Marieposa

As if to lull me into a twilight sleep, the jeep rumbles along remote tracks. Fragrant spices dry on the still-warm concrete at dusk. Cloves, aniseed and allspice between bright tobacco leaves. The women of the nearby village collect their spices with skillful hand movements before night falls. Bayrum sparkles in the cups of laughing men, dust swirls up under the wheels, the dry hay on the loading area where we are sitting. The driver must have lit a kretek. The stuffing spills out of his seat like brittle straw. Silvery threads of smoke waft through the evening air, dark rain clouds loom on the distant horizon, a cool breeze in the tropical air, perhaps from the ocean. So unfamiliar the land, but you smell of moss when I let my head sink onto your chest, of rough woods and bitter limes. Animal voices emerge from the darkness of the jungle, the song of fruit bats in the last light of day. In contrast, the wind murmurs softly in the harsh grasses at the edge of the path. The crackling of the clove cigarette, its glow like fire in the distance.
Let your fingers run through my hair, let yourself be enveloped by the scent of the moment, the calming rumble of the road between strangeness and familiarity, between day and night.

**

N.O.A.M. - short for New Oceans And Meridians - has made it its mission to take us on olfactory journeys with its fragrances, to tell stories of other times and faraway places. A real treat for people like me, whose hunger for stories is at most surpassed by their wanderlust - and I am delighted to see that the concept works wonderfully.
Even the name "Kayu Kretek" suggests that this trip is supposed to take you to Indonesia, although I have to admit that the tart, sharp lime that dominates the top note doesn't really feel like it's tied to a specific location. But soon the somewhat pungent citrus blends with a lovely, authentic note of clove cigarette smoke. It takes about fifteen minutes to reach this magical moment, at which point I involuntarily close my eyes without really noticing. Suddenly I'm back in Bali, in that remote corner of the island where people spread out spices, tea and grasses to dry in the afternoon sun on the bumpy, dusty concrete roads. I can smell lots of cloves and allspice, but also aniseed, vetiver (the leaves as well as the roots) and, just like back in Bali, a thousand other things that I can't name. Then the fragrance becomes increasingly infused with bay rum, light tobacco and hay-like coumarin before dry, dark woody notes, slightly earthy patchouli and velvety oakmoss assert themselves. A little clove smoke always hovers above all of this, creating wonderful contrasts of light and dark and an astonishing lightness in the fragrance, which always impresses me particularly when perfumers refuse to reach for the synthetic box of tricks, as in the case of N.O.A.M.
Strictly speaking, there is a little too much coumarin in the fragrance for my taste. And strictly speaking, the dark woods are a little too dry for me and the lime in the top note is a little too dominant, but at the end of the day, that's all splitting hairs, because the fragrance as a whole convinces me all round and I enjoy endlessly just closing my eyes and being back in that special place in Bali for a moment - which, by the way, can be repeated as often as you like for about half a day.

No cage shall hold you,
my golden bird
with the neroli song.

Put your heart
into my hands for just a moment,
until mine beats to the same rhythm.

Then I'll open a window,
so that you can be free,
swing your wings,

even if the gust of wind
extinguishes a hundred candles,
their wax drips on yellow roses.

Glittering, your silver dust floats
now powder-soft through time and space,
lays iridescent veils on my naked skin.

Only carry my heartbeat out
on wings of your hope,
until all tears dry.

The resin-warm pearls
glowing in the dark
watch over my sleep.


**

Hearteache of the Hua Mei opens with a top note of bright citrus and neroli, interspersed with equally bright, almost glistening spices, but it is clear from the start that this initial shower of light outshines something darker. Then a wave runs through the fragrance and the golden citrus notes are interspersed with silvery smoke, as if a breeze had extinguished a candle. I know that incense can create this impression, but I have only ever heard it in combination with aldehydes, which are not listed here and which I do not perceive. Nevertheless, the impression is so strong that my head also adds the scent of melted, semi-transparent candle wax.
At this point, the fragrance lingers for quite a while before petals appear in the wax and another note that I puzzled over for almost a day because it reminded me of something I just couldn't put my finger on. I now know: it's this sake-like scent that I noticed in a completely different guise in "N°18 (Eau de Toilette) | Chanel" - where, unlike in this fragrance, I didn't like it at all. It could be the combination of iris, ambrette and rose that creates this effect.
In Hearteache of the Hua Mei, the delicately powdery iris and the transparent ambrette veil detach themselves quite quickly from the slightly salty-sour note and begin to radiate. Iris and ambrette is a combination that almost always makes me weak at the knees and here, too, it lulls me to sleep before gently slipping into a base of soft, subtly vanilla-sweet patchouli with restrained rose. Suddenly, the previously silvery accents begin to shimmer golden again and envelop the skin in a creamy texture.

Your Hua Mei has sung me a beautiful song, dear Gandix. Thank you for that!

It was the night when I knotted myself a dress
of soft leather ribbons and champaca flowers,
when the moon dripped like balsam myrrh from the smokewood of nocturnal pagodas
Then I wanted to catch its light in goblets
and pour candles from it
for the darkness of the new moon,
when nothing but the cold haze of offerings
muffles the rustling in the flowering branches.

So the twelve temple cats had once whispered to me.

But when I wove their shirts from nettles
and Wan Sao Long
they hurried away
on sandal paths.
Even today I see in the moonlight
the tracks of their paws,
follow them like the shimmering osmanthus thread.

Stumbling over vetiver roots
i stagger towards a strange world
to the castle in the air that we are both building.
A forgotten bouncy castle like from childhood days,
decorated with silk flowers
just for me.
And with tuberoses.

There we jump in aniseed mists
higher and higher,
up to the moon.
Push him over to me
with a point of the finger!
I'll blow it back.

So easily.

The floating of a night.

So close
So far away

**

Admittedly, it took me a while to get into the Prin Lomros fragrances. It always irritates me a little when perfumers develop a lot of fragrances very quickly, and in the case of Prin Lomros, his creative urge has to serve three of his own brands with different profiles - and as if that wasn't enough, he probably also takes on commissions for other houses. Remarkable. Above all because so far I have consistently had original, exciting and independent compositions under my nose, not all of which I like, but none of which have left me cold.
Thichila amazed and delighted me - and that's not just because Thichila means "moon" and thematically opens doors for me.
The fragrance begins with a chypre-like accord of kaffir lime, camphor and slightly bitter spices. I perceive turmeric a little more strongly than saffron, without it dominating. I have to use my imagination for cinnamon and nutmeg. Then a lush floral scent with an unfamiliar greenish accent (Wan Sao Long?) and the apricot note of white champaca, which strongly resembles osmanthus here, rises between dark woods and fine (incense?) smoke. I think I'm slowly but surely beginning to understand what oud is - or rather, what it could be - and just as my nose is trying to adjust to the fact that labdanum and oakmoss should now be making an appearance, balsam-soft myrrh combines with mild oud and leathery civet instead. In combination with champaca, tuberose and nard, the result is a completely astonishing, slightly sweet rubbery or plastic-like accord with a pithy aniseed note that immediately transports me to a bouncy castle, except that this one is filled with exotic flowers and bathed in moonlight rather than with hooting children. Admittedly, this is as special as it sounds, but to my nose it is as fascinating as it is stunningly beautiful. I would have loved to hop around on my olfactory bouncy castle for longer than three to four hours, but in Drydown the fragrance loses a little of its originality - or is it just my chyprenose reacting a little huffily without oakmoss? The base of ambery woods and cold incense smoke is still lovely, but the magic of the fragrance lies in the bizarre floral heart note.

Can you see how heavy the snow weighs on the branches of the fir trees? They bend under its glistening weight and the night air smells of the harsh frost that is yet to come. Even the little bell on your sleigh rings in a strange tone as you make your way through the little forest outside the village, where even the river flows very slowly, ice crusts forming on the banks of the Salzach.
The scent of pine follows you from the snow-covered mountains to the steps of the village church. You know that when you open the door, the congregation will already be gathered. Just push the door open and see how the icy wind extinguishes the candles at the entrance. Follow their delicate veils of smoke into the nave, which is so cold that people's breath condenses into clouds. The flickering light of the candles is reflected in the flaking gold of the ornaments, white wax drips from the Christmas tree onto the straw stars made by the children, who are now sitting on the sparse wooden pews with their hair tightly parted and their braids in the least holey shoes. You can smell that there is more coal than incense in the golden censer that the oldest altar boy claims for himself as he does every year, but the scent of countless masses has long since crept into the beams, the stone walls and the sparse hangings of the pulpit.
Just as you are about to tighten your coat around your shoulders, two men with guitars step forward. The organ has long since been eaten away by mice, but the young priest has promised that there will actually be music at this Christmas mass in the poor boatmen's church. Reverently, Pastor Mohr and Teacher Gruber exchange a glance before letting their fingers glide over the strings of their instruments. Their melody floats through the peaceful silence like a golden light, glistening on furrowed faces and tired eyes, wrapping itself softly around thin shoulders and suddenly the incense becomes sweeter and the air warmer, despite the clouds of breath and shivering fingers.
Something has stepped into the room, sits contemplatively and silently in the wooden benches and smiles out of moving eyes. Soon they will join in the song, unite their voices and be part of a whole for a moment.

Silent night, holy night ...

**

This is roughly how I imagine Christmas Eve 1818 in Oberndorf and I am sure that it must have smelled of Encens Flamboyant when Joseph Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber sang "Silent Night, Holy Night" for the first time.
Encens Flamboyant is a cool, light and transparent incense fragrance with a snowy metallic note that could come from black pepper and cardamom, although I can't smell either separately. Due to its fine texture, the filigree fragrance is present, but its silvery shimmer is so diffuse in the room that its source is difficult to discern. Sacred echoes here are less reminiscent of the heavy, warm, ambery wafts of incense from the High Mass and more of a breeze lingering in cool church walls, mingling with the smoke of extinguished candles. In addition, the light tree needle note that incense has by nature is supported here by fir balsam and mastic resin moving from bitter to sweet, giving the impression that the church door has opened and is letting in a breeze of forest air.
Although Encens Flamboyant does not reveal a striking change or even a pyramid structure, the fragrance warms up over time, relaxes irritated nerves, directs the gaze inwards and, for me at least, gives a moment of calm and a warm smile.

Dreams,
brown-haired girl,
dream deeply.
And when you wake,
do not reveal your secret.

"Valerie, be careful," the night whispered over her drowsy breath, but the thief had already vanished like the glow of the tangerine-gold evening sun. Now greenish light fell through the glass skylights and the memory of the stranger's presence hovered in the room, a slightly bitter hint of neroli. Shivering, Valerie wrapped her fine shawl with the embroidered jasmine stars around her sleep-warm shoulders. Her rest was gone, just like the white gold earrings with the daffodil blossoms, and she followed the thief's tracks in the moonlight.
Where had the orange tree in the garden disappeared to, its branches bending equally under the weight of ripe fruit and sweet blossoms, and what had caused the chickens in the small wooden shed at the end of the courtyard to get into such a commotion?
Valerie's world had loosened a little from its moorings. She was drawn into an ambrette-like veil of dreams, and even as she closed her eyes over the flickering kerosene lamp in her hands to see if the moths with their petal-white wings were still dancing around the flame, the jewels glittered again on her earlobes, as if she could drink moonlight from the calyxes until the golden day awoke. For now the colors fell so bright and friendly on a world of astonishing images, a little supernaturally washed out by the backlight, barely noticeably exaggerated.
So it was that the garnet-red sparkle of honey on the beguiling white daffodils in the beds, but also the clay-sweet grimace of the polecat, left her sleepwalking in amazement and not frightened at the beginning of this week full of wonders.

**

Daffodils are flowers that only have a floral scent up to a certain point. At a distance, the blossoms smell just as pure and April-like as one would expect when looking at the silky white petals, but if you venture closer with your nose, they quickly reveal an unexpected dark depth of astonishing complexity, which is of course even more concentrated and evident in the narcissus absolute rarely used in perfume. There are leather notes, facets of light tobacco and hay-like accents of a beguilingly moist warmth, the worldly aspect of which is additionally supported by the indoles, similar to tuberose. This creates an impression of warm skin without having to strain your imagination. There is a beating pulse, a few rumpled sheets, gentle breathing - and it is precisely this intimacy of the poet's narcissus that Annette Neuffer combines with other ingredients in a very light-footed way, creating a surreal, kaleidoscopic sequence of dream images that constantly reassemble themselves.
At the beginning, galbanum and neroli bathe the world in green, only to be slowly sweetened by a ripe mandarin. Even here, the daffodils flash up again and again, sometimes accompanied by orange blossom, sometimes by jasmine, without the vibrant green from the top note disappearing completely. What exactly I perceive in this phase of the fragrance, when and in what intensity, varies greatly and amazes me anew every time I wear the fragrance. Everything is bright and delicate and light, a dance between sleep and wakefulness of almost painful beauty that makes it almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. But perhaps the difference doesn't really matter.
Then comes the point at which I observe with fascination how the narcissus outshines the other flowers - some days more strongly than others supported by tonka bean - and allows all the wonderful facets I described at the beginning to shine. A fragrance like a poetic fairy tale, in which potentially disturbing elements (in my case the tonka bean) amaze and fascinate rather than frighten, and which makes me involuntarily think of "Valerie - A Week of Wonders", a poetic-surreal horror tale, subtly translated into a beguiling flood of images by Czech director Jaromil Jireš.
Towards the base, the fragrance becomes warmer and warmer, a tiny drop of honey supports the sweet facets, in the background the finest threads of smoke meander through the flowers like vanilla sandalwood incense sticks and a barely perceptible hint of patchouli grounds the fragrance. This development ensures that I actually prefer Narcissus Poeticus, which can easily be worn all year round, every day, for every occasion and always wonderfully, in winter when it is dark and I long for green shoots in the flower beds, for cool spring sunshine, but also for a little sweet warmth.

Dear Indolic, I will savor every drop and thank you from the bottom of my heart.