A Pantomime of Deviltry and Debauch in Seven Acts
PERFUME OIL BLENDS
Presented in an amber apothecary vial.
$32.00
As you come to the final stage, you see a spotlight focused upon a large pile of pitch-black ashes on the center of the floor. A parchment scroll has been tacked to the foot of the stage. It reads:
Now I will believe
That there are unicorns; that in Arabia
There is one tree, the phoenix’ throne; one phoenix
At this hour reigning there.
You catch a whiff of burnt cinnamon, and a whirlwind begins to form within the center of the cold pyre. The ashes rise, condense, and coalesce into the dusky form of a woman. She shakes her body gently, tossing her hair, and the ashes fall from her skin. She is perfect, radiant: not a single cinder mars the flawlessness of her countenance. Her body seems to cast a shadow shaped like a triumphant bird, wings outstretched, onto the blank taupe canvas behind her. Her eyes are closed, and her head is bowed; her expressionless face is enigmatic. Her dark eyes begin to glow, and her mouth turns up in a secretive, intimate smile. She throws back her head and extends her arms, and suddenly the scent of smoldering myrrh assails you. Within moments, the woman explodes into flame, and you see that her face is now a vision of passionate ecstasy. The turbulence of the conflagration whips around her violently, and gouts of flame burst from her body, igniting the canvas behind her. She raises her arms in exultation, and through the flames, you see both the outline of her scorched black skeleton and the shadow of the phoenix triumphant.
Three deep, dark myrrhs, smoke, cassia, and cinnamon bark.
A Pantomime of Deviltry and Debauch in Seven Acts
PERFUME OIL BLENDS
Presented in an amber apothecary vial.
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Pumpkin spices wind through a blend of warm musk, carnation, red sandalwood and cassia.
Granddaughter of Helios, Hecate’s chosen: Medea was one of the greatest sorceresses of the ancient world. She is the embodiment of ruthless power, indomitable will and furious vengeance. Night-blooming cereus, black orchid, black currant and myrtle leaf enshrouded in the incense of Hecate’s cypress and myrrh, and the dark rage of magickal labdanum and intoxicating poppy.
‘In that case,’ said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, ‘I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies –’
‘Speak English!’ said the Eaglet. ‘I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!’ And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds tittered audibly.
‘What I was going to say,’ said the Dodo in an offended tone, ‘was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.’
‘What is a Caucus-race?’ said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
‘Why,’ said the Dodo, ‘the best way to explain it is to do it.’ (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (‘the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no ‘One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out ‘The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, ‘But who has won?’
This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, ‘everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’
Red musk, lemon peel, sugar cane, cassia, white sandalwood, mango, and agarwood.
Carrying bouquet, and handkerchief, and gloves,
Proud of her height as when she lived, she moves
With all the careless and high-stepping grace,
And the extravagant courtesan’s thin face.
Was slimmer waist e’er in a ball-room wooed?
Her floating robe, in royal amplitude,
Falls in deep folds around a dry foot, shod
With a bright flower-like shoe that gems the sod.
The swarms that hum about her collar-bones
As the lascivious streams caress the stones,
Conceal from every scornful jest that flies,
Her gloomy beauty; and her fathomless eyes
Are made of shade and void; with flowery sprays
Her skull is wreathed artistically, and sways,
Feeble and weak, on her frail vertebrae.
O charm of nothing decked in folly! they
Who laugh and name you a Caricature,
They see not, they whom flesh and blood allure,
The nameless grace of every bleached, bare bone,
That is most dear to me, tall skeleton!
Come you to trouble with your potent sneer
The feast of Life! or are you driven here,
To Pleasure’s Sabbath, by dead lusts that stir
And goad your moving corpse on with a spur?
Or do you hope, when sing the violins,
And the pale candle-flame lights up our sins,
To drive some mocking nightmare far apart,
And cool the flame hell lighted in your heart?
Fathomless well of fault and foolishness!
Eternal alembic of antique distress!
Still o’er the curved, white trellis of your sides
The sateless, wandering serpent curls and glides.
And truth to tell, I fear lest you should find,
Among us here, no lover to your mind;
Which of these hearts beat for the smile you gave?
The charms of horror please none but the brave.
Your eyes’ black gulf, where awful broodings stir,
Brings giddiness; the prudent reveller
Sees, while a horror grips him from beneath,
The eternal smile of thirty-two white teeth.
For he who has not folded in his arms
A skeleton, nor fed on graveyard charms,
Recks not of furbelow, or paint, or scent,
When Horror comes the way that Beauty went.
O irresistible, with fleshless face,
Say to these dancers in their dazzled race:
“Proud lovers with the paint above your bones,
Ye shall taste death, musk scented skeletons!
Withered Antinoüs, dandies with plump faces,
Ye varnished cadavers, and grey Lovelaces,
Ye go to lands unknown and void of breath,
Drawn by the rumour of the Dance of Death.
From Seine’s cold quays to Ganges’ burning stream,
The mortal troupes dance onward in a dream;
They do not see, within the opened sky,
The Angel’s sinister trumpet raised on high.
In every clime and under every sun,
Death laughs at ye, mad mortals, as ye run;
And oft perfumes herself with myrrh, like ye
And mingles with your madness, irony!
A gloriously elegant representation of Lady Death. Dry, bone-white orris, black musk, serpentine patchouli and our murkiest myrrh.
josefinstjernqvist –
This scent is gorgeous. Smokey, hot cinnamon is what I smell when I take a sniff from the bottle. Wet on the skin I smell cinnamon and probably a hint of the myrrh, not too sure.. once it dries it’s a bit sweeter, but it still smells a lot like cinnamon. Probably the cassia coming through more. If you love cinnamon, this is for you!
Hellokoi –
A very ashy vetiver, sharp woodsmoke, and sharp, cinnamon-ish cassia. I wound up swapping away my bottle of this one.