Parents Weekend (Round 1)
scent of the day: Kaavu, by Chera People
Sandalwood and champaca vibes hit you on first blast and this feels in the first few seconds, because of that and because of the various animalics, like a tropical redo of Fiona—Fiona in Tahiti.
This is a full-fledged composition as opposed to a spotlight on one note. But the sandalwood, like in Fiona, plays a big role here. Featured here are two main creamy types of sandalwood, but giving sensations of sun-warmed milk. Sri Lankan sandalwood brings impressions of silken ivory wood and soft resinous sweetness along with hints of cardamom and clove. Mysore, much more buttery and gourmand, brings impressions of warm ghee poured over polished wood or even fine suede along with hints of turmeric and saffron and nutmeg.
No champaca is listed. Aside from just being pavlovian (there is a strong association in my mind with buttery sandlawood and that flower), the champaca impression is likely a function of frangiapani (which also lends a tropical waxy sundrenched vibes with a banana custard undertone). And magnolia could play a role too, though, since it also adds that aroma and text of scraping your fingernail across a waxy lemon rind.
After the first few minutes a fermented oud arises (the sort of bottom barrel and mistreated but still fun material Prin uses). That cheap Thai-style oud—especially because of marine synthetics like calone (which are obvious in here and almost make you regret the comparison with Fiona), but also because of their other shared elements (white florals, thai oud, cedar, leather, olibanum)—give this an Artemis feel.
In an ideal world, the niche stratum of perfumery would be releasing this sort of stuff instead of Naxos. The hyper niche would be left to the likes of Ensar and others using the most elite materials. The synthetic vibe, maybe the oud oil being used here has been adulterated, bugs me a bit. But it is neat that, in all this funk (civet and hyrax), you get an aquatic vibe from it. But I own several fragrances, beyond just Artemis, that do just that.
*Let's workshop this poem about a father and daughter confronting a shared history, an unspoken buildup over a decade, at a house party whose anonymity requirements enable the most addictive healing.
Parents Weekend
Father and daughter knew by voice (by smells, by birthmarks) they held one another—
but the orgy’s foyer box (“alibi not included”), ski masks black as three-hole deniability,
licensed payloads piped with the rage of a decade: “Knew you been wantin that shit!”
“We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”—Kafka (against the safe-space cancel culture pushed by anti-art bullies, left and right)
