Princess Magic Girl by Stoner & Co.

Normally when I’m considering how to describe the effects from a strain for these reviews or when talking to customers at the budbar, I try to keep my experience within the confines of the smoking session in which I was taking notes for the purposes of the review itself. Effects can vary with time of day, how hungry you are, what mood you’re in already, who you’re with (if anyone), where you are, what you did last or will be doing next, and so on. But Princess Magic Girl has a particularly important place in my inventory or strains and catalog of reviews, so I’m breaking with my normal strategy.

My first experience with Princess Magic Girl was smoking flower. I had recently been feeling pressured to do a catch-up binge of the first season of Bridgerton. Look, I want to enjoy period pieces and historical dramatizations and so forth, but most just don’t keep my interest. So many feel like the stakes are just too low to maintain my attention, or the characters just don’t resonate with me for some reason.

But I had some new flower to try, so despite the lack of princesses specifically, or magic at all, Bridgerton certainly has plenty of girl in it, and thusly I relented. I packed a standard bowl of roughly ¼ gram of ground flower, got to work, and then tucked in to watch Bridgerton.

The buds were decently sized on average, bright green with light, fuzzy orange hairs. They were dense and somewhat dry to the touch, but had an almost springy gentle fluffiness to their texture. The aroma of the flower itself had light notes of citrus with a very gentle pungent-earthy undertone, with a deep and rich floral base. The smoke was medium-bodied, and the citrus aroma came out in the flavor as well. The earthy tones of the aroma came across as more of an herbal flavor, with a dry spice edge that I feel is reminiscent of old school Kush strains, which perhaps comes from its great-grand-parent AK-47’s own Afghani lineage.

Oh, and I loved Bridgerton, by the way. Still do. Jumped right into Season 2. Can’t wait for Season 3. But all this so far was just the preamble.

There’s a bit more context here that’s important, and this I can assure you is something I will write about more in the future. My oldest, who is in middle school now, had a heart transplant when he was just a few months old. He’s immunosuppressed due to anti-rejection medicine, so as you may be imagining, the last three years (the COVID-19 pandemic, if you’re reading this some time after its posting) have been particularly difficult. The 2020-2021 school year was entirely remote for our family, which also includes my twin daughters who are a little more than two years younger than my son. That would put them all in early elementary school at the time.

I’d like to offer a brief disclaimer: as a former public school and private school educator myself, and for so many other reasons, I have nothing but respect, admiration, and sympathy for teachers. Right now, educators are in the toughest version of their job in decades, and while I needed to get out for my own mental health reasons, I give all teachers – even those who are struggling to adapt to this new pedagogical world – a lot of credit and benefit of the doubt when things are clearly tough in their classrooms and schools.

Fast forward to early Summer 2022. Aside from a single afternoon out for my anniversary the year before, I had not really been out in public for reasons other than work and essential errands, and even then I was masked, socially distanced, and interacted as little with people outside of my immediate bubble as possible. But early in the Summer of ‘22 I found myself out socially in one of those neighborhoods in town that is home to countless breweries, distilleries, and eateries. I chose a very flexible path about this neighborhood, hitting places where I could grab a drink with minimal indoor exposure and maybe grab a snack from one or more of the many food trucks.

Before the COVID pandemic, I’d never experienced a true panic attack. I never liked referring to the things I’d struggled with emotionally as “trauma.” While I’m fully into the cultural realization that mental health is like physical health, and we should be talking about it, addressing it in professional settings, and generally destigmatizing it, I’d never really felt like I personally needed to take a deep dive into my own “trauma.” I felt generally pretty stable. But a couple of times in the last few years – both immediately following the end of masking mandates – I’ve found myself sitting in my car at the supermarket – once having pushed through and completed a weekly grocery shop and once having cut that shop significantly short – watching my heart rate climb and climb on my smartwatch as I tried to steady my hands enough to text various loved ones for help getting home. 

I mention all this because I want to truly emphasize how important the effects of Princess Magic Girl felt that evening out last summer. Normally I like to describe the flavors and aromas and highs of cannabis in long and narrative ways. You may have noticed that this review has gone on and on, but I’m just getting to the good stuff. This post needed a “Jump to Recipe” button. Get to the point! My point is this, instead of “euphoria” or “stoned” or “sleepy” or “chill” or any of the other quick descriptors I use to quickly categorize strains, Princess Magic Girl made me feel fine. And right now, “fine” is pretty great. At work I always preface this comment with my normal disclaimer that “I’m not offering medical advice nor am I making medical claims” but I like to refer to this strain as “my own personal anti-anxiety med.” Sometimes just feeling okay, just feeling fine, just feeling a little bit more like the old normal is exactly what I want or need, and Princess Magic Girl always delivers.

Suggested Media and Activities: Literally anything. If you’re feeling stressed, anxious, or any other elevated emotion that you’d like to bring down a bit, I very highly recommend Princess Magic Girl.

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