abejita

lolita is lemony honeysuckle on me.

I received this as part of an imp lot I bought off of ebay when I was just trying to get acquainted with bpal. It wasn't what sold me on the lot, and from its lab description, I wasn't particularly interested, so I didn't try it for quite awhile. Wow. At first I thought it didn't suit the Morrigan whatsoever. My first impression was just a light floral, sweet, but nothing special. Then I put it on. It's a clearing, after walking through a forest that was shadowed, but pierced with shafts of light. There is hawthorn at the woods' edge, blooming. In the clearing the grass is tall and lush. Spring is almost just a memory and summer's heat is already rising, and rising fast. Red clover is everywhere and the bees are drunk on it. Are those apple trees in bloom? The bees are swarming there, too. The meadowsweet and rue are lush and overgrown. I can't really detect the orchid, but I'm not very familiar with what black orchid smells like. It's wild and majestic, and definitely representative of the Morrigan. When my imp is gone, this is on my list. That red clover note is to die for.

I remember June, 2003. I remember many Junes before then, but this one was special. I think it will always be the very last June for me, maybe until I have my own children. I remember June and I remember strawberries. My grandmother was so happy that we'd come home to see her, home to West Virginia. There had been floods that year, flood after flood, so maybe there wouldn't be good strawberries, she said. Oh, Grandma, there are always good strawberries. My grandfather had died the year before. We'll go to the fields to remember him, I said. He had spent all his Junes in the strawberry fields, ever since I could remember. He was like a strawberry fairy (if a Pentecostal minister could ever be called a fairy with a straight face), leaving quart after quart on the front doorsteps of all his neighbors. He just loved to be in the fields. So we went, and remembered him, and picked more berries than we could ever eat ourselves. The fields were pretty flooded, and some of the plants had caught a moldy rot, but the day was clear and bright and everything smelled of green and bright, bursting red, with white wildflowers, just here and there. Maybe some honeysuckle. We drove home from the fields, the windows down, the air wafting raw, ripe strawberry joy from the back of the car. "Thank you so much for coming. We'll do it again next year, right?" "Yes, Grandma, and every year." But there wasn't another June. There was a stroke, the end of next May. A funeral on my birthday. She had a full, rich, happy life. The only thing I could have ever asked for was one more June. Just one more. That's where Strawberry Moon takes me. I have a single imp, since I discovered bpal well after this moon, but it's a very loved imp.

This started out as straight up Lemonheads to me, as in that old super sour, super sugary candy that was dyed bright yellow. It was verging on too sweet, but I didn't mind terribly, since that particular candy is tied to some good childhood memories for me. Lemonheads both in the bottle and wet on my skin. On drydown, the heliotrope has bloomed, honeysuckle emerges. The candy sweetness fades. When dry, the lemon candy has retreated. Honeysuckle takes over almost exclusively, with a breath of citrus blossom. Heliotrope is in there somewhere. I like this one in each of its stages. I'd like if a little more of the lemon and heliotrope lingered at the end, but I really enjoy honeysuckle. I have a feeling that if I were to go outside, I'd have some bees trailing in my wake. This is a great spring/summer blend. As far as the Lolita theme goes, I definitely get that in the beginning and middle, but at the end, that has faded for me. I will definitely try this in a scent locket, in hopes of preserving more lemon. On a scale of 1-10, I give it an 8.

I brew mead, and this scent is like nothing more than a well-brewed cyser (apple mead), aged on oak. It's crisp with a hint of sweetness, but saved from being candy-like by the oak. I noticed that it lasted about four hours on my skin, but I wore it in my scent locket too. As a side note, my students (ages 3-6) gave this one an enthusiastic, "¡Maestra, me gusta mucho!"