Orris Root

  • Brown Jenkin Perfume Oil

    The yellowed country records containing her testimony and that of her accusers were so damnably suggestive of things beyond human experience – and the descriptions of the darting little furry object which served as her familiar were so painfully realistic despite their incredible details.

    That object – no larger than a good-sized rat and quaintly called by the townspeople “Brown Jenkin – seemed to have been the fruit of a remarkable case of sympathetic herd-delusion, for in 1692 no less than eleven persons had testified to glimpsing it. There were recent rumours, too, with a baffling and disconcerting amount of agreement. Witnesses said it had long hair and the shape of a rat, but that its sharp-toothed, bearded face was evilly human while its paws were like tiny human hands. It took messages betwixt old Keziah and the devil, and was nursed on the witch’s blood, which it sucked like a vampire. Its voice was a kind of loathsome titter, and it could speak all languages. Of all the bizarre monstrosities in Gilman’s dreams, nothing filled him with greater panic and nausea than this blasphemous and diminutive hybrid, whose image flitted across his vision in a form a thousandfold more hateful than anything his waking mind had deduced from the ancient records and the modern whispers.

    A small, furry, sharp-toothed scent that will nuzzle you curiously in the black hours before dawn: dusty white sandalwood and orris root, dry coconut husk, creeping musk, and the residue of ceremonial incense.

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  • EXCLAMATIONS OF DELIGHT AND SURPRISE

    Exclamations of Delight and Surprise Perfume Oil

    Red musk, osmanthus incense, mimosa, hyacinth, red sandalwood, orris root, and red amber.

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  • Fainting Couch Home & Linen Spray

    Lush velvet cushions and prim tea rose, a splash of rose water on a lace doily, strong black tea, a whiff of pomander, and an orris root sachet.

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  • gossip slang and cuss words

    Gossip, Slang, and Cuss-Words Perfume Oil

    To Gossip, Slang and “Cuss-Words”

    I’ll bid a last “Adieu”

    And place a bridle on my tongue

    And thoughtless actions, too!

    Here’s to a kinder, gentler year: lavender and mallow with orris root, angelica, frosted vanilla bean, and osmanthus.

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  • image of a northern mockingbird

    Hammy Northern Mockingbird Perfume Oil

    A dusty, dry woody scent that manages to be surprisingly flamboyant: white sandalwood, violet leaf, orris root, cardamom pod, and Texas cedar.

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    Lyonesse Perfume Oil

    Then rose the King and moved his host by night
    And ever pushed Sir Mordred, league by league,
    Back to the sunset bound of Lyonesse —
    A land of old upheaven from the abyss
    By fire, to sink into the abyss again;
    Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,
    And the long mountains ended in a coast
    Of ever-shifting sand, and far away
    The phantom circle of a moaning sea.

    Golden vanilla and gilded musk, stargazer lily, white sandalwood, grey amber, elemi, orris root, ambergris and sea moss.

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  • Malinconia Perfume Oil

    Domenico Fetti

    The thief of joy: Oman frankincense, fossilized amber, white patchouli, champaca orchid, ambergris accord, myrrh resin, violet leaf, orris root, age-stained paper, chrysanthemum, and pale tendrils of smoke.

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    Meskhenet, The Vulture Maiden Perfume Oil

    The ringing of a gong seizes your attention, and you follow the sound to the next stage. It is empty, devoid of any backdrop, and the platform is dark. A haze blankets your vision, like heat radiating off of the desert floor. You hear the sound of hands clapping a steady rhythm, and within moments, the haze begins to coalesce into the forms of a troupe of ghostly women, clad in linen shifts. Their wraithlike hands pluck at the strings of translucent zithers and harps, shake spectral sistrums, and their pallid lips blow upon ethereal flutes. The music that they play is discordant, otherworldly, and seems to be at once a funeral dirge and a paean to life: a triumphant lamentation. As the sound swells, you hear the beating of wings in the distance, and a keen, a siren’s ululation, joins the haunting melody. As the song reaches its eerie crescendo, a beautiful winged woman alights on the stage, summoned by the phantom song. Her skin is dusky brown, and the vigor of her youthful body seems in conflict with the depth of grief reflected in her eyes. Her wings spread out behind her in morbid majesty, and she takes flight. Her dance is, itself, a visible act of mourning, and is almost sensual in its sorrow.

    Frankincense, hyssop, hibiscus, river reeds, orris root, palm frond, and olibanum.

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  • Mokey Perfume Oil

    Mokey is an artist, poet and philosopher. She seems to be in touch with some sort of higher Fraggle consciousness. Mokey is fascinated by the beauty and intricacy of the world around her, and is always seeking new ways to share this feeling with others.

    A gentle, contemplative fragrance: lilac blossoms, violet sugar, orris root, stephanotis, and osmanthus.

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  • Roses Pearls and Emerald

    Roses, Pearls, and Emeralds Perfume Oil

    Rose sap, gleaming ivy, orris root, sweet oakmoss, pine needle, lime rind, and juniper.

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    Seven Word Story: Envy Perfume Oil

    The subject of our latest #BPAL7wordstory contest was Envy. The winning entry was submitted by Tyler Butler:

    Galatea wept as Pygmalion carved new statues

    Marble-white sandalwood, vanilla blossom, and orris root veined with whorls of ambergris accord, rose-touched with life, slowly shattering tears of bitter carrot seed and cistus.

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    Seven Word Story: Greed Perfume Oil

    The subject of our latest #BPAL7wordstory contest was Greed. The winning entry was submitted by Melanie C:

    Killed the last rhino for its horn.

    Ambergris accord, orris root, and carrot seed.

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  • Sirène Médiévale Perfume Oil

    Bodleian Libraries, Douce

    Rolling hills of green grass squished by kelp, seaspray, orris root, white jasmine, coconut, white sandalwood, and cucumber.

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    Socrates Perfume Oil

    SOCRATES of Athens (c. 470 BCE – 399 BCE)

    To Socrates, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” He did his examining publicly, by elenchus, which is italics for “the question-and-answer analysis of ideas.” (We still call this “the Socratic Method” and it still bugs people.)

    Socrates portrayed himself as a “gadfly” to the torpid “great and noble steed” of the state, and powerful Athenians agreed, though they were not universally grateful.

    Socrates also claimed he had a mystical inner voice (his daimonion) and it dissuaded him from such deeds as seeking high office. Ineluctably, this daimonion and his many other peculiarities were weaponized by Athenians of high office.

    Despite his patriotic service – as soldier, as divinely-appointed nuisance of Athens – Socrates was tried, convicted of impiety and corruption of the youth, and sentenced to death by drinking Conium maculatum, which is italics for poisonous hemlock.

    Socrates remained Socrates to the last.

    …I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to address you, weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as I say, are unworthy of me. But I thought that I ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger: nor do I now repent of the manner of my defense, and I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live.
    – Plato-s Apology

    Inspired by anointing oils used in the philosopher’s time after partaking in public baths: orris root, ambergris accord, frankincense, olive blossom, black fig, and marjoram.

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    The Other Mother’s Right Hand Perfume Oil

    Coraline opened the front door and looked at the gray sky. She wondered how long it would be until the sun came up, wondered whether her dream had been a true thing while knowing in her heart that it had been. Something she had taken to be part of the shadows under the hall couch detached itself from beneath the couch and made a mad, scrabbling rush on its long white legs, heading for the front door.

    Coraline’s mouth dropped open in horror and she stepped out of the way as the thing clicked and scuttled past her and out of the house, running crablike on its too-many tapping, clicking, scurrying feet.

    She knew what it was, and she knew what it was after. She had seen it too many times in the last few days, reaching and clutching and snatching and popping blackbeetles obediently into the other mother’s mouth. Five-footed, crimson-nailed, the color of bone.

    It was the other mother’s right hand.

    It wanted the black key.

    A scrabbling, skittering, clacking scent: white as bone, black as a beetle, and red as blood – orris root, vetiver, and daemonorops.

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  • zombie milk

    Zombie Milk Perfume Oil

    Grave-dry rice milk, black moss, hemp fibers, bone-white sandalwood and orris root, and bog osmanthus.

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