LG23-13: Hippy Dippy Baloney
- Brush: Zenith B36
#SMOLL
- Razor: Alpha Shaving Works Outlaw Cu
- Blade: Astra SP (26)
- Lather: Siliski Soaps - Incense - Shaving Soap
- Post Shave: Long Rifle Soap Co. - Voyageur - Shave Tonic
- Fragrance: La Curie - Incendo
- Passes: WTG, XTG
- Coffee: Ethiopia. Guji, Werka - v: Ethiopia Landraces - p: Natural. Dried on raised beds.
- Music: Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising
- LG Tags:
#FOF
Few songs make me think of round-sunglasses, paisley shirts, and fields of sandaled teens more than John Phillips’s “Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)”. This song smells like incense, patchouli, long hair in the sun, and expanded consciousness mannnnnn. The Mamas & the Papas wrote and popularized the song, though it’s been covered a few times, both standards-style (as is super common in American folk music) and by later artists looking to channel their inner flower child. More interesting is its recent use in media. Despite being an unusually pretty two-part harmony, Hollywood started taking advantage of the song’s ominous overtones, using it as an effective signifier of ‘60s cults in the Manson Family vein. The back to back combo of 2018’s Bad Times at the El Royale and 2019’s Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood sealed the song’s fate. Now that first bar of the piano melody plays and I immediately picture Chris Hemsworth chewing the scenery.
You may have noticed I included a different selection for my usual SOTD music entry; it’s on theme, but has nothing to do with “Twelve Thirty”. I considered using a Weyes Blood track for today’s challenge, since she’s released plenty of material that nods to ’60s folk and ’70s AM radio, but her songs often feel inseparable from the album on which they’re released. For example, the otherworldly arpeggios that open “Movies” aren’t nearly as impactful if they don’t flow from the radiant expansion at the end of “Something to Believe” and the “Titanic Rising” interlude. Regardless, Titanic Rising is excellent incense, low-lights, and whisky music. I get the impression both incense and patchouli are Natalie Mering’s style.
For today’s shave, I stuck close to the theme’s parameters, using Siliski’s Incense soap, a patchouli aftershave, and an incense frag straight from the towering woods of the Pacific Northwest. Siliski’s take on incense is incredibly dry. Combining frankincense, myrrh, mastic, and elemi, it smells exactly like the name suggests, and wouldn’t be out of place in liturgy, sacrament, or ceremony. Voyageur has a few more facets, adding sandalwood and oakmoss to a healthy dose of patchouli. Like I mentioned yesterday, I love a simple aftershave that’s got more going on than a single note. Combine straight-up incense and Voyageur’s earthiness and you end up with La Curie Incendo. Equally as dry as the incense in Siliski’s soap, Incendo’s incense smolders and billows over a pine-needle covered forest floor, escaping the dark shroud of fir to a speckled black sky. It highlights incense, pine, cedar, and vetiver in equal measure.