The beginner's guide to Moonflower Perfume.

Just who is this "Magnolia Vessup" anyways?

Moonflowers are the wonderful antithesis of morning glories. Ipomoea alba is a sprawling vine with heart-shaped leaves and large flowers that unfurl in the evening and are spent by the morning. Moonflowers thrive in the warmth of summer and attract nocturnal pollinators like sphinx moths or maybe even a bat if you’re lucky. We all know that the moon reflects the light of the sun and flowers typically open up for the day. But consider the moonflower—it takes the sun’s energy all day long and turns it into a pure white bloom the size of a dessert plate. A bloom that glows in the night, reflecting the moon’s sunlight and emitting the most delicate scent you will ever experience. You might not even catch its sweetness unless you stop and get close enough to really appreciate all the facets of this unbelievable beauty.

I have always loved moonflowers. My grandmother grew them on the sunny side of her house and we would go out after dinner to watch the blooms unfurl in the slight, warm breeze of a summer evening in North Georgia. She was excited at each and every one—regardless of how many hundred she had seen before. “Look!” she would exclaim, “It’s shaking now and it is gonna open up any second!” Each one was a magical manifestation of Mother Nature’s imagination. Each to be celebrated. My grandmother gifted me with this: the act of stopping, even if just for a moment, to appreciate the wonderful natural things you get to experience with this life. She was smart and wise and the love she emanated made her incredibly beautiful. I can’t even remember her without a smile on her face and kindness in her eyes. I grow moonflowers every year because of her.

The perfume of a moonflower draws you in closer. Believe me, if you catch a whiff you will want to inhale it deeply. It’s complex and defies description. It’s of this Earth, yet completely otherworldly. It will remind you of a gardenia, a frangipani, ylang-ylang, magnolia, perhaps honeysuckle…but then there’s a note of cinnamon or clove or is it vanilla? You’ll want to drink it in, understand it—but then it’s carried off by the slight current of warm air rising up from the ground. You get the sense that there’s part of it that you can’t perceive—like so much in nature where we’re not the intended audience. It’s ephemeral and fleeting. If you don’t pause, you’ll miss it.

So that’s why this blog is called Moonflower Perfume. I’m excited to share this journey with you! Maybe it’s an existential topic, maybe it’s something I just learned, maybe it’s just a fantastic story…it’s what I’m thinking or experiencing and I’m going to write about it and I hope you enjoy my perspective and I hope you join in the discussion! My brand is called Magnolia Vessup because I love magnolias with a passion. I love everything about magnolia trees. Fun fact: I met one of my best lifelong friends while peeing under the leafy branches of a frat-house outdoor-potty magnolia. I get a contact high from the pungent aroma of a tree full of magnolia blooms—if there’s wisteria blooming nearby, well that’s damn near perfection. Vessup is the beach below our house when we lived on St. Thomas. I loved living in that house and the view is part of me. It’s my happy place when things are shitty and I need to sit quietly and close my eyes, count my breaths, and find my center and my calm.