Odin Perfume: BPAL Is Doing It Wrong

[lwood]

[x-post: allfathers_own]

Recently, someone gave me, or let me smell (I forget) a bottle of an Odin perfume from BPAL, and I smelled it.

The description of the scent is thus:

His scent is dry elm bark, amaranth, warrior’s musk, and Odin’s Nine Herbs of Power.

It didn't do it for me, although if it works for one of y'all, let me know in comments.

A Gentleman recently asked what ought to go in Odin incense--if I were doing it, it'd go like this:

If you could put the wind in a bottle--or the night sky, carelessly scattered with stars...

If you could get a blustery midnight storm from some time between Winternights and half-past Yule in a bottle, after the frost has come, once the last sheaf has been left out--and then give it a faint undertone of Eau de Draugr...

If you could somehow bottle the heady brew that, simultaneously, fuels the berserk, empassions the poet, and spurs the magician, inspires the scientist...

That is what should go in!

What smell(s) would do it for you, Gentle Reader?

-- Lorrie

Comments

[dasubergeek.livejournal.com]

Akvavit and the vitreous humours of the unbelieving?

My problem with BPAL's naming is that it flips my "wine woo woo" bullshit switch -- hard.

Overly precious descriptions or cutesy assignment of names to things that don't match piss me off in the same way that I get irritated that people get paid a living wage to write such claptrap as one finds on stuck-up, over-engineered menus. I know scents need neologisms but still...

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Akvavit and the vitreous humours of the unbelieving?

Mmmm, booze and eyeball snot. Who could ask for more? *grin*

My problem with BPAL's naming is that it flips my "wine woo woo" bullshit switch -- hard.

Agreed.

Overly precious descriptions or cutesy assignment of names to things that don't match piss me off in the same way that I get irritated that people get paid a living wage to write such claptrap as one finds on stuck-up, over-engineered menus. I know scents need neologisms but still...

Well, with BPAL's rep, one is supposed to reckon that when they say "Nine Herbs of Power" that, well, there were nine herbs, and they've had weird perfume things done to them, and here's their essence. Which is great and all, but I happen to know the charm they're talking about, and only one of them smells like anything much.

So, yeah. Like the very finest wine reviews.

-- Lorrie

[neohippie.livejournal.com]

Well, I would say chamomile, fennel, and apple all smell pretty nice. And mugwort smells a bit like... pot.

But none of that is how I would imagine Odin smelling.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Right--it was "only one psychoactive", not "only one smelly". Sorry about that, I'd forgotten it because I'd discarded it (ewps).

-- Lorrie

[chironcentaur.livejournal.com]

Warrior's musk??? I don't know what that is, but it doesn't sound like something I want to smell. :-P

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Depends on your relationship with him, I s'pose.

;)

-- Lorrie

[brigidsblest.livejournal.com]

Eh, their scent 'Delphi', for Apollo, doesn't fit (IMO), either. Heavy bay and wine, which I suppose technically should fit Him, but when I think of Him, I think of sunshine smells -- dusty ripe grain under a cloudless summer sky, fresh laundry on the line, and the golden notes of frankincense and sandalwood.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Yes! Bay and sunshine--not necessarily oozy golden sunset sunshine (which is also beautiful, don't get me wrong!), but more like... that clean clear light seeking every moment to come through, around some odd corner of perception.

The light by which one may See.

-- Lorrie

[laughinggoddess.livejournal.com]

I have the Odin scent from BPAL and actually kinda like it - it's warm and woodsy, at least to my nose. Scents smell differently on each person's skin, so maybe I just lucked out.

I got it to try it out (Just as I did for the Lilith scent, which I love most of all - that and "O"). I don't expect them to perfectly capture the essence of the god/goddess/person/idea they claim to represent. For one thing, both scent and representation are such subjective things. While I love your description of Odin, that's really not how I envision him. Even though he's a "sky god," he's always been associated with earth smells and wandering to me, even the subway, where I normally catch glimpses of him. As an urban dweller, I don't see a lot of starry skies. To each her own.

One of my friends just started her own perfume oil company. She's going through the same thing making scents for the Santeria Orishas. What she thinks smells like Oshun is not what I think Oshun smells like.

O is my favorite too

[purplevenus.livejournal.com]

Many of the Orishas didn't work for me, including Oshun.
I was very sad over Brisingamen, as well.

That's Tori in your icon, yes? From "Spark" ?

Re: O is my favorite too

[laughinggoddess.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of Brisingamen either. I think O is such a better scent. My partner is obsessed with it, so for that reason one I often wear it. ; )

Yes its Tori! I love that video.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

*reads*

"O" (not as in "Odin" or "Oxum", Gentle Reader, but as in The Story of O) does sound lovely.

Even though he's a "sky god," he's always been associated with earth smells and wandering to me, even the subway, where I normally catch glimpses of him.

Oh, that too, yes. And dusty tomes, and bright ozone, and well-ridden roads...

As an urban dweller, I don't see a lot of starry skies. To each her own.

Nor I--when I do, it's a treat in which I am easily swept up.

One of my friends just started her own perfume oil company. She's going through the same thing making scents for the Santeria Orishas. What she thinks smells like Oshun is not what I think Oshun smells like.

Heh!

-- Lorrie

[wodandis.livejournal.com]

I liked it okay, but I wouldn't say it exactly did it for me, either. Ozone is a tricky scent to reproduce, but there should definitely be a strong ozone scent in any Odin fragrance. Along with that, I'd put some woodsmoke, leather, dry mead, dry musk with a hint of amber, and just a whiff of yew needles. Perhaps a touch of tobacco too.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

*purrs*

-- L

[evilwenchesinc.livejournal.com]

It needs to smell blue-black.

[evergrey.livejournal.com]

Hah, yes, this.

Like a windswept hilltop in the dead of night, the mist rising over the crest, perhaps some crushed tree-needles and earth and spike, a faint overtone of mead and the fading smoke from many hearths visited. A cold scent with hints of hidden fire.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Yes!

-- L

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Ayuh, that it do.

Mind, I work in San Francisco, where there are banners about for the Folsom Street Fair (http://folsomstreetfair.org/) (!!!NSFW!!!)--which brings in another set of associations for blue-black that aren't wholly inappropriate, but do tend to cause alarums if mentioned in polite company.

-- Lorrie

hmmm

[purplevenus.livejournal.com]

Lying beneath Him, after He's returned from some form of skirmish, not an out and out battle, a skirmish. In the fall, with his cloak falling around us. The scent of golden apples and honeyed tobacco. Mead and autumn winds.

so we have
Slightly testosteroned up Odin
Woolen cloak
Fall
golden apples
honey tobacco
honey mead...
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Re: hmmm

[lwood.livejournal.com]

*blush, cough*

Yes.

That.

Too.

-- Lorrie

Re: hmmm

[evergrey.livejournal.com]

My name is Ev and I approve of this message!
Yep, that's something I can really get behind... me...

[neohippie.livejournal.com]

Being a perfumer is very difficult, I would imagine. Smell is our most complex sense. Taste is only a combination of four (or maybe five) sensations, while sound and light can both be reduced to mathematical formulas.

But smell... not even biologists are quite sure how that works. Vapors go up your nose, touch your olfactory bulbs, erm, uh, and then some... stuff... happens and then you smell!

Like how I want a candle that smells like the New Mexico desert after a rain, and another that smells like my cat's fur after she's been lying in the sunshine for a few hours. Why don't any candles smell like that, eh?

Odin smells like spruce and cold winter winds and pipe tobacco and mead.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Ayuh--smell is appallingly primitive, and thus deucedly difficult. 8-)

I had "rain" incense once. That croggled me...

-- Lorrie

[emberleo.livejournal.com]

I find myself twitching for no particularly good reason, I guess.

I mean, your complaint about the BPAL is that they used the wrong scents - but then you don't list any scents they *could* use, eh?

... Which is unfair of me, as that isn't the spirit in which you made the post. I know, I'm meeping, I just had to get it out there. ;p

Hmm, scent of Odin... well, we know my relationship with Him is... variable... but it's still a worthwhile thought exercise...

Well, the dry elm bark makes sense to me, though I don't know what elm bark actually smells like off the top of my head, so I'd probably go for dry bark of a more familiar tree. But tree bark is definitely one of the first things on my list.

Um... there is indeed a smell of rain, but I think it's the smell of wet ground, actually, that registers. The funny thing is I think it's more wet pavement than wet earth I'm smelling. But yeah, it's still a distinct smell.

There's a smell of smoke there... like a combination of pipe smoke and campfire on a wool cloak when somebody has done enough of both that the cloak is going to smell like that forever.

And there's a coppery tang at the back, but that's more a taste than a smell. I know it's blood, but it's also metal.

... There, how's that? For a start anyway...

--Ember--

[edited because "pipe smoke and tobacco" was effectively redundant and left out the other kind of smoke]

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I mean, your complaint about the BPAL is that they used the wrong scents - but then you don't list any scents they *could* use, eh?

Well, I gave some loose poetic suggestions, then opened the floor for discussion.

Um... there is indeed a smell of rain, but I think it's the smell of wet ground, actually, that registers. The funny thing is I think it's more wet pavement than wet earth I'm smelling. But yeah, it's still a distinct smell.

Wet earth hits up along the wanderer and wild ride aspects, certainly, but wet pavement has less riding and more wandering (imo, etc).

Not all tobacco-smell is pipe smoke: cigars don't smell like pipes. Campfires, as you rightly point out, smell like neither one, and all are, I concur, within ambit. *grin*

All sounds good!

-- Lorrie

[emberleo.livejournal.com]

Tobacco - yes, I know pipe is distinct from cigar is distinct from cigarette. I wish I didn't know the differences, but I sure do.

Campfire smoke is nice.

And yes, I agree, wet pavement smacks of Wandering. I think, if I want to be really specific, it's asphalt where there aren't sidewalks and stores. So a paved road through an otherwise rural area. Probably I'm thinking of the Skyline, where my long drives usually take me. Clear view of a wide sky sometimes, driving through tunnels of trees other times, fog, rain, sun, deer, owls, corvids, rabbits, and the occasional coyote or equestrian crossing.

--Ember--

[emberleo.livejournal.com]

You know, I think this pings on one of the leetle tiny issues that wanders around the back of my head regarding my relationship with The Old Man.

I think it bothers me that - whether by Him, or just by His followers snickering at me - my own tendency to wander within my home range because that's how I was raised gets appropriated as Significant Signs of Affiliation or somesuch.

Can't my wandering be my own?

--Ember--