tumblr import posts 1/?, on perfume

[pengwern]

tumblr user garden-ghoul asked:

okay honestly the idea of INVENTING a perfume by consulting a tarot deck is a really interesting one

YEAH this is such a fun concept that my mind promptly froze. Should it be based on what the card depicts, what the card means, or the reading as a whole?

Card depictions: That’s easy enough - there are several plant based decks, and I have two myself. (you might like to know that The Tower in the jonasa jaus tarot is a corpse flower.) Not to mention all those roses, lilies, pomegranates, wheat, desert siroccos, and flames both holy and infernal that you get on the regular RWS deck. 

Given how the majority of RWS cards feature people, that makes tailoring scents to each even simpler – perfume briefs can apparently be dumb things like a two toned ribbon, and I can come up with something right now for blithe innocents dawdling over thin air, rose in hand: aldehydes, a sweet citrus like orange or mandarin, white florals, a lemony rose for the lemony narrator that surely lurks in the background, plus a touch of musk for dog. Will it smell good WHO KNOWS but there seems to be established associations for most commonly used notes, and it’s easy enough to extrapolate from there. 

Card meanings: It can’t be too hard to figure out accords that smell like strife, effort, regret*, worldly triumph, false temptations, or stealing several swords from the circus**. 

*anything with violet leaf **Dzing plus something metallic

I think I like the concept of basing perfumes on an entire reading the most! You could shape it around the person/scenario being read for, or you could map past/present/future to top/middle/base notes.

So I drew…Death, Nine of Swords, and Ace of Cups. uh. Drastic change, anxiety over something legit, and the font of emotions. Death is a very Kel phoenix which is also on fire. 9 of swords has thunder and lightning and stormbirds that seem to circle around you, and a raven on a shoulder. Ace of cups is sleek goldfish and a cup with sapphires……………this is basically Brezan……

With those as top/middle/base, this would start with an ephemeral note that burns off in seconds, move on to some nauseating thing, maybe with ozone, then finally linger at an ok aquatic haze for hours afterwards. By most accounts, secretions magnifiques is like this? Vanishing florals that goes to displeasing body odours, whose drydown is fine. :( There are so many distressing cards…a world of SM type perfumes……

:( the problem is that I care about tarot the most as a fictional device then as a way to encounter and collect exquisite palm-sized paintings with actual....readings a distant third
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To have a picture of the bottle on my blog is all I desire of Vol de Nuit, because goodness knows it’s not the perfume itself. I must be anosmic to something in the composition because I’ve tried three times over now, in EDT and in parfum, and there’s this…VOID when the thing parades past my olfactory bulb. 

Two minutes after the spray, nothing. All I get is heat from where my nose is squashed on the back of my hand, recognisable as the ‘existence of a perfume’, and lasting for hours, but no actual notes. 

Hesperidic notes with aldehydes prepare you for take off, as the bitter galbanum and cold narcissus is pillowed on a trail of orange blossom, vanilla musk and orris powder. This represents the cool of the midnight sky and the wispy random clouds as the plane breaches through. In the midst of uncertainty comes a velvety comfort, as the powdery iris-driven accords take over.

where

Not the galbanum, not the orange blossoms, maybe some of the aldehydes, more like hot air from the exhaust fan, and the wind whipping it away.

I tried other stuff later and those were fine. is my nose broken >:<<< so let’s just go back to the bottle which is basically half a split edible peridot like the ones in the Silver Chair that's also escaped from the set of CLAMP's beloved manga Clover

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crocordile asked:

tell me about míriel and perfume, pls, or use the cards to tell me what I should buy for my father on his birthday

Numenorean perfume traditions: g o s h

Late Numenor would probably have synthetic compounds, just like the ones we have right now. irl there’s a trend for “marine” fragrances built on synthetics - think of every awful male cologne titled Refreshing!! Sport!! VERY MANLY!!! which is hilariously late Numenorean, and so I doubt that Tar-Miriel would get to have her nice all-natural unguents – Sauron probably took over the holy gardens where they used to plant the best roses, jasmines, everything. Hope you like smoky perfumes!

An existing perfume for her off the top of my head is Iris Silver Mist. Silver, so silver that people attach scifi ufo to illustrate their reviews all the time. Made of an overdose of synthetic compounds - the story goes that the perfumer in despair and desperation put in every last iris chemical he had. 

But without synthetics, true iris extract is one of the most expensive ingredients around, something only royalty could afford*. And once I disentangle the scent from images of perky silver jumpsuits, my actual association is……when you’re in a supermarket and they mist their leafy vegetable section…green growing things, cut down for consumption, but still organic forms where all else is boxy mirrored fluorescent squares. 

(does Sauron even have the power to bend chemical molecules to his will after getting dragged onto the island)

numenorean perfumes I must think on some more. and chemistry please point me at headcanons of molecules and Arda and if Maiar powers can interfere crocordile *I'm generalising bc I can't find a source you are talking about tar miriel not feanor's mom right because I may still choose silver but I'm not sure that chemistry advancements in Valinor had gotten that far when she was there would they even have had a perfume industry soon after the crossing not a great idea to be heavily scented while hunting/gathering....? maybe one of her friends would bring lovely flowers to her while she worked on textiles? or she smells like cotton or mulberries or wool?? idk