THROWING OUT THE DEMONS : : : : OSAJI x SHOGO SEKINE (2023)

Today is Setsubun (‘Division’), a traditional lunar calendar-based festival celebrating the end of the year, the banishing of demons, and the welcoming of the auspicious second half of spring. A prelude to the vernal madness that is the cherry blossom season in Japan – often ravishingly beautiful – I had, bizarrely, until yesterday never properly stopped to think about what any of this less internationally less famous cultural phenomenon actually signified.

Realizing that my ignorance on the subject would make a good topic of conversation for the evening’s lessons (“Today I want you to teach me about Japanese culture! : let’s talk about the main events of February – Setsubun and St Valentine’s Day: there you go, talk about it in pairs for twenty minutes or so and then get back to me” !- something along those lazily unplanned lines I said to get out of having to do too much ) - anyway it worked, and in the process I learned some interesting things from the young horses’ mouths about this curious annual ritual which does still seem to be observed by the vast majority of Japanese families.

On the day itself, I had always seen the special ehomaki sushi rolls on sale everywhere you look, but I had not realized until yesterday that families all literally sit together in that year’s lucky direction (2024’s is east by northeast), in their kitchens or living rooms, all facing the same way, not looking at each other, and munch through the tubular ehomaki, not sliced up and with chopsticks but just as it is, like a burrito. Also, this must all be done in silence. You make a wish, and to speak breaks the spell. Somehow, with all my years of living here, I had never heard of this before. All except one of the students do this, and most then also follow the tradition of then throwing roasted soybeans, which are considered lucky, out of the front door, or else at their father, who will be wearing a demon mask, protecting his face from the hard beans that are being pelted at him gleefully by his children. Chanting “Out with the demons, in with good luck!” it all sounds like a charming family spectacle that they were all quite eager to tell me about (the time did fly): all of us liking the idea that a particularly negative time in your life can be chased away and that you can welcome in a more positive, fresher, new one.

On the way to class I had by coincidence just smelled an interesting new perfume that chimed perfectly with the day’s theme of rebirth and renewal. A collaboration between Osaji – a brand I have written about before (I enjoy the intriguing modern way this enigmatic J-outfit do florals, in particular their pungent Suisen/Narcissus and a more recent frankincense rose ) – and a positivity-toting Japanese graphic designer, Shogo Sekine, who presumably did all the packaging, to my knowledge, this is Osaji’s first overt citrus aromatic – they often deal in shroudier, powdered understatement – and boy, what a zinging yuzu vetiver citrus this collabo turned out to be.

The top notes of all the citruses in the rainbow, blended beautifully together in the opening salvo of Sekine – blindingly crisp, bright and yellow - are described as being mizumizushii by Osaji : vivacious, energetic, youthful, juicy – and indeed they are. Though very modern smelling, it also put me in mind somewhat of the chypric chypres of the past, in particular, the Armani Pour Homme crème après rasage I was addicted to at sixteen, with its creamy yellow lemon-limeness that I instead used as a body perfume under my shirts. With an aromatic lavender/geranium heart, and a slightly coniferous twang deep inside the blend before ceding down to a delightfully green grassy dry vetiver base, this is a perfume I might have to be getting next month, as I found, with a little tester paper slotted into a book I could steal sniffs from between lessons, that it was starting to drill a brand new hole in my want brain (vetiver lovers such as Leko Lin at Noseprose, you might need to try this one)

Sometimes I need a headclearer vibe like this. Just a natural ray of sunlight. The art direction (mainly) works for me as well – there is a ‘I have woken up in the sunny a.m. in an uncharacteristically good mood today and am going to just sit here and damn well enjoy every moment of my morning coffee’ thing happening, an optimism that rings all the way through the scent as well (even if at times I wondered if it were a little too strident, despite the sense that it was addicting me…………? )

Ultimately, though, there was something about the no-nonsenseness of the strict vetiver/citrus directness of this scent that massively appeals ; I find all the classic citrus vetivers like Vetiver Extraordinaire etc etc etc etc hugely overrated (and overpriced): there is a man-in-a-Zegna-suit chemical fuzziness somewhere in the base in those perfumes that always starts irritating me to death at some point (I would much rather wear the keen neroli lumescence of Creed’s Original Vetiver, for example, a perfume which Osaji Sekine also bears some relation to: . I like it sincere; full, but uncluttered). And this perfume even has its own bag, will you please, if you are that keen on it, so as you amble about, whistling while you work to your new, bees-knees-happy pamplemousse vetiver zizanoides, you can also walk around advertising the family of fragrance that you are wearing to all the people sipping their lattes in Tullys and Starbucks (kind of novel – what’s not to like? I even don’t mind the (deliberate?) misspelling of musky ) :

All in all, I have to say that the discovery of this scent fitted in perfectly with what was a pretty good day; and I am sure that henceforth, I will probably always make the setsubun association whenever I smell it.

As the adage here goes, out with the demons, in with good luck.