A huge crowd mills in front of the next stage. You hear the din of their voices, chattering in a Babel’s fall of languages, laughing and buzzing with a strange anticipation. As you get closer, you notice that they are wearing a motley mix of clothing from ages past… all rotting, all in shreds. In the sea of faces, all bearing a similar chalky pallor, some stand out: there is a woman in a threadbare Burgundian gown, a young man in torn breeches and sagging slops, a maiden in a dagged-sleeve houppelande that is splattered with cruor, a snarling Victorian rogue with a battered silk top hat, and a vacant-eyed man in a shredded Confederate uniform. As you make your way through the crowd, you feel cold fingers pluck at your clothing, and the hard, almost glassy skin that you brush against radiates an unnatural cold. You hear tittering sighs as you push through the gathering, and your skin prickles as you feel icy breath upon your neck. Abruptly, someone cries out, and the strange congregation begins clapping a steady rhythm. Their voices rise in a tintamar of ghastly cheers as torches flare to life on the stage. The firelight illuminates a gargantuan, shining black stake in the center of the stage. It is festooned with black ribbons, drooping moss, and viciously-colored poisonous blooms in a playful, grotesque mockery of a Maypole. Two women, clutched tightly in a brutal embrace, spin onto the stage, shaking a tambourine and clacking a hembra in time with the clapping. One is clad in violet, with violet tresses to match; the other is a vision of swirling rose. Their long, waving hair whips in manic arcs as they twirl, stomp, and pirouette around the onyx shaft. The crowd becomes more and more frenzied as the dance reaches a mad crescendo, and suddenly you realize that the two are one: they are conjoined, identical twins, bound eternally at the ribs. The violet sister, caught in the throes of the ritual’s passion, throws her head back and moans. She bares a set of gleaming white fangs and bites deeply into her sister's neck. The rose maiden screams in joy, and returns her sister’s violent kiss as the crowd explodes into Corybantic mayhem. Simplicity and innocence, gleefully despoiled! Hope is sugared rose, Faith is sugared violet. The sisters are inseparable, and may only be purchased together.

Reviewed 07/30/2007

In the bottle this was so yummy and perfect: candied violets and thick powdered sugar icing, innocent and youthful but somehow entirely adult, and I loved it. It started off gorgeous wet, too, but when it dried it turned horribly wrong. It smelled like a Hug-A-Jug, one of those awful pure-sugar drinks, with a faint note of hand soap underneath. I sniff this on my skin and immediately think of Little League games from my childhood. Not something I want to smell like at work or out for the evening.

I passed this one off to the munchkin. If anyone can pull off a childishly sweet scent it's an eight year old, right? Imagine my surprise when she tried it on and the violets deepened, the sugar faded to a bare hint, and she was left with the gorgeous, delicate scent I originally fell in love with. Little monster, I'm sending her out to work to fund her own BPAL habit! *LOL*