Musings on LUSH Lord of Misrule, and a big shout out to Tiny Fragrances

Engraving by George Cruikshank via Wikimedia Commons

Sorry I have been missing in action for nearly a month...I have been surprisingly busy caring for other people's pets and gardens, the lush vegetation in one of which has inspired me to write another post entirely, but for the moment I would like to talk about the other LUSH, as in the capitalised perfume house formerly known as Gorilla Perfumes, after formerly being known as LUSH.

Last weekend I had a roadying job up in Sheffield with The Monochrome Set, which I do from time to time when the gig is a little too far out of town to be conveniently reached on foot or public transport - and you try ordering a taxi on a Saturday night in any British city, as we tried and spectacularly failed to do one rainy and windswept night in Hull last winter!  At the sound check I was aware of a delightful sillage following Jane, the band manager, as she flitted up and downstairs between green room and venue carrying out her various duties, most importantly "hunting the rider". The rider wasn't actually tracked down till shortly before the band went on stage, whereupon we all descended on a selection of water, beer and wine with the zeal of seagulls in St Ives swooping down on a bag of chips.

I asked Jane what she was wearing that night and it turned out to be LUSH Lord of Misrule, of which I was quite unaware - which is pretty par for the course for me these days, to be fair. It smelt very familiar and alluring in a vanillic, "barnyard" kind of way, and I vowed to look into it further on my return.

Notes: patchouli, black pepper, vanilla

But first I would like to say a word about the splendid name of the fragrance, Lord of Misrule. Any coincidence between the timing of this post and the exit of prime ministers past, present, or somewhere in between, hehe, is of course purely fortuitous...

Illustration by Spencer Baird Nichols via Wikimedia Commons

From Wikipedia:  

"In England, the Lord of Misrule – known in Scotland as the Abbot of Unreason and in France as the Prince des Sots - was an officer appointed by lot during Christmastide to preside over the Feast of Fools. The Lord of Misrule was generally a peasant or sub-deacon appointed to be in charge of Christmas revelries, which often included drunkenness and wild partying."

Christmas drunkenness and wild partying? Any resemblance between the origins of the perfume name and.........ahem.....moving swiftly on.....!

And I also found this in the blurb to an episode of "Funny in Four" on the BBC website:

"The Lord of Misrule was the ultimate disrupter - his sovereignty gives us a quick burst of anarchy that refreshes and revives."

Hmmmm....well, I guess it depends on your idea of "refreshment", for there is a fine line between a thirst-slaking glass of Perrier - or make that Robinson's Barley Water as we are in Wimbledon season after all (albeit I believe they recently ended their 86 year old sponsorship deal) - and having to knock back 10 pints of lager one after the other without burping or drawing breath. Sorry, mind wandering again. But yes, how inadvertently prophetic that I should discover a perfume of that name in what has turned out to be one of the most turbulent weeks in UK political history. "Febrile" even, which was another word beloved of the media in recent days, along with "tumultuous".

Back home, I soon set about ordering a sample. There are so many more sampling sites out there now compared with the early days of my perfume hobby when I routinely used to shell out the equivalent of a small mortgage every month to The Perfumed Court and Lucky Scent. I quickly lit upon a company called Tiny Fragrances, whose apt and endearing name appealed, and ordered a 2ml sample for £5.50 including free postage. The price apparently reflected the fact that the delivery might be longer than usual, namely up to ten days. To my surprise I received a notification from PayPal the next day with the news that Tiny Fragrances had refunded me 55p, having forgotten to apply the "slow delivery discount", which I of course had assumed was already factored in. And blow me down if the perfume itself didn't arrive two days later in a dear little purple velvet drawstring bag.

I wore Lord of Misrule finally yesterday, and though it goes on quite strong, the drydown does the same raunchy sweet patchouli number on me as it did on Jane. I was greatly exercised as to why Lord of Misrule smelt so familiar yet long forgotten at the same time, till a light bulb suddenly went on in my head - L'Ombre Fauve (or "Bestial Shadow", my preferred translation of the name). I found my short write up of the Parfumerie Generale fragrance from 2015 - here is the full post, if anyone is interested in other scents in similar "super furry animal" vein.

Notes: woods, incense, amber, musk, patchouli

"Now L'Ombre Fauve is wonderfully hoochy, but the patchouli lends a rough edge to the scent going in. I don't mean hoochy in a Hooters way exactly, but the opening is certainly not refined. It's earthy and ragged and a bit clod- - as in sod- - hopping. I never reviewed L'Ombre Fauve, because despite being such a fan of woody orientals, I find myself even more tongue-tied than usual in describing what I smell. What I can give you, if you can 'take it' (as all good mediums say), is an image of me sitting on a stool in a moodily lit tapas bar in Hamburg with my Swedish perfumista protegee Louise and several of her friends, while wearing L'Ombre Fauve. The whole party couldn't stop sniffing my wrist, having clearly succumbed to the perfume's animal magnetism, which proved more irresistible than even the dates wrapped in bacon and dainty morsels of chorizo."

Schankwirtschaft (now sadly closed) ~ Source: eventinc.de

So there we have it, a cheaper, smaller format alternative to the PG at just £25 for 30ml, or £4.95 for a Tiny Fragrance sample. Just remember to behave when you wear it.

Source: Lush UK

And as it happens, the set that night included a song called "Walking With The Beast". ;)