So. Well…you know the best part about the Internet? There is, in general, NOTHING that happens that hasn’t already happened to somebody else, somewhere on this planet – and that somebody(s) has seen fit to Share. I am thrilled about that because, in general, it means there is a photo of whatever has happened to you, even if it’s not your photo.
And so begins my story.
So. Awhile back I was…wait…before I tell you the story I guess I need to lay out the layout, as it were. Okay – we have a basic Shotgun Shack, with a new addition at right angle to the existing kitchen (running across the back of the house). At some point, maybe, El O will get off his buttockians and finish it – for now it’s roughed-in. The laundry is parallel to the French doors and the new bath (with working toilet) is perpendicular to that. With me? okay. So. One morning I decided to throw a load of laundry in before I settled down to work. Toilet lid is up. I see a dark mass in the toilet and I think ‘crap! (lol!) He must’ve had to go and didn’t want to flush while I was in the shower.’ You know. Daily Life Stuff. So I walk around the roughed-in wall to flush (already ‘ew’ but whatchagonnado, right?)….when…the Dark Mass MOVED! I nearly shit a moose right there and then! My first thought was ‘omg! there’s a snaaaake! in the bowl!’ which means El O is coming back from the shop NOW to get that damned thing out of there. I am NOT fishing a snake out of the pan. Then I calm down and realize it’s a bat.
omg. SO many images of this. SO many!
I ain’t ‘fraid o’ no bats.
So I grab a large slotted spoon and a towel and scoop that poor thing out of there – he was exhausted from trying to stay above the water line and just lay there as I loosely wrapped him up. I took him down to the bottom of the kitchen garden and put him in the 4′ raised bed in the shade so he could recover (or not) away from predators. Checked on him through the day and, just at dusk, found the towel empty. Yay!
I ain’t ‘fraid o’ no bats. We have a bat house on the garage, I am a patch-wearing carrying member of Bat Conservation International (it hangs from my Bombay, in place of a Twilly) and we have a bat that gets into the house from time to time – I call her Lily. My job is to turn off the ceiling fans and open the door. Lily does the rest. Before we sealed up all (he sez) most (I sez) of the ingress points in this drafty old house, I frequently had to pluck bats off the curtains – they usually just want to get outside and are happy to let you scoop them up and make it happen. I usually let Miss Lily roam the house for a few minutes, though, so she can eat all the mosquitoes foolish enough to be out and about.
So. I ain’t ‘fraid o’ no bats. I love bats! But I also had never given a thought to Bat-as-Scent or, more to the point, Bat Idea: what they, their lives and environment (out of the roost, thanks). Then Zoologist came along and caused me to ponder. So I (waaay behind the curve, I know) got ahold of a Surrender to Chance sample (along with Hummingbird & Rhinoceros – it was a Shelley Waddington (perfumer for Hummingbird) post that caused me to take a look at the Zoologist line) to see if the Bat perfume and I were on the same wavelength.
From Surrender to Chance’s site, a description:
Zoologist Bat is a 2016 Art and Olfaction Award Finalist in the Independent category. Released in 2015, created by Victor Wong (owner, Zoologist perfumes), it has notes of banana, soft fruits, damp earth, fig, tropical fruits, mineral notes, myrrh, resins, vegetal roots, furry musks*, leather*, vetiver, sandalwood and tonka. (* is synthetic notes). Startling in the artistic breadth, Bat is a complete original.
From the award entry “The journey of Bat starts at the entrance to a cave in the hillside, shrouded by the swirling fog that is created when the warm air of the outside world meets the cold breath of the dark chambers beneath, heavy with scent of deep-reaching tree roots, moist earth, and dripping limestone walls. At dusk the bat wakes and flies on delicate, leathery wings through the stony labyrinth seeking the balmy air outside, where it drinks from a stream, feasts on wild figs, ripe bananas and juicy soft fruits. Back at its roost, it snuggles with its warm companions and falls asleep again, lulled by the clean, sweet scent of musky fur and skin that is not that different from our own.”
Well! I would say yes, Ellen Covey (the phenomenal perfumer/creator behind Olympic Orchids perfumery as well as the perfumer behind Zoologist Bat) and Victor Wong got it right. I have yet to get the banana or the soft fruits notes, though. That’s okay. What I do get is an extraordinary dry, resinous …and yes…furry skin scent – it has a lot in common with Liz Zorn’s Underworld (which, in its turn, has a lot in common with Guerlain’s Djedi) – that vetiver note that always smells like dust, dirt and sweat-dried skin. The Girl’s head, just at the ear jointure, always smells like that and it’s my favorite nuzzling place. In a bit, the vetiver sinks into an earthy miasma that releases a wonderful, silvery metallic note. This ‘metallic’ is nothing like the cheap, synthetic metallic you might find on any given perfume counter these days. This is more like ribbons of mercury, if mercury could run up – and then turn into tendrils of vapor. In yet another bit the metallics settle back down into liquid pools and allows itself to be wrapped in a velvety, sensual skin scent.
This is a gorgeous, lustrous, very brown (dark brown. VERY dark brown) fragrance, perfect for gathering dusk. I cannot imagine wearing this with a bright pink sweater – it feels like it should be a complement to clothing in shades of steel greys or brown-y greens (or browns and blacks). I have a Skif sweater jacket that is the perfect piece to wear with this scent. That won’t be for awhile, though – it’s 90F here – so right now I’m wearing it with a black tank dress & some amber beads and it’s perfect. It’s doing that intriguing thing where it both sits lightly on the skin while also becoming part of my own chemistry (rather than blather about what I mean, I would ask you to consider all the perfumes that are designed to NOT do that – nothing wrong therein, btw. I do not want my beloved No5 mixing with anything! – that would be….weird. But this type of scent? It’s almost a requirement, imo. It just feels so organic.
Back in the Jurassic Era, when we did LA Scentsation, Olympic Orchids was gracious enough to send us samples for our attendees. At the time I was so overwhelmed that I was unable to take the time to explore the line. In that Venn-y, roundabout way that Life often has, I am probably the last of the LAers to become acquainted with it – but hey, no time like Now, right? Bat will take me through Zoology and on to Orchidaceae! I’ll just have to remember to turn off the ceiling fans.
Have you had a chance to sample any of the Zoologist line? Surrender to Chance has both Zoologist & Olympic Orchids samples! I’m also giving away my 1ml sample of Bat (99% full – it doesn’t take a lot of ‘dab’ to sample). Tell me a story funnier/weirder than the bat/toilet one – you can make it up if you’re living an ‘uninteresting’ life (oh, if only)…The Girl will pull a winner!
I was so happy to read about your attention to put the small animal in the raised bed in the shade! Because once i found the small bat in my room and bring him outside and put in the grass under the bush. After 5 minutes red ants started to attack him and he started to shout! I will never forget his sufferings. After saving him i also made a special bed where noone can attack him while he was sleeping during the day!!
I am very intrigued by Zoologist scents and charmed by personality of Victor Wong, please, include me in the draw!
Oh gosh, poor bat, and poor you. I have a sample of Bat and enjoy it so please dnem.
Years ago I was a counselor for a week of summer camp. One night we got ready for bed in the dark and didn’t check the cabin for intruders. As I was falling asleep, I felt something soft brush past the top of my head. I ignored it. It happened a few more times, so I sat up and turned on a light. A bat was hanging inside our tent. I opened the door and the smart little critter flew right out.
No funny stories here, I live an uninteresting life, I think! My kids did recently save a bunny from under my car one morning, though, so that made us happy. I have tried several of the Zoologists and found them a bit too animalic, even synthetic for my tastes… until I sampled Dragonfly. OMG is it beautiful!
I’ve tried Hummingbird and really liked it. Bats…I’m a little scared of them, but recognize how good they are in keeping down the insect population. I do have a sort of snake story. I was hand weeding a vegetable patch and as I bent down I saw something moving on the ground. I must have jumped twenty feet in the air, went screaming out of the peas, and made hand gestures hysterically to my husband. He went into the peas and came out laughing his butt off. Seems he had placed the hose along the plants and had been moving it. i swore I would never weed peas again.
I don’t have any funny bat stories. But could tell you about my sister freaking out when she found a racoon in a garbage can. I haven’t tried any of the Zoologist line.
I have some vague memories of my dad running around the widowed neighbor’s house with a net trying to catch a bat. He was a bird lover, and apparently liked bats too. I think he did end up catching it and letting the poor thing go.
I haven’t managed to try any of the Zoologist but they are all on my list. Would love to be included in the draw!
I love bats, and I love Zoologist’s Bat! I got the Zoologist sampler from STC this spring (so DNEM in the draw), and Bat is definitely my favorite — when it’s on my arm, I can’t stop smelling it. It’s just so *interesting*! I wasn’t a fan of Nightingale (too powdery) or Panda (smells like a hardware/gardening store), but loved Civet, Rhinoceros, and Macaque. Hummingbird smells adorable on my 5 year old, though it’s a bit too nectar-y sweet for me. Looking forward to trying Elephant!
I adore Hummingbird and Nightingale and own Civet, a gorgeous Civet creation by Shelley Waddington (love her fragrances). I haven’t sniffed Bat yet; feel I need to now after your post. I’m a steel grey/black/brown/tan wardrobe person and can just imagine the coziness with the sudden arrival of fall in CO. I don’t have a funny Bat story, but I’m not afraid of bats either. They are amazing creatures. There is a campground on lake in southern CO that has swarms of bats at night. So funnto have them buzz by while sitting by campfire.
Don’t need to enter me, I am already a fan of Bat and Zoologist in general. Civet is my favorite and I also wore Hummingbird a lot this summer (love the smaller bottle option). So far I have at least been intrigued with every one I’ve sampled. As to bat stories, I am definitely pro bat, gotta love anything that eats skeeters. They flit around the old neighborhoods of my little town when out for a night stroll, which our sad old selves haven’t done in ages.
I totally feel you on the unfinished house stuff. You just learn to live with it.
I once lay for hours in a strange new place, waking up slowly, wondering what the strange, insistent high-pitched noise I was hearing was… Turned out to be a tiny bat that flew face-first into one of those old-fashioned fly strips above the bed. Not a happy ending, as when we tried to free him, bits of his wings were left behind on the strip and we had to end his suffering quickly 🙁
No bat stories here (I do love bats, and the scent sounds GORGEOUS), but I did once have a pet ladybug. At the time, I was one of those TV-less freaks, which upset everybody at work. So my colleagues decided to lug an old TV that once belonged to somebody’s uncle to my flat, and that was the end of my TV-less days. The TV had sensor buttons: to change the channel you had to make a contact between the button and a ring surrounding it by putting your finger on the button. So there I was, some late autumn evening, enjoying a western, when the channel suddenly flipped to yodelling. I changed the channel back to my western, but five minutes later, there was the yodelling channel again. Then I found out, that there was a ladybug in my flat who obviously liked folk music and kept changing the channel by circling the sensor button with three legs on the button and three on the ring. I named him Max, and he stayed among the plants on my windowsill for the entire winter. I let him listen to yodelling every now and then….
That is a sweet story! The only thing that worries me here is the thought of an entire channel devoted to yodelling.
DNEM – I have been able to try all of the Zoologist scents. I highly, highly recommend that you try Civet – it simply radiates old school class and style.
Decades ago, as an 18 year old summer camp counselor at an all-girl camp, one of my kids screamed bloody murder coming back from the showers. There was a small, dark brown bat on the ground near our cabin. I carefully picked it up & we saw a tiny drop of blood on the knee? elbow? of one wing. We named the bat Beelzebub, made a cozy nest in the cabin near an open window, provided water, & hunted gnats & mosquitos + leftover fruit & vegetables for a couple of days until B’bub was ready to take wing again. None of the 12 girls were afraid of bats after that.
Lots of bats here in the neighborhood–so fun to watch them at dusk but not so sure what I’d do if one got in the house but I know I freak when a snake gets inside. In our previous house, I thought my son had left something on the floor as I passed by the doorway. A few minutes later I went back to put it away but it slithered between the bookcase and wall. Almost had heart failure. Sweet man next door happened to be home. He came over with a “snake lasso” (string and a yard stick), caught it, pronounced it absolutely harmless (black rat snake), and released it in the front yard. I didn’t sleep well for weeks because I thought he should have taken it at least 2 counties away!
This makes me so happy! I ADORE bats, so I thank you for helping this little guy and his friends and Miss Lily every chance you get. I’m also fortunate enough to call Victor a friend and was with him the night he won his award. It’s so special when you see someone you greatly admire get recognized for blood, sweat and tears! Bat is a special scent indeed!