Lupercalia 2025

We remain unapologetic in our commitment to smut, raunch, passion, limerance, and all-around unabashed sentimentality. Over the years Lupercalia has often coincided with events that cast these proclivities in an interesting light — perhaps because there will always be someone, somewhere, who is hellbent on controlling these patently uncontrollable human experiences.

And they will always fail, in the long run. As we observed in a recent email (please sign up to receive our emails!): there is madness in our blood. And there is blood in our lust. And there is lust in our madness. Fellow humans, may it ever be so!

Philip K. Dick once wrote: “We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious.” The madness and tenderness unleashed by desire are among those forces which actively thwart and override cognition. As uncomfortable as such reckonings may be, we’d like to humbly suggest this is a feature of humanity, not a bug.

If this year’s Lupercalia fragrance collection was a book, it would be printed in blood-red ink rolled across the soft, stubborn bodies of dream-pale flowers, and stamped onto heavy black paper. We’d pass it around before the letters had a chance to dry, staining fingers with the turn of every page, marking the curious as aspiring erotes, as fellow Lupercalians. The sanguine contents of this text were made to be devoured by the eyes, the skin, the heart, and then the story continued by its readers, passed along to others.

(As ever, please do not consume the perfumes internally or apply them to sensitive body parts. Don’t make us regret deploying such a fragrant metaphor, we’re trusting you to hang onto at least that much cognition.)

Lupercalia 2025

We remain unapologetic in our commitment to smut, raunch, passion, limerance, and all-around unabashed sentimentality. Over the years Lupercalia has often coincided with events that cast these proclivities in an interesting light — perhaps because there will always be someone, somewhere, who is hellbent on controlling these patently uncontrollable human experiences.

And they will always fail, in the long run. As we observed in a recent email (please sign up to receive our emails!): there is madness in our blood. And there is blood in our lust. And there is lust in our madness. Fellow humans, may it ever be so!

Philip K. Dick once wrote: “We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious.” The madness and tenderness unleashed by desire are among those forces which actively thwart and override cognition. As uncomfortable as such reckonings may be, we’d like to humbly suggest this is a feature of humanity, not a bug.

If this year’s Lupercalia fragrance collection was a book, it would be printed in blood-red ink rolled across the soft, stubborn bodies of dream-pale flowers, and stamped onto heavy black paper. We’d pass it around before the letters had a chance to dry, staining fingers with the turn of every page, marking the curious as aspiring erotes, as fellow Lupercalians. The sanguine contents of this text were made to be devoured by the eyes, the skin, the heart, and then the story continued by its readers, passed along to others.

(As ever, please do not consume the perfumes internally or apply them to sensitive body parts. Don’t make us regret deploying such a fragrant metaphor, we’re trusting you to hang onto at least that much cognition.)

  • amoretti

    Amoretti LXXV Perfume Oil

    A great and golden love: immortal, undying, infinite. A love brightly burned into the stone of eternity: golden amber and scarlet musk, black vanilla absolute, red apple, Siamese benzoin, and sweet fig.

    Add to cart
  • like the very gods

    Like the Very Gods Perfume Oil

    Shuddering, sweat-warmed skin gleaming with sheer musk, honeyed olive blossoms, vanilla cedar, white sandalwood, and orris butter.

    Add to cart
  • luperci

    Luperci 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.

    Add to cart
  • Penetralia

    Penetralia Perfume Oil

    The innermost or private parts. 

     

    That heavenly spot where creamy, angel-pink hibiscus petals meet the pale, juicy-green pistil.

    Add to cart
  • Pink Fuzzy Handcuffs

    Pink Fuzzy Handcuffs Perfume Oil

    It’s not quite as fun when you lose the key. Pink cotton candy, candied rose, and vanilla sugar.

    Add to cart
  • Red Lantern

    Red Lantern Perfume Oil

    A tribute to the opium den cum bawdyhouses of Shanghai in the 1930’s. Golden amber, blonde tobacco, Sudanese black coconut, rich caramel, black currant, white opium and delphinium laced with a sensual blend of Asian spice.

    Add to cart
  • Rose Milk Tea

    Rose Milk Tea Perfume Oil

    An impossibly sweet concoction of green tea and frothed almond milk poured over fresh rose petals and glistening tapioca pearls.

    Add to cart
  • Smut

    Smut Perfume Oil

    We are the smuttiest. Three swaggering, smutty musks sweetened with sugar and woozy with dark booze notes.

    Add to cart
  • Snake Skin

    Snake Skin Perfume Oil

    For he seemed to me again like a king,

    Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,

    Now due to be crowned again.

     

    A sinuous leather variant of BPALs Snake Oil.

    Add to cart
  • The Elephant Is Slow To Mate

    The Elephant is Slow to Mate Perfume Oil

    A rolling, unhurried, volcanic passion sustained by a love that is slow, shy, patient, and wise – and expressed through a scent as warm, languorous, luxuriant, and comforting as a cloak of heavy, soft red velvet: deep burgundy musk, red labdanum, smoked rose petals, opoponax, 17-year aged patchouli, blackened vanilla bean, dried black cherries, blackberries, and tobacco absolute.

    Add to cart
  • The Serpent In The Carnations

    The Serpent in the Carnations Perfume Oil

    Snake Oil-soaked carnation petals, spiked with a dash of clove and allspice.

    Add to cart
  • The Serpent In The Lilacs

    The Serpent in the Lilacs Perfume Oil

    Spring’s first lilac branches dunked in 3-year aged Snake Oil.

    Add to cart
  • The Serpent In The Opium Poppies

    The Serpent in the Opium Poppies Perfume Oil

    Snake Oil, opium tar, indigo poppy petals, plum cognac, and a dribble of laudanum.

    Add to cart
  • The Serpent In The Roses

    The Serpent in the Roses Perfume Oil

    Snake Oil dribbling across a cluster of amber-flecked, blackened rose petals.

    Add to cart
  • White Flowers, Red Ink, Black Paper

    White Flowers, Red Ink, Black Paper Perfume Oil

    If this year’s Lupercalia fragrance collection was a book, it would be printed in blood-red ink rolled across the soft, stubborn bodies of dream-pale flowers, and stamped onto heavy black paper. We’d pass it around before the letters had a chance to dry, staining fingers with the turn of every page, marking the curious as aspiring erotes, as fellow Lupercalians. The sanguine contents of this text were made to be devoured by the eyes, the skin, the heart, and then the story continued by its readers, passed along to others.

    (As ever, please do not consume the perfumes internally or apply them to sensitive body parts. Don’t make us regret deploying such a fragrant metaphor, we’re trusting you to hang onto at least that much cognition.)

    Add to cart
  • Womb Furie

    Womb Furie 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.

    Add to cart

Lupercalia 2025 - Box of Chocolates 2025

Box of Chocolates 2025

This year’s tray of treats was accidentally left out overnight in BPAL’s General Catalog of scents, and it appears some cross-contamination has occurred. They’re probably still fine!

Profound apologies to the poets whose great works have been tarnished in the accompanying descriptions. We can’t even say we meant well: our intent was to cause mischief.

[Standard disclaimer: these are perfume oils, presented in a 5ml amber apothecary bottle. No matter how delicious they smell, please do not lick, drink, cook with, or otherwise consume internally.]

  • Choco-Goblin Perfume Oil

    “We must not look at goblin guys,

    We must not buy their truffles:

    Who knows what chocolate they wiped

    On their pantaloons and ruffles?”

    “Come buy,” call the goblins

    Hobbling down the glen

    With their choco pies.

     

    Sorry, that was terrible. Coconut covered chocolate lumps, gnarly patchouli, and sweet benzoin.

    Add to cart

  • Choco-TKO Perfume Oil

     Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords

    Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;

          Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,

    And seal the cacao-dusted Casket of my Soul.


    A soporific dessert: Hidcote lavender, golden hops, and vanilla bean dusted with cacao.

    Add to cart

  • Chocubus Perfume Oil

    His caramel-filled and caustic sermons

    Poured frozen poison in my soul.

    With endless slandering remarks

    He tempted Providence;

    He claimed that beauty’s but a dream;

    Felt scorn for inspiration;

    He had no faith in musk or chocolate;

    He looked on life with ridicule-

    And in the whole of nature

    He did not wish to praise a single thing.


    Frozen white chocolate and the heart-stopping chill of sheared mint, fanned by caramel-touched body heat, and the diabolical sensuality of black musk, nicotiana, and sage.

    Add to cart

  • Horreur Choco-Tique Perfume Oil

    Are the black bonbons of my dreams,

    And your ruby cocoa reflect the hell,

    In which my heart is pleased to dwell.

     

    Dark chocolate, ruby cocoa, blood musk, golden honey, thick black wine, champagne grapes, tobacco flower, plum blossom, tonka bean, oakmoss, carnation, benzoin, opoponax, and sugar cane.

    Add to cart
  • The Dark Chocolate Rider

    The Dark Chocolate Rider Perfume Oil

    There is our wildest mount- a headless horse.

    But though it runs unbridled off its course,

    And all our chocolatiers would seem defied,

    We have ideas yet that we haven’t tried.


    Dark chocolate, leather, sweet myrrh, tobacco absolute, and black amber.

    Add to cart

  • The Ruby Chocolate Rider Perfume Oil

    What is this choc’ed-of mystery of birth

    But being mounted bareback on the earth?

    We can just see the infant up astride,

    His small fist berried in the musky hide.


    Ruby chocolate, red leather, red musk, red berries, red mosses, balsam, and passion flower cordial.

    Add to cart

  • The Sea Foams Chocolate Perfume Oil

    Chocolate, chocolate, every where,

    And marshmallows too, I think;

    Chocolate, Chocolate every where,

    Nor any drop to drink.


    White chocolate froth and marshmallow fluff cresting on an ocean wave. Don’t drink it!

    Add to cart
  • The White Chocolate Rider

    The White Chocolate Rider Perfume Oil

    The surest thing there is is we are riders,

    And though none too successful at it, guiders,

    Through everything presented, milk and hide

    And now the very air, of what we ride.

     

    White chocolate, frothed milk, sandalwood, and leather.

    Add to cart
  • White Chocolate Rabbit

    White Chocolate Rabbit Perfume Oil

    Don’t let him know she liked cream best,

    For this tea must ever be

    A secret, kept from all the rest,

    Between yourself and me.


    White chocolate filled with black tea and cream, splooged with white pepper, ginger, honey and vanilla.

    Add to cart

Lupercalia 2025 - Girth of Venus

Girth of Venus

For years, artist Maz Hussain has been turning heads and quickening pulses online under the nom d’amour Girth of Venus (BigCartel, Instagram,Bluesky) with glimpses into his queer fantasy world populated with erotic and emotional icons.

Says Maz: “I merge my passions for mythology and fairytale with visual arts to create a romantic representation I often never found growing up. My work centers around brown bodies, and the sensuality and tenderness I wanted to see as a kid. As well as disjointing the aggressive fetishisation of body hair into a place of sweetness.”

We’re very proud to introduce this series of Limited Edition perfume oils inspired by Girth of Venus artworks, each presented in a 5ml amber apothecary bottle.

Lupercalia 2025 - On Lovers’ Lips

On Lovers' Lips

As in the soft and sweet eclipse,
When soul meets soul on lovers’ lips,
High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull
— Percy Bysshe Shelley

I will never know how you see red and you will never know how I see it.
― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

Having perfected a vintage lipstick accord (first seen in Black Lipstick last fall) it is our pleasure, nay our responsibility, to paint with it upon as many pulse-points as possible. To that aim, we offer this very timely series of archetypal reds.

  • Coquette Red Perfume Oil

    A flirty strawberry-tinged rose lipstick.

    Add to cart

  • Dominatrix Red Perfume Oil

    Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel

    Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;

    The heavy white limbs, and the cruel

    Red mouth like a venomous flower

     

    Latex, leather, and blood-red lipstick.

    Add to cart

  • Egyptian Red Perfume Oil

    Cleopatra’s vibrant carmine suffused with myrrh, blue lotus absolute, cinnamon bark, elemi resin, and cassia.


    (Also vegan and cochineal-free.)

    Add to cart

  • Elizabethan Red Perfume Oil

    My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

    Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

    If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

    If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

    I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

    But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

    And in some perfumes is there more delight

    Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

    I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

    That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

    I grant I never saw a goddess go;

    My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

       And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

       As any she belied with false compare.

    – Sonnet 130, William Shakespeare

     

    Orange blossom water, fig milk, clove bud, madder root, and gum arabic smeared on an ambergris-dabbed white leather glove.


    (No cochineal were harmed in the making of this ‘fume.)

    Add to cart

  • Jiroft Red Perfume Oil

    Inspired by a 2001 archaeological discovery in the Halil river of a lipstick vial dated between 1936 BCE and 1687 BCE. 

     

    Ground hematite and manganite pounded into vegetable waxes and scented with dates, narcissus, rosewater, and oud.

    Add to cart
  • Vixen Red

    Vixen Red Perfume Oil

    Confidence, sensuality, glamour. Ripe black cherries, velvety red rose, and a flirtatious sparkle of pink pepper glide seamlessly through iris-touched vanilla bean wax.

    Add to cart

Lupercalia 2025 - Raunchy Hearts 2025

Raunchy Hearts 2025

By now, updating candy conversation heart lingo to reflect filthier or more contemporary sentiments has become its own time-honored February tradition. And who are we to buck tradition?? So here ya go, have some dirty candy.

[Reminder: these are perfume oils for wearing on the skin, do not consume them or put them on your raunchy bits.]

Lupercalia 2025 - The Seven Veils

The Seven Veils

The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.
― Oscar Wilde, Salomé

The art of self-revelation takes a lifetime to master; there will always be another layer to peel back. For this series we’ve envisioned Salome’s veils through the lens of the seven alchemical stages: ritual attire for a dance of refinement and transmutation.