Chinese Perfume - The Temple of Heaped Fragrance

I have seen it reported (in the NYT) that in contemporary China, Western marketing research has concluded that "clean" scents are preferred, or even "scentless" products. If this is true, it proves what a tremendous a break there has been between the past and the present in this large area of the world. It can't be denied that the Cultural Revolution of Mao did accomplish an unprecedented break with the past. Now that the time of gigantic historic cataclysms seems to have receded in China, it could be possible again to be inspired by a past which had a deep affinity for perfume in all its forms and uses.

You can reach this past through the great Chinese poets, and find a strong predilections and taste for scent. The direct opposite of a scentless aesthetic held great sway throughout China for more than a thousand years. Following my own winding road from reading a novel set in ancient China, I began reading old Chinese poetry, and have been struck by how frequently fragrance is cited. In the Chinese past, perfumes and natural scents carried great sensual and spiritual significance. Woods, balsams, incense, florals, and musks were treasured and appreciated with the greatest subtlety as to associations with the seasons, the passage of time, the understanding of a personality, the decoration of the body (both male and female) and as part of spirituality and mythology.

TOWARD THE TEMPLE OF HEAPED FRAGRANCE
Wang Wei (A.D. 701 - 761)


Not knowing the way to the Temple of Heaped Fragrance,
Under miles of mountain-cloud I have wandered
Through ancient woods without a human track;
But now on the height I hear a bell.
A rillet sings over winding rocks,
The sun is tempered by green pines....
And at twilight, close to an emptying pool,
Thought can conquer the Passion-Dragon.


A HEAVENLY WOMAN'S IMPRISONED IN THE PALACE
Li Yu (A.D. 937-975)

A heavenly woman's imprisoned in the palace at Penglai Hill,
All are silent as she sleeps by day in the painted hall.
Her glossy hair is spread like cloud on the pillow,
Her embroidered clothes bear a wondrous fragrance.
I secretly come and slide the pearl lock back,
She's startled from her dream behind the silver screen.
Her smiling face is overflowing with bliss,
We gaze at each other with unbounded love.

A modern historical fiction based on true events , Lisa See's novel "Peony in Love" is a vision of 17th Century China, about the tragic life of a lovesick maiden and her haunting the living with her love after death. The theme of the lovesick maiden inspired poetry and opera in ancient times which in turn influenced the character of the individuals who followed to experience life through the stylistic lens of this poetry and music. It's fair to say that ancient Chinese culture had great influence on most Asian cultures -- a large part of the world -- and therefore had a vast reach and depth. The sensibility of the Chinese scholar poets and writers who steeped themselves in the ephemeral nature of beauty clearly depict the practice and use of a heightened awareness of scent to enhance all forms of experience.

from A SONG OF A GIRL FROM LOYANG
Wang Wei (A.D. 701-761)

...On her painted pavilions, facing red towers,
Cornices are pink and green with peach-bloom and with willow,
Canopies of silk awn her seven-scented chair,
And rare fans shade her, home to her nine-flowered curtains.

In addition to scenting the skin and hair, the wealthy had paper and ink, furniture and clothing, houses and temples enhanced by fragrance. Incense was greatly appreciated, and cosmetics were also perfumed and used with refinement. For example, lipstick was worn by wealthy women who imprinted the form of their lips onto a fine fabric and gave it as a gift to their lovers. Sandalwood fans, camphor-wood carvings and statues, rosewater imported from Persia, jasmine scented oils, ginger and nutmeg from Indonesia and patchouli from India were traded from very early times. Distillation of many different essential oils was highly developed, and had spiritual significance because the Taoists believed that the soul of the plant was released in its fragrance. Perfume was divided into six moods: tranquil, reclusive, luxurious, beautiful, refined or noble.

The "ordinary" people carried perfume pouches and used them as personal gifts. This practice survives today in the Dragon Boat Festival celebrations.

from BATHED AND WASHED
Li Po (A.D. 701-762)

Bathed in fragrance,
do not brush your hat,

Washed in perfume,
do not shake your coat:

Knowing the world
fears what is too pure,
The wisest man
prizes and stores light!....

There exists a deep cultural affinity to perfume in Chinese culture which must manifest itself again once the door is re-opened to the use of perfume in everyday life. Something to look forward to.

Handmade

This is a toast to handmade products, and the individual artisans out there creating beneficially organic ingredient body scrubs and butters and soaps. Many are infused with the scent of beneficial essential oils that persists even after rinsing. This is the real season for them, now that it's so hot and humid that I end up having two showers a day. That sheerness in fragrance may be one of the nicest ways to inhale the herbal/terpene tone of many essential oils such as lavender and citrus and a good volume of scent for sweltering days. I also find that handmade products tend to be stronger, in that the emollient quotient is higher, the exfoliants are more serious, and the level of salts or other active ingredients more generous than in commercially manufactured products.

One that I really like is Cocoa Butter Walnut Scrub by Sacred Herbals. It has a dense texture that is not really rough like so many that use crushed nut shells. The milling is finer and it acts more like the quality of a heavy rough cotton washcloth, suffused with super emollient cocoa oil and a woody-clove incense fragrance that is noticeably long lasting even after using it on hands that then go on to be washed again later. It creates a moisturizing barrier on the skin while exfoliating, and this is especially nice for the hands and feet in the summer. Wearing open sandals for a couple of months, especially in the city, is tough on the skin and your feet need almost as much attention as your face in the summer.

The handmade aspect generally seems to result in a denser composition of purer quality ingredients. Even a big commercial operation like Lush, (why did I come so late to that particular party?) being handmade, with lots of real ingredients, ratchets up to a much higher level of immediate action, at least in the products I have tried. I recently went through the smaller size Buffy Body bar within two weeks, because it melts on your skin so pleasantly it's not easy to stop using it, and also because two showers a day requires some serious moisture replacement. The Ocean Salt Face and Body Scrub contains a lot of salt, lime, grapefruit and coconut in vodka, among other things, and is indeed coarsely salty and feels clean and purifying. Following this with the Lemon Butter on hands and feet makes for an instantly velvety texture. I look forward to trying more of the line, especially the solid shampoos and vegan skin products like King of Skin, a solid moisturizer bar for application while still wet from the shower.

Another surprise is how well priced these handmade products are, especially in comparison to finer commercial ones that are anywhere near comparable in quality of ingredients. It seems like they generally run about half the price, possibly because of the direct marketing from the maker to the consumer. This is especially nice in these days of being more careful about spending on luxuries. I feel like I am getting much more for the money. It also feels good to support the making of handmade products of such quality that you can immediately tell are working. At this point, word of mouth, such as on here, and browsing Bath and Beauty on Etsy , a site where many artisans have opened their own e-commerce storefront, are the best way of finding these products. People are experimenting and refining and we are all the beneficiaries of this creative use of e-commerce. The handmade artisanal methods are again thriving because there is this direct outlet for them to the many who appreciate them.

Jacobson's Organ: And the Remarkable Nature of Smell

This book, by Lyall Watson (1999) is of interest to those who want to be more aware of the sense of smell. Jacobson's Organ is a little discussed auxiliary olfactory sense organ, named after the scientist who discovered it. It can be clearly seen in reptiles and mammals, from snakes to horses and cats, who all have these two small openings in the nasal cavity leading to a separate neural pathway going straight to the brain, that instantaneously senses chemical information about dominance, sex, and danger. Apparently humans also have this organ in the early stages of development in the womb, but as we grow into adults it appears to become vestigial, at least to the naked eye. Further studies have shown however, that this organ appears to be the part of us which is sensitive to pheromones, the basis of that good sexual chemistry we are all in search of. Something invisible and without the kind of smell that our more familiar olfactory sense can register, but which is there nonetheless and can be highly influential in our relationships, even to our moods and sense of security, and our understanding of the physical realities around us. Watson extrapolates that Jacobson's Organ is the source of our intuitions, which is the controversial part, along with exactly how functional and influential this organ is in most humans.

There is no hard proof (yet) that this sixth sense, closely related to smell, is as fully functional in adult humans as it is in many of the other creatures we evolved along side of. The natural history examples in the book impart a lot of information about how different reptiles and mammals, from snakes to lions navigate reality with great refinement by employing the sense of smell in concert with Jacobson's Organ. He also gives lovely examples of how plants evolved to directly appeal to those senses as a means to enlist outside aid in their own reproduction, to reach out and attract other living beings who are capable of being attracted.

I know we are very complex organisms, but still I'm surprised that we don't already know absolutely everything about how our bodies function by now, considering the tools we have developed, and the close study we have made of ourselves. We do know now that there are many chemical reactions in the environment around us that we become aware of through our skin and sense of smell which affect us deeply, both emotionally and physically, in ways we are not consciously aware of. For example, human mothers bond with their babies and vice-versa with an unerring sense of smell as identifier, as do other mammals. We know that we each have our own particular aroma (not related to uncleanliness, but to our own chemistry) that is emanating from us all the time. Animals, and most famously dogs, can discern individuals by their unique smell, proving these emanations are most definitely there, whether humans are registering them consciously or not. We may not need to be conscious of them, in order for them to have a purpose, to influence us and to reveal significant information we require about each other and the world. It may well be that the Jacobson's Organ in us is functioning without our being aware of it, or knowing yet exactly how it works. We do know that so many other mammals rely on it and also that we are more similar to them in many more ways than we are different. We do know that we ourselves are greatly affected by very subtle differences and changes in our environment and our experience of other people and creatures. We do know that we are animals ourselves, first and foremost. Jacobson's Organ implies that there is another very sensitive sensory system at work taking in the chemistry of life around us, a true sixth sense, connected to the oldest and deepest part of our brains, influencing us without our being completely aware of it. I like the idea.

The book is available through Amazon or Google Product Search.