When real things happen to imaginary people

A post by graveyardrabbit reminded me I wanted to post about perfume!

As some of you probably know, BPAL makes pretty much all of the scents I wear, with one exception from LUSH, Lord of Misrule. (Patchouli, vanilla, and black pepper.)

From BPAL, I generally wear the (limited edition, long out-of-stock) Blood Popsicle, inspired by the movie Only Lovers Left Alive. Their description is "The scent of frozen Type O Negative". My description, from the review on the Gothic Charm School site: “The good stuff”. Honey and amber and salt, wrapped in blood-red velvet. The perfume version of a shiver of delight." I LOVE this scent, and am very glad I stocked up before it went away.

I *thought* that Blood Popsicle was going to be the only scent I wore, forever and ever, world without end, but then BPAL went and collaborated with one of my favorite jewelry designers, Bloodmilk. Enter Owl Moon (dark, rooty, sweet patchouli swirled with honey), and Silky Bat (sugared patchouli).

(Hi, my name is Jilli, and I have a patchouli problem.)

But! But! I was noodling around Etsy, looking through scents named or described as Hecate, when I found House of Orpheus. I'd heard good things about them being an especially witchy/magic -focused scent maker, and then I found their Amunet perfume:

Amunet is a natural perfume by house of Orpheus. A classical Oud, made with spicy notes of cassia, black storax extrait, agar wood oil, and made with an antique Egyptian paste of civet and musk. Amunet is exalted with the lunar oils of silver and the alchemical oil of distilled scorpions. Because this perfume is made with antique ingredients it will be limited in quantity. Once it is gone it will be gone forever.

Amunet is the hidden one, the high priestess, a tattooed goddess in human form. A dark feminine divinity, associated with witchcraft and feminine powers of creation and destruction. To wear this perfume is to embody that which is the high priestess in the major arcana of a dark and beautiful tarot deck. As the mysteries of the feminine are also the mysteries of blood the perfume is the color and thickness of blood…
A talismanic perfume for women who embody the divine feminine with authority and perpetuate its mysteries no mater the cost.

Well then. It doesn't have patchouli, but it absolutely sounds like something I should have. I am impatiently waiting for my order to arrive.

Unless it's some sort of spectacular chocolate scent, every perfume I really love contains patchouli. This is a vaguely unsettling realization to have, considering most people's reaction to even the word patchouli is "Eeewwww. Dirty hippies". Which is a totally understandable reaction, considering most people's exposure to patchouli is cheap "patchouli" oil or incense, which smells like bad dirt and funk. Ugh. GOOD patchouli, to me, smells of incense and sugar and dark wood. It has the feel of candle flame glimmering in the darkness.

Angel? Chaos? Coromandel? Lord of Misrule? (Thank you, LUSH UK, for making a perfume!) All have a patchouli note, and I'm willing to bet that Blood Popsicle from BPAL has some patchouli lurking in there, too.

So tell me: what are your favorite perfumes, and did any of them surprise you once you realized what the notes were?

I'm having an exasperating day. I am also suffering from a sinus headache that is making me entertain longing thoughts of self-trepanation, and I'm just not in a very good mood. So I repeat: bah. And grrrr.

So! I'm going to distract myself by talking about perfume. Oh Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, why do you want to take all of my money? You see, in the Valentine's Day limited edition scents (available until March 13th), there is a collection named Box of Chocolates.

( Ooooh, chocolate perfume )

Wow, I am in a terrible mood. I should go eat lunch; maybe that will help.