Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab released their annual smutty smorgasbord of Lupercalia and Shunga scents back in February, but no worries if you haven’t yet greedily grabbed a handful of this year’s shamelessly salacious scents! According to the folks at BPAL, “due to the current rippling of global infrastructure,” these prurient perfume oils, hedonistic hair glosses, bawdy bath oils, and amatory atmosphere sprays will remain live, indefinitely, on the site for purchase–as stock permits–instead of being taken down on the previously announced dates.
I have been taking my time with them, as you might imagine. I guess we’ve all got more time than we might have originally planned for right now. I try to keep busy. I stick to a routine and I do all of the things I normally do. I already work from home. I’m a homebody, even in the best of times. But that doesn’t stop the world from feeling off-kilter and scary to me, and to be honest, all of this pretending at normalcy has left me with the worst feeling, like making snow angels in my future chalk outline. Some days it’s paralyzing. I bet you feel the same on some of those days, too.
What has helped me, even for a few minutes every day, is a sniff of a smell. I have been doling out these Lupercalia scents one per morning, with five minutes where I just sit quietly and write about whatever I think I am smelling. No matter how maudlin or ridiculous, or trite or outlandish. No feelings or thoughts, or sensations are off-limits! Setting aside this sniff time over the past few weeks has provided me with a small but much-needed aromatic oasis in the midst of days that feel uncertain, uneasy, and unprecedented.
Green Lovebird (vanilla mint, spun sugar, and pistachio) This smells so familiar. The vanilla-mint combination contributes a sort of… shifty/shady 80s cartoon villainess-type vibe? I feel like if the Baroness, Evil-Lyn, and Pizzaz were at tea together, deviously munching sweetly iced petit-fours, this is the sly, scheming, miasma that would emanate from the cackling chambers of that tea-room.
Belgian Chocolate, Black Pepper, Whiskey, and Bourbon Vanilla is surprisingly wearable; and after the individual notes of creamy chocolate, peppery-floral heat and boozy whiskey-vanilla announce themselves, they blend seamlessly into a scent that somehow smells like none of the above, but rather just a mild, but wonderfully cozy perfumed-skin scent.
Elizabeth of Bohemia (the perfect rose oude) ROSE WITCH QUEEN. A rose that is both dark and bright and smells like a tragic Hans Christian Andersen fairytale that has been illustrated by the unhinged black and white gorgeousness of Harry Clarke.
Spectral Lovers Entertaining the King of Hell Home & Linen Spray (lily of the valley, white gardenia, cherry blossoms, and black pepper) I am never certain what I am meant to be smelling when it comes to lily of the valley; to my nose, it is a soft, sorrowful, delicate sort of floral. As if you could milk jasmine of its tears for the purpose of keeping the pale, aromatic droplets at hand for some sort of doleful spellwork. Pairing it with the efflorescent piquancy of black pepper is a fair bit of genius and as a room spray, it’s a fragrance that’s pretty without being cloying and lively without being obnoxious.
Beach Scene (driftwood, white patchouli, sea salt, and kelp) I grew up living close to a beach, and while I truly love the sea, the trashy delights offered up by Daytona Beach (our new motto: WIDE OPEN FUN. Good lord.) do not contribute to my platonic ideal of The Beach. I want jagged cliffs and icy waves and widows walks and the ghost of a lighthouse keeper. I want wild gorse and heather and selkies. I want monstrous scarlet lobsters with googly eyes bobbing at the end of 12-inch stalks! I know I am probably confusing the geographical landscapes of Maine and Cornwall, and I also don’t have a clear grasp on lobster anatomy, but these are the beaches that have long haunted my imagination. Beach Scene smells like this eerie mash-up of chill winds, salt spray, migratory shorebirds, and vegetative cover like witchgrass and beach-pea… which have never seen, let alone smelled…but I could be right?
Michiyuki Koi No Futusao (green tea, oakmoss, and star anise) The sage and coral hues of the couple’s robes on the label’s artwork are mirrored in the dusty, honeyed citrus/earthy-green tropical-watery cucumberyness of the scent.
The Sun Is Rising (Tunisian amber, French beeswax, jasmine grandiflorum, golden peppercorn, myrrh smoke, and neroli) Beautiful and understated and utterly intoxicating all the same; jasmine, soothed and quieted, its piercing sweetness hypnotized by soft hands of beeswax and spectral smoke.
Alleviate the Frenzy Hair Gloss (heady peach musk aglow with sugared amber) (TW) Peaches, man. I don’t like to eat them and typically I don’t like to smell them and quite frankly I don’t even care to look at them– and we can blame this, I suppose, on the preponderance of slick, syrupy Del Monte canned peaches I was served for “dessert” as a plump youngster by a mother concerned about diets. Alleviate the Frenzy has presented me with a flummox of a peach, and it’s got me in quite a state. It’s a slightly sweet and toasted bit of warm, tilted at odd angles with a wonderful sour musk, and it recalls for me Letter 8 in a collection of bizarre correspondence by the hand of surrealist art-witch Remedios Varo. The author has sent a missive to an unidentified scientist with regard to dissolving the skin of a peach, but through the circumstance of a cat’s meow and the mishap of a stranger’s miscast shadow, she has instead dissolved a hole in the atmosphere. This peach presents a shifting cipher whose charms I would very much like to mail a stranger about.
Body, Remember (raw black coconut, ambergris accord, ambrette seed, champaca flower, and sugar cane) a trembling sigh of coconut on a brown-sugar lollipop breeze.
Ooyogari No Koe Home & Linen Spray (aloe, bamboo reeds, ti leaf, lemon peel, eucalyptus leaf, and sea salt) I really hate to use the word “fresh.” I hate the actual word “fresh” and all of the clean, minty, youthfulness that it implies. Give me stinky and skanky and musty and shabby, and old, any day. But I’ll say it: with its woody-green bamboo, lemony clean cotton vibe, Ooyogari No Koe does smell, well, kinda fresh. Overwhelmingly so. This is a potent scent that I can smell in a room 24 hours later. And I love it. This is perfect and beautiful and my ideal guest bedroom scent. Then again, I’d really love to festoon the walls of my guest room with Louis Wain art and Clive Barker quotes graffitied on the walls…so maybe you can’t trust my sense of home decor or hospitality.
Snake’s Kiss (Snake Oil with sugar, honeycomb, and thick vanilla cream) While I do love Snake Oil sugary vanilla resins with all my heart–it is, after all, the first BPAL scent that I fell in love with!–even I can admit, well, it’s …a lot. Snake Oil is intense; it’s as if you took your most favorite thing, dialed it up to awesome and then broke the knob off. You love it, but it’s a lot to handle all at once, let alone for a sustained length of time. Snake’s Kiss is as if you get to enjoy your favorite thing from …across the room, or even more apt, from across time. The memory of your favorite thing. Your favorite thing as seen (or sniffed) through rose-tinted glasses. Snake’s Kiss is Snake Oil on the collar of your cotton pajamas two days from now.
A Vision of the Courtesan (tobacco leaf, rice milk, and frankincense) This walks the line between a foody/oriental fragrance but it never quite seems to inch even a toe in either direction. Imagine a monastic incense of horchata and cherry tobacco; the hands of the monks who labor over its creation are spiced with its very essence and they sleep in tranquil clouds of the stuff as their skin exudes the scent during slumber.
Tengu Demon Using His Nose As A Phallus (red musk, black pepper, Mysore sandalwood, ambrette seed, and smoke) A sharp-toothed, fiendish breath of dry, peppery musks and creamy woods, shifting and whirling through smoke and ash.
Dark Chocolate & Dried Red Fruits An intensely chocolatey chocolate cookie, something with a bit of a crisp and a crunch and a crumble; that’s dry and not too sweet; it’s less wafery and more biscotti-y, and perfect for dunking in midnight coffee. Did I mention it is studded with chocolate-covered blueberries? Or maybe the coffee has hints of blueberry mocha notes. I don’t think I am actually getting any coffee from this scent, but now I want a big steaming mug of it.
Champagne and Maraschino Cherries This is a vivid scent, that, once applied, you can nearly see it. Lurid day-glow red, almondy/syrupy cherries floating in a bit of soda-type fizz…totally reminiscent of my favorite Shirley Temple drink at Red Lobster when I was a little girl. Except there’s something a bit spring floral about it, too. Instead of finding this drink in my small midwestern town’s only seafood restaurant, I stumbled into a fairy circle…and somehow still wasn’t allowed a grown-up drink… and I was offered a Shirley Temple Flower Maiden instead.
Wild Cherry Chypre and Smoky Patchouli Hair Gloss This is such a fun, earthy, rooty take on cherries! A pulpy, juicy, bitter-sweet cherry jam atop a mud pie, decorated with dried oak bark shavings and autumn leaves.
Weenie time, weenie time! It’s Weenie time at Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab! I think I can skip the preamble this year and get right into it. I mean, I could very well wax poetic about my love of autumn leaves and long, dark nights and bloody harvest moons and spooky Halloween feels, but I’m pretty sure you all love those things, too, just as much as I do! I am preaching to the choir with that sort of talk, you know? I don’t need to convince you.
Below are my “tasting notes,” if you will, on several greedy handfuls of this year’s Weenies: my initial thoughts, impressions, and reflections; the imagery and memories and stories and dreams that each scent immediately evokes. These notes comprise the raw material, which eventually gets incorporated into what I hope are thoughtful and cogent reviews. Think of them as “behind the scenes” (“behind the scents”?) peeks and insights, I guess! Some of them are more fully fleshed out than others and some, I’ll confess, don’t entirely make a lot of sense. Sometimes in the potent grip of a particular sniff, I’ll practice what I might chalk up to a bit of automatic writing and channel the spirit of the scent, the results of which I then reason with and wrangle into proper words fit for human eyes. Here today I have left them in their original, reflexive, stream-of-consciousness state.
Before I get into it, I will share one last thing: I am over the moon excited that I had the opportunity to sniff some of the lab’s Dracula: Order Of The Dragon collection (with amazing label art by Abigail Larson!) I have savored Bram Stoker’s classic vampire story on countless occasions in the course of my lifetime and I plan to do so again and again as far into the future as I am able. There is no tale quite so thrilling for me as Dracula, and of all my beloved stories, it is the one that has eternally snared the deepest, rarest love of my heart. This is the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab collection I have been waiting for, since, well, forever and I feel very fortunate to share some of my thoughts on it with you today.
So…let me know what you think about this format! Actually, now that I look it over, it kinda looks… the same as the other BPAL reviews I write. Huh. How did that happen?? Well, I await and appreciate your feedback, all the same. And please do let us know if you have any favorites from this year’s Weenie collection! If you have questions about a particular scent that I did not mention below, leave a comment, and I’ll see if I can’t come up with an on-the-fly review for you.
And, also, wow…my preamble-less intro was a lie. Read on for the good stuff!
Les Heures de la Nuit (blackcurrant musk, white lime, and sparkling white cognac) Mimosa icing sugar frosting a tea cake? Cold black tea sweetened with a citrus blossom sugar?
Songs of Autumn I (sometime before: rain-damp grass and white sage) a herbaceous, purifying scent; hand made soap and icy, clear water.
Songs of Autumn III (dust and tumbleweeds, dry sage and chaparral, cactus nectar, and cinders) The scent of the absence of a thing; a melancholy, echoing pocket of once-was in a space where a thing was just-there. A faintly sweet, and slightly sad slip of void.
Songs of Autumn V (dry maple leaves, blackcurrant juice, patchouli root, and bourbon) It’s the sort of earthy-foresty-berried brew that a wood-witch keeps in a flask at their side for the revivification of lost souls and a nip for themselves on bone-cold nights. It’s probably about 51% ABV. I wish POM Wonderful made a version of it.
Dusk in Autumn(black tea, currant cake, mandrake root, a whirl of dried leaves, and hearthsmoke) Sara Teasdale made perfectly fragrant (I feel like the sweet comforts of her wonderful poetry were made expressly for this!) Dusky, musty, sweet autumn vegetation; the ancestral memory of smoke twisting up into a starry sky.
The Shadowed Veil (black pumpkin, leather, pomegranate incense, agarwood, and bourbon patchouli) a browned butter cake topped with autumn leaves and smoky icing sugar, served by the misty hands of by a solemn ghost; a widows (cake) walk.
Are You Digging on my Grave (snuggly musk, milky puppy breath, upturned earth, and a gently-gnawed bone) I was previously unaware of this poem, and the imagery plus the wonderfully pupper-centric scent notes make my heart sigh weepily. Dabbed on the wrist the fragrance conjures November-chilled cemetery gates, a frigid wind biting through woolen mittens, and an afternoon treat–a softly crumbling scone perhaps, wrapped in a clean cotton handkerchief, and stuffed deep into coat pockets for nibbling over forgotten gravestones.
The Empty House (black oud, woodsmoke, mahogany, pine pitch, and blackened pumpkin) the most delicious pine-log campfire coffeecake, enjoyed post-Wendigo escape.
Fall Leaves, Fall (starry musk melting into blackcurrant, black oudh, black roses, and blood-red maple leaves) this smells the way the phrase “a murmuration of starlings” feels on the tongue; spectral silhouettes fluttering behind closed eyelids in a cinematic sort of way.
Mictecacihuatl (copal, precious woods, South American spices, agave nectar, cigar tobacco, and roses) An intricately carved wooden tray with offerings of dried roses and fresh apricots, dusted with cocoa and cracked pink peppercorn.
The Listeners (mist-pale lilac, orris root, bruised violets, mugwort, white amber, yuzu, white champa, and white musk) Intensely aromatic dry, bitter citrus mingles with paraffin wax and fresh-cut, almost savory green capsicum for an oddly enjoyable scent that somehow smells exactly like the aggressively weird label art would have you believe it smells.
Pistachio Pumpkin Truffle an immediate deep saltiness, bordering on savory toastiness, followed by a wild, animalic chocolate. Like if cacao pods had scent glands.
Cozy Pumpkin Sweater (a dribble of pumpkin spice spilled onto a fluffy orange angora sweater) Ok so imagine that demented cashmere sweater scene from Lord Love A Duck but transplant it into the eternal autumn of the Sabrina universe. Pumpkin spices and that enchanted inch or so of knitted or woven fabric along your cardigan collar that even when removed at the end of the day, retains the warmth of your skin and the phantom perfume of your favorite shampoo.
Cardamom Cream Pumpkin Cake Cardamom is one of my favorite kitchen spices and, I think, one of the most unique scents and flavors that I’ve ever encountered. Woody, incense-y, soapy (is this just me?) and wonderfully aromatic–I add it to every “spiced” baked good I make, whether or not the recipe calls for it. In this instance, it makes for a warm, delicious fragrance, with milky-sweet aspects and a “fresh out of the oven” vibe.
Pumpkin Mead And Honey Cakes quintessential carmelized carbohydrates; the platonic ideal of a dense sticky, brown bread
Apple Butter Rum A fresh stick of butter, and a basket of fresh-picked apples. Later, these notes will come together in a cast-iron skillet and carmelize with sweet spices and a liberal spike of Kraken rum, but fresh out of the bottle, those two elements, the creamy dairy and the crisp fruit flesh, are so incredibly vivid and present and magically distinct from one another.
Miskatonic University Pumpkin PatchLILY–>GILDED Everything you love about the Irish coffee, dusty tomes, and polished oakwood of the original Misk U scent, added as an extra shot to a grande PSL. Somehow this really does call to mind a campus coffee shop for me (I went to a community college which I am pretty sure had no coffee shop, but I’ve got a good imagination.)
Devil’s Night In The Pumpkin Patch (a flaming pile of pumpkin guts, booze, and sweaty dark musk) A leathery dark musk, and the vegetal funk of clingy-stringy seasonal gourd innards. A crazy skeleton on a lurid horror paperback cover smells like this. Maybe this guy.
Popcorn Ball Snake Oil Popcorn is my favorite food. I could eat it for every meal. And while there are many “foodie” scents I don’t think I’d like to smell of, popcorn gets a pass. Hell yeah, I’ll smell like popcorn! This is the hot-toasty-salty-buttery-corniness of movie theatre popcorn, bound stickily with that sugary-resinous Snake Oil, which gives it a complexity and depth that you wouldn’t get with your run-of-the-mill, plain old popcorn perfume (because … there’s so many of them out there?)
Pumpkin Spice Snake Oil Here’s my Downeast Maine pumpkin bread again! But imagine if you substitute Snake Oil for the cooking oil (which I already swapped for olive oil) and the result is a sugared-vanilla incense-xxxspicy loaf (because I use at least three times as much cinnamon, too.)
Lollipop Snake Oil Effervescent, grapefruity-limey Fresca + a watermelon Dum Dum!
Carotene (sunset orange, a marigold-bright throb of light: sweet amber, ginger root, apricot, patchouli, red mandarin, chrysanthemum, and yam) if carrots smelled more like tangerines–fresh, citrusy, a little waxy; if tangerines grew up from the rooty earth rather than hung down from high, sunny branches.
Chlorophyll (dew-dotted grass, tea leaf, and sun-warmed herbs) Oddly enough, this smelled like a matcha custard bun when I sniffed it straight out of the bottle! On the wrist though, it is a riot of vibrant greens, from fresh tomato leaf to sharp ivy to sweet marjoram.
Anthocyanin (red musk, mandrake root, patchouli, pimento, saffron, red oudh, clove, and basil) Fall air rich with decaying leaves and cider-y scents and gorgeous spice and incense-saturated veils billowing in a sun-warmed October afternoon’s breeze. Like… if your very favorite head-shop had a stall at your favorite autumnal renaissance fair. This is basically the best of all worlds.
Dead Leaves, Nutmeg, Sweet Vetiver and Virginia Cedar I don’t normally love nutmeg, but this is such a sweet, simple, wholesome combination that now I want to start putting nutmeg and cedar shavings in my morning porridge. I also want to be the kind of person who eats porridge.
Dead Leaves And Chai Really lovely, reminds me of the enchantment of autumns in NJ. A sweet-tempered spiciness mingled with those manky, musty, softly rotting vegetal dead leaves–this is such a great combination. It conjures the memory of an evening stroll I took over a decade ago, on Halloween night. Without the slightest hint of a breeze, a whirlwind of crushed and broken leaves rose up from the sidewalk to swirl around my head. One smacked me in the face so hard it felt like someone punched me. It was weird and exhilarating.
Dead Leaves, Moss, And Mushrooms if there was ever a better argument for “more is more,” I don’t know what that could possibly be. My favorite “Dead Leaves” scents have thus far been those signature dead leaves plus some unexpectedly bright or springy floral pairing…but as it turns out, the very best one is comprised of a “like + like” formula. This one smells as if you had swept your favorite mug across an autumn flotsam of forest floor and brewed up in boiling rainwater all the sylvan sweepings you had gathered. Best served warm and cozy in tiny acorn cups, to ring of sleepy woodland creatures. If you love fall but you don’t love pumpkin, maple, or apple scents, I think you are really going to fall for this one. Pun intended–I always intend my puns.
The Country Gets Wilder As We Go (a snow-capped, untamed maze of fir, poplar, and oak. Ghostly beech reaching skeletal arms into the ink-black sky.) Sweet, peaceful mountain flowers.
The Meaner Things (thundercrack of ozone and moist, salty fog. A flap of leathery wings, a cluster of bark-brown feathers, and skittering, chattering black musk) A wolf in mermaid’s clothing; a subtly sweet aquatic for people who think they don’t like aquatics. Beautiful.
Wax Cylinders (polished mahogany, soft leather, and gold-molded wax) soft swirls of waxen, creamy, chewy, golden confections;
Death’s Head Moth (dusty brown sandalwood, nagarmotha, brown oudh, clove husk, white patchouli, black pepper, vetiver, green cumin, and ash.) Hand-made lace, only a little moth-eaten and musty, that has retained the gentle perfume of its owner –a combination of warm skin, fine-milled soap, and sweet, cooling herbs– a century later. This is an understated and sublimely beautiful scent. *I believe “nagarmotha” is a kind of cypress*
The Empty Coffin (dead roses, oud blanc, and white sandalwood) at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, this is the creepiest thing I have ever smelled. If you have ever sat, alone, in a funeral home and sniffed at the sterile atmosphere and softly rotting blooms, almost certain that your nose could eke out the decaying flesh and embalming fluid and grief and loss and heartbreak and terrifying dread of your own mortality, underneath it all. Well, then. I challenge you to dribble a bit of this on your wrist and try to read Dracula without going a little bit insane. (Edited to add: this dries down to an eerily beautiful rose.)
Flesh of my Flesh (deep crimson musk threaded with mesmerizing Tunisian amber, voluptuous champaca blossom, vanilla absolute, labdanum, bitter almond, and black orchid) This is a wildly hypnotic, narcotic scent; a feral floral with a hint of musk and talc.
Come, Sister (icy musk draped in osmanthus and white gardenia, a whisper of ti leaf and orchid, crystalline amber, and incense smoke) A chilly scent-scape of misty wheeling figures and transparent gloom, of intolerable laughter in sweet, tingling tones; the low voice in a dream that befools, and leads you from one nightmare to the next, promising weak light and wakefulness. A fragrance of lightly falling snow and beguiling madness.
The Sleeping Draught (a haze of lavender and black oudh, laudanum accord, and opium tar) first: sharp, somewhat camphoraceous lavender steam; later, a dark, sticky, honeyed sweetness, like opium manufacturers jumped on the cbd gummies trend. Ye olde-time sugar-dusted opium gumdrops.
The Sun Rises To-day ( blue lilac and violet leaf, white musk and eucalyptus, carrot seed and ti leaf.) Fruity amber, a lavender + violet tonic, lemony green tea.
The Blood Is The Life (blood trickling through thick, dark myrrh and a rivulet of unholy, desecrated sacramental wine) This is the deepest, richest, reddest, most indecent goblet of spiced wine.
Kisses for us All (red roses and honey, a throb of red musk, bitter neroli and clove husk all staining a slash of sheet-white vanilla sandalwood) Out of the bottle, this is very similar to the deep claret of The Blood Is The Life, but it shortly differentiates itself as jammier, stickier, and more floral in the way that sometimes tuberose smells to me like grape jellies.
The Embodiment of Funeral Gloom (a shroud of black agarwood, cypress, myrrh, and upturned earth, scattered with crushed lavender and creeping with moss-smothered stone) This is an uncanny creation and smells exactly like this passage: “Never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funeral gloom.” I mean, that’s always the point, I’m sure, to have your work match up with your vision, but dang they nailed this and if you want whispering shrouds and grave tombs and misty clouds and ominous doom, you have come to the right place.
Lucy’s Eyes (a pulsing infernal amber, shot through with lilac-blue, bloodshot and blazing) Lilac and amber really is a strange and sinister combination! Miky green leaves, dewy and fresh, incased eternally in a glowing amber shrine. The amber lends a perversely sweet note to the potion, a sort of “evil Play-Doh” vibe. If Lucy rose out of her coffin and filmed a relaxing slime ASMR compilation for her YouTube channel, the shimmering ooze would smell like this.
The Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Halloween 2019collection of perfumes, hair glosses, and atmosphere sprays are currently live and available for purchase. As this is a limited edition series, sample sizes imps are not available for Weenie 2019.
A few years ago, at the request of Sam over at Haute Macabre, I wrote up a little primer/course guide for folks who were looking to dip their toes (or dive straight into) the mythical, mystical, magical catalog of fragrance oils offered by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.
Shortly afterward, I came on board as a staff writer and have written all kinds of stuff about all kinds of things for the Haute Macabre blog since that time, but this week they are again sharing that BPAL guide for curious newcomers to the brand–along with a giveaway of some of my favorite scents that I give mention to!
[GIVEAWAY CLOSED! A WINNER IS CHOSEN! CONGRATS SUSAN, CHECK YR EMAIL!]
After a ruthless bout of Swedish Death Cleaning, this morning while I had time on my hands after rescheduling my counseling appointment due to some bad crab last night (why have you betrayed me, crab legs? I love you so!) I have whittled my unruly collection of fragrance samples down to about twenty five.
What to do with the other hundreds? Would you like them? There are lots and lots of of lovely niche and indie scents in here, manufacturers samples, and samples from places like Lucky Scent, and Twisted Lily, and decants from Surrender To Chance and The Perfumed Court, and probably only a tiny amount of boring Sephora perfume sprayers, which I feel I need to point out, because who really wants those? Fuck off, Marc Jacobs Daisy! Well, there are a few of those, too. There are also some vials and tiny bottles that were given to me by this friend or that, who gave me samples from their own collection, or perhaps passed something on that didn’t work for them. Maybe they will work for you? There are so many fragrances here to sniff and sample and fall in love with, or pass on!
If you’d like this GLAD bag full o’ samples*, and whatever else I’ve got lying around that I might throw in a box for you, leave a comment below and tell me something interesting. Could be something you learned, could be a piece of news, it could be something about yourself–whatever! I’m spending a lot of time on the toilet today and need some interesting links to click! I will choose a winner on Monday morning!
It probably doesn’t need to be said, but these are vials and sprayers and bottles that I have sampled, myself; some are completely full, some might be halfway full, some might only have a drop or two left. If you’re weirded out by free stuff that someone else has used, well, now you are forewarned!
*Friends outside the U.S. I love you dearly, but I really don’t want to pay for that kind of shipping or deal with the hassle, so this little giveaway is for in-country only.
I know in many places you’re getting snow and blizzards but closer to the equator, we’re just starting to experience autumn’s chill. A perfect time to review Solstice Scents Fall 2018 collection! Peek over at Haute Macabre today for my thoughts on a handful of these seasonal fragrances, and leave a comment on the blog post to enter to win a FULL SIZE Bottle of one of the scents!
Next up in our reviews of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s archetypal adventure and tarot-inspired collection: The Emperor, at Haute Macabre today. It’s a bit of a last call, as well, for The Emperor’s stern countenance is only gracing the lab until 11/26/18 before he and his beard and the rams he rode in on rides off into the sunset!
It’s the most WEENderful time of the year! Yes, here I am with my corny weenie jokes, again. I’m not going anywhere with this comedy gold–and neither should you! Because aside from my dumb wit, I’ve got a massive review post for you today for a vast selection of the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab 2018 annual autumn/Halloween scents.
Once again, the skies have darkened, and summer’s last bright green leaf has turned, and the folks at The Lab this year have truly outdone themselves by exploring strange new depths in diablerie, as well as perfumerie. In addition to many classic treats, they’ve got a spooky Chaos Theory, a timely Edgar Allan Poe tale storyboarded in scent, and a ribald new series of blends inspired by goats in classical art.
I have dripped, and I have dabbled; I have splashed, and I have smeared–and now that I am a dead leaf, maple ghost, pumpkin blood, hag-scented nightmare, I am ready to share my thoughts with you on the stand-out scents from this year’s autumnal BPAL autumn lineup!
Samhainophobia (menacing Haitian vetiver, patchouli, and clove with a shock of bourbon geranium, grim oakmoss, and dread-inspiring balsams pierce the innocuous scent of autumn leaves) Does this smell like a diagnosable condition, an unrelenting escalation of anxiety and even terror, about things related to Halloween? No, it smells like grinding against David S. Pumpkins under black lights in a stranger’s basement while listening to Peter Steele during a sexy murder party, and I am INTO IT.
Pumpkin Musk and Black Oudh A “strangely romantic, disturbingly erotic” perfume; If you’re intrigued by Samhainophobia’s sex appeal but you’re feeling a little trepidation because you’re just “not that kind of pumpkin”, you could consider Pumpkin Musk and Black Oud to be its shy wingman of sorts: a rich oudh buffed and rounded by gentle musks–its attentions softer, sweeter, and utterly sincere. This is a scent that just wants to retreat to a quiet corner and hold your hand and learn all your deepest secrets and take you out for pumpkin pancakes in the morning.
Midnight Bonfire (night-blooming jasmine, smoldering maple leaves, a cluster of patchouli and blackened ti leaf, black sage, and pinewood smoke) Lighting the path between worlds, the beacon at the threshold; leathery autumn leaves and smoke-tinged hair, an unsettling souvenir of the embers and ashes from a towering blaze in what you believed to be a dream, encircled by shadowy celebrants of the midnight hour.
Ghost Music (sheets of white musk and lavender curling around a melancholy song of violet root, iris, neroli, and honeysuckle) One of the eeriest things I have ever smelled, and, ghostly indeed–in the sense that is a nebulous manifestation: there one moment, gone the next. A visitation by something that was never there. A tremulous puff of ozone, laced with the spirit of lavender and the memory of violets.
Yipe (sweet bloody black cherry cream and crushed dried blackberries) This is one of those scents that most definitely pushes me out of my comfort zone, but I am happy to report that this smells exactly like one of those delicious cherry danishes that are shrink wrapped in crinkly plastic and stacked in a basket at your morning meeting, where all of these C-level corporate dildos are spouting gibberish about holistically evolving vortals, and robust synergies in the cloudification of benchmarks, or how to objectively synthesize high-payoff human capital. You just bite into your pre-packaged cherry danish, discreetly lick the glaze from your fingers, suck the crumbs from your hair, and think to yourself, “wow, this danish is the best thing that will happen to me all day.”
Inside the Golden Amber of Her Eyeballs (sleek black fur and gleaming amber shining in the shadows, a rumble of myrrh, and claws as sharp as ti leaf.) A massively fruity amber. I wanted to love this one more than all of the Weenies put together (if solely because of the marvelous label art, and the accompanying poem), but alas, on me, this smells less of sweet, furry feline companions, and more like the mixed berry yogurt/gummy bear-scented version of them.
Pumpkin Dust (shavings of white pumpkin rind and honey powder) Desiccated dumplings flavored with pumpkin puree and autumn wildflower honey, crumbled to dust and scattered to the October winds.
Feeding the Dead (a barrel of beer, a pyramid of cakes, and three sticks of incense.) This is an awfully lovely chocolate scent for a fragrance that contains no chocolate notes. It’s not necessarily boozy, but definitely malty, with nuances of popcorn and darkness. Incidentally, “Popcorn and Darkness” is also my Midwestern death metal/campy horror movie parody band.
The Hag (black musk, bay leaves, galangal, bourbon vetiver, blackcurrant, and rum) is a wonderfully aromatic scent, that of dust-darkened, woodsy bramble berries, and the zing of black pepper and pine needles.
Scarecrow Turned Philosopher (corn husks waving on an autumn breeze, beams of amber sunlight, hay bales, and late summer wildflowers) A peppery, honied flurry of dried blossoms whirling across your path like so many fiery autumn leaves. A stray petal, smelling of the dream of nectar and summer’s golden pollen, briefly tickles your nostrils before it lightly lands on the surface of a drying puddle and, floats undisturbed, alongside the sodden remnants of a waxen candy wrapper.
Huesos de Santo (orange-glazed cake, dotted with anise seed, and filled with custard, set beside a bouquet of celebratory funeral flowers) A wonderfully rich, but perfectly balanced pound cake–not too buttery, not too sweet–with a dense vanilla crumb, packed with a creamy custard center and anointed with the barest drizzle of orange syrup. The florals are sheer, anonymous blooms and the anise (for those with concerns re: its medicinal bite) is, at least for me, baked so well into this cake as to be nonexistent.
Jupiter Nourished by the Goat Amalthea (goat’s milk, nectar, ambrosia, and honey) Imagine the perfumed components of this scent burnt as a sacrificial offering, and you will glean an understanding of how this opens, initially. Goat’s milk and honey, purified by fire, with only a scant scattering of ashes to indicate it ever existed. Pause. Rewind. See how it began its life as a milky cold foam latte, whipped to a frothy fluff, drizzled with golden bee butt-juice (how many different ways can you say honey, anyway? I’m giving “bee butt juice” a go to see if it catches on.)
Beloved combinations from the Pomegranate Grove: Promegranate Grove: Snake Oil Is a scent that I know lots of folks are dying to hear about, and I wish I had more insight for you, but it’s a very subtle fragrance (which is weird because Pomegranate is always so loud on me, and Snake Oil can be very intense!) The pomegranate is fleeting, sort of like a beaded curtain made of sweet-tart candies, through which the sugared vanilla of Snake Oil surreptitiously peeks its head and disappears. It’s okay, Snake Oil, we love you! Come hang out for a while! I might almost recommend this to someone in search of “Snake Oil lite”. Though I love Snake Oil, I think Pomegranate Grove: Embalming Fluid is more my speed; the dark fruit mingles with the green tea, aloe, and lemon to create a lightly musky spritzer that is wonderfully wearable and absolutely divine. As in, were I serving cocktails to goddesses, I might base them on this scent. Maybe not Persephone. That would be a little gauche. If you are a sweet + fruity scent lover, then Pomegranate Grove: Alice may be your jam, so to speak. To be specific, a dollop of ripe, jammy preserves spooned over a bowl of honey-sweetened cream and sprinkled with a generous handful of red rose petals.
Dead Leaves And Maple Sap Opens with a brief blast of those dead leaves, that damp, slightly sour and musty vegetal scent, but is quickly engulfed by the most glorious treacly, sticky ooze of dark amber maple syrup. After a moment, it’s apparent that the leaves are quietly rustling in the background, calming that maple sap screechy sweetness and providing a wonderful earthy balance to what otherwise might be too cloying, and not nearly as huff-able as it truly is. This is a perfect Dead Leaves scent.
Dead Leaves, Green Cognac, Iris, and White Leather This is a cool, powdery, rooty incense; unlit, and nestled on a small metal dish, it gives the impression of linens dampened with a spritz of violet water.
Dead Leaves, Sweet Myrrh, Leather, Green Pomelo, and Red Currant zooms right out of the gate with zingy, almost effervescent, bittersweet citrus peel, and softly dries to a light, lemony resin. Hours later it’s slightly reminiscent of a classic eau de cologne…but created from a base of sunshiney shards of crushed lemon candies.
Dead Leaves, Apricot, Ambergris And Tobacco I was expecting an overripe fruit bowl of a scent, but this is a lightly sweet/sour, apricot/lychee scent, ginger-tinged, with a core of salty musk. It’s very pretty, and don’t get any manky, dead leaves from this at all!
Dead Leaves and Warm Sugar Cookies I thought Dead Leaves And Maple Sap was my favorite until I tried this variant. Every leaf tells a story, and this is the story of the time you sat on that park bench in the center of town on a drizzly October evening, half-drowned leaves at your feet, dripping foliage just overhead, and you in between them both, desperately trying to keep your oversized, fresh-from-the- oven, vanilla bean-flecked, caramel-edged browned butter and brown sugar cookie warm. There’s probably more to this story, but do you care? You’ve got an amazing cookie. The End.
If you’ve never read the story, now is the time to slip on a pair of headphones, darken your chambers, dream of delirious fancies, and, “much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.”
Should you require voluptuous olfactory companions (yes, you should!) for this magnificent auditory hallucination, I have shared fleeting impressions of several favorite fragrances from The Masque Of The Red Death collection, below.
A Multitude of Dreams is the wanton, bizarre lavender + licorice pairing you never knew you needed; All Is Silent Save The Voice Of The Clock gorgeously swells and swaggers with merrily burbling pink pepper, writhing, sultry jasmine and velvety red musk; The Scarlet Horror, listing only notes of blood musk and vetiver is a chilling, yet utterly intoxicating blend that conjures visions of nag champa-saturated grave wrappings; The Tastes Of The Duke Were Peculiar, a lustrous, luminous intoxicant, an exquisitely wicked delicacy, all bitter wormwood, glittering lime-soaked sugar cubes, and a barbarous spike of mandarin; Illimitable Dominion Over All is an addictive cypress/birch/tobacco hybrid– a dangerous draught, a toxic tonic, a sharply herbaceous/coniferous pill of the most bitter variety, stirred into a leathery, swampy tar. It sounds miserable but it’s strangely habit-forming. A Certain Nameless Awe is a soft jasmine snuggie of a scent and The Red Death is a study in gorgeousness, all smoky, dusky woods and a bruised violet heart. And lastly, here’s a secret about me. When I die, I want you to prop up my corpse with a jumbo-sized margarita clutched in my dead fist because margaritas are the best cocktails and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. Lime is basically the best flavor. Neon green squeezy popsicles and green sour patch kids forever, is what I’m saying here! I had highest hopes for A Group of Pale Courtiers because of that lime note, and though its a shy one, and you might have to wait through a powdery musk, and a bit of spectral cologne, I promise your patience will pay off. It is the softest, glowing ghost of a lime, it is a little lime-y, close-kept secret, and it is all mine.
The Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Halloween 2018 collection is currently live and available for purchase in 5ml bottles for $26 each. As this is a limited edition series, sample sizes imps are not available for Weenie 2018.
Are you new to one of our very favorite indie perfumers, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab? See my three part primer here, here, and here. Curious about our thoughts on last years weenies? Peep here! How about a mini-review of the 2016 weenies? We’ve got that covered, too
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s new collection, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque Of The Red Death, is live on their site (along with the 2018 weenies, wooooooo!) In a brilliant stroke of genius, to accompany these new scents, they have created a wonderful audiobook recording of this bloody tale, narrated beautifully by Tom Blunt and illustrated with an assembly of reveling phantasms brought to life with label art by the marvelously clever Tenebrous Kate.
If you’ve never read the story –and would you believe I have not?–now is the time to slip on a pair of headphones, darken your chambers, and dream of delirious fancies, and, “much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.”
It’s always so thrilling to me to see the artists and artisans I adore collaborate on projects together, so when I saw that Kate was going to be working with BPAL on this collection, my heart exploded with glee (no gore, it’s a metaphorical explosion, of course.)
I asked Kate if she had any thoughts about the collaboration, and she enthused on the following points:
Like many spooky folks, I’m a longtime fan of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, to the point where I own special storage boxes to organize my collection. I’d had the opportunity to create art for BPAL’s inaugural Drag Con scents, and when I was asked to return to illustrate a Halloween collection, I agreed before I even heard the full details of the project. When I learned it was a multi-part Edgar Allan Poe collection, I realized that I’d be adding to the imagery already created by two of my biggest influences, Harry Clarke and Aubrey Beardsley–a daunting but fabulously rewarding prospect! Oozing gore, overblown decadence, and the sinister threat of death–what more can one ask for in a scent collection?
What more can one ask for, indeed! This collection is gonna be fantastic.
