Spooky Season, Spooky Perfumes
I'm an aqua sun-aqua moon girl, and I've made peace with my love for ghosts. This one is a fun little adventure exploring 7 local ghosts-inspired perfume from Ataraksia--a local badass perfumery.
Despite being too weak to handle horror films, I’ve always loved ghost stories. How Asian female ghost stories are closely tied to misogyny and oppression is one of my many Roman Empire. Unexpectedly, this love of ghosts translates into my taste in perfumes. Indonesian women on the internet celebrate their love for white floral perfume, calling their taste in fragrance kunti-core, and I love that for us! I’m one of those girls who wants to smell like a ghost lol, I love to look at empty houses in Senopati and fantasize about how nice it would be to pick one beautiful balcony as my spot, where I can just sit and people-watch. One day, a gift from a friend came, and it helped me immerse myself in this daydream.
My close friend became quite a popular perfume content creator (LOVE THAT FOR HIM! Check out perfumes & characters on TikTok, Twitter, and Youtube 🫶🏻). I won a giveaway prize from him: Ataraksia’s horror perfume discovery set. I’ve been keeping an eye on this brand; I highly appreciate immaculate craftsmanship and strong creative vision, and Ataraksia serves exactly that. Stalking their social media feels like going into the Batcave of a fraghead; they write long captions of stories and “essays” about the cultural relevance of ghosts, dissecting the different elements of the topic. Nerds are the best, lol.
The collection comes with seven perfumes inspired by spiritual beings in local folklore. I love how all of the perfumes in this collection have a STRONG incense element (I love incense-y perfumes so much that I have a growing collection of them, lol). These are my favorite perfumes from the collection, ranked from my least favorite.
#7: Sarang Gandharwa
They describe Gandharwa as a monkey-like giant that smells like blood, smoke, and something rotten. That’s exactly what this smells like. They don’t give out the note pyramid of each perfume, but this smells like kasur kapuk di rumah nenek yang udah dipake selama beberapa dekade sampai tipis dan nyimpen sari-sari keringat, ditambah bau darah kambing kayak hari qurban. It smells salty like sweat, metallic and rancid like blood. It’s THAT fucked up (I even gave up trying to write it in English lol sorry). It’s animalic, nauseating, but deep within, there’s a green, bamboo-like note mixed with incense. It’s a jumpscare tbh, if this small bottle breaks in my kostan I would cry. Accidentally smelling it for more than a minute gave me a persistent headache.
#6: Menungso
The big brains of Ataraksia creators see humans as creatures of deity’s bits and pieces. They believe humans are complex, layered, and tied to the heavens in some ways. To me, this smells like bapak-bapak kerja bakti hari Minggu pagi. It’s a masculine kind of sweaty, musky?? smokey, and a bit green. It’s like living on a green mountainside, and you can smell the smoke that comes up from your neighbor’s yard when they burn trash. It smells like destruction; if greed had a smell, this would be it.
#5: Rimba Jagal
Around 1965, people who were considered a threat to the Indonesian government were brutally killed and buried in mass graves in the woods. This perfume is inspired by the horror of that historical event. It smells deeply green, like being in a dense forest. I can smell bergamot, musk, and something animalic like in Sarang Gandharwa. It smells cold, dark, green, and a bit woody, followed by a slight whiff of something rancid and sweaty. It’s calming and eerie, like leaves on wet dirt. Maybe this is what the idea of climbing a mountain smells like, sweaty armpits and all.
#4: Bunian Alas Purwo
Alas Purwo is the oldest forest area in Banyuwangi and one of the biggest in Indonesia. The area is a national park notorious for mysteriously trapping people in it, and “Bunian” is what locals refer to as the astral beings that are responsible for how these people get lost in the woods. It smells like an old, exhausted car that gets lost in a dense woody area. It smells deeply green, like freshly cut grass, mixed with leather and akar wangi. Tbh this could also smell kind of like a guy who wears a leather jacket listening to the Black Keys as he rides into the woods. Kinda hot, lol.
#3: Tolire Gam Jaha
This scent is inspired by the legend of Tolire Lake—how a vibrant and lively village got submerged by water because the villagers couldn’t resist the temptation of being intoxicated by alcohol 😳 the village became a massive lake and the villagers were cursed to become albino alligators that inhabit the lake. This one smells pleasant and safe, unlike the previous ones. It smells like wet wood, fresh water, moss, and tuak (idk what tuak actually smells like tho, but I’m putting my friend’s opinion here for reference). It smells like a cabin by a lake, smells like a peaceful vacation somewhere mysterious but pleasant.
#2: Sanggar Hantu Laut
This smells like A HOT SEA WITCH! I love it SO much omg it’s so comforting, mysterious, and powerful. The scent is inspired by the legend of Arafuru (Arafura?) sea witch. The story was about how there was once a witch who was thrown into the sea and transformed into a scaly monster that roamed the sea. Fishermen believe that the sight of this witch predicts that a powerful storm is coming. By the time I write this post, I have already had the perfume with me for a year, so maybe the scent changes compared to when I sniffed it for the first time. But I can still smell salty notes like the sea, wet rotten wood, violet??? and incense (I can’t tell the difference between myrrh, frankincense, and incense, tho, it’s all the same for me, lol). Ataraksia’s perfumes can magically and accurately depict the inspiration they derive from. This one is a perfect example of it. Can’t get enough of it omg this smells like a hot lesbian (imagine having a picnic with Jo from Muna by the sea 🥰).
#1: Peri Gandamayit
I can confidently say that this perfume is the ABSOLUTE MOTHER of other Kunti-core perfumes to the point where it sends shivers down my spine. While other kunti-core perfumes only play around with jasmine and tuberose, this one also has magnolia, ylang-ylang, frangipani, and incense. To me, what stands out the most is the super sweet floral scent from magnolia, like the ones I used to love during my childhood. Followed by other local, tropical white floral scents that I mentioned earlier and the deep, mysterious scent from incense. This smells like a sacred ceremony; this smells more Javanese bride-y than an actual Javanese bride. From the first time I smelled it, I already wanted this to be my wedding perfume. The inspiration for this perfume came from the mysterious “astral being” kingdom in East Java, around the Pasetran Gondo Mayit beach. Locals believe that the kingdom is the home of fairies that kidnap unsuspecting visitors, never allowing them back to the human realm. I wanted to buy the full bottle of this, but the last time I wore it outside, I felt like I saw an actual ghost outside my window LOL (this is a bit embarrassing to tell 🤪 I love ghost stories, but I don’t really believe in seeing one). This smells absolutely dreamy, graceful, ethereal, mysterious, and ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL, imagine Newjeans’ ASAP teaser video! 🥰 UGH. I wish you could smell it from the screen.
This discovery set is a spooky adventure in 7 small bottles. I highly recommend you check out Ataraksia, one of the best local perfumeries with immaculate craftsmanship and admirable—inspiring, even—creative vision. I even heard that by the time the line was released, it had already undergone several revisions because some of the scents were too scary. UGH, FUN!