Featured Notes include:- Lily, Ginger Grass, Atlas Cedar, Cinnamon, Styrax, Juniper, Egyptian Spearmint, Frankincense (Bos Sacra/Oman), Ethiopian Oppoponax, Sweet Flag (Calamus), Spikenard, Frankincense Papyrifera and Kenyan Myrrh.
Many natural and artisanal perfumers are fascinated by the great epoch of ancient Egypt. Hieroglyphs and Ancient Greek records remain of several formulas and methods used by the Ancient Egyptians for making cosmetics, unguents (solid perfume), and temple incense. Incense is often referred to as kyphi, an ancient Greek word for the Ancient Egyptian name, kapet. Many perfumers continue to make incense using the same methods and ingredients listed in the ancient formulas.
Experimenting with reconstructions of ancient perfume seems like a rite of passage, to seasonally revisit a foundational theme that cycles in a rhythm, just like phases of the moon that conduct the tides of oceans, rivers, lakes and all living beings
Although my work is usually non-gendered, this time I was inspired to cook up an esoteric fragrance to dedicate to the fertility Queen,:- the Great Mother, Mistress Magician, Healer and Moon Goddess. Fruit of the Moon is a potent aromatic essence whose mystical purpose is obscured, hidden, non-verbal. It is a fluid language of the Queen of Cups. It is a nectarsong, inspired by, and composed for the Ancient Egyptian Goddess, Isis (ꜣst, Ἶσις, Wusa, Aset or Eset).
Fruit of the Moon is not liquid kyphi (or kapet), however it is made from many of the ancient aromatics associated with kyphi, and no longer used in modern perfumery, no longer considered fragrant splendours, and yet…
This is a perfume for anointing. Here is stone and salt and wind and sand. In this flacon is endless sun upon dry desert, infinite stars in the firmament. Woven here are the tributaries of a mighty river that floods each year, bearing the gifts of new life, of sustenance and traders from afar. Here is the moon rising in step with the tide. This is the temple incense of an oasis of dreams.
This Hathorian essence is a fruit of the moon, it whispers in a language no one remembers, it murmurs in the darkness, arousing the urge to reconnect with the unknown, with the miracle of life, with healing and with home… a bright blue star that rises in the east.
Fruit of the Moon is a perfume for the Goddess of the Wind.
The concoction is an ancient and mystical power symbol; a captured beam of fragrant starlight, Heka-brewed in darkness, to anoint and herald the daughters of Nuit. This startlingly beautiful offering to the Moon Goddess is also a celebration of the heliacal rising of Sirius, the blue star.
An ancient fertility concoction, a healing balm for both land and people, a true love potion, a platinum light shield.