Shanghai'd

The Opium Den. 19thc. Vincent G. Stiepevich.

I have two pet peeves in indie perfumes. One is Haunt. Every time I go to their site, EVERYTHING is sold out, or coming soon. I've been there right after they've announced a new release, and all of them, sold out, not available, nada. I begin to wonder if it is actually possible to order from them or if you need to know the sooper-seekrit handshake or something.

The other is BPAL. Their site makes my head explode. Pages and pages and pages of it. I don't want to sort through eleventy thousand elaborate description to find a couple of scents to order. Some of the descriptions are nice and simple - a few notes, not too hard to figure out, while others are paragraphs long with a metric boatload of notes, flowers and flowers, six essential spices, four atmospheric components, fresh cookie breath and the sweat of an Ethiopian lumberjack. At which point my head explodes again. Too many choices, too much information. My brain goes all BSOD and starts a memory dump. I've gotten a few imps as part of trades, and they've been nice but not what I would expect, given the hype. None of them have made me go OMG. Must. Have.

But...there has been one BPAL scent I have craved. Kathy Effing Jacobs described Red Lanterns in one of her Makeup Heroes videos. This one, I think. I've been stalking ebay for it ever since. BPAL describes it as "A tribute to the opium den cum bawdyhouses of Shanghai in the 1930's. Golden amber, blonde tobacco, Sudanese black coconut, rich caramel, black currant, white opium and delphinium laced with a sensual blend of Asian spice."

As luck would have it, after about a year of looking, I found (and actually won) a bottle of it just in time for my birthday. I was so excited I stalked the package on USPS tracking waiting for it to get here. While I was waiting, I checked out BPAL Madness to read the descriptions of the scent.

Uh-oh. Every description I read emphasized caramel. Not that I dislike caramel, but that's not what I'm looking for. I don't want it to smell like a Russian Tea House, I have Solstice Scents' delightful Russian Caravan from last winter for that. Russian Caravan is listed as a blend of smoked black tea, leather, pomegranate, black currant, amber & pink peppercorn. It's a lovely, spicy-sweet scent that makes me think of drinking hot tea in a horse-drawn sleigh. That's all well and good, but I want Red Lanterns to smell like an opium den* full of lounging odalisques. Smoky haze and a scantily clad Joan Chen.  I began to fear this would be another Haus Amber. Great anticipation followed by a painful letdown.

delicious, but not what I'm hoping for.

When I actually got the bottle, I was almost afraid to open it. But I did, and I was thrilled and relieved to find that the smoke, spice and opium notes were the strongest on me. The caramel comes up later, but it's subtle and dark, almost buried in the amber. After a minute of indistinct spiciness I get a rush of smoky, incense-laden lassitude. As the scent dries down, it becomes a spicy caramel/tobacco/currant blend, very exotic, very deep and darkly inviting. And when I say tobacco, I don't mean cigarette-smell, but the unique, papery smell of drying tobacco leaves. Similar to the smell of tobacco in a tobacco shop or a really good unlit cigar, but not quite the same - there's a definite spicy plant undertone that's hard to describe. After a few hours I'm left with something very like the way the lingering scent of a campfire clings to your clothes and hair long after the fire has burned out.

"A New Vice: Opium Dens in France", cover of Le Petit Journal, 5 July 1903

sexy

In short, Red Lanterns is everything I'd hoped it would be; lush, smoky, sinful and delicious. I love it. It reeks of indolence, luxury and decadence.

*not an actual opium den, that would probably smell terrible. The romantic idea of an opium den.

not sexy

  

 

As always, all products were purchased by me for my own use. My opinions are my own and always will be. Your mileage may vary.

Memories

One of the things I love most about scent is how evocative it is. The faintest whiff of a scent from your past can bring back memories and feelings even more vividly than a picture or a piece of music. Very often I'll come across something that smells like.....and I can't quite put my finger on it, just a strong sense of time and place. I love those moments, even though it drives me crazy not remembering exactly what it was that smelled that way.

Two of my absolute favourite commercial perfumes are special to me, not just because of the way they smell, but because they are wrapped up in associations and memories that I cherish.

Sunflowers by Elizabeth Arden. I bought it when it came out. I loved it then and I love it now. Flowery, melonny and bright. And I do love melon scents. It debuted while I was in art school, which was the happiest time of my life. For some reason, when I smell it, I remember the cold, wet day I had to drive out to Kent to get a particular type of photography paper, as all the stores here were sold out. It was sometime in mid-March, and as I was driving past, I noticed that the local A&W Root Beer stand was open. Around here, that is one of the first signs of spring, and something I (and probably many others) look forwards to. I was so excited, I cut across two lanes of traffic and swerved wildly into the parking lot for the sheer bliss of the First Root Beer of Spring (and cheese sticks). Mmmmmm. Sunflowers, for me, will always be an olfactory record of that funny day, and that perfect year.

Opium by YSL. Not any of the variants that have come out since the original, nor the reformulation (which I have read about, but not smelled), but good old- fashioned Opium. I love this scent, it's powdery, floral, spicy, woody - a wonderful melange. I've always loved it. Yes, it's so 80's, but I don't care. It's one of the best fragrances of all time. Plus, back in the day I had a dear, dear friend,  Christina, who wore it all the time. She lived in an apartment near another friend, who always remarked that she could tell when her cat had been out visiting Christina, because he'd come home smelling like Opium. "She'd come [over] wearing my cat Fred around her neck. I could always tell when Fred had been with Chris by smelling him".

I remember a night in Youngstown, outside The Cedars Lounge, where she and I explored and old, abandoned movie theatre. It had been built sometime around 1930, and was thoroughly decrepit and wonderful. We spent hours wandering through it in the semi-darkness, full of beautiful old rooms and fittings. A lost treasure about to be destroyed, we were probably the last people to wander in and appreciate its faded beauty.

Sadly, she left this world suddenly and unexpectedly just a year or two after this picture was taken. Even though that was many, many years ago, when I smell Opium, I remember Christina, her smell, her smile and the sound of her voice, silent for far too long. Until we meet again, dear friend, I will wear it in your honour.