The Smell of War: The Senses on Alert (part 2)

It was Shakespeare who wrote, ""Cry havoc!, and let loose the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial."
In part 1 of my article on The Smell of War (HERE) I extrapolated the scents that plagued the combat fields of WWI and the fragrances which were created in that fateful era as solace and as memory.

Since chemical weaponry had been so notoriously used during WWI to great impact, as we have elaborated before, by the time WWII soldiers were fully engaged there were posters warning them about the smells they should avoid to protect themselves from terrible pulmonary harm and skin burning, an olfactory compass that directed them away from musty hay or green corn (for phosgene), geraniums (for lewisite), flypaper smell (for chlorpicrine), and garlic-horseradish-mustard (rather predictably for mustard gas).

Amidst the newer weapons of smelly compounds for WWII, one catches our attention by its intricate psychological concept behind it. Who Me? was a top secret sulfurous stench weapon developed by the American Office of Strategic Services in the 1940s to be used by the French Resistance against German officers. This stinky bomb smelled strongly of fecal matter, and was issued in pocket atomizers, sort of like modern pepper spray, intended to be unobtrusively sprayed on a German officer, humiliating him and, by extension, demoralizing the occupying German forces. Needless to say that the fact that the fecal smelling compounds were largely based on sulfur, a light molecule that easily leaked into the clothes and skin of the assailant, a fact which confirmed the swift failure of such putrid, but essentially harmless, weaponry as Who Me?.

Perfumery rose to the challenge of bypassing the foul and the fragrant, of vicious and frightening smells, to bring a respite after the war that would celebrate the return to normalcy. Boys raised on farms, coming to pee themselves out of terror for garlic or geraniums that would signal risk of death, would come home to find themselves greeted by fragrances that needed to soothe, but also to heal, which is not quite the same thing. Feeding the longing for serenity was a mission. Naming the new fragrances gave half the game away sometimes.

Air Nouveau by Houbigant was ushering the new era, full of optimism and willing to put to rest the angst that plagued Europe and the world for more than a decade with repercussions lasting beyond that time frame.

This is a small part of a longer article which I published on Fragrantica. You can read it in its entirety here.

Battling the Bodily Stench or Embracing the Feral and the Ripe?

Battling bad smells has been a millenia-long battle for humanity. Fighting body odor specifically has been a battle against our very own human make-up. With the exception of those carrying the gene ABCC11 (which makes for no armpit smell), common amongst the populations of the Far East,  the vast majority of us of European, African, Central Asian and Native American descent have the sort of apocrine glands in the armpit and groin which secrete a sort of sweaty liquid that when mixed with surface bacteria develops body odor. The ecrine glands, situated throughout the body, secrete just water and salt.

The quest for deodorisation brings us to the American contradiction of a malodorous past coupled with an almost sterilized present. The pioneer settlers, coming from Europe driven out for their strict Puritan religious beliefs or our sheer need for greener pastures and personal growth were not accustomed to washing up too much. Popular westerns, films chronicling the adventures of the Wild West, have long exploited this very notion, having the lone cowboy bust into the odd saloon and demand a cigar and bath in the back quarters after months of herding cattle all alone in the wilderness.

The very interesting thing however is not the invention of deodorant (and anti-perspirant, which debuted in the early 20th century based on aluminum chloride first marketed under the suggestive name Everdry) but the power of marketing. Women, American women in particular, were especially targeted in typically sexist campaigns which implied that their natural odor was repulsive to heterosexual men, therefore they had to rely on a deodorant or anti-perspirant in order to land the man of their dreams. An advertisement from the Walter Thomson Archives, at the Duke University, proclaims in the very title "Within the Curve of a Woman's Arm. A frank discussion of a subject too often avoided." Including lines asking "Would you be absolutely sure of your daintiness?" and "Does excessive perspiration ruin your prettiest dresses?" The agressive campaigns by the Odorono Company, giving their address as Ruth Miller, The Odorono Co., 719 Blair Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio, promised the "so simple, so easy, so sure" solution for that "problem", imaginary or real.

Please read the entirety of my article on Fragrantica.

The Smell of War: Beyond No Mand's Land

Writing about chemical warfare and its smells doesn't come easy. The prompt was a quote I came across in a letter to Siegfried Sassoon, just a month before his death in November 1918, written by Wilfred Owen: ‘My senses are charred.” The European terrains of World War I (1914-1918) were the fields where the olfactory terror of warfare consolidated itself on a large scale. It was unquestionably during World War I that modern chemical warfare began.

The significance of the toxic gasses' odor is not highlighted enough. The psychological effect of smell on the brain is documented and it often was the anticipation of suffering produced by the alerting odor of toxic fumes which wreaked havoc with the soldiers' psyche.

"Lieutenant Colonel S.L. Cummins, consultant pathologist with the British army in France, concluded that all divisions that were continuously exposed to chemical attack showed a significant drop in morale. The medical officer Charles Wilson was even more emphatic in ensuring that most of the men that had been gassed were frankly left in shock. By 1915, after studying its effects, the English had concluded that although they had not been designed to sow terror, the violent sensation of suffocation caused by chlorine and phosgene undermined the will of even the most determined soldiers. In fact, the mere rumor of a chemical attack even had an effect on troops that had not been previously gassed." [source]

Having being composed two years before the break of WWI, Guerlain's L'Heure Bleue is probably the most iconic perfume of the -by 1914- lost forever Belle Epoque era. The Great War saw the end of that all right.

Please read the rest of my article on Fragrantica. It revolves around the smells of warfare and associations the mind creates in times of terror with references to WWI and the Russian Revolution.

Scented Waters: Beyond Clean

Our modern interpretation of water as a scent component, however, has nothing to do with the time-honored tradition of scented waters dotting many a historical manuscript or literary relic. It also bears no relation to the allusion to sea water notes which pervade a cluster of modern fragrances as well. Actually, "waters" are more or less the predecessors of alcoholic cordials as well as fine fragrance with an alcohol base, but using a complex process of preparation in order to render the fragrant final product.

"Without permitting anyone else to lay a hand on him, the lady herself washed Salabaetto all over with soap scented with musk and cloves. She then had herself washed and rubbed down by the slaves. This done, the slaves brought two fine and very white sheets, so scented with roses that they seemed like roses; the slaves wrapped Salabaetto in one and the lady in the other and then carried them both on their shoulders to the bed... They then took from the basket silver vases of great beauty, some of which were filled with rose water, some with orange water, some with jasmine water, and some with lemon water, which they sprinkled upon them."
~Boccaccio (1313-1375), Decameron 

The tradition of scented waters goes even further back in the times of Hippocrates.
You can read the rest of my historical article on this link on Fragrantica.

Playing for Keeps: The Curious Case of Dior's Poison Girl

Perfume people love to diss a new release aimed at millennials, and this is what happened in part with Dior's Poison Girl when it first hit the counters. Outrage! Is it because quite a few perfume lovers are beyond the millennial age bracket? Or is it possibly because they consider their tastes evolved beyond the basic package promoted to millennials, aka super sweet fragrances that revolve around candy floss and synthetic berries molecules with a smattering of patchouli for good measure, making everything smell the same? I kinda feel the latter is more like it. And with good reason. And this is why I have to give it to Poison Girl. Because it doesn't quite do that. It does so much more and manages it without being either innovative or Art with a capital A. Damning with faint praise? Well, no, so read on please.

Dior decided to play their hand into making something new with Poison Girl, while at the same time featuring something old. Like the basic bride's mantra they're borrowing from both worlds in order to attain two necessary goals: lure in new customers, yet not alienate older customers at once either. Surprisingly the bet works and hit the jackpot! Poison Girl a year and a half after its official launch is selling very well indeed and also has the eau de toilette version to prove it.

But the real question is: Why does Poison Girl succeed where others fail?

The rest is on Fragrantica. Bottom line: Poison Girl succeeds where other flankers fail and there's a good reason for that. Take a read and see.

Carmelite Water: The Melissa Tonic that Threatened to Assassinate the Cardinal Richelieu

One day in 1635, Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, commonly referred to as Le Cardinal Richelieu, sniffed his talisman of Eau de Melissa, and discovered a discrepancy to its scent. A refined nose, or a well familiar smell gone awry, it quickly alerted him to foul play. Apparently Le Duc d'Orleans had had the contents tampered with, as an analysis of the contents of the bottle later proved. It seems like replacing the gemstones on the queen's necklace, featured so prominently as a Richelieu plot device in the Dumas novel of The Three Musketeers, is not without its peer in real life!

The story of this evil plot of assassination through poisoned aromatic cordial is not without precedent, but it definitely prompted one of the first commercial uses of a seal of authenticity. The Carmelite nuns who had been producing Eau de Melissa under their own aegis, marketed as Carmelite Water, proceeded into sealing their products with a red wax bearing the seal of their convent.

All this story of intrigue revolved around a humble plant, the melissa, or lemongrass or citronella. Melissa officinalis, a vivacious plant in the Lamiaceae family, is also called lemon balm or piment des abeilles. Its essence can be used in a variety of ways.

You can read my entire article on Fragrantica on this link (it even includes a recipe for making your own Melissa Water)

Hermes Eau de Neroli Dore: fragrance review

Although it might seem like Eau de Néroli Doré is more masculine leaning and could be interpreted by the casual "sniffeur" as maudlin its crunchy texture is indicative of great dexterity in the treatment of ingredients and concepts.

It feels at once golden and soapy and with a leather undertone like a handsome person who just put on the world's fluffiest T-shirt and trousers in Egyptian cotton and the softest leather slip-ons in existence just to enjoy a morning view of the orchard by the sea. I'm sold.

My full review can be found on Fragrantica.

A Brief History of Deodorization

Battling bad smells has been a millenia-long battle for humanity. Fighting body odor specifically has been a battle against our very own human make-up. With the exception of those carrying the gene ABCC11 (which makes for no armpit smell), common amongst the populations of the Far East,  the vast majority of us of European, African, Central Asian and Native American descent have the sort of apocrine glands in the armpit and groin which secrete a sort of sweaty liquid that when mixed with surface bacteria develops body odor.[...]

The very interesting thing is not the invention of deodorant (and anti-perspirant, which debuted in the early 20th century based on aluminum chloride first marketed under the suggestive name Everdry) but the power of marketing. Women, American women in particular, were especially targeted in typically sexist campaigns which implied that their natural odor was repulsive to heterosexual men, therefore they had to rely on a deodorant or anti-perspirant in order to land the man of their dreams.

An advertisement from the Walter Thomson Archives, at the Duke University, proclaims in the very title "Within the Curve of a Woman's Arm. A frank discussion of a subject too often avoided." Including lines asking "Would you be absolutely sure of your daintiness?" and "Does excessive perspiration ruin your prettiest dresses?"

The agressive campaigns by the Odorono Company, giving their address as Ruth Miller, The Odorono Co., 719 Blair Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio, promised the "so simple, so easy, so sure" solution for that "problem", imaginary or real.

You can find the entire article on Fragrantica on this link.

Thierry Mugler Innocent: fragrance review

Mugler's Innocent seems in retrospect to be the perfect alternative for people who like gourmand fragrances, love sugared almonds, love fluffy compositions with a tang of sour-sweet fruit on top, but do not appreciate a masculinity factor, in this case the prominent androgynous quality of the intense patchouli of the original Angel. 

Don't get me wrong; I love Angel for all those reasons and have come to appreciate how a teensy-tiny bit of application from afar (or, better yet, using the gorgeous body products) can enhance my neuron pleasure responses. But Innocent is just easier to wear every day, easier to wear during the warmer weather, and, still with a light hand application, easier to feel less conspicuous wearing it.

The scent itself is a succulent mix of Jordan almonds, egg-whites meringues and praline, floating around an intensely sweet & tart note of blackcurrant, like blackcurrant jam but without the stickiness. Instead the feeling is one of copious amounts of musk underpinning the composition into a cloud-like, duvet feel of goose feathers falling softly on nude skin. 

It's a sensual perfume, no doubt because its original skeleton is one that puts lots of flesh over the handsome bones, but it's a benevolent sensual and with the eerie melancholy of a beautiful anime boy with blue eyes and dark hair...

More musings on Fragrantica.

Scent of Mummy, the Egyptian kind, that is...

In one of my newest historical articles for Fragrantica, amassed under the collective title of 1001 Past Tales, I discuss the infamous "scent of mummy", or "mumia", coming off the Egyptian mummies which were actually used in the preparation of apothecary formulae for external use as well as -most poignantly- internal consumption.

wiki commons

Perish the thought that people actually consumed mumia internally, but this is what they did from at least 1000AD onwards: vital energy at its most macabre. Egyptology might not have been born, yet people knew these corpses were old. The ground matter of the corpses, black, firm and putrid smelling, defies modern logic, as do most arcane and animistic practices that come from the prehistoric world. Eating a worthy opponent or an ancestor is an ancient practice in order to graft their excellence unto the eater.

You can read the entire article on this link.

Your "Best in Show" Guerlain perfume: Which Is It?

When erotic authoress Anais Nin reminiscences about her relationship with Henry Miller's wife, June, it is a bottle of Guerlain's Mitsouko she is asked for as a gift by the statuesque yet destitute woman amidst sapphic caresses.

via pinterest

When Séverine, the bourgeois heroine of the cinematic adaptation of Joseph Kessel's novel "Belle de Jour", sets out to work the afternoon as a prostitute, it is a bottle of Mitsouko that she accidentally smashes in the bathroom, immersed in her sadomasochistic reveries.

When Jean Harlow's husband, Paul Bern, allegedly driven by impotence, took his own life, a mere short week after his wedding to the silver screen goddess, it is Mitsouko by Guerlain he was drenched with; her perfume.

Originally meant for brunettes, Mitsouko took the gentle but poignant star-crossed lovers of a Japanese brunette and a Russian naval officer meeting at wartime, to inspire women (and men) of all hair colors and ethnicities ever since. Always implicated in sex in a "screw in the brain" sort of way, Mitsouko, with its tender peach skin heart and troubling inky base, is not just Belle. She's Belle Toujours.


You can find my entry on the Best in Show on Fragrantica. Please share in the comments here (and there, if you like) which is your own pick for Best in Show Guerlain perfume! I'd love to read during the holidays for Orthodox Easter.

Fragrance review & perfume history for Guerlain Mitsouko on this link. 

The Medieval Cyprus Birdies (Oiselets de Chypre): Tracking Historical Scents & Fragrance Use

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"Since she had exchanged one of the most luxurious Courts of the Middle Ages for that of Aragon, chiefly concerned with the ceaseless tumult and turmoil of war. In the fortress-palaces of her husband's kingdom how often she must have pined for the garden-isle of her birth, for its groves of orange, pomegranate, citron, mulberry, acacia, olive, and palm, for the vision of the happy valley of Makaria, across whose far-famed loveliness she was to gaze no more from the casements of her brother's palace at Nicosia! How she would pine to hear once more the merry laughter and the jingling bells of the huntingtrain " sport made ideal in that land of " the richest and most generous lords in Christendom " of their day, one of whom, the Count of Jaffa, alone, kept no less than five hundred hunting dogs. Memories of scented waters " rose, jasmine, and many another of which the secret has long been lost to the distiller " would be wafted to her with the lifting of every lid of her cypress-wood coffers, with their metal inlaying, with every breath of her perfumed " oiselets de Chypre " " that favourite toy of the mediaeval boudoir which she was probably the first to introduce into Aragon. These pomanders of scented paste, generally moulded into the shape of a bird " hence their name " were hung in the apartments of great ladies, in cages or similar receptacles, to serve the double purpose of purifying as well as of perfuming the room. A heavy and disappointed heart beat, we may be sure, beneath the royal robes, thick with " ors de Chypre, o Ma o Aragon ; heavy, because of its homesickness, disappointed, because of her childlessness. Her sumptuous wardrobe itself would grow to be a weariness, since she might not wear it in that Cypriote setting which alone might have fitly framed it."  

[source, Miron E.L The Queens of Aragon: Their Lives and Times. Reprint. London: Forgotten Books, 2013. 152-3. Print.]

I wrote a concrete piece on Oiselets de Chypre, the Cyprus scented birdies of the Middle Ages on Fragrantica. Please check it out on this link.

Homage Rendered: 10 Years of Terre d'Hermes

Virgil said in his Georgics, referring to agricultural labors, "Tempus fugit", i.e. time flies. And it does fly and the older I get, the more I realize I can't really keep up. But I do keep up with perfume anniversaries, because, well, my inclination for perfume archiving bodes well with both the passion and the job. I was counting the years behind some of the best perfumes around and one of them has just feted its 10th birthday.

Without further ado, I present you with Terre d'Hermes, one of the best-selling masculine fragrances in Europe, which is commemorating the anniversary with two special 2016 edition for the Eau de Toilette and the Parfum Extrait. Please read the homage on Fragrantica on this link.

Chanel Boy, Hermes Muguet Porcelaine, Guerlain Le Muguet 2016 : 3 Upcoming Fragrances to Watch

In the ever increasing pace of fragrance launches some catch one's eye due to either exclusivity cachet or brand awareness. This is the case with the three fragrances I highlight today. One is so exclusive and posh that it can't possibly justify the jumping through hoops to get it, yet a vision of the bottle (and a sample from a lucky buyer) is de riguer. The other two are less hard to get, though still preserving themselves for marriage, but coming from such collections as to warrant some getting all hot and bothered with. Without further ado I present them to you.

First we have Guerlain's super-limited annual Le Muguet 2016 edition: this year it promises to be a new formula, not just a different bottle and concentration game. The company itself, after all, is historic., so extra care is given to accuracy. More info on Fragrantica.

Then there's Chanel's Boy (probably going out to play with Dior's Girl, engaging in puberty love. All right, Chanel is probably the ONLY firm who can graft such a gauche name to their Les Exclusifs boutique line; Boy Capel, after whom the new fragrance is named, is canon after all.
The fact that the scent is masculine but could be worn by women as well is an added bonus, like the boyish cut styles Coco Chanel made her own.

 And last but not least there's Muguet Porcelaine by Hermes, them of the scarves fame, in the boutique-only Hermessences line, a green lily of the valley. Since perfumer Jean Claude Ellena, he of best-selling fragrances fame, has been working on this idea for a long time, perhaps longer that he has ever admitted to, taking into account that Roudnitska was his mentor, it should be interesting. Lily of the valley has served for soap-clean references for ages, so let's see what happens.

Le Secret d'Arielle by Mauboussin: new fragrance & collaboration

News of a collaboration between French jewelers & fragrance brand Mauboussin and French-American actress & singer Arielle Dombasle left me with an instant feeling of heightened, impatient expectation. The reason is twofold: on the one hand the great reputation of Mauboussin perfumes (not to mention the diamond jewels!), on the other the notoriety of Dombasle as a true lover of perfume. In fact, her signature scent has long held something of a fascination to me, back when I was compiling my perfumes worn by celebrities list almost 15 years ago, being highly responsive to her personal choices.

Pierre Olivier Deschamps photography

"Whatever her raison d’être française — like playing catch-up for having been born in the United States and raised in Mexico — she has mastered that oh-so-French savoring of every delicious whiff of life that Americans, as the prejudice goes, like to turn up their noses at.
That is evident by the cloud of perfume in which she arrives for lunch; let others travel by car. “I can live without lipstick, without a hairbrush, but I cannot live without perfume,” she said. “What did the kings bring to the baby Jesus? The ingredients of perfume. It’s the basis of ... ” She trailed off, gesturing as if to indicate the whole world. [...]
Dombasle is not content just to dab on a bit of store-bought stuff, a 20th-century practice she derides as lacking in imagination. Rather, she concocts her own mixture from Cuir de Russie by Chanel, Aromatic Elixir by Clinique and a cheap off-brand white musk she stockpiles from a shop on the Lower East Side. (NYC) "
[source]

Her new fragrance, in collaboration with Mauboussin and the perfumers in charge of creating the formula, is called Secret d'Arielle and comes in a 30ml extrait de parfum. If you want to read a review of it, there's one on Fragrantica.

For those of you wondering: the star of David on the bottle probably alludes to her Jewish husband, French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy, affectionately referred to as BHL by the French. Apparently my eyes are not as they were. It's a pentacle.

Revisiting the Neglected: Shop Your Fragrance Wardrobe

The notion of "shopping your wardrobe" is hot on fashion and style blogs right now. The idea of a judged frugality has something appealing to it. Like controlling someone's life, an illusion of being in control at the very least. It also makes for worthwhile discoveries at the back of the pile; that rah-rah skirt from high school can't be worn again, but looks at those leggings from the early 1990s! And the perfectly cut jean jackets from the same period, not laser-cut but just as straight and lean? (Lean and long was big in the 1990s, my friends).

Hermes campaign 2012, shot at the oldest olive tree, on Aegina island, Greece

The same principle can be applied to one's fragrance wardrobe. Imagine if we dived at the back of our wardrobes and fished the fragrances we wear little of. With huge collections for the majority of us, the loot should be highly stimulating. Thus began the "Shop Your Fragrance Wardrobe" idea!

I unearthed something truly gorgeous which I had not been wearing for a long, long time. The reasons? I'm not exactly rewriting Das Kapital, but I do breach a bit on it, in a way. Find the article on this link and please share your own neglected fragrances which you recently rediscovered in the comments.

Whiffs of Heaven and of Hell: The Scents of Sanctity and of the Devil, a Historical Exposition of Myth and Reality

I have been having a bit of trouble with putting in comments lately, Blogger acting up or something, so please excuse my delay in responding to you. I hope the problem gets fixed quickly.
Meanwhile I have published two of my most interesting, if I say so myself, articles involving a controversial topic that intermingles religion, culture, history, myth and ever present smells and fragrances. Not everything is coming up roses, but some things apparently are?

One if called A Saintly Aroma: Scents of Heaven, linked here, and its companion is called A Diabolical Whiff: Scents of Hell, linked on this link.

I hope that you will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed myself while researching and writing them. As always, please free to comment and agree/disagree either here or there.

A Glimpse of Spring Amidst the Snowzilla

The snow has taken New York by storm if Instagram is any proof of that, but do not fear. Here we can bring the crocuses from under the stony frozen rock in our imagination. In an effort of some welcome diversion of spring-time thoughts, before any floral prints erupt happily on our dresses and pink suffocates our makeup routine like there's no tomorrow (not that it happens in my routine, but you know how things go in the press) there's a Fragrantica collective article with spring scents.

Best in Show: Welcome Spring (hit the link please to read) features one choice by yours truly (scroll to find it in the middle of the article) as well as other worthwhile choices by our editors. Enjoy reading and please share what scent/smell makes you think of springtime in the comments.

Christmas Wishlists: Mine and Yours

Santa Baby can't get more busy this year. I haven't even had the time to sample most of what I wanted to, being so terribly busy and all, not to mention no budget for waste (so that puts a moratorium on unsniffed purchases). Santa might do the sampling for me as far as I'm concerned this time. I'm sure not everyone is on the same page though.

But for Christmas's sake, and making it easy on those who can and would gift us with the things we want and need, I'm sharing with you my own Christmas & New Year wish list, including style, fashion, books, movies, perfume and beauty. And I urge you to share your wish list too in the comments! I'd love to read it during the longer days of the holidays and note down interesting things to try out next.

My first wish - my foremost wish for which all other wishes eclipse- is for peace. Peace now that people drown in the Aegean every single day. Let's effectuate the change we are.

On to more prosaic things.

My perfume wish list has already been posted on Fragrantica in All I Want for Christmas. (click the link to see) Rather short and to the point; 5 new perfumes only. They should fit a stocking, shouldn't they?

But I have a few more things to be grateful if they make an appearance under the Christmas tree.

This smokey eye palette from Bobbi Brown has the requisite shades for shading but thanks to their cool undertone they won't look muddy on my lids.It's called Smokey Cool Eye Palette (pretty easy to remember huh?) and one can find it at Sephora and here on Amazon.

If Santa is really generous I'd love this Tahitian grey-classic white-South Sea gold pearl bracelet by Mikimoto. Stunner!

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli was initially the inner geek's call to polish up my physics; a subject neglected since high school. But the aesthete in me admits arrogantly that it was the book jacket which caught my eye first.Available at Barnes & Noble and on Amazon last I checked.

These Sur La Table fruit grind graters are great for any of us who loves grating citrus rind with gusto only tolater  find their kitchen full of small bits scattered everywhere. I also hope that it will allow me to actually collect the the remainder grinded bits and be able to tincture them in alcohol for using in condiments and dishes. How's that for a nifty idea combining scent and food in one?

Finally a ticket for a springtime trip to Japan to experience the Wisteria Tunnel at the Kawachi  Fuji Gardens in Kitakyushu. That would be heavenly indeed....

Please share your wishlists in the comments below this post. I'd love to read them all!

Myrrh: Mythology and Culture

Sacred among essences the resin of the Commiphora myrrha tree grows in the solitary desert weeping its fragrant tears for that which could not be. From the wandering girl Myrrha to the practices of embalming and mummification and the anointing of priest king and lover alike, myrrh is among the most fascinating essences in perfumery and I am pleased to be able to offer my readers who had asked about it two articles investigating its mythology origins and the cultural significance it played in western civilization.

Here is the first part: The Myriad Muses in Myrrh: Mythology ~A tale of lust, incense and guilt.

And here is the second part: The Myriad Muses in Myrrh: Culture ~Between sanctity and carnality.

These are going to be followed by a third part focusing on perfume reviews of my favorite myrrh-centric fragrances.

And let me grab the opportunity to mention those are both part of my new steady column (une rubrique) on Fragrantica especially for my historical articles, besides any other content I provide on the webzine. You can find them on the collective link 1001 Past Tales.