Manipura: The Solar Plexus
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Manipura: The Solar Plexus. The Ten-petaled lotus: willpower… self esteem… ambition… astral force… assertiveness…

Manipura opens up assertively: It is spicy: a pepper note floating in a sea of tea and some bitter citrus. The citrus fades a bit and its place is slowly taken by more spice… this time its cinnamon that spices up the mixture, and between the pepper and cinnamon and then cloves and cardamom, the fragrance warms up considerably. The woods move in in the form of vetiver and rosewood (I think), which forms an interesting combination and I believe that there's some saffron in there somewhere. Toward the base, some sweet moves in: I'm not sure what is responsible for the sweet, but it would not be a BPAL scent if some sweet didn't show up here. The sweetness doesn't dominate as it does in many other of their fragrances. The base is a bit aromatic, but it is essentially woody: Cedar mostly with an element of sandalwood and a suspicion of rosewood, I'm thinking. I love this kind of fragrance: A spicy opening and heart, and a wood drydown. Manipura is my favorite of the chakras (BPAL chakra scents, that is)…

The next chakra up from Manipura is Anahata: The Heart. To begin at the beginning of the chakra journey, start at the base – the Root, Muladhara.