing a watch. Who does that anyway? The hours between the dance floor and vodka shots at the bar can be counted by the runs in my black tights.

… Flick your cigarette, then kiss me
Kiss me where your eyes won’t meet me …

And that’s why I close my eyes and feel the overdriven bass beneath my feet, which doesn’t match the song at all, before I let myself fall blindly into unfamiliar arms.

… You can feel my lips undress your eyes …

My leopard coat has slipped off the box back there. Normally, the DJ gets mad when someone just throws their stuff down, but we have an unspoken agreement. My gaze flutters a bit and there’s a hand that’s warmer than my belly under the band T-shirt.

… Cheating heartbeat
Rapid fire …

Courtney Love had a coat like that. And Kate Moss. Amy Winehouse probably too. Mine has a few burn holes from foreign cigarettes and the polyester is frayed, but when I wear it, I’m a goddess with smudged eyeliner.

… And I love that little game you had called
Crying Lightning …

I have to laugh because the whole world suddenly feels so soft and somehow sweet and because I feel you whispering something in my ear, but I can’t understand you.

… I love you to death,
But I must suggest
You’d better run, run, run boy
Faster than the past
Through the looking glass
If you want the night to last …

I’ll stay for a moment longer.

… She's not gone yet but she's leaving …

Or maybe a bit longer?

… My name is Superfantastic!
I drink champagne with salmon fish! …

**

I’ve suspected for a while that I perceive synthetic animal notes more strongly than I should. In Une Robe de Zibeline, one is definitely very present, although the scent initially hints at a chypre in an aldehydic veil. There’s a nod towards opulent classics, and of course, the naming alone suggests that Dawn Spencer Hurwitz might have had Zibeline (1927) Parfum from Weil in mind when she created this fragrance, although she doesn’t explicitly mention it in the description on her homepage.
“I would call this a smoldering fragrance,” it says there, and yes, I can relate to that very well, although due to my hypersensitivity, anything but “flickering candle light in a dimly lit room” comes to mind. This so obviously synthetic animalic note, which is at the forefront of my perception, makes it clear from the start that this can only be a modern fragrance, which, however, flirts very cleverly with its retro charm. Instead of Josephine Baker’s tame cheetah (as with Weil), I see Courtney Love in her iconic faux fur coat, copied a thousand times but never matched, and no one would ever have thought it could be real fur.
As it develops, floral notes brush against my nose, which I can’t smell clearly enough to identify before a beautiful velvety iris with skin-warm, vanillic benzoin and a fine leather note tames the faux fur.
Une Robe de Zibeline makes me smile immediately. Of course. I also had a coat like Courtney Love and a collection of black silk dresses or short leather skirts and band T-shirts to wear underneath. By now, I’ve been told that this look is called Indie Sleaze, but I don’t think we had a name for it in the 00s. And while I grin and sniff at my wrist, I decide that I really should paint my nails black again. With a bright red middle finger, of course.

You can listen to the wildly misquoted songs here, for example:
Franz Ferdinand: Darts of Pleasure https://youtu.be/wznMbAkyBHQ?si=1QnkRZyb7g53RSw1
The Libertines: Run, Run, Run https://youtu.be/Idv8E-cg-us?si=TcxvWJ9TIJW833gl
Franz Ferdinand: No You Girls https://youtu.be/25sBhhOR4lw?si=syJlCBxoCrDooQ1-
Arctic Monkeys: She’s Thunderstorms https://youtu.be/gW2WylJSgwg?si=aHhoyK3-whpcvTmn
Arctic Monkeys: Crying Lightning https://youtu.be/fLsBJPlGIDU?si=VD8w8ZcqPnMrwtu9
The Fratellis: She’s not gone yet https://youtu.be/jCc1GBXxi1Q?si=Z0MAPN3O1I4ThFcK

Next time I won’t let your post sit around for ages, dear Floyd. Thank you!

If he pours me whiskey or peach schnapps uninvited one more time, I will probably have to leave. But where to? Stealthily, I press the small leather bag a little tighter under my arm and cannot prevent my fingers from wandering back to the glass on the counter, so I don’t start drumming the broken fingernail on the dark wood again.
No, he cannot know what is in the bag. But he knows just as well as I do that I don’t belong here any more than he does, since I opened the door to his lousy dive and gave him a sidelong glance to make it clear that the uncleaned tables with the tobacco crumbs are not an option for me. In response, he placed a narrow vase with jasmine and star-shaped yellow flowers on the bar, while his right eyebrow barely perceptibly raised. I accepted his invitation and sat down.
Just to be safe, I let my lower eyelids twitch now, not too hostile, but enough to prove that I am not to be trifled with. Maybe I can disguise the fact that my heart has seemingly decided to leave its home in my ribcage because a person named Dilly, who should be discussing the mathematics of letters and the language of numbers with me, is not punctual.
Does he recognize the pattern I leave behind? The suppressed sliding on my stool, the bag pressed against me, then the reach for the glass or the finger drumming when I lose my composure, followed by the defensive glint in my eyes.
I have long since deciphered his: The initially ambiguous smile, the arranging of the glasses, and then the movement in my direction when he wipes the counter with the cloth. After every third wipe, he checks my glass. Each time, the gaze becomes a little milder. It’s like a language. A code.
I should have put on a hat, as one should. Then I could hide my dwindling composure under its brim, present myself more easily as the queen I so desperately should be. Yet here I sit helplessly, watching myself start to fidget on my stool again because the moss-green skirt scratches at my leg where the stocking ends. He doesn’t need to know anything about that, of course. This time, I break the pattern, take a sip, leave a trace of dark lipstick, and attempt a half-smile.

**

For a second, I thought I had waited too long when I smelled super glue and dried tobacco after spraying, but luckily it was just the top note of my sample that had suffered. If this rare drop had spilled, I probably wouldn’t have forgiven myself so quickly … Because Rumeur reveals itself as an animalic chypre of a languorously dark beauty that is unmatched: There were probably aldehydes at one point, of which I now only perceive a spice-dusted peach note, embedded in deep dark, ink-black oak moss, and indeed illegal amounts of it. Then animalically underpinned white florals come into play - creamy, buttery, opulent - perhaps jasmine and ylang-ylang with costus? I can’t help but think of Nina Ricci’s Fille d’Eve, although Rumeur, with its confusing darkness, would likely be its uncompromising femme fatale sister. An impression that is reinforced as leather notes, civet, and warm wood complete the picture.
As is often the case with chypre fragrances, however, Rumeur also carries an inner contradiction that makes the scent all the more interesting: With its diva-esque first impression, the fragrance loudly demands a grand entrance, yet when worn in everyday life, it reveals itself as thoroughly accessible, if not even vulnerably soft beneath the surface, although it shows poise and strength at every stage.
In the thought experiment of which woman might have worn this fragrance in the 1930s, Hedy Lamarr keeps coming to mind. Or perhaps Rumeur would have suited the codebreakers at Bletchley Park?
Either way, I will now spare myself further attempts at analysis and sink even deeper into Rumeur’s chypre beauty of bygone times before the scent fades. I will keep the empty vial until it no longer smells.

Thank you for this special fragrance experience, dear Floyd.

Strike dark, wild heart
Hidden in bitter green
The camphor mist
Where the shadows of fleshy leaves
Merge with the furry breath
Of black soils

Strike dark, wild heart
To the rhythm of distant drums
By glowing fires
Beyond the lurking eyes
In the underbrush

Strike dark, wild heart
Under the black silk
Rain-soaked blossoms
On my skin

Strike dark, wild heart
Because it’s not the sun
That makes the moon shine
But the darkness

**

The small Swiss manufactory N.O.A.M. - short for New Oceans And Meridians - aims to open up foreign worlds to us through olfactory means and invites us to leave familiar paths and expand horizons with complex, original scents made from the highest quality raw materials. In the case of Dark Heart of Papua, this journey leads us with a seamlessly blended mix of hand-picked oud and patchouli varieties right into the dark green hell of a tropical jungle.
Hand on heart: I don’t know much about oud and often have trouble distinguishing it from patchouli, depending on the provenance. Dark Heart of Papua seems designed to finally blur this elusive boundary for me. After a sparkling green opening with plenty of minty camphor, underscored by slightly smoky galbanum, where I perceive a minimal hint of barn-like oud, the fragrance reveals rugged woods that gradually become softer, eventually crumbling into a bitter, earthy jungle floor rooted deep in vetiver.
Leather-animalic notes have left their paw prints here, leading to ink-bitter moss paths, until unexpectedly flower petals shimmer. Occasionally, fine threads of smoke and bitter herbs curl through the picture, yet the fragrance, in all its darkness, becomes a softly whispering floral leather.
Dark Heart of Papua maintains a masterful balance between preserving the raw originality of the essences used and the artisanal finesse of a self-taught exceptional talent, creating a pull in all conceivable shades of green that makes at least my wild dark heart beat a little faster.

Thank you very much, dear Svezenkar, for unexpectedly sparing me from sniffing an empty vial.

I can feel the paper curling between my fingers, and I could probably stare at it for hours more without words appearing on it or the horizon fading, which I so diligently ignore. From this perspective, it’s hardly noticeable that the paint is peeling off the old Ferris wheel, even though it spins in stoic solitude in my peripheral vision. Sometimes the wind brings the fragments of a melody, pushing them along like the drizzle and my tousled hair.

… she's a rose, she's the pearl
she's the spin on my world …

A memory bursts in my head like a bubblegum bubble. Blurred stage makeup. Dust like iris powder on fairground gondolas. A distant laugh. But today my lipstick has faded, soon to vanish like those words that were never there.

… Hold on to the thought
Even if it's wrong, you're right …

I could dissolve into forgetfulness, sneak away into oblivion - but I could also jut my chin forward a little and crumple the paper in my hand. Because even though the rain erases footprints in the sand, there is the familiar sweetness of my own skin.

… she's a princess, in a red dress
she's the moon in the mist to me …

I could get up and smudge the mascara under my eyes. And I could reapply the lipstick. I wouldn’t even need to look in the mirror.

… And we think what we want
Because we know it will be late
Ridiculous time passes …

As I catch myself drawing a star in the damp sand with my fingers, there is only sweet warmth left.

… she's my coney island baby
she's my coney island girl …

Maybe it’s time to get up.

… We are lost …

**

I am not a particularly visual person, and when it comes to photography, one cannot say that I am burdened with excess talent. Nevertheless, I own a small lomography camera with a junky plastic lens that never reliably captures what you see in the viewfinder, either oversaturating or washing out the colors, and regularly jams when you advance the film, resulting in photos that are sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally double-exposed. Not a technique for perfectionists! But for me, it’s a delightful attempt to transform a personal inability into something nostalgically beautiful (sometimes at least) - and to bring a certain element of surprise into my life when I get a film developed.
When I recently encountered Lyn Harris' Dust again, I suddenly felt the same wistful tug in my heart that I always feel when one of my countless failed Lomo photos unexpectedly turns out well. This delicate, transparent scent with the flowing transitions between lipstick, iris powder, and raspberry bubblegum whispers so suggestively of nostalgia and heartache like the olfactory counterpart to lomographies of the Ferris wheel in Coney Island, where the color spectrum is shifted just the right amount.
Musk forms gentle clouds here, creating a diffuse atmosphere that takes the heaviness away from the increasingly pronounced vanilla benzoin and embraces it with skin-warm opoponax. There is nothing bitter, heavy, stuffy, or complicated here, even though a hint of iris melancholy balances the line between warm and cool notes.
Lyn Harris' olfactory whispers have once again enchanted me from behind with a scent whose pleasing sweetness would have certainly overwhelmed me from another hand. But Dust is now my first choice for days when the world is too loud, too harsh, and too bright, and I just want to sink into a gentle, nostalgic powder cloud and draw a raspberry-red line between myself and the smaller or larger everyday turbulence with a bit of lipstick.

Thank you for the letter, dear Jeob, which has unexpectedly led to a bottle after a long time.

The quoted songs can be listened to here:
Coney Island Baby by Tom Waits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45YK2yvA3cg
We Are Lost by Wanda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vrRe4qbgZs