Opaline Dusk

Opal is milky with fire caught inside it, a stone that looks solid until the light moves across it. Dusk is the blue hour, the short window after the sun has gone and before the dark arrives. The opaline part of the name describes the texture as much as the colour, which is what this blend turned out to be.

Ho wood is the hero and it is nearly a third of the blend, soft and creamy and faintly woody. Palmarosa gives it a rose lift, ylang ylang a tropical floral sweetness, and palo santo a thread of smoke underneath so it does not read as simply pretty. Benzoin sits in the base, a resin rather than an oil, which is why it arrives late and stays. Two drops of carrot seed give it a trace of earth.

It pairs with Errant Vesper across the line: one hour at twilight, one star at evening. Poured by hand in Calumet into 7 ml black glass. Beeswax, tallow and jojoba have different melt points, which gives the balm its three-phase slow release.