Warm Bulb by Clue Perfumery
I’m sorry. I really am. I hate to take up so much space on this wonderful webpage, but I feel that it is my duty to provide an honest, transparent review and doing so requires that I give a little background information regarding the first time I came across this singular, potent juice.
When I was younger, I collected hundreds of oak galls over a period of several years. If you’re not familiar with these arborous anomalies, they are spherical growths that can occasionally be found on oak trees. I won’t go into all of the slimy details about their formation, but I will say that wasps and chemicals are involved.
As a youngster, I found these galls alluring unlike any other naturally occurring orb. They captured my imagination and, in return, I captured them and kept my specimens in a disused dumpster which I found behind a burned out restaurant which was down the street from where I used to live. I never did get an exact count of all of my galls, but I can assure you that it was well over three hundred at one point.
I was quite proud of my collection and would often try to impress my schoolmates by showing them my hidden bounty. Unfortunately, I was often met with ridicule and scorn and more than once did I find myself being tossed into my dumpster full of galls by a particularly ornery classmate who had found my incessant gall-based boasts to be distasteful. I shan't blame them for their actions. After all, we were only children and I am deeply irritating most of the time.
Sometimes, after having been bludgeoned about and thrown into the gall dumpster, I would sit quietly inside and wait for the one who had tossed me to tire themselves out by laughing at my expense and then leave so that I could escape without any further thrashings. If it was an exceptionally warm day, the interior of the dumpster would take on a very unique, comforting odor. It never smelled like rubbish or garbage inside. I had spent three whole weeks carefully scrubbing and sanitizing the interior of that steel receptacle before I dared placing my first gall within its hungry jaws.
The smell was indescribable, but I will do my best to describe it to you now. It smelled like a very warm metal container filled with oak galls, both old and new. If you do not know what that smells like, then I highly recommend purchasing yourself a dumpster, filling it with galls during the warmer months, climbing inside, and taking a big, hearty whiff. It’s really something.
I was recently in my hometown and I attempted to visit the crumbling remains of the restaurant where I had spent so much time as a child only to find that it had been completely razed. This saddened me to no end, but miraculously, I was able to find the storied dumpster of my youth which had been nearly overgrown with brambles and tall grasses. I had an intense urge to get inside and see if any of my precious galls remained.
Unfortunately, I was unable to do so because as I was tearing the thorny vines from the exterior of this sacred tomb, an armed security officer clubbed the top of my head with what I assume was an improvised sort of nightstick. I collapsed and let out a mournful wail. The security guard told me to remain motionless and I did not disobey his command. Through my tears and over my sobs, I was able to make out that he was radioing for backup. I asked him why he had hit me but he did not reply. I attempted to stand, but I found that I was unable to support myself.
Upon seeing me try to get up from the tangled mass of brambles into which I had collapsed, the guard again brought his club down onto my brain box, splitting it open and leaving me in a state of horrible darkness and silence.
I was finally roused from my cudgel-induced sleep when a full bucket of filthy mop water was dumped onto my head and into my mouth. Choking, gasping, disoriented, and in extreme anguish, I begged for my assailant to stop drowning me. After a few minutes, I was able to right myself and I saw that I was still on the ground in the decrepit lot of the demolished restaurant. There was nobody near me. My hands were bound behind my back with a great mass of looped brambles which I was able to loosen only after a great deal of effort.
It was evening as I stumbled toward my hotel. Upon entering the lobby, I heard a woman gasp and then shriek. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I looked quite dreadful and I don’t blame the woman for reacting as she did when accosted with my wretched visage. I turned to her and apologized, but she just screamed and screamed. I took a step toward her as I hoped I might be able to explain how I came to look as I did, but she quickly turned and ran out of the building, dropping her purse in the process. I picked up her purse and attempted to chase after her so that I might return it to her, but my throbbing head and trembling legs prevented me from doing so.
As I reentered the hotel, I too dropped the long gone woman’s purse and, unfortunately, I heard something shatter. I picked up the purse and peered in to find a broken bottle of Warm Bulb by Clue Perfumery. Knowing what sort of luck I often have, I did not want to keep the purse in my possession lest some constable accuse me of assaulting and robbing the poor woman to whom it belonged so I quickly turned it over to the front desk staff at the hotel.
As I did so, I somehow managed to get some of this intensely odorous elixir into the many bleeding gashes on my hand. I rushed to my room and washed the burning fluid from my sores. As of now, I am not able to provide an exhaustive account of how it smelled, but I can assure you that it is extremely painful to get Warm Bulb by Clue Perfumery into any sort of gaping wound.
