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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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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.
“I feel like all the sands are at the bottom of the hourglass.”
“Turn it over, then.”
The white roses and orange blossoms of hope penetrating despair’s black fog of opoponax, black myrrh, bruised violet, clove, funereal lily, and grief-struck carrot seed.
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, –
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
– Paul Laurence Dunbar
This poem – this song – is one that has moved me since my childhood, and it’s so incredibly difficult to translate it into scent. I don’t know if I am capable of doing honor to Dunbar’s words; all I can do is craft something that is akin to how much this makes my heart clench. The scent I have chosen is a soft lavender with dry woods, carrot seed and iris, sandalwood smoke, and wisteria.
Television static made manifest, with a glimpse of perversions hidden beneath: benzoin, black pepper, white sandalwood, olibanum, ambergris accord, galbanum, and O3.
Claire –
Honestly a little puzzled by this one! I wasn’t very familiar with any of the three ingredients, so I knew I was in for an adventure. Both in the bottle and when I first put it on my immediate association was baby powder. For more detail, it’s a kind of faintly aquatic, powdery scent with the barest touch of what I’m going to describe as a root kind of smell? Not quite earthy, but close enough. Very clean. Not how I’d describe baby powder exactly, but somehow it’s quite similar.
This one stays close to the skin and in many ways results in a “skin amplified” kind of scent. I imagine this will be great for layering. In short, I do like it; it’s subtle and inoffensive. As an aside, I also really enjoy the seven word story; so tragic and evocative.