Wonkyland Muzzle (ROUND 1)
scent of the day: Suriranka, by Ensar
Bitter, piney, camphorous opening: this is Suriranka. The herbs—sage, rosemary, thyme—give it a very eucalyptus-like opening that makes it extremely fresh and invigorating, like a fresh forest on the edge of ice, similar to Thundra. Damp, moldy wood sits underneath the eucalyptus, along with a sour, bigarade-like vibe that comes from the combination of grapefruit, bergamot, and orange. It is definitely a fougère; it almost makes me think this is how Maxsim’s Yeti would smell. The powerful citrus is something I overlooked at first. Camphorous pine needles in moss, zested with lime peel. It is full of so much life and vigor, with the bergamot and black pepper giving it even more lift.
There is a menthol-eucalyptus freshness here with a metallic iciness, but underneath it is an oudy base. It wears fresh, light, and sharp, but it is long-lasting because of the oud at the base. The interesting aspect is that it gets very medicinal in its iciness. The iciness has that camphor quality, but it smells like some kind of solvent or balm, something more esoteric, like what would be found in a WWI hospital. That medicinality appears especially in the residuals that you get in your nose, and especially, especially if your nose touches your arm while you are smelling it. The remains are very much like a tincture: medicinal, concentrated, and lingering.
In Suriranka, there is the antiseptic quality of a hospital, yes, but there is also the dentist quality, so it is like Vicks VapoRub and dental anesthetic plus mothball. The chamomile only reinforces that aspect. You get mothball mint, patchouli, and an antiseptic medicinal quality from the afar, especially in the opening, plus pine and sour lavender with a lemony quality. There is also a musty-moldy element like we get in some of the Bortnikoff citruses.
This still needs to open up, but this definitely has a Bortnikoff vibe, albeit crossed with the sort of patchouli character we get in The Smell of Weather Turning and Thundra. Its antiseptic smell from afar is not what I get up close. I wish I did, even though how it smells from afar is like a patchouli hospital. That antiseptic quality recedes and recedes, leaving behind a subtle citrus forest floor.
It is very close to something like Thundra or The Smell of Weather Turning as made by Bortnikoff. But it is definitely in the wider family of Aguru, Yatagan, Tirtha, Oud Wood, and so on.
*Let's workshop this poem about how our Disney-backed powers that be, weaponizing false victimhood as one of many means to stay entrenched, are ready to treat even ordinary questions as monstrous acts.
Wonkyland Muzzle
To ask here “What causes gayness?” threatens homosexuality's status as natural (as if
lightning is unnatural) and so is violent (as if speech is a fisty gang rape) and so is evil (as if
reflection, revealing who we are even if it offends who we wish to be, is Hannible Lecter).
“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)
