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The juniper gives the whole experience a camphorous feeling that is smooth and addictive. The imagery I get in my head is an old time rain soaked western town, barren for decades.
The Composition
Note Pyramid
Ninety materials, laid down in three movements. Dry light off the rock, the long green weight of the land beneath it, and the animal dark that rolls in behind the storm.
Top
Bergamot · Utah Juniper · Lime · Red Mandarin · Orange Blossom
Heart
Labdanum · Rock Rose · Moroccan Rose · Jasmine Sambac · Siberian Pine · Saffron
Base
Assam Oud · Castoreum · Muskrat Musk · Oakmoss · Sandalwood · Patchouli · Benzoin
The Story in the Scent
An Offering to Wakinyan
The Sunlit Offering
The opening
Dawn spills across the Badlands, and the rust-red rock catches fire in the low western sun. Bergamot strikes first, bright and clean, a citrus lit like a bolt of far lightning. Utah juniper rises beside it, dry and green and resinous, the sacred wood laid on the fire for protection, the one tree the Thunderbird respects and will not touch. Lime and red mandarin run through the smoke, cold and sweet as water in a canteen. Orange blossom opens last, soft and grassy and fragile, a single flower lifting its face to a hard sky. This is the offering set down before the storm.
The Bones in the Rock
The heart
Then the land itself rises up. These ridges of red and gold are old bones, the remains of the Unktehi, the water serpents Wakinyan struck down and drove into stone. Labdanum pours out warm and resinous, the smell of hot rock at noon, of sun soaked deep into the earth, and the rock rose it was combed from holds the dust and the sweetness together. Moroccan rose and jasmine sambac lift off the stone like heat shimmer, a flowering the hard country keeps hidden until you are standing right on it. Siberian pine runs cold and dark behind the whole thing, and one thread of saffron glows through like a coal. You are standing on a battlefield turned to stone.
The Thunder Returns
The base
And then the sky breaks open. Assam oud rolls in dark and vast, aged leather and tobacco and hot clay brick, the low warmth of a power older than the land. Castoreum burns beneath it, animalic and fierce, primal and untamed, the pulse of the storm at its height. Oakmoss holds the floor underneath, damp and green and ancient, a wisdom rooted in the ground, older than the war that carved this place. As the thunder rolls off toward the west, muskrat musk settles like breath at first light, the quiet animal warmth of the riverbank, the calm the rain leaves behind. The earth drinks. The plains wake. Life returns where the Thunder Beings passed.
The storm has passed over you now.
Weathered. Worthy. Marked by the Thunder.
The Reliquary
Materials of Worth
The Thunder Beings are met with smoke and with scent. Every material poured into this bottle was chosen for its worth and for what it carries into the myth. Nothing common is laid on this fire.
Assam Oud
PreciousAmong the most valuable raw materials on earth, sold by the gram. This one is wild Assam agarwood, from trees estimated at fifty years, left five years to flood their wounds with resin, soaked thirty days, distilled ten days in a steel pot, then aged three years before it was opened. The drydown carries castoreum, hyraceum and aged tobacco, with heated clay brick and heavy leather behind it. Wild oud of this grade grows scarcer every season.
Utah Juniper
SacredThe tree the Thunderbird will not burn. Juniper and cedar were laid on the fire for protection from lightning, for Wakinyan honors the trees and spares them. Wildcrafted from the needles, twigs and berries of trees that can stand six hundred years in the high desert, it carries dry green air and sacred smoke rising off the plain.
Castoreum
AnimalicOne of perfumery's legendary animalics, drawn from the beaver. Fierce and leathery at full strength, it turns warm and skin-close in dilution, lending a primal, untamed heat that behaves like hide rather than like wood. Rare now, and closely held.
Muskrat Musk
AnimalicThe musk of the northern river marsh, taken from the same waters the Unktehi were driven out of. It is the gentlest of the true animalics, clean and softly leathery, closer to warm skin than to anything wild. It gives the last hour of Badlands its quiet, the hush that sits on the plain once the rain has moved on.
Labdanum
ResinA dark, sticky resin gathered from the rockrose that clings to sun-scorched hillsides, once combed from the coats of goats that grazed among the shrubs. Ambery, leathery, and warm, it is the smell of hot stone and old sun, the sun-baked rock of the Badlands rendered into scent.
Oakmoss
RareA lichen lifted from old oak bark, the green-black floor of every classic chypre. Tightly restricted and slow to gather, its true form grows scarcer each year. Damp, ancient, and rooted, it holds the memory of wet earth and long time, and it is what keeps Badlands standing on the ground.
Sandalwood
PreciousIndonesian Santalum album, drawn from logs estimated at fifty years of age and taken as a select extract rich in santalol. Creamy, milky and quiet, it is the one material that can sit under an oud this dark and still be heard, softening the leather into something a person can wear all day.
Orange Blossom
PreciousThe bloom of the bitter orange tree, gathered by hand in vast quantity for a small and costly yield. Soft, green, and honeyed, it is the fragile flower of life in a hard country, the blossom the storm's rain calls up out of the dust.
Full Disclosure
The Ingredient List
Everything in the bottle, named in full and set down in order of weight.
Open the ingredient list +
ALCOHOL DENAT., PARFUM (FRAGRANCE), JUNIPERUS OSTEOSPERMA OIL, SANTALUM ALBUM OIL, AQUILARIA AGALLOCHA WOOD OIL, AQUILARIA CRASSNA WOOD OIL, POGOSTEMON CABLIN OIL, ABIES SIBIRICA OIL, PINUS SIBIRICA NEEDLE OIL, VETIVERIA ZIZANOIDES ROOT OIL, CITRUS AURANTIUM BERGAMIA FRUIT OIL, ROSA DAMASCENA FLOWER OIL, CUPRESSUS SEMPERVIRENS LEAF EXTRACT, ONDATRA ZIBETHICUS EXTRACT, JASMINUM SAMBAC FLOWER EXTRACT, CITRUS RETICULATA PEEL OIL, CISTUS LADANIFERUS EXTRACT, CITRUS LIMON PEEL OIL, LAWSONIA INERMIS FLOWER OIL, CITRUS AURANTIUM AMARA FLOWER EXTRACT, PISTACIA LENTISCUS GUM, CITRUS AURANTIFOLIA OIL, PELARGONIUM GRAVEOLENS FLOWER OIL, ABIES BALSAMEA NEEDLE OIL, CITRUS AURANTIUM AMARA FLOWER OIL, SANTALUM ALBUM WOOD EXTRACT, CALLITRIS INTRATROPICA WOOD OIL, CITRUS AURANTIUM AMARA LEAF OIL, STYRAX TONKINENSIS RESIN EXTRACT, CITRUS SINENSIS PEEL OIL, CASTOREUM, FERULA GALBANIFLUA RESIN OIL, BOSWELLIA FREREANA RESIN OIL, CROCUS SATIVUS FLOWER EXTRACT, CITRUS PARADISI PEEL OIL, MYRISTICA FRAGRANS KERNEL EXTRACT, LAVANDULA ANGUSTIFOLIA FLOWER EXTRACT, OCIMUM SANCTUM OIL, DIPTERYX ODORATA SEED EXTRACT, SUCCINUM OIL, ANTHOXANTHUM ODORATUM EXTRACT, SALVIA OFFICINALIS OIL, ABELMOSCHUS MOSCHATUS SEED EXTRACT, VANILLA PLANIFOLIA FRUIT EXTRACT, RHODODENDRON ANTHOPOGON LEAF OIL, HUMULUS LUPULUS EXTRACT, EUGENIA CARYOPHYLLUS FLOWER OIL, EVERNIA PRUNASTRI EXTRACT, HIEROCHLOE ODORATA EXTRACT, LONICERA CAPRIFOLIUM FLOWER EXTRACT, PROPOLIS EXTRACT, THEOBROMA CACAO EXTRACT, CYMBOPOGON SCHOENANTHUS OIL, PIPER NIGRUM FRUIT OIL, CINNAMOMUM ZEYLANICUM BARK OIL, LIQUIDAMBAR ORIENTALIS RESIN EXTRACT, JUNIPERUS COMMUNIS FRUIT OIL, ROSMARINUS OFFICINALIS LEAF OIL, BULNESIA SARMIENTI WOOD OIL, TOCOPHEROL, VIOLA ODORATA LEAF EXTRACT, COMMIPHORA MYRRHA RESIN EXTRACT, PINUS PINASTER OIL, NARDOSTACHYS JATAMANSI ROOT OIL, HYRACEUM, BHT, EVERNIA FURFURACEA EXTRACT, BOLETUS EDULIS EXTRACT, ZINGIBER OFFICINALE ROOT OIL, MENTHA PIPERITA OIL, SMILAX ARISTOLOCHIIFOLIA ROOT EXTRACT, TERT-BUTYL ALCOHOL, DENATONIUM BENZOATE, LIMONENE, LINALOOL, LINALYL ACETATE, GERANIOL, CITRONELLOL, CITRAL, EUGENOL, ISOEUGENOL, CINNAMAL, CINNAMYL ALCOHOL, COUMARIN, BENZYL BENZOATE, BENZYL CINNAMATE, BENZYL ALCOHOL, FARNESOL, GERANYL ACETATE, BETA-CARYOPHYLLENE, TERPINEOL, TERPINOLENE, CAMPHOR, MENTHOL, VANILLIN.
Anyone with a known sensitivity should read it before wearing.