Splendid Molerat

TZADIKIM NISTARIM -- Also called the Lamed Vev, two letters in the Hebrew alphabet that translate to the number thirty-six. In this violent, ugly, strife-riddled world of ours there are thirty-six men, the Hidden Just Men or Hidden Saints, who bear on their shoulders the burden of all our pain, sorrows and sins. The Tzadikim Nistarim move in obscurity, and are usually found among the poor, the downtrodden and the meekest among us, and are chosen for this task because of their righteousness, stalwart sense of genuine justice, and the true goodness of their souls. When one of these men dies, God chooses another to take his place. It is for their sake and for love of them that God does not destroy His imperfect creation. As long as the Lamed Vav serves humanity, the world will continue to plod on, but once one of them dies and God cannot find another worthy to take his place, the world will be destroyed. In Qabala, the thirty-six men of the Tzadikim Nistarim together combine to symbolize the seventy-two bridges, corresponding to the seventy-two names of God, that connect the concealed and revealed worlds of our universe. The scent is one of unadulterated spiritual purity, with a taste of the world's eternal pathos, and the joy of suffering with grace: frankincense, olive, spikenard, hyssop and galangal. I sampled this last night before looking up the description, thinking something was really familiar about the fragrance. Here's the weird dream that followed: I was in an old city, everything looked dusty, monochromatic, and the sky was overcast. Architecture was massive stone blocks, almost Central American but for the lack of foliage. In the city was a palace or temple, where an oppressor lived and was claiming to be a god over the people. Also in the city was a regiment of small, talking cats, and the object of this dream seemed to be getting the cat commandoes into the palace, via a series of hidden little doorways. There were also prayers to the Holy Spirit along the way to secure windows and doors. At the end the oppressor flaked apart and was blown away in the wind, and all the clouds left with him. Weird dream. And why the little cats, I thought? A few hours awake and I remembered the brain's love of puns: the cat's were in homage to that old martial hymn, "Onward Kitten Soldiers". In broad daylight, I can say the scent is solemn and beautiful, and the olive note grounds the blend in a way that's more golden than dark. However, I've made a note just go to sleep with lavender sachets from now on.

My favourite bartender (back when I used to have a favourite bartender -- hi Trevor, where ever you are), made a drink called a Five Dollar Milkshake. The ingredients involved Bushmill's, Irish Cream, Butterscotch Schnapps, and Creme de Cacao (I think). Candy Butcher has a very similar aroma, with a wisp of vanilla perfume in the background.

Not much to add -- Jersey Devil is a very natural-smelling, earthy pine, cool, but not piercing. If Golden Priapus was too sweet on you, and Mistletoe gave you a brain freeze, this blend occupies a nice, tart middle ground.

Drink Me vs. Eat Me -- I figured one of these would have the dry ginger-or-nutmeg note from Gluttony, and this appears to be the one. I admire this greatly in the bottle, where it has a toasty, buttery, smoky, amaretto-cherry sweetness. On my skin, it quickly turns into a dusty poof! from the spice drawer. I make it seem dirty, and not in a good way. Oil warmer, here we come!

In the sniff comparison between Eat Me and Drink Me, Eat Me is definitely the winner with my chemistry. Soft on the butter note, and the currants are tart enough to bring down the sweetness of the cake. This will be the scent I reach for when I want to have a cloud of baked goods around me.

I've been ordering since 2004 -- always delighted with the customer service! Fast, efficient, and just all-around NICE! And as for the Devil's Panties? I nominate "Nam Pla" as the secret ingredient. Not only is this Thai sauce distinctive, but it can survive for years without refrigeration. It's already gone as bad as it's ever gonna get.

Bess is stately and pretty. On me it has a soft, cool green background (the rosemary, mint and lemon), topped with very liquid rose notes. Part of the liquidity is the grape spirit, which isn't registering as "grape" so much as grappa -- very high and volatile. The grape is under-represented when I put it on, so I've tried layering Bess with Puck (grape & civet), and also with Urd (muscadine & patchouli). With Puck I got a young and mischievous Queen, and with Urd I got an Iron Queen. Try it out, the two moods are very different and interesting.

Let's see... If O was sex in a hayloft, then Pink Phoenix is sex in a mound of cotton candy. Same albumin-honey notes when wet, becoming progressively sweeter and fruitier. I like the way it dries down to a near-incense floral/honey on me.

Red Phoenix is delicious. Smoky, spiced plums and warm resins. In the drydown it reminds me of the perfumes I wore some years back (Diva, Fendi). Less brightness, more of a simmering heat.

Snow White opens with a coconut marzipan scent. The snow I'm getting is powdered vanilla sugar,... and Snow White seems to share some notes with Obsession, my skin latches on to the similarity and plays it up for several hours before drying out. It's evoking a bittersweet emotion. Will have to try it again in a few days and see if my reaction changes.

I'm enjoying Talvikuu. Very sniff-able. It's got the spicy aquatics of Cthulhu & Whippoorwill, in an expanse of frosty-birch-spruce. "Cthulhu-Pops!", my ad-deranged brain volunteers. Now there's a frozen treat I wouldn't go lick.

Versailles starts as a very creamy rose fragrance, with a transparent red-orange layer, jasmine and citrus. It clings, heady and warm, for several hours. As it dries out, I get something close to dusty velvet or a faded pomander, and the grand ball winds down.

Tanqueray with a twist of lime. Three or four of those. Sudden realization that was rather a lot of gin, now surreptitiously nibbling on cardamom seeds to achieve some scent of sobriety. And the perfume was bang-on, too.

I get a couple of competing scent-memories from Lurid. First the silly one: Anyone remember Thrills gum? That bright-mauve, clove-y Chicklets competitor? Man, I loved those. Better memory: Long soak in the tub, all kinds of fragrant bubbles and scrubs, and the next half-hour out of the tub you've got a cloud of perfumed steam wafting off your skin? It's a lot like that. It's giving me a craving for those Angel bath flakes, in a roundabout way.

Penny Dreadful is like watching Hitchcock for the first time -- well done! I can apply it to the backs of my fingers, up to the knuckle, and no further -- it really does give me the horrors. This is a corn-fed, golden-haired girl who met the wrong man, and was left for dead in a shallow grave off in the brush somewhere. She clawed her way out, recovered, changed her name, and has lived alone ever since. Anyone who got close enough would notice a smell of wet earth that never quite faded.

I like Black Opal. It has the compelling flinty-stoney note I seem to recall from Pluto, backed by a dark and musky vanilla that clings to the skin. Black Opal does promote frequent sniffing -- don't test drive this by wearing it anyplace where you'd get odd looks for nose-wrist contact.

Numb is wonderful on me. It has the frosty-cold herbal notes I recall from the original Wind Song perfume... but gentler on the nose, with more neroli and violets.

My dear, departed Puck was delightfully grape-y... But you needed to like civet too for that one to work.

Kunstkammer: Slice blood orange in a glass dish, drizzle with Limoncello and Drambuie, sprinkle with cracked black pepper. Flambé. Serve with ice cream. After a while it dried down to a mysterious, woodsy resin.

Torture King is heady, smoky and booze-y. Not really an earthy scent, but it sure ain't 'clean' either. I'd run away with Penn Gillette if he smelled like this. And I'd arrive at a sorry end, too, I'm certain.

Fiddle-head ferns, ever so briefly. Bed of Nails is aquatic/metallic, more metal cool than icy cold. A bit of woodsy-dark in the background. The nails in the board are rusting, but the tips are gleaming sharp and shining, kept so by an orphan boy retained for just that task.

My husband also loves buttered popcorn. Alas, when offered a sniff of the bottle, he recoiled in horror. No rolling-in-buttered-popcorn passion for us. This will make one hell of a bath soak, for me at any rate.

Sweet merciful crap...! This is so true-to-life, I can feel my teeth rotting. Sugar, butter, coconut oil. Frying in the midday sun. I'm going to rifle through the BPAL box for the chocolate milkshake that surely must be in there.

I'm getting a lot of smoke from Chuparosa. This is like burning a bonfire down to very hot coals, and then raising smoke by dropping green branches of rose and honeysuckle into it. It's dramatic.

I've been told that Bliss and Vice together smell like Krispy Kreme, but your mileage may vary.