Yule

[porcelina]

Twilight Alchemy Lab’s Yule Oil contains essential oils, absolutes, and CO2 extracts that are organically-grown and pesticide-free, and many of the oils’ components are first distillations from small farms. This oil includes fir needle essential oil, steam-distilled North African myrrh, Austrian pine needle essential oil, wild crafted steam-distilled bay leaves, Ceylon cinnamon, steam-distilled black spruce, bayberry, apple leaf, Roman chamomile, and C02 extract of hazel bark. This oil was charged under tremendously auspicious circumstances during a complete lunar cycle, and was created utilizing the specific astrological aspects that will be active at Midwinter 2011.

i cannot speak to any ritual purposes because, well, i don't really know anything about that. but i can tell you that TAL Yule, at the very least, smells wonderful!

it's appropriate for the holiday season without smelling like a candle or a room spray or any other generic holiday crap. it smells like pine and fir, with touches of cinnamon, with delicious myrrh underneath it all. it smells wild and fresh, but also resinous and spicy. i'm very happy to have a bottle of it in my collection!

[suki]

What a lovely, special oil.

 

In the bottle, Yule 2011 smells like Wintertime to me. specifically winter in the Northeast, but north of NYC, where I grew up. It actually remind me greatly of winter in Vermont. The quality of the snow, the sweet smell of the evergreens- it's all in here.

 

A tiny drop on the skin (I wasn't sure if I'd have a reaction because of the essential oils, I recommend taking care, you never know!) has shown that the oil is staying true. No, this is not a perfume oil. But ritual doesn't mean that something only gets used by the light of the Full Moon in a cast circle, either. I would say, from my Pagan perspective, that this is something to use whenever you are trying to bring yourself closer into the nature of Winter, with all Her sleepy hibernation, all her soft, quiet snow and- here, in the Pacific Northwest- all Her torrential rains.

 

But the Capricorn in me, that leans toward melancholy in the withered January daylight, sees this substance as a chance to embrace Winter, in all her aspects, and to make peace with Her and love Her for who she is.

 

I can't help it, having that little drop on my hand is making me kinda *love* Winter, just a little.

 

Miracles.

 

<3

[Lethran]

In bottle: It’s got a dark of the year sort of feel to it. All those woods, sharp and deep, the chamomile and bay giving a sharper, more viscous feel to the warmer trees and plants. The bay berry adds a touch of fruit, the apple leaf is very understated and the touch of softness to what is otherwise a very masculine sort of scent. I don’t normally like chamomile in fragrances, but here, it’s working so beautifully with the rest of the blend that I have hopes. Wet: Evergreen dominant. The herbs stand out more on the skin than in the bottle. This has lots of throw. Very woody and still hinting of late December nights. Dry: Still evergreen dominant. The rest is a gentle background, nuanced and soft.