When memory is a seeing eye: DSH Pandora

The first time I sprayed, I smelled dust.  Book dust.  No, something that had been pressed between the pages of a favorite volume that was older than me.

As it evolved, it bloomed into something more alive, as the dust faded, and one of those just above skin auric clouds appeared, a blended floral, with a something that drew me in -- that something having the same allure as some of my vintage chypres, but not being just that.

I was enchanted, and I didn't even know by what.  Whatever it was, if this was Trouble, I had Hope for a long and happy future with it.

The tradition of pressing leaves into a book to preserve them is relatively familiar.  The idea being that you can preserve at least a portion of that which is destined to become past, to be history.  But are you familiar with "Bible leaf," a.k.a. costmary?  Costmary used to be a basic kitchen garden plant, and its longish, somewhat wide leaves were pressed between the pages of bibles to help church goers stay awake during an all-day service.  In other words, what was pressed between the pages, an intentionally gathered waft, was placed not for rememberance, but for bringing one into the moment.  A moment which, of course, you were supposed to pay attention to so you could remember it later.

not costmary, from the project described at Create by Maria Apostolou

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I, and others, have discussed the idea of scents that seem to hover just above your skin before.  In my ruminations, I put their place in space somewhere between "sillage" and "skin scent."  They appear not in someone's wake, and not by burying your nose in and snorfling.  They are in some ways my favorite presence, one which does not announce itself in advance, but one which still manages to exist off of skin.

Pandora pulls the nifty trick of maintaining that aura, and having a skin snorfle, too.  I love this.  This is my favorite way of thinking of people, with the immediately registered, the something you learn when you gain closer access, and the limited glimpses of something deep and private.  Open the book, find the pressed leaf, catch a first whiff memory impression, scratch the surface and it comes to life.

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Costmary is a perennial that should be renewed by division every few years, since the old plant becomes bare at the center. Dig up small plants that pop up in the garden, or this plant could become a weedy pest.

- deZine by Maggie

Gardeners know that most perennials need division in order to be rejuvenated.  A classic sign of a perennial that is in need of attention is that the clump dies out in the middle, the newer shoots/roots taking on life even as the original section lets go of it.


In a way, I feel that what Dawn Spencer Hurwitz has managed to do with Pandora is to take a division from an existing plant and bring it back to life in a new setting, and that in doing so, the the plant takes on a new character.


When I go in for the snorfle, as I pass the opening whiff of dry opening the book, enter the floral cloud above my skin, and extract a hit of the depths beneath, I do NOT smell my beloved vintage chypres.  Not Coty, not Millot, not any particular one.  Not even that something, exactly.  But, I *do* find that the style of attraction that pulls me in is just the same -- the happiness of the Coty, the greenness of the Millot.  Pandora is, however, its own something.


And it is lovely.


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What is this Pandora?  Plucked from the past, plonked into the present, for me it is a journey that starts with memory and puts me very much in this moment, with all the palimpsest layers of reading backward through a written and virtual herbal, and then again being woken up and finding yourself here, now, not in the midst of a sermon, but a moderately rich floral bouquet that needs to not be too loud so that you can appreciate the background -- plant based, leafywoodyslightlyhumusy, not exactly chypre not exactly amber.

If you haven't guessed, I like it.  

costmary, image from Women Who Run With Delphiniums

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Do you want to play with Pandora?  DSH Perfumes has offered to share a 3ml sample to a reader.  Comment here to register your interest.  Drawing will held on Tuesday, September 27, at noon U.S. central time.  

Because how often do you see THAT as the time and or time zone???  Plus, it's a new moon.


DRAWING IS CLOSED.
WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED...BY MOONSET.  
  (moonset over the westernmost Great Lakes region, that is)