426 Kastor

Kastor is a simple and bold blend focusing on the common elements between Myrrh, Castoreum and Brandy and detailing with a handful of other materials.

After making The Fool, a highly complex and difficult attar, I wanted to make something much more simple, but impactful. Kastor started from a tincture I made with an aged Cardinal Mendoza 170 proof Brandy, which was used in place of alcohol to soak Castoreum in.

I left this for several months to soak up the brandy, which it did, and then added more Brandy to cover the Castoreum, the idea was to evaporate off the alcohol and be left with a resin containing the aroma of Brandy and Castoruem.

This worked, and in the end stages of filtering and evaporating, I decided to add a Tahitian Vanilla tincture to the Castoreum and Brandy, not sure why, this was a rash decision, and I immediately started to regret it when the mixture turned cloudy, a sign of water presence.

But fortunately, the properties of the Tahitian Vanilla, perhaps the sugars inside, cause a sediment to form quickly. This fixed the issue of cloudiness once settled, as I could remove the top part of the tincture, being careful not to disturb the sediment, then this was evaporated down, creating a Brandy, Castoreum Tahitian Vanilla absolute.

This wild material smells amazing! I used all of it in this blend, along with another Castoruem absolute, and several other core and support materials.

The base was made with Guggul absolute. A material I made from the raw resin. This smells so good, a bitter, radiant Myrrh that really comes alive in the presence of Rum and Ginger.

I also used a premium Commiphorra Myrrh essential oil to create a backbone to the ephemeral Rum Co2, and as a base I used Commiphora ornifolia also known as Socotran Myrrh, this has a soft creamy note, and doesn't play a major role, it just adds a smooth undertone to the base

Kastor has a woody core, made with Greenheart Wood, Maroke Oud and Sylhet Oud. I also added a small amount of the base of Himar to create some interesting barnyard detailing.

Smelling from the applicator. Kastor has a borderline aggressive animalic quality, I say borderline, as it has a very radiant, warm fiery quality too that feels inviting. I enjoy this push and pull feel of attraction and repulsion. For a while, Kastor had an almost meaty quality from the large amount of Castoreum, but I tamed this with Ginger absolute, Rum Co2 and Koh Chang Oud, which felt like it ignited the resins, bringing out their better qualities, and lessening the focus on the heavy, animalic leather.

This is a peak masculine blend I feel, resinous, animalic, woody and a little boozy, like fire in a bottle.

Smelling on the skin, Kastor opens with a warm, fiery, animalic glow. It fees like leather ignited by spices and emboldened with radiant woods. It has simple main notes that all come through in one solid, rich aroma. I'd say this is still a very approachable animalic. The Ginger and Rum really make the Castoreum feel more pleasant and inviting, saying that, it does have a gritty undertone of leather, and the Sylhet agarwood I used also has some animalic aspects.

The following materials were used in Kastor in relative order of intensity:

Guggul Absolute

Castoreum Absolute

Myrrh EO (Premium)

Shylhet Oud

Rum Co2

Koh Chang Oud

Greenheart Wood EO

Castoreum Brandy Vanilla Absolute

Maroke Oud

Thai Koh Chang Oud

Ginger Absolute

Ornifolia Myrrh Absolute

Himar Base

Ambergris Tincture

Almaciga Absolute

Australian Sandalwood EO

Buoya Wood EO