Burning incense under clothes

[Ishida Kentarou Mitsumasa]

One of the pictures on the Kyoto Costume Museum website has a woman burning incense under a basket, over which some clothing is draped. I'm going to an L5R event tomorrow wearing some clothes I made, and the character I'm playing is a high society sort of fellow, so I decided to finally experiment with doing that myself. After all, why not smell good?


Burning incense under clothes by tomlapille, on Flickr

It's tough to see the smoke in the picture, but by now there's quite a nice cloud of sandalwood scent floating there.


Burning incense under clothes, 2 by tomlapille, on Flickr

I will report back tomorrow on how this works.

[Ishida Kentarou Mitsumasa]

In broad strokes, this worked. I did it a little wrong, I think- I should have spread each garment out individually, as only the exposed surfaces got noticeably smell-infused, but it still got the campfire smell out of the black silk kosode that was on the bottom of the pile. Next time, I'll go garment by garment and see if I can get the scent to stick a little better.

[Sō Haruko]

Thanks for sharing! This is something I want to try eventually, so it's cool to hear how it works/doesn't work. I absolutely want to be able to do this in prep for war ... (:

[Saionji Shonagon]

Please note that the mannequin does not have a stack of clothing on top of the basket, it's one robe open and draped over it.

The one reason I haven't done this is that I socialize with someone with serious allergies. However, she's not going to W/An Tir, so I have no excuse - and a drawer full of incense.

[Ishida Kentarou Mitsumasa]

I tried it again earlier today with just one kosode draped over the basket keeping the smoke from dissipating as quickly. It worked much better this time, with a good amount of the sandalwood smell remaining in the garment. We'll see how well it holds up through tomorrow's gaming.

[Saionji Shonagon]

(Sigh.) That's just so civilized - and if I weren't going to be spending time with a nice namban lady who suffers from allergies, I'd light up and do my uwaginu right now.

[Ishida Kentarou Mitsumasa]

It held up well. By the time I wore it some of the scent had dissipated, but enough remained that a few people told me I smelled nice and the rest didn't notice. I think next time I'm going to try doing the incense the morning I need to wear it and see what happens.

[kazuyama]

Ishida dono, you have no idea how inspiring you can be sometimes. I'm planning on offering this as a demo at an event this September for anyone who wants to smell a bit better. Thanks for the great idea, I'll give you credit for posting this of course

[Ishida Kentarou Mitsumasa]

One last update from the incense front...

I scented all my clothes for yesterday with sandalwood in the manner we have been discussing. I was showing a nice nanban woman the thing that I had brought to display when out of nowhere she leaned very close to me and said "You smell good! Every other man here smells bad, but you smell good! What is that?" This, of course, triggered another conversation, and she thought it was awesome that I was being considerate to my fellow humans in a period way.

I consider this project to be a success, and I expect to be scenting my wardrobe for events consistently in the future.

[Saionji Shonagon]

Sigh. I expect I was generating a powerful stink at the very moment you were doing so: I was kitted out in a nylon fencing jacket under my plaid kosode and linen hakama with temps in the mid 90's in the shade. Fortunately, the namban I was fighting with are inured to such things. (It did demonstrate that I can fight and die safely in clothing I already have and that I really need to make a puncture proof linen shitagi as soon as my fabric order comes in!)

At least there was a fresh bar of sandalwood soap to come home to. ;-D Though I think hinoki is my favorite basic incense scent.

[Deleted]

Jul 22, 2012 11:34:27 GMT -5 Ishida Kentarou Mitsumasa said:

I was showing a nice nanban woman the thing that I had brought to display when out of nowhere she leaned very close to me and said "You smell good! Every other man here smells bad, but you smell good! What is that?"

I can think of at least three ill-considered and somewhat inappropriate comments I would have been unable to resist saying in this situation. Ishida-dono, either you are truly a gentleman or something of an unreliable narrator.

[Ishida Kentarou Mitsumasa]

Ishida's modern alter ego may not be that much of a gentleman, but thankfully Ishida himself managed to be. He was, however, quite amused by the situation.

[yumehime]

ok, my source is a fan fiction, so i can't promise anything but....

in the story the writer specified that to compensate for an unpleasantness smell in the mans recently acquired formal kimono, it was common practice for nobles to scent the SLEEVES with incense. this would mean movement readily spread the scent around so other orders wouldn't be noticed and the fragrance would carry.

i was wondering when, if at all, the practice changed to only the sleeves of a garment. before that i was wondering if it was documented in period at all, but now i have a new excuse to burn my kyoto autumn leaves.