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Seven Word Story: Lust Perfume Oil
Out of StockQuoth one of the wordiest humans who ever lived: “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
This spring we challenged friends and fans to answer that call, baring their souls (and more) in our steamy, Lust-themed #BPAL7wordstory contest
“Seduce us in seven!” we demanded, promising the winning story would be enshrined in a Limited Edition fragrance. The response was overwhelming — and downright filthy. Over eight hundred entries later, Lust found its new champion. The winning story, submitted via Twitter by @GeekDame, took flight in our perfumer’s imagination and resulted in the following myth-tinged tryst.
Congrats to the winner, and keep your quills sharp! #BPAL7wordstory is only getting started.
He breathed smoke across her pomegranate-stained lips.
Chthonic incense and blood-red pomegranate.
++ ACT 3: FIAT NOX
Before you stands a tent, striped in orange and black canvas. The tent seems impossibly large; its tattered black banners snap in the chill wind. The Carny Talker slaps his cane upon a bare spot on the canvas wall, and a huge golden mouth bursts forth from the fabric forming a gleaming fanged entryway illuminated by flashing white bulbs. An ornate sign unfurls above the doorway, and in a florid script it reads, “The Parliament of Monsters”. The Carny Talker grins at you malevolently, gestures at the gaping maw with his cane, and barks, “Step this way, my friends! Through this doorway you will find the most magnificent and mind-shattering marvels of the multiverse! Each and every one of these fantastic and fearsome freaks has committed their spirit, nay! — their very soul! — to an unlife of unrepentant sin and unwholesome debauchery! Not simply a common display of human and inhuman oddities, these are both the shunned and misbegotten children of nature, and those whose very visages show that they have willingly and – YES, eagerly! — walked the crooked path of turpitude! Their sins ARE their salvations, as you shall soon see, my friends, and these marvelous monstrosities present the tapestry of their depravity to you in all of its ghastly glory and sinister splendor! EACH is a Prometheus of perversity! THIS, and THIS ALONE, is the finest display of decadence and depredation in all the hells! Yours, for your education and elucidation, for a nominal entrance fee…”
He tips his hat, grins, and steps aside, gesturing for you to enter.
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The Parliament of Monsters Perfume Oil
Add to cartYou pass through the golden mouth, and find yourself inside a narrow, cramped corridor. Large wooden paintings of skeletal hands crook their bony fingers, leading you forwards. At the first turn, you hear a bizarre jumble of sounds: the high-pitched sound of gears grinding, metal on metal, the sound of sultry, low-pitched laughter, a clattering, wings flapping, soft hissing. Suddenly, a sharp howl pierces the darkness. As you make your way around the corner you are momentarily blinded as floodlights flicker to life, and thirteen gold-gilded stages are illuminated, bathed from beneath in sinister, caramel-colored light.
Dust, incense, wet tobacco, singed straw, and a curl of opium smoke.
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Arachnina, The Spider Girl Perfume Oil
Add to cartYou move towards the first stage on your right, and as you walk, you feel something brush across your cheek. Something about the softness of the phantom caress makes your skin crawl, and you flinch involuntarily. At that moment, the Spider Girl strides haughtily onto the platform, her stiletto heels clicking a strange staccato as she walks. Her body is wrapped in skin-tight strips of black PVC, and the gleaming vinyl glistens in stark contrast to the alabaster skin on her six pale, white arms. She gestures to the rafters above with a graceful flick of her blood-red nails. In dread, your eyes are drawn skyward: above her, in a gossamer snare, web-shrouded bodies twist and struggle.
A swirling, hypnotic perfume of black currant, poppy, red and black musk, lilies, nicotiana, tobacco tar, and patchouli.
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Eshe, A Vision of Life-In-Death Perfume Oil
Add to cartMoving counter-clockwise through the room, you come upon the next stage. The backdrop is shredded, and seems to have been torn in a fury. On the remaining half of the canvas, you can barely make out a faded illustration of the sun setting over a pyramid. On the center of the platform, an elaborate golden sarcophagus has been set upright and propped up towards the edge of the stage. Beside it, upon the ground, sits a hooded lantern. A woman’s image is painted on the front of the sarcophagus, and upon the gold limned body, a tale is being told in hieroglyphics: scenes of murder, carnage, and grotesque, mad passion. Although you do not know the language, the inscription upon the tomb translates within your mind, and the words burn behind your eyes as if they were written in blood and fire: “The Guardian will never part the veil for her soul. Mighty Sutekh, have pity on us all.” A thin, dark-skinned man wearing a linen loincloth climbs onto the stage. His form is frail and withered, he is impossibly old, yet his long, straight hair is as black as the night skies. With solemn, reverential gravity, he slowly moves the casket lid aside. Within the box, you see a skeletal figure wrapped in stained, ragged cloths, draped in a mauve cloth. The dark-skinned man bends low, and lights the lanterna magica. From within the glass, images begin to form, and glowing alchemical symbols cast their eerie light onto the mummy. As the lights touch the creature, the desiccated body swells, and with horrific, agonizing slowness, a woman’s form begins to appear within the wrappings. At her chest, the rotted wrappings burst, exposing sinew and the glinting white bones of her ribs. Her hands reach towards her face, and with a screech of agony and eons-long rage, she tears the gauze from her glittering black eyes.
The perfume of life-in-death: embalming herbs, black myrrh, white sandalwood, black orchid, paperwhites, olive blossom, tomb dust, and Moroccan jasmine.
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Faiza, The Lady of Serpents Perfume Oil
Add to cartUpon the next stage, a primitive cage has been erected. It is made of heavy, dark sticks bound with strips of deep brown leather. The stage is as dark as pitch, and from the shadows, you hear soft hissing, spitting, and an ominous chorus of weird rattling sounds. You approach with some trepidation, and peer between the bars. Your attention is seized by writhing forms on the straw bottom of the cage. As your eyes adjust to the gloom, you realize that the floor is seething with serpents, dark and colorful, languid and large, swift and small. You hear a sultry chuckle, and you see bright, unblinking emerald eyes staring at you from the corner of the cage. A woman crawls through the snakes, her scaled body as sinuous and lissome as the creatures that share her home. She reaches towards you languorously with her sharp-clawed hands and sighs.
A sensual blend of twisting, exotic, serpentine oils: black amber, oakmoss, green sandalwood, bergamot, jasmine sambac, gardenia, orange pulp, black cardamom, vanilla, blackberry, black musk, blackened vanilla husk, white honey, ti leaf, and ginger.
++ FAIZA’S COMPANIONS: THE SNAKE PIT
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Hope & Faith, The Siamese Twins Perfume Oil
Add to cartA huge crowd mills in front of the next stage. You hear the din of their voices, chattering in a Babel’s fall of languages, laughing and buzzing with a strange anticipation. As you get closer, you notice that they are wearing a motley mix of clothing from ages past… all rotting, all in shreds. In the sea of faces, all bearing a similar chalky pallor, some stand out: there is a woman in a threadbare Burgundian gown, a young man in torn breeches and sagging slops, a maiden in a dagged-sleeve houppelande that is splattered with cruor, a snarling Victorian rogue with a battered silk top hat, and a vacant-eyed man in a shredded Confederate uniform. As you make your way through the crowd, you feel cold fingers pluck at your clothing, and the hard, almost glassy skin that you brush against radiates an unnatural cold. You hear tittering sighs as you push through the gathering, and your skin prickles as you feel icy breath upon your neck. Abruptly, someone cries out, and the strange congregation begins clapping a steady rhythm. Their voices rise in a tintamar of ghastly cheers as torches flare to life. The firelight illuminates a gargantuan, shining black stake in the center of the stage. It is festooned with black ribbons, drooping moss, and viciously-colored poisonous blooms in a playful, grotesque mockery of a Maypole. Two women, clutched tightly in a brutal embrace, spin onto the stage, shaking a tambourine and clacking a hembra in time with the clapping. One is clad in violet, with violet tresses to match; the other is a vision of swirling rose. Their long, waving hair whips in manic arcs as they twirl, stomp, and pirouette around the onyx shaft. The crowd becomes more and more frenzied as the dance reaches a mad crescendo, and suddenly you realize that the two are one: they are conjoined, identical twins, bound eternally at the ribs. The violet sister, caught in the throes of the ritual’s passion, throws her head back and moans. She bares a set of gleaming white fangs and bites deeply into her sister’s neck. The rose maiden screams in joy, and returns her sister’s violent kiss as the crowd explodes into Corybantic mayhem.
Simplicity and innocence, gleefully despoiled! Hope is sugared rose, Faith is sugared violet. The sisters are inseparable, and may only be purchased together. Presented in a velveteen pouch. $64.00.
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Isaac, The Living Skeleton Perfume Oil
Add to cartTo your side, you hear a man’s deep whisper, “Slowly I turned… inch by inch… step by step….” A scream interrupts him, and a roar of laughter pulses through the shadowed hall. Following the commotion, you move to the next stage. A bone-thin man moves across the stage, and sits upon an overstuffed, threadbare armchair. A battered violin is propped against the chair’s side. The audience starts to dissipate, and you realize that you must have just missed his performance. Relaxing, he reclines lazily, and as the light falls on his face, you come to realize that he is truly skeletal: a thin membrane of skin covers most of his body, but in many places, bone is completely exposed. He winks at you, and chuckles at your obvious discomfiture. The sweet smoke from his cigar touches your senses, and you hear the soft clink of the ice as he swirls the bourbon in his tumbler.
“Late for the show, are ya, friend? I’ll tell you a quick one, and then you’d best skedaddle. I have better things to do than sit here and be gawked at all night.” He takes a swig from his tumbler.
“A man goes to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist says, ‘I think you’re crazy.’ The man says, ‘I want a second opinion.’ The psychiatrist shrugs and says, ‘Alright, you’re ugly, too.’”
His attention is diverted by a scantily clad woman in the audience beside you, and he leers at her. “Hello, nurse!” he growls, and leans towards her lecherously. “How’s about you come back to my dressing room, and I show you my stamp collection?”
Bourbon, black tobacco tar, dry bone, bay rum aftershave, and sleazy cologne.
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Kataniya, The Clockwork Woman Perfume Oil
Add to cartThe sound of metal smashing metal jars your ears, and you follow the cacophony to the next stage. The backdrop is painted with streaks of lightning, and you see that an iron sign hangs above it, now broken, pounded into pieces, possibly by a hammer or mallet. Despite the damage, you can still make out the words that have been burned into its face:
Property of Pygmalion Industries, LLC
A slender, willowy blonde is facing the sign, looking up at it thoughtfully. She reaches up, and with unbelievable strength, speed, and fury, pounds the sign with her fists until it is an unrecognizable mess, and it falls to the ground with a thunderous crash. She turns, and you realize that this is no creature born of woman: she is half human, half machine. Her exposed stomach shows brass and copper gears, and her joints are girded with steel. You see that her hands are covered in blood as she reaches towards a large burlap sack on the floor, picks it up, and tosses it at your feet. It lands with a sickening wet splat. She locks her gaze on yours, and her hollow, mechanical voice murmurs, “I am no man’s property.”
Gentle flowers over hot metal, shocked to life.
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Meskhenet, The Vulture Maiden Perfume Oil
Add to cartThe ringing of a gong seizes your attention, and you follow the sound to the next stage. It is empty, devoid of any backdrop, and the platform is dark. A haze blankets your vision, like heat radiating off of the desert floor. You hear the sound of hands clapping a steady rhythm, and within moments, the haze begins to coalesce into the forms of a troupe of ghostly women, clad in linen shifts. Their wraithlike hands pluck at the strings of translucent zithers and harps, shake spectral sistrums, and their pallid lips blow upon ethereal flutes. The music that they play is discordant, otherworldly, and seems to be at once a funeral dirge and a paean to life: a triumphant lamentation. As the sound swells, you hear the beating of wings in the distance, and a keen, a siren’s ululation, joins the haunting melody. As the song reaches its eerie crescendo, a beautiful winged woman alights on the stage, summoned by the phantom song. Her skin is dusky brown, and the vigor of her youthful body seems in conflict with the depth of grief reflected in her eyes. Her wings spread out behind her in morbid majesty, and she takes flight. Her dance is, itself, a visible act of mourning, and is almost sensual in its sorrow.
Frankincense, hyssop, hibiscus, river reeds, orris root, palm frond, and olibanum.
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Thalassa, The Galapagos Mermaid Perfume Oil
Add to cartA massive glass tank is positioned on the stage, decorated with a rough canvas painting of sand and sea. Within the tank, you see a swirl of ivory, coral, and russet. After a few rushed passes, the furiously moving creature slows and makes her way towards the glass. As she approaches, you see that her features are lovely and delicate, and though her pearl-adorned torso is that of a beautiful, slender woman, her bewitching face is crowned by lethal spikes and instead of legs she has a writhing serpentine tail. Upon spotting you, her dorsal spikes flare, and she sneers maliciously. She slaps the face of the tank with her powerful tail, and you hear a crack and groan as the glass fractures under the strain.
Seaweed, kelp, salty ocean spray, bitter almond, night-blooming jasmine, frankincense, and benzoin.
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Tiresias, The Androgyne Perfume Oil
Add to cartUpon the next stage, a spotlight is focused on a mammoth bronze sculpture of two snakes entwined. Their bodies are wrapped around each other in an intimate embrace, and their tongues touch suggestively. The deep, somber boom of a standing bass leads into a twelve-string guitar’s plaintive moan, and as the music swells, a stunning, statuesque woman steps out from behind the statue, her fierce and regal face in profile. The spotlight dims to a deep amber-red, and shines a dark, sanguine light onto her, tinting her long, wild hair the color of blood. She sings:
Sunday is gloomy, my hours are slumberless.
Dearest, the shadows I live with are numberless.
Little white flowers will never awaken you,
Not where the black coach of sorrow has taken you.
Angels have no thought of ever returning you.
Would they be angry if I thought of joining you?
Gloomy Sunday.She turns, and abruptly faces left. Her features are coarser, more masculine, and you notice the rough, dusky shadow of an evening beard on the singer’s face. On this side, the hair is cropped short, and as s/he sighs and begins the next verse, you hear the voice deepen to a weathered, sorrowful baritone.
Gloomy is Sunday; with shadows I spend it all.
My heart and I have decided to end it all.
Soon there’ll be candles and prayers that are sad, I know.
Death is no dream, for in death I’m caressing you.
With the last breath of my soul I’ll be blessing you.
Gloomy Sunday.The singer turns to face the audience, and your senses reel. On the left side, the features are sharp, but feminine. You can see the curve of her breast, the soft fullness of her hips, the arch of her fine brow. On the right, it is the body of an Adonis, muscular and commanding. You see that a thick seam runs down the center of the body, stitched roughly.
Though the vision is disconcerting, the warmth and passion in the singer’s voice swells inside your heart, and you are spellbound. Enraptured, you realize that though the gender is opposed on either side, one soul binds the whole.
Dark, moody, and bittersweet: black currant, patchouli, tobacco, cinnamon leaf, caramel, muguet, and red sandalwood.
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The Wild Men of Jezirat Al Tennyn Perfume Oil
Add to cartYou are shocked out of the torch song’s melancholy mood by shrieks, hoots, and yowls. You move to your left, and see that instead of a stage, a gigantic iron cage has been hung, hovering a few feet off of the ground. Elaborate, delicate silver sigils are engraved upon huge iron disks that have been mounted to the sides of the cage, and they flicker and spark whenever one of the wild men touches the iron bars that imprison them. The backdrop depicts a blistering volcanic eruption, spiked with thick luminescent bolts of lightning. Several beings are held within the cage, male and female, spanning every age. They flash their razor-fanged smiles at you malevolently as they anxiously crawl, pace, and stalk the length of their prison, stopping occasionally to pose and preen as they gossip with one another in an unrecognizable guttural, grinding language. Their tattooed skin glows an angry crimson, curving horns protrude from their skulls, and their eyes blaze with unholy light.
Fiery, primal, and precociously diabolical: red amber, Spanish moss, Indonesian patchouli, ambergris, sweet ambrette seed, red pepper, two cloves, and vanilla flower.
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Wulric, The Wolfman Perfume Oil
Add to cartA lively tune is being played nearby; it is syncopated, a disjointed song, but perky and upbeat. As you turn to the next stage, you see the broad back and shaggy hair of the next performer. He is seated on a stool in front of a battered upright piano. Wire pokes out from holes in the back of the decrepit beechwood, and broken pinblocks are scattered on the floor. A bowl of glistening viscera has been plopped on a small end table next to the pianist. You can see that the ivory keys of the piano are smeared with blood. He pounds and tinkles the keys merrily, and laughs to himself. The man turns to the audience, and his unkempt russet hair, feral yellow eyes, wild balbo, and chin curtain beard betray his lycanthropic nature. He smiles widely, innocently, and waves his red-stained, black-clawed paw in a genial welcome. He bellows cheerfully, “Hi there! Make yourself comfortable! Don’t you look absolutely necrolishious! HA! HAHA! I just made that word up!” He laughs again, turns, and resumes playing the piano. The rambling tune picks up pace, and he plays with a showman’s flourish. The song slows as he chats with the audience from over his shoulder. “You know, my ex-girlfriend was a real handful, but really… I’ve never known a woman that was as tender as she was. She was all gushy, and well… to be honest, she just fell to pieces for me. Eventually, things ran their course… three courses, really… and, as they say, nothing lasts forever. But I’ll always have a piece of her, here… close to my heart.” He chuckles, and pats the chest of his patchwork overcoat.
In the distance, possibly from Meskhenet’s stage, you hear one of the phantom musicians give Wulric a gratuitous rim shot.
Friendly, charming, and cuddly, but possessing one hell of a mean streak: cocoa absolute, French vanilla, birch tar, lavender, bourbon vetiver, wild musk, cardamom husk, clary sage, and cistus.
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Zarita, The Doll Girl Perfume Oil
Add to cartA tiny woman stands in the center of the stage, the perfect woman in miniature, her copper hair bouncing in elegant curls. She is surrounded on all sides by a necropolis of maimed, mutilated stuffed animals, decapitated fashion dolls, and eviscerated wooden figures. It is a strangely ghastly tableau: the disemboweled toys ooze fiberfill, batting, and sawdust from their gaping wounds. In one dainty hand she clutches a shard of glass, and in the other she nimbly twirls a razor blade. Her face is twisted in a grimace of mad ferocity, and she hisses as she brandishes her makeshift weapons at you. “Play with me?” she growls.
Soft, yet sociopathic: white carnation, iris, orange blossom, poisonous pale white berries, and sugared cream.
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Priala, The Human Phoenix Perfume Oil
Add to cartAs you come to the final stage, you see a spotlight focused upon a large pile of pitch-black ashes on the center of the floor. A parchment scroll has been tacked to the foot of the stage. It reads:
Now I will believe
That there are unicorns; that in Arabia
There is one tree, the phoenix’ throne; one phoenix
At this hour reigning there.You catch a whiff of burnt cinnamon, and a whirlwind begins to form within the center of the cold pyre. The ashes rise, condense, and coalesce into the dusky form of a woman. She shakes her body gently, tossing her hair, and the ashes fall from her skin. She is perfect, radiant: not a single cinder mars the flawlessness of her countenance. Her body seems to cast a shadow shaped like a triumphant bird, wings outstretched, onto the blank taupe canvas behind her. Her eyes are closed, and her head is bowed; her expressionless face is enigmatic. Her dark eyes begin to glow, and her mouth turns up in a secretive, intimate smile. She throws back her head and extends her arms, and suddenly the scent of smoldering myrrh assails you. Within moments, the woman explodes into flame, and you see that her face is now a vision of passionate ecstasy. The turbulence of the conflagration whips around her violently, and gouts of flame burst from her body, igniting the canvas behind her. She raises her arms in exultation, and through the flames, you see both the outline of her scorched black skeleton and the shadow of the phoenix triumphant.
Three deep, dark myrrhs, smoke, cassia, and cinnamon bark.