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.)