Letter From Tulgey Wood

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Come whiffing through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
I've been looking for an excuse to buy something from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab for quite a while. Finally Tex's birthday came around I was able to buy him the Jazz Funeral he never knew he'd needed: "Bittersweet bay rum, bourbon, and a host of funeral flowers with a touch of graveyard dirt, magnolia and Spanish Moss."

So as not to waste a perfectly good inclusive $6.50 in shipping, I decided to select something for myself to try as well, and settled on Jabberwocky from their collection based on characters from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass: "An earthy yet buoyant scent: pine, eucalyptus and orange."

After the initial rush of selection (and during my lengthy wait for them to hand-mix and ship my order) I began to have second thoughts. I realized that the description of Jabberwocky that had sounded so appealing in the context of their site could also easily describe the scent of any number of kitchen floor polishes. And so I held my breath for weeks, wondering if my imagination had gotten the best of me.

Today was the day of truth. While the jury's still out on whether Jazz Funeral will be too flowery for Tex (I sort of doubt it-- it's got an avuncular bite to it that I think he'll find amusing), I have almost accidentally sussed out my own perfect scent. Jabberwocky is every bit as whiffling and manxome a fragrance as I could have hoped. In fact, this process made me realize that it's been many years since I tried to smell like anything at all; I haven't had much use for a cologne or even much of a deodorant since I arrived in NYC. So into the world I go, projecting myself odoriferously as a monstrosity with eyes of flame, burbling as I go.

I would be remiss to close this entry without mentioning that BPAL enclosed four free samples of my order, 1/32 oz. vials that they call Imps' Ears. So I got to sample their Pain, Phobos, Robin Goodfellow, and Embalming Fluid. I have to say, that's about the smartest strategy an online perfumier could ever think of to keep people coming back for fresh helpings of god-knows-what. At least, until we have the technology that lets my monitor burp a cloud of Marquise de Merteuil into my face.