Lupercalia 2022

We have not long to love.
A night. A day…

— Tennessee Williams

It seems astounding that in the very futuristic-sounding year of 2022, we’re still grappling with the same old inclinations toward eros, connecting to the sublime erotic unconscious through art, poetry, role-play, spellwork, and the occasional hookup app. We evolved as a product of primordial lust, and to lust we shall return.

However, expressions of lust are evolving just as rapidly as we are, manifesting through fresh combinations of identity, orientation, and algorithm. Despite being an experience that tends to be associated with nostalgia, love truly belongs to the future! We hunger for the transformations that love may bring, even though the lessons we learn from it haunt us to the end of our days — perhaps even after. Though at times we crave to be free from this hunger, and the demands it imposes upon us, it can be difficult to imagine who we’d be without it.

Lupercalia is a special time for us here at the Lab, an opportunity to pump some heat through these slack mid-winter veins, to pave a path toward reunion with the Sun’s warmth, the earth’s kiss. As SoCal residents we experience an abundance of springtime in February, and through the Luper release we cast these petals to the far winds. We hope you will manage to catch one and tuck it away somewhere as an investment in future fantasies.

  • Bag of Dicks

    Bag of Dicks

  • Box of Chocolates 2022

    Box of Chocolates 2022

  • Honey Pot 2022

    Honey Pot 2022

  • All Joys Are Due to Thee Perfume Oil

    Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee,
    As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,
    To taste whole joys.

    – John Donne

    Warm skin musk with a hint of honey dust.

    Out of Stock
  • Amor, To Show That He Was Pleased, Approvingly (In Silence) Sneezed Perfume Oil

    Phyllis Corydon clutched to him
    her head at rest beneath his chin.
    He said, “If I don’t love you more
    than ever maid was loved before
    I shall (if this the years not prove)
    in Afric or the Indian grove
    some green-eyed lion serve for food.”

    Amor, to show that he was pleased,
    approvingly (in silence) sneezed.

    Then Phyllis slightly raised her head
    (her lips were full and wet and red)
    to kiss the sweet eyes full of her:
    “Corydon mine, with me prefer
    always to serve unique Amor:
    my softer flesh the fire licks
    more greedily and deeper sticks.”

    Amor, to show that he was pleased,
    approvingly (in silence) sneezed.

    So loving and loved so, they rove
    between twin auspices of Love.
    Corydon sets in his eye-list
    Phyllis before all other dust;
    Phyllis on Corydon expends
    her nubile toys, Love’s dividends.
    Could Venus yield more love-delight
    than here she grants in Love’s requite?

    – Catullus, translated by Peter Whigham

    Vanilla cream and lemon sugar honey cakes dusted with candied flowers.

    (This will come as a shock to no one that knows me: Gaius Valerius Catullus is one of my favorite Roman poets. )

    Out of Stock
  • Bright Red Dildo Perfume Oil

    METRO
    I beg you, don’t lie, dear Coritto: Who was the Man who stitched for you this bright red dildo?

    CORITTO
    I don’t know if Cerdon is from Chios or Erythrae; bald, small – you’d call him a right ‘Mr. Tradesman’. You’ll think you’re seeing the handiwork of Athena herself not Cerdon’s.
    I – for he arrived bringing two, Metro – at the sight of them – well my eyes bulged; men can’t make their rods as rigid as this – we are alone and can be frank – and not only that, these are as soft as sleep; and the little leather straps are as soft as wool, not like leather straps at all. A kinder cobbler to a woman you’ll not find – even by putting-out.

    METRO
    Why then did you not take the other one as well?

    CORITTO
    What didn’t I do, Metro? What sort of means of persuasion did I not apply him? Kissing him, stroking his bald head, pouring out a sweet drink for him, calling him by a pet name, giving him all by my body to enjoy.

    METRO
    If he asked even that you ought to have given him it.

    Red leather and honey.

    Out of Stock
  • Bronze Dildo Perfume Oil

    Inspired by a 2nd century BCE bronze phallus that was found in the Jiangsu province: metallic bronze musk, 6-year aged patchouli, and deep russet amber speckled with a patina of dark oakmoss, green cardamom, and tonka.

    Out of Stock
  • Cameo Chaperone Perfume Oil

    No one living recalls
    the significance of this thimble
    or marble, whether
    they came to rest here idly
    or were held aside just so,
    separately or as a pair,
    in service to memory or an
    experience she sought
    to prolong, faceless tokens of
    something or perhaps nothing,
    interred under a domed lid
    and overseen by this stern,
    restless figure, glued to its seat

    In the absence of these details
    her descendants keep turning
    the small crank underneath
    and listening to the same
    blurry notes from Be My Love
    (picked out through clockwork teeth
    when the dome is raised, silenced
    mid-thought when it lowers) thinking
    about the contents (thimble, marble)
    rolling around together, coming
    to rest in the concave dish
    like two strangers pawing
    at each other in the darkness

    Tulips scattered over silvery musk, ambrette seed, black orchid, and red benzoin.

    Out of Stock
  • Ice Age Baton Perfume Oil

    This is a term archeologists have resorted to when classifying vaguely (or even explicitly) phallic artifacts dating back 30,000 years, found in stone, chalk, antler, ivory, you name it. A testament to our species’ ability to spend millennia debating who was doing it where, with what.

    A petrified relic of pleasures past: ivory-hued vanilla bean, cacao, white amber, and marbled tobacco unearthed from a chalky rubble.

    Out of Stock
  • Luperci 2022 Perfume Oil

    Piss off, Saint Valentine! Lupercalia is an ancient Roman celebration, held on February 15th, that kicked in the advent of Spring with a very, very festive purification, fertility and sexuality ritual. The ritual began near the cave of Lupercal on the Palatine, an area sacred to Faunus, as well as Ruminia, Romulus and Remus. During Lupercalia, Vestal Virgins first made offerings of sacred cakes to the fig tree under which the she-wolf suckled the Sacred Twins. A dog and two goats were then offered in sacrifice to Faunus. The blood of the sacrifice was smeared onto two naked patrician youths, who were assisted by the Virgins, and the blood was wiped clean with sacred wool dipped in milk. The youths donned the skins of the sacrificial goats, wielding whips made from the goat skins, and then led the priests and the Virgins around the pomarium, and around the base hills of Rome. This was a ceremony of great happiness and merriment, and was of particular interest to young women: being touched by the goat-whips young men that led the procession ensured their fertility in the coming year. It is believed that, after the initial rite, male participants would draw the name of an available maiden, with whom he spent the rest of the night. This scent is for the Luperci, the Chosen of Faunus, the Brothers of the Wolf: raw, down and dirty patchouli, Gurjam balsam, and essence of Sampson Root sweetened with the heightened sexuality of beeswax, virile juniper, oakmoss, ambrette seed over honey and East African musk.

    Out of Stock
  • Neutral Tones Perfume Oil

    We stood by a pond that winter day,
    And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
    And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;
    – They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

    Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
    Over tedious riddles of years ago;
    And some words played between us to and fro
    On which lost the more by our love.

    The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
    Alive enough to have strength to die;
    And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
    Like an ominous bird a-wing…

    Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
    And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
    Your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree,
    And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

    – Thomas Hardy

    Colorless and leaden, bittersweet and sorrowful: ambergris and silvered sage with white cognac and elemi.

    Out of Stock
  • Olisbokollike Perfume Oil

    Another venerable ancient Greek tradition: boners made of bread. The farther past its sell-by date, the better!

    A shockingly stiff and lightly oiled symmikto proto-baguette with a dribble of sweet cream.

    Out of Stock
  • One Girl 2022 Perfume Oil

    Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,
    Atop on the topmost twig, — which the pluckers forgot, somehow, —
    Forget it not, nay; but got it not, for none could get it till now.

    II
    Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found,
    Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and wound,
    Until the purple blossom is trodden in the ground.

    – Sappho, translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

    Wild orchid, indigo poppies, incense smoke, wisteria, and apple pulp.

    Out of Stock
  • Purple Jelly Dildo Perfume Oil

    A distinctly modern (if somewhat jejune) aesthetic, otherworldly and yet oddly reassuring in both its artifice and sense of humor. A gateway lay to more intimidating forms of play!

    An effervescent, bright purple grape.

    Out of Stock
  • Smut 2022 Perfume Oil

    Three smutty musks sweetened with sugar and woozy with dark booze notes.

    Out of Stock
  • Spurious Cooter Bees Perfume Oil

    For many years there has been a story floating around crediting Cleopatra with the invention of the vibrator, alleging that she would fill a box or gourd with bees and utilize the buzzing contraption as a sex toy. In doing our due diligence, we have found absolutely nothing that can corroborate this claim – however, the inspiration still moves us.

    Honey with a little ginger buzz.

    Out of Stock
  • Stainless Steel Dildo Perfume Oil

    Space Age technology: gleaming polished steel and a buzzy floral aldehyde.

    Out of Stock
  • Sweet Hypsithilla Perfume Oil

    Sweet Hypsithilla, passion’s delight,
    My gleeful soul, bid me to come;
    Noontide is nearing, bar not the gate —
    Hence roam ye not, stay close at home.
    Prepare our pleasures in nine fresh ways,
    Thighs joined with thighs, nine bouts we’ll try:
    Instant the summons, dinner is past,
    Heated with love, supine I lie,
    Bursting my tunic, swollen with longing:
    Leave me not thus, dear, your lover wronging.

    – my buddy, Catullus

    Nine fragrances for nine positions: pulsating red musk, thick golden honey, a slap of leather, filthy patchouli, pious frankincense, frothy ambergris, sweet vanilla, gritty cacao, and fiery red tobacco.

    Out of Stock
  • The Terrible Door Perfume Oil

    Too long outside your door I have shivered.
    You open it? I will not stay.
    I’m haunted by your ashen beauty.
    Take back your hand. I have gone away.

    Don’t talk, but move to that near corner.
    I loathe the long cold shadow here.
    We will stand a moment in the lamplight,
    Until I watch you hard and near.

    Happy release! Good-bye for ever!
    Here at the corner we say good-bye.
    But if you want me, if you do need me,
    Who waits, at the terrible door, but I?

    – Harold Monro

    Pale frankincense, white pear, chilled musk, and cognac.

    Out of Stock
  • Wild Nights – Wild Nights! Perfume Oil

    Wild nights – Wild nights!
    Were I with thee
    Wild nights should be
    Our luxury!

    Futile – the winds –
    To a Heart in port –
    Done with the Compass –
    Done with the Chart!

    Rowing in Eden –
    Ah – the Sea!
    Might I but moor – tonight –
    In thee!

    – Emily Dickinson

    A storm-tossed tempest of red-streaked black musk, vanilla absolute, smoked patchouli, night-blooming jasmine, vetiver, and cardamom sugar.

    Out of Stock
  • Womb Furie 2022 Perfume Oil

    In the middle of the flanks of women lies the womb, a female viscus, closely resembling an animal; for it is moved of itself hither and thither in the flanks, also upwards in a direct line to below the cartilage of the thorax and also obliquely to the right or to the left, either to the liver or spleen; and it likewise is subject to falling downwards, and, in a word, it is altogether erratic. It delights, also, in fragrant smells, and advances towards them; and it has an aversion to fetid smells, and flees from them; and on the whole the womb is like an animal within an animal.
    — Aretaeus the Cappadocian

    Oh, that wily womb! Hippocrates and his followers considered the womb a mobile creature, causing mayhem as it writhed its way through a woman’s body. Sometimes this ornery organ, due to lack of sexual activity, would create conflicts within a woman’s system or would become blocked itself, causing anxiety, nervousness, water retention, and sleeplessness. With the assistance of doctors, nursemaids, hand tools, or, occasionally, self-manipulation, this vexing condition could be alleviated through hysterical paroxysms.

    Or, as we call it nowadays: orgasm.

    An itch that needs to be scratched: Snake Oil and three types of honey.

    Out of Stock