This year for my Halloween/Samhain scent, I’ve chosen the very special SVAHA from NOT Perfumes. SVAHA was created by perfumer Johanna Venables, and released in 2019. It’s a serious contender for my favorite release of the year.
In ancient Celtic culture, Samhain marked the beginning of the dark half of the year and the end of the light. The start of another turning of the wheel.
Samhain was a time for gathering against the coming winter. Crops were harvested, livestock brought in from their summer pastures and slaughtered. Giant ritual, communal bonfires burned. These fires were essential – for cleansing, protection, and divination. These fires burned throughout Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the Isle of Man, for six days and nights at Samhain.
Samhain was believed to be a liminal time, where the veil separating this world from the otherworld is thinnest, and spirits may cross between. At Samhain, the aos sí (spirits and fairies) were believed to be walking among us, causing mischief, and care had to be taken to welcome and not offend them. Offerings and rituals were used to appease the aos sí, in order to protect the people and ensure the survival of their crops and livestock.
When I smelled SVAHA, a perfume of fire, I thought immediately of the two major Celtic fire festivals, Samhain and Beltane. And I was delighted.
Svaha starts off smelling like a poultice. Bitter herbs, warm spices, sharp ginger, earthy turmeric, crushed into a paste. There is a slight maple-y sweetness from both methi and immortelle. The heat and animalism in the base grows and grows until you have a raging fire spitting resinous olibanum, with a base of glowing embers.
What I feel when I wear it is primordial wisdom. The kind that says stay close to the fire. The drive to mate, and feed, and protect. I imagine Brigid, the Exalted, Daughter of the Dagda and the Morrigan, Goddess of Healers, Poets, Smiths, Childbirth, Fire and Hearth, she who leans over every cradle.
Brigid was the Great Mother Goddess who united all the Celts throughout Europe, no matter how disparate their locations or other traditions were. Celtic culture was matrilineal at the time, and motherhood was held in the highest reverence. Female sexuality was positive and even sacred, as it was the pathway to motherhood. Milk (as it came from mothers) was a sacred food to the Celts. Rape was a crime of the highest severity, subject to the most severe punishments and not pardonable, or subject to leniency.
Wearing Svaha is an empowerment. I am a Fire Mother, tending my hearth with both ferocity and tenderness.
Notes from the brand:
top: · Olibanum · Cardamom · Long Pepper · Ghee · Ginger ·
heart: · Immortelle · Cinnamon · Turmeric · Deodar · Caramel · Methi ·
base: · Myrrh · Labdanum · Ambrette · Goat Hair · Hyraceum · Embers ·
