Catherynne M. Valente's scents are now available for order and each of these scents come in a 10ml glass vial.
Starborn Alchemy uses the most natural and long-lasting carrier oil, Jojoba, known for it's long life and healthy interaction with skin.
For all international orders and shipping, please contact us directly:Contact Us
Palimpsest Perfume Oil, 10ml
A hot wind blows dry parchment pages stained with ink over a bed of innocent almond and sweet musk that quickly degenerates into bloody pomegranate and maddening patchouli, ending in a hiss of cruel black pepper. A river of sweet cream flows through the center, assuring you that this is a world you will come to adore.
Essential Oil: Piper nigrum (Black Pepper), Boswellia Frereana (Frankincense Frereana), Pogostemon cablin (Patchouli), Melaleuca alternifolia (Chinese Tea Tree), Fragrant Oil: Musk, Pomegranate, Bitter Almond, Sweet Butter Cream.
Casimira Perfume Oil, 10ml
As they walk towards a gleaming black pier, something like obsidian strung with white lanterns, folk they pass, ill and well, shrink back from Casimira, cross themselves or sink to their knees in reverence. One or two doctors spit at her. She holds her head high, until the spit splatters on the hem of her bathing dress. She casually flicks her fingers in the direction from which it had come, a gesture like removing dust from a collar. Three brass wasps fly from her sleeve with a high, rageful, indignant screech, and defend their mistress with keen stingers of brass. The mendicant doctors fall to the shore, their arms raised over their heads in supplication.
The matriarch of Palimpsest, part villain, part seductress, part lost child. An explosion of playful, juicy lime, orange, and amber pulls away to reveal a dark soul of black pepper, frankincense, hungry vetiver and benzoin, with the cold civility of clary sage, vanilla and bergamot rounding out this complex, wicked scent.
Essential Oil: Piper nigrum (Black Pepper), Boswellia Frereana (Frankincense Frereana), Styrax benzoin (Benzoin), Citrus bergamia (Bergamot Bergaptene Free), Vanilla planifolia (Vanilla), Salvia sclarea (Clery Sage ), Citrus sinensis (Sweet Orange), Citrus aurantifolia (Lime) Fragrant Oil: Musk, Dark Amber.
The Trains of Heaven Perfume Oil, 10ml
A folktale current in Hokkaido just after the war and passed from conductor to conductor held that the floor of heaven is laced with silver train tracks, and the third rail is solid pearl. The trains that ran along them were fabulous even by the standards of the Shinkansen of today: carriages containing whole pine forests hung with golden lanterns, carriages full of rice-terraces, carriages lined in red silk where the meal service brought soup, rice balls, and a neat lump of opium with persimmon tea poured over it in the most delicate of cups.
Cold mint and snowy pines ride atop a spicy blend of cedar, myrrh, and musk, while hints of ylang ylang, lilac, and tea peek through the windows and little bells of bergamot and rose chime the stations.
Essential Oil: Cedarus atlantica (Atlas Cedarwood),Melaleuca alternifolia (Chinese Tea Tree), Commiphora myrrha (Myrrh), Citrus sinensis (Sweet Orange), Pinus sylvestris (Pine), Cananga odorata (Ylang Ylang), Fragrant Oil: Musk, Lilac.
Orlande's Salon Perfume Oil, 10ml
Orlande lumbers in, a woman wrapped in ragged fox-fur. Her head amid heaps of scarves is that of a frog, mottled green and bulbous-eyed, and a licking pink tongue keeps its place in her wide mouth. Her webbed and mottled hands are full of cups: a swill of tea afloat with yellow leaves. She spills not a drop, and the tea is sweet, sweeter than anything.
She does not see individual clients.
Thus it is that four strangers sit in the red chairs, strip off their socks, plunge their feet into the ink-baths, and hold hands under an amphibian stare. This is the first act of anyone entering Palimpsest: Orlande will take your coats, sit you down, and make you family.
A light, sophisticated scent, the sorcery of a strange shop wafting under the door: green tea and sweet cream swirl over smoky nag champa, patchouli, and rich cedar woods.
Essential Oil: Pogostemon cablin (Patchouli) Cedarus atlantica (Atlas Cedarwood), Fragrant Oil: Nag Champa, Green Tea, Sweet Butter Cream
Lyudmila Perfume Oil, 10ml
There is a bench, one of those that seem, wherever they are, that they ought to have been in Paris, with a view of the Seine. There is a woman sitting there in a long dress, watching the mushrooms flutter. As he draws closer, the dress becomes deeply blue, spattered with silver stars. It is formal; it has a bustle like the base of a cupola. Her hair is wild and loose, though, mouse-colored, very like his own, and strung through with snow, though no flakes fall underground. Lyudmila turns to face him and he groans; the mushrooms recoil.
"I missed you, Olezhka," says his sister, and holds out her long arms.
A lascivious, forbidden combination of frankincense and pomegranate, spiked with lilac, rosemary, and cool, haughty citrus, smoothed over with gentle vanilla. This is the scent of obsession, of the woman who can never be fully known or possessed.
Essential Oil: Vetiveria zizaniodes (Vetiver), Vanilla planifolia (Vanilla), Rosmarinus officinalis (Rosemary), Boswellia Frereana (Frankincense Frereana), Citrus limonum (Lemon), Fragrant Oil: Pomegranate, Lilac.
The House Perfume Oil, 10ml
The house, well-fed beyond all dreams of cornice and window-hinge, began to grow so quickly and with such vigor that the houses on either side of it were forced to pick up their prodigious suitcases and, with much pointed sniffing, homestead elsewhere. The house threw up radiant cedar walls and windows of smoky glass. Bronze roof tiles clattered out from the chimneys like dominoes falling. Palisades and sweeping stairs twisted up from the earth, and long hallways stretched their arms for children to hide in. It opened room after room like blossoms, each furnished in a single color, for it was an orderly house and liked things just so. It sent up eight floors to begin with, and more sprouted with the harvest each year. It peaked and gabled its tiled roof, and threw towers into the air. At night passersby heard the house singing little nonsense songs to itself as it dressed up, a girl waiting with breathless hope for a festival to begin.
Finally, the house opened a room in its topmost tower, the largest of all the rooms it had ever grown before, and this room it colored in every shade of scarlet so that to stand within it was to stand within a beating, bleeding heart. This done, the house locked itself and waited, growing only as a tree will grow, one ring for each year.
Dry pages from ancient pine bookshelves and welcoming kitchen sage blow over the gentle wealth of polished cedarwood floors, sandalwood cabinets, and sweet orange juice, served bedside on a crisp morning.
Essential Oil: Cedarus atlantica (Atlas Cedarwood), Sandalum album (Sandalwood), Boswellia Frereana (Frankincense Frereana), Melaleuca alternifolia (Chinese Tea Tree), Commiphora myrrha (Myrrh), Salvia sclarea (Clery Sage), Citrus sinensis (Sweet Orange), Pinus sylvestris (Pine), Fragrant Oil: Musk.
November Perfume Oil, 10ml
November kept her father's grave in Benicia, holding tenuously to the towns boldly proclaimed blessings, and with the grave she tended sixteen hexagonal beehives. She had named all the queens. She kept for them pristine and intricate gardens to flavor their feet, and the honey in turn, and it was this golden science that occupied the small and guarded territory of her interior, even as she traveled the long, slow road out of the desert, her trunk full of sleeping yucca bulbs and infant jacarandas, their roots bound up in earth and linen.
Rich, mellow honey drowns a cornucopia of mangoes, sweet oranges, and cinnamon bark. Beneath this joyful harvest are hints of secret sorrows: oakmoss, bitter almond, and musk.
Essential Oil: Styrax benzoin (Benzoin), Citrus bergamia (Bergamot Bergaptene Free), Cinnamomum zeylanicum (Cinnamon Bark) Citrus sinensis (Sweet Orange), Cananga odorata (Ylang Ylang), Fragrant Oil:Musk, Oakmoss, Honey, Bitter Almond, Mango.
Ludovico Perfume Oil, 10ml
The pads of Ludovico's fingers were scored with paper-cuts like lines of longitude and latitude. They had long since gone the murky gold color of expensive glue, the kind one can be absolutely certain has its source in rendered beast--perhaps, if one is fortunate and paid a great deal of money, one as interesting as a camel or lynx. Ludo used those murky, malevolent glues almost to exclusion he was interested in them, in tools, in origins. He liked to think that he bound his books with the sinew of a Chinese tiger. He liked to think that while he slept, the endless spines stretched and growled, licking the typesetting with wide, rough tongues.
The scent of a drunk, mad scholar: professorial clary sage and fir needles minding their manners against an onslought of spicy clove, savage vetiver, and fine bay rum.
Essential Oil: Vetiveria zizaniodes (Vetiver), Salvia sclarea (Clery Sage), Abies siberica (Fir Needle), Syzgium aromaticum (Clove Bud), Fragrant Oil: Bay Rum, Oakmoss.
The Green Wind Perfume Oil, 10ml
Once upon a time, a girl named September grew very tired indeed of her father's house, where she washed the same pink and yellow teacups and gravy boats every day, slept on the same embroidered pillow, and played with the same small and amiable dog. Because she had been born in May, and because she had a mole on her left cheek, and because her feet were very large and ungainly, the Green Wind took pity on her, and flew to her window one evening just after her birthday. He was dressed in a green dinner-jacket, and a green carriage-drivers cloak, and green jodhpurs, and green snowshoes. It is very cold above the clouds, in the shanty-towns where the Six Winds live.
"You seem an ill-tempered and irascible enough child," said the Green Wind. "How would you like to come away with me and ride upon the Leopard of Little Breezes, and be delivered to the great sea which borders Fairyland?"
Airy bamboo and tea rose float over Siberian pines, royal teak, and sinuous dark amber, anchored by black myrrh and a delightfully dangerous hint of patchouli. Never take rides from strangers.
Essential Oil: Pogostemon cablin (Patchouli), Cedarus atlantica (Atlas Cedarwood), Commiphora myrrha (Myrrh) Fragrant Oil: Dark Amber, Bamboo & Teak, Tea Rose.
Keys to the City, Set Perfume Oil, 10ml
Includes all Nine of the lovely scents for Catherynne M. Valente's Book Palimpsest. Please see above for item details of each scent.
Palimpsest, A hot wind blows dry parchment pages stained with ink over a bed of innocent almond and sweet musk that quickly degenerates into bloody pomegranate and maddening patchouli, ending in a hiss of cruel black pepper. A river of sweet cream flows through the center, assuring you that this is a world you will come to adore.
Casimira, The matriarch of Palimpsest, part villain, part seductress, part lost child. An explosion of playful, juicy lime, orange, and amber pulls away to reveal a dark soul of black pepper, frankincense, hungry vetiver and benzoin, with the cold civility of clary sage, vanilla and bergamot rounding out this complex, wicked scent.
The Trains of Heaven, Cold mint and snowy pines ride atop a spicy blend of cedar, myrrh, and musk, while hints of ylang ylang, lilac, and tea peek through the windows and little bells of bergamot and rose chime the stations.
Orlande's Salon, A light, sophisticated scent, the sorcery of a strange shop wafting under the door: green tea and sweet cream swirl over smoky nag champa, patchouli, and rich cedar woods.
Lyudmila, A lascivious, forbidden combination of frankincense and pomegranate, spiked with lilac, rosemary, and cool, haughty citrus, smoothed over with gentle vanilla. This is the scent of obsession, of the woman who can never be fully known or possessed.
The House, Dry pages from ancient pine bookshelves and welcoming kitchen sage blow over the gentle wealth of polished cedarwood floors, sandalwood cabinets, and sweet orange juice, served bedside on a crisp morning.
November, Rich, mellow honey drowns a cornucopia of mangoes, sweet oranges, and cinnamon bark. Beneath this joyful harvest are hints of secret sorrows: oakmoss, bitter almond, and musk.
Ludovico, The scent of a drunk, mad scholar: professorial clary sage and fir needles minding their manners against an onslought of spicy clove, savage vetiver, and fine bay rum.
The Green Wind, Airy bamboo and tea rose float over Siberian pines, royal teak, and sinuous dark amber, anchored by black myrrh and a delightfully dangerous hint of patchouli. Never take rides from strangers.
For all international orders and shipping, please contact us directly:Contact Us
We craft our Perfume Oils almost exclusively from essential oils and natural ingredients. In rare cases where we substitute a fragrance oil (musk, amber, or pomegranate for instance) we accept nothing less than the highest quality scent.
These mixes are not meant to be used internally. Please don't eat it, it's meant to be used to scent your skin!
Please be aware these are made with Essential Oils and some oils from nuts, know your allergies! Starborn Alchemy takes great care in all of listings to list our ingredients. As with any new product test a small amount on your skin if you've never tried them before. If pregnant please consult with your doctor as some Essential Oils should not be used while pregnant.
