Hexensalbe by Stora Skuggan.
Opens with vantablack liquorice. Darkly herbaceous. Piercing. Grateful Dead gig at the edge of the wilderness. The encroaching forest only grazing goats can keep back. Did that deadhead just sell you fake weed? Fuck, it’s oregano. Dropping acid, on all-fours and sinking your palms into the damp, rotting forest floor of fallen pine needles and grey lichens. When did hippies get so frightening? There’s a three percent chance the mushrooms you took are poisonous. Your hands are sticky from the bleeding plants — don’t lick your fingers. You touched hemlock and foxgloves. Deceptively medicinal, especially on the dry down.
A clean skin scent, with uncharacteristically weak sillage for Stora Skuggan. After four-five hours rosemary becomes the predominant note with the bite of hemlock. Otherwise patchouli, wild nightshades, and gothic florals linger on the skin. Wafts up from the skin every once in a while, like a cold draft. An added animalic note would have further emphasised the carnal, witchy nature of the fragrance. It is psychedelic but quite distant and masculine. An acid bro might like it. Perhaps it is too green. Simply not haggard enough. Perfect for the withholding one-time radical in your life.
Jazmin Yucatan by DS&Durga.
It was about this time last year that my friend and I stumbled into DS and Durga’s Madison Avenue shop. Spritzing an indecent amount of Jazmin Yucatan on we stumbled back out onto the street and walked the length of Manhattan visiting the major art museums’ winter showcase exhibitions. At some point trailing through a series of Ed Ruscha paintings it began feeling as though we were floating on pond scum.
The jasmine notes travel in the air while the aquatic notes remain stagnant. Steaming; tragically vegetal. Sweet and sad. A memory of the days getting longer. First days of summer that don’t exist. Imagining your back garden could be as wild and vast as a jungle. Whether it is due to accelerated global warming or growing older it captures a feeling that doesn’t exist anymore. Waterlogged mosses in the cracks of the patio. Nostalgic resins and a perpetually fading corn note. This isn’t your potted snake plant. Wistful and romantic.
A fragrance for those of us prone to esoteric self-mythologies. A gift for someone who lives across the river. The sillage is astonishing, the longevity not so much. All of a sudden it disappears into pure vapour. The words on Ruscha’s paintings ripple: SWIMMING POOL/ HOLLYWOOD/ ADIOS/ FAITH/ PAY NOTHING UNTIL APRIL/ The End.
Oud Save the Queen by Atkinsons.
Rumpled ivory sheet on a mahogany four-poster bed. Ten year wedding anniversary in a stately home. Breakfast in bed: milky earl grey tea, fruit scones with spiced honey, raspberry jam stains on the pillow cases. Hot, sweet breath and morning frost melting on the lawn outside. Bare feet on a Persian rug to open the curtains then crawling back into bed. Nestling together for warmth.
Another friend of mine, who works at the perfume counter in a department store, produced a sample of Oud Save the Queen, bashfully placing it into my hand. “Ignore the name.” Yet, both in the bottle and on the skin it is hard to imagine this perfume worn by anyone without secret monarchist tendencies. Or, at least, the desire to submit to something greater than themself. Manicured with a determined oud note, both in sillage and longevity. After a few hours on my skin creamy tonka bean outshines any other notes. Will last through the night. To be worn by a sherry drinker.
