Posse! I’m not quite suuure how this happened.
As you probably know I’m an inveterate gardener. Bulbs, roses, pretty much anything herbaceous has a 96% chance of not only surviving but thriving in my loving care. Deciduous? You betcheruous!
House plants? Eh.
Cacti and Succulents? NAHMGOOD.
So. Tell me how this happened! I guess it started with a trip to Lowe’s greenhouse on a vicious Winter’s day, when the warmth and humidity conspired to soothe my soul and lull me into thinking I needed a genre of plants I knew nothing about AND would require some living space in my beensy little house. Rescuing a lace aloe from the bin, succumbing to the lure of those charming Holiday cacti at Walmart (did you know they are not actually cacti?)… L’il Missy sending me a Night Blooming Cereus which I have not yet killed, though it refuses to grow beyond an inch or two… I guess it’ll bloom when I am ninety. Or not.
Who Knew??
Over the past year I have learned a bit about how to care for them (they REALLY do not like to be watered overmuch – my Christmas Carol Aloe is STILL recovering from being left on the porch stairs during a deluge. Sorry, Carol! I’ll try to do better)…. and, shockingly, (because I am still a snob about this little ‘burg) finding someone whose hobby is… Cacti and Succulents! It came about when I spied what I thought was a giant aloe but turned out to be a medium-sized Agave. Because it was sitting on a cute metal piecrust table at the curve of the cottage’s wraparound porch I crafted a narrative wherein the owner of said cottage/agave was an elderly plantsperson. Uh. No. Turns out the agave’s person is a 30yr old guy! Huh. But he knows his stuff and educated me on how to transplant ‘pups’, as he snapped off a pup from his cochineal nopale cactus THAT I DID NOT WANT! (sigh) but he’s actually doing quite well in his new home, looking for all the world like some comical Pixar character :: don’t tell anybody but I’ve actually grown quite fond of him::
he IS cute!!
And the agave’s name is Big Mama. She is gorgeous! And terrifying! And her person is madly in love with her.
Big Mama agave
Of course… as I’ve been tending to these plants I starting thinking about perfumes that evoke the desert. Now. Let’s be clear: I am a rainforest type o’ gal. Dry heat is absurd and it makes my face itch and my cuticles fly off my fingers. There is not enough oil IN THE WORLD to keep my skin from … oh, you get the idea. But that doesn’t mean the desert doesn’t have its own particular beauty. When I searched the notes for ‘perfumes that evoke the desert/ smell of the desert ‘ interesting ones came up – Andy Tauer’s masterpiece, of course – L’Air du Desert Marocain, the amber, woody perfume that evokes the feeling of the Moroccan desert at night (I don’t know about you, but I do NOT want to be in a desert (or a rainforest, for that matter) at night. Stuff HUNTS at night. ). This really is a gorgeous scent – not quite me because I’m not really Team Amber but I do appreciate it. He’s just released a Noir (?) version but again, Not Team Amber. If any of you have tried it, please let us know!
One I have not tried but omg! The name alone is giving me LIFE! Cactus Abduction by Heretic Parfums. As with a lot of desert-themed scents this has a creosote note, which for me is challenging in nature and ‘iffy’ in a perfume. But… c’mon! Gotta try it since, apparently, I’ve become a bit of a cactus rustler (Big Box rejects/hostages only – no going out into the wilderness because That is Bad AND it Ain’t Gonna Happen because I am not a Wilderness kinda gal). Or wait… is it the cactus that is doing the abduction? That would be even weirder.
Byredo Mojave Ghost which I remember sampling when Barneys was still around (omg I do miss that store – even though it was like they were TRYING to lose business, putting Beauty in the basement). It’s been ages since I sampled it but I remember the ambrette being much more in the background. Byredo has a newer scent called Desert Dawn, which I haven’t sniffed and if this vicious Fragrantica review is any indication, I do not need to throw myself into a tizzy looking for it.
Solstice Scents (which I first learned of back when we had the LA Scentsation bus tour – that was a GRAND time!) has a well-regarded perfume called Desert Thunderstorm. Lots of resin, pine, creosote, rain notes… anybody else and I might give it a hard pass but the scents I have tried from this line have been interesting and well-crafted. Hmmm…
So. That’s my cacti/succulent desert story! Do any of you grow them? Do any of you live in/visit the desert? I confess to being somewhat nervous around all that … desertness. And NO! I am not going out into the desert at night. I’m about as diurnal as they come and if it’s night it’d better be a well-lit night.
Surrender to Chance has nearly all of these PLUS a whole lot more desert-themed perfumes, including one from Dawn Spencer Hurwitz called Rattlesnake Musk! Check them out at surrendertochance.com
I am a house plant murderer. I even kill spider plants. My eldest keeps buying me succulents but I still manage to kill them. My mini monstera survived for a year before it surrendered to the inevitable.
Byredo Mojave Ghost… gave me the ickiest ICK. A mess of fruity on top then one of the dry amber wood synthetics over a dollop of something salty marine. More of a bad day at the beach than a desert smell.
I’m a dry heat gal preferably with a sea breeze. In humidity I am a pure Georgian/Victorian lady with the vapours.
Lolol! You need to STAHP! Vapours? You’re giving me the Dry Heaves!!!
I love succulents, as you know. I think the key is some light and general neglect lol. I complain occasionally about living here in Mud Hut but the beauty keeps drawing me in. Desert Marocain is gorgeous.
It absolutely is a masterpiece, imo! It’ll be interesting to see what the new version is like..
I’m a black thumb instead of a green thumb when it comes to any variety of houseplant. I’ve killed them all. So no cacti for me. I have visited the Southwest desert, and I see it’s beauty, but I don’t want to live there. A big no thanks to the scorpions and rattlesnakes! Sedona, Arizona is beautiful. Its canyons and topography are stunning. Regime des Fleurs has a scent called Cacti which is on my wish list. It’s got aloe vera, mate, black tea, shiso, cucumber, Jasmine sambac, heliotrope, bergamot, amber, and watery notes. My impression of it was green and aromatic.
I’ve always wanted to visit Sedona! And that Cacti scent sounds amazing!!!
I only have around four house plants at this point. If they can’t manage being outside in the summer it’s a no go. Snake plants, an aloe — they are performing well. The orchid is misbehaving. And since I wasn’t paying attention to the amaryllis it decided to sprout again in mid-summer. No flower stalk but who knows.
I love all those perfume names. Petrichor and wood preservative are great notes.
My dad had a saying “ root hog, or die “, which I apply to plants ; I don’t have houseplants – I have Plants That Come Inside When It Gets Cold- much like I di!
I’m a Solstice Scents big time fan. St. John’s not just niche gourmand or incense. She has many sophisticated perfumes to please plenty of palates. While I’m not fond of her Foxcroft line or the ocean/sea scents, the others are amazing, many of them that are odd but compelling like “Pinyon Truffle.” I highly recommend checking out Angela St. John and Solstice Scents.
I really like her oeuvre! But it took a minute – I had to get over myself, first..
LOVED Rattlesnake Musk Musette.
I also like dry heat, but can happily swan through fairly high humidity too.
Have a small selection of cactus and succulents, some Zygocactus that was on Mum’s windowsill for decades before she died and has proliferated here with me. About six colours. They bloom spectacularly every year.
Portia xx
Oooh! That’s the one I have!!! One. I used to have four…. before I actually started paying attention to what I was doing
How did I miss rattlesnake musk? A by Roxana Illuminated isn’t really desert- it’s more Malibu mountains: that dry heat giving way to salty moist air thing.
I’m the polar opposite: I like the dry heat. Humidity makes me homicidal. LA was the most humid place I. The US this past week. I barely left the house.
That should be Q. Not A
We could never live together, darling! Unless I took up residence in the bathroom!
We could have a compound. Someplace sort of midway between Peruvian Jungle and Sonoran desert.
This was a fun read. I snorted and chuckled the whole way through. I like both indoor and outdoor gardening. I love dry heat! Rainforests are humid so no no no no no no. I don’t know if all garden agaves are the same, but I would never want one. The ones I have seen settle in and it’s forever. I have seen someone destroy the plant with an ax and as many of the roots as possible. Next year that bugger came back! It was smaller though. lololol.
I have one desert perfume that I love, but only have a sample of that I can sniff periodically which I just did. It feels almost too strong to wear. My sample is very low so I’ll try a small decant to see if I can get it to work for me. I love it but don’t know if I can wear it. It’s Altaia Atacama. Atacama in Chili is the driest desert in the world! I would love to see it. Pictures look amazing!!!
I really had fun writing this post!
Here in the Midwest agave are houseplants until very late Spring. OBama’s guy doesn’t water, since we get So Much Rain, so I’m m doing the same. It’s tough because it’s counterintuitive for me. Fingers crossed.
Just looked up Atacama – it’s STUNNING!!!