Perfume Oil
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‘Tis Not Madness Perfume Oil
Add to cartThis is the air; that is the glorious sun;
This pearl she gave me, I do feel’t and see’t;
And though ’tis wonder that enwraps me thus,
Yet ’tis not madness.
— SebastianA vibrant swirl of orange blossom, sweet patchouli, vetiver, and sandalwood.
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A Hymn to the Evening Perfume Oil
Add to cartPhillis Wheatley
Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main
The pealing thunder shook the heav’nly plain;
Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr’s wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.
Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.
Through all the heav’ns what beauteous dies are spread!
But the west glories in the deepest red:
So may our breasts with ev’ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!
Fill’d with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,
Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind,
At morn to wake more heav’nly, more refin’d;
So shall the labours of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.
Night’s leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,
Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora rise.
A gentle scent for peace, safety, and rest: twilit lavender bud and sweet labdanum, hops, red benzoin, patchouli, Mysore sandalwood, and vanilla bean. -
Agreenex Perfume Oil
Add to cartBe the you HE likes. Good to be around, any time, any day.
A sweet and compliant sugared mint coating sour green apple.
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Alien/Siren Perfume Oil
Add to cart“Women are defined from the outside, in terms of how they seem to men, rather than from the inside, as thinking, feeling subjects. They are not fellow people, not even a different or worse variety of person, but simply the opposite of men, and hence, the opposite of human.
Which leads to the question of how you can have sex with something that isn’t human. In many myths, heterosexuality is portrayed as a kind of legalized bestiality, and attractive women are alluring, predatory, half-human monsters: fairy wives, snake-women, others whose beauty is a thin veneer over their dangerous and alien psyches.”
A sebaceous, slick reptilian perfume: green and black vegetal musks, kelp, sea salt, blackened opoponax, violet leaf, Siamese red benzoin, davana, squid ink, and ambergris accord.
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Altarpiece – No 1 – Group X Perfume Oil
Add to cartAltarpiece – No 1 – Group X. Hilma af Klint 1907
“I was privileged to visit the ‘Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future’ exhibit when it was at the Guggenheim in 2019. The scale and scope of some of these visionary works were of such a breathtaking nature that I grew faint and strange; I thought (hoped, even!) I might be experiencing an art attack, a psychosomatic episode, a soupçon of Stendahl Syndrome. What made the afternoon complete was when my boyfriend’s mother wandered into the Mapplethorpe exhibit and was a bit scandalized. not having any familiarity or context before doing so. All kinds of feels on this day!”A prism of sacred frankincense refracting a golden amber light into a spectrum of daemonorops draco, King mandarin, golden oud, verdant moss, blue tansy, indigo vegetal musk, and wild plum.
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Apostrophe of Time Perfume Oil
Add to cartO fleeting Time! whence art thou come?
And whither do thy footsteps tend?
Deep in the past where was thy home,
And where thy future journey’s end?Thou art from vast eternity,
And unto boundless regions found;
But what and where’s infinity?
And what know we of space unbound?The furrowed brow betokens age;
But who thy centuries can tell?
Was ancient seer or learned sage
In wisdom’s lore e’er versed so well?Hast thou from childhood wandered thus,
Companionless and lone, through space,
With mystery o’er thy exodus,
And darkness ’round thy resting place.What lengthened years have come and gone,
Since thou thy tireless march began,
Since Luna’s children sang at dawn,
The wonders of creation’s plan?How many years of gloom and night
Had passed, long ere yon king of day
Had reigned his fiery steeds of light,
And sped them on their shining way?Thou knowest — Thou alone, O thou!
Omniscient and eternal Three!
To whose broad eye all time is now —
The past, with all eternity;In whose dread presence I shall stand,
When time shall sink to rise no more,
In that broad sea of thy command,
Whose waves roll on, without a shore.
– James Madison BellThe overwhelming incalculability of space, the glow and fade of countless days, the starry expanse of night. A scent that reaches into eternity and towards forever: glittering bergamot, lemon peel, and golden amber, star-flecked labdanum, neroli, and clary sage.
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Big Bertha’s Big Molasses Muffins Perfume Oil
Add to cartThere’s no muffin like BIG BERTHA’S. Molasses and orange make these muffins sweet, indulgent, and a little spicy, just like your grandma.
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Black Haüs Perfume Oil
Add to cartShades drift through a crumbling manor. Fragrant winds chill the lifeless rooms. A skittering in the darkness.
Overgrown ivy creeping through a neglected lavender patch, a whiff of long-forgotten cologne, indigo oudh, mahogany, and teakwood, ti leaf, ectoplasmic musk, and aged leather.
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Bluebeard’s Wife Perfume Oil
Add to cart“Bluebeard stories provide one of the few venues women have to talk about the pervasive nature of marital violence. Like the slashers, they convert private drama into public spectacle, giving women a language for their pain.”
Red rose petals floating in brackish salt water.
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Cakes and Ale Perfume Oil
Add to cartDost thou think, because thou art virtuous,
there shall be no more cakes and ale?
— Sir Toby BelchHell yeah, we’ll have cakes and ale: honey cakes and stout.
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Circe Individiosa Perfume Oil
Add to cartCirce Invidiosa, John William Waterhouse. 1892
“The colors in this painting are so lush and beautiful that they defy description. I have always thought that tipping dish of poison, the shade of crushed emeralds and mantis wings, must be the precise color of our heart’s blood when we are in the venomous throes of enraged, envious desire.”Salt-spray dotting an azure cove, its waters swirling with noxious poisons and venom drawn from dreadful roots: a cascade of blackcurrant and crystalline blue-green waters infused with theriac accord, bruised henbane accord, white gardenia, pear, cedarwood, emerald mosses, tuberose, and bitter almond.
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Daddy by EFFY Perfume Oil
Add to cartDADDY isn’t defined by gender: it IS a gender, and it’s anyone’s to try on. It takes all kinds — masc daddies, lady daddies, queer daddies, punk daddies, muscle daddies, soft daddies, big daddies, baby daddies, noncorporeal daddies.
Subtle differences in skin chemistry ensure that no two people will wear DADDY quite the same way; this power is yours to wield as you see fit. No leather jacket, no fishnets, no problem! (But if you want ’em, we know a guy.)
A roll in the hay with a sexy demon daddy: a diabolical incense with a splash of bay rum and a hiss of infernal fougere. Congrats, you’re a DADDY now too!
Label photo credit: Jordan Nachole Hall
The accompanying beard oil can be found here.
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Dead Blonde Perfume Oil
Add to cart“Of course young women enjoy slashers. Adolescent girls have spent their lives absorbing our cultural disgust for womanhood, only to find themselves thrust into the middle of it, suddenly the butt of every joke. Their underlying anxieties are hit with a toxic sludge of predatory attention, sexual objectification, and impossible standards, growing to fifty times their natural size. It is not easy to become a monster. It is not fun to slip – suddenly and for the rest of your life – out of humanity and into womanhood. Girls are left reckoning with the fact that their social status, their human value, even their basic survival, are all suddenly contingent on men. Thus, at the exact moment they’re beginning to have sex and enter romantic relationships, girls watch stories in which a moment’s lapse in judgment, or a single instance of giving in to temptation, results and agony and annihilation – not because that’s what they want, but because it’s already happening, and they have precious few other ways to process it.”
A wilting corsage of tea roses and white roses, bearing forensic traces of honeyed lip gloss and coconut oil suntan lotion.
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Dreams Shape the World Perfume Oil
Out of StockAmorphous streams and sparks of lavender fancies drifting through a moonlit musk, given form on this plane by fossilized amber and sweet agarwood.
Words by Neil Gaiman, art by David Mack.
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Early Affection Perfume Oil
Add to cartGeorge Moses Horton
I lov’d thee from the earliest dawn,
When first I saw thy beauty’s ray,
And will, until life’s eve comes on,
And beauty’s blossom fades away;
And when all things go well with thee,
With smiles and tears remember me.
I’ll love thee when thy morn is past,
And wheedling gallantry is o’er,
When youth is lost in age’s blast,
And beauty can ascend no more,
And when life’s journey ends with thee,
O, then look back and think of me.
I’ll love thee with a smile or frown,
’Mid sorrow’s gloom or pleasure’s light,
And when the chain of life runs down,
Pursue thy last eternal flight,
When thou hast spread thy wing to flee,
Still, still, a moment wait for me.
I’ll love thee for those sparkling eyes,
To which my fondness was betray’d,
Bearing the tincture of the skies,
To glow when other beauties fade,
And when they sink too low to see,
Reflect an azure beam on me.
A love eternal, thrumming beyond death: honeyed red fruits, Bulgarian rose, mimosa, heliotrope, and red sandalwood. -
Empowering Perfume Oil
Out of StockA fortifying eruption of strength, courage, stamina, determination, and personal power.
This oil includes dragon’s blood resin, red ginger, high john the conqueror root, cedar, frankincense, ambrette seed, bergamot, and hyssop.
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Escape From the Autumn Carnival Perfume Oil
Add to cartThe scent of a burning Jack o’ Lantern up on a hill. The fog in a spider web coated hall of mirrors. The ghosts have jumped he track and The Halloween Cowboy is all around. Follow him to a special place – an Autumn Carnival. You’ll never want to leave.
Boot leather, flaming pumpkins, hay bales, and smoke.
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Execute Confession Module Perfume Oil
Add to cartWhite noise, isolation, interrogation: static-white musk grating against ink-black musk, black pepper, and clove.
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Fête Perfume Oil
Out of StockA bright, ebullient, cheerful party oil that arouses joy, enhances charisma, and fills the soul with lightness and laughter.
Red benzoin, rose otto, carnation absolute, frankincense, lemongrass, mastic, saffron, ylang ylang, bergamot, and tangerine.
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Gynotize! Perfume Oil
Add to cartA crash course in gynotism: cherry-slapped rose musk.
Patented 3-D Gyno-Coin not included.
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Harvest Moon Love Potion Perfume Oil
Out of StockAn attraction and sensuality blend that is delightfully camouflaged as a perfume. Autumn romance personified, infused with the comfort of fall leaves and apple pulp, cacao, 7-year aged patchouli, vanilla absolute, benzoin, cubeb berries, and rose absolute.
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Haunted Housewife Perfume Oil
Add to cart“When mothers try to live the way our culture encourages us to, as almost literally selfless vehicles for others’ fulfillment, we become something else, something cold and hungry, something you wouldn’t want to see standing over your bed in the dark.”
A thin, sorrowful, lonely scent: white musk and dust, elemi and white amber, carrot seed and opium tar accord.
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Hebrews 13:1-3 Perfume Oil
Out of StockLet mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.
Sugar blossom, cinnamon bark, and tobacco absolute.
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Hypatia Perfume Oil
Add to cartHYPATIA of Alexandria (c. 355 CE – 415 CE)
Hypatia of Alexandria is the earliest woman philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician whose legacy has survived. Her teaching attracted students from wealthy and influential families, including the future bishop Synesius of Cyrene, whose letters “To the Philosopher” are some of our few primary sources about Hypatia.
She succeeded her father, the Greek mathematician Theon, as head of his Neoplatonist school.
After living and teaching peacefully amidst dangerous religious conflict, Hypatia drew the ire of enemies who resented the accomplishment of a woman – and hated that a “pagan” had become the era’s preeminent astronomer and mathematician.
Math is hard.
Bishop Cyril of Alexandria needed only to spread slanderous rumors to provide sufficient pretext for the parabalani – a violent militia of Christian monks – to savagely torture and murder an unarmed scholar. Some say they hacked her to death with clay roofing tiles; some say they wielded oyster shells. Either way, the cowards were satisfied they had silenced her.
Following this atrocity, Hypatia’s work was disparaged and her writings were “lost.”
Hypatia is not forgotten.
The ancient philosopher and astronomer is memorialized on Earth (presolar meteorite fragment “Hypatia” stone), on the Moon (Hypatia crater, Rimae Hypatia), and in the heavens (main-belt asteroid 238 Hypatia).
Synesius of Cyrene Drags Athens in a Letter to his Brother
…may the accursed ship-captain perish who brought me here! Athens has no longer anything sublime except the country’s famous names! Just as in the case of a victim burnt in the sacrificial fire, there remains nothing but the skin to help us to reconstruct a creature that was once alive – so ever since philosophy left these precincts, there is nothing for the tourist to admit except the Academy, the Lyceum, and – by Zeus! – the Decorated Porch which has given its name to the philosophy of Chrysippus.
Today Egypt has received and cherishes the fruitful wisdom of Hypatia. Athens used to be the dwelling place of the wise: today the beekeepers alone bring it honor.
Rose water and a mineralic, star-dappled blend of white musk, crystalline amber, and sweet oud.
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I Will be Strange, Stout, in Yellow Stockings Perfume Oil
Out of StockI thank my stars I am happy. I will
be strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and
cross-gartered, even with the swiftness of putting
on. Jove and my stars be praised!
— MalvolioChampaca absolute, lemon peel, basmati rice, smoked vanilla husk, and green tea.
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ImPEACHment Perfume Oil
Out of StockA beam of hope for a happier, safer, kinder future for us all: peach and honeyed amber with frankincense, honeyed rose, white oud, apricot, and sweet musk.
Proceeds benfit the ACLU.
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John Locke Perfume Oil
Add to cartJOHN LOCKE of England and France and England and Holland and England (1632 CE – 1704 CE)
English philosopher John Locke was a Great Thinker.
As with many a Great Thinker, sometimes his brilliant ideas tilted at each other, and sometimes the luminous heart of his theories of property (you are not property! you own yourself! and your labor!) proved inadequately lit – anyway, not enough to enlighten his investment in the shady business of capturing and enslaving people.
Locke could be bracingly independent. He upended convention by growing less conservative and less authoritarian with age.
In his era, the political waters could be choppy (adj. “variable, tumultuous, filled with beheadings”), and from time to time he was obliged to flee. He fled to France (1675-1679). He fled to Holland (1683-1689).
The Father of Liberalism’s ideas about natural rights and the social contract inspired many other flawed Great Thinkers, among them the framers of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
To this day, we continue to perfect the ideas John Locke advocated: government by consent of the people, individual rights, tolerance, scientific and evidence-based inquiry, liberty, and reason.
John Locke was a Virgo.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they’re not already common.
A blend of 17th century grooming products and some Sexy Virgo Philosopher Leather Action: lavender pomade, a splash of Carmelite water, tonka bean, and a well-worn strop.
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Leviticus 27:19 Perfume Oil
Add to cart‘Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.’ Then all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’
Agarwood smoke, coffee bean, Sumatran benzoin, cedarwood, and nutmeg.
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Limitations Perfume Oil
Add to cartThe subtlest strain a great musician weaves,
Cannot attain in rhythmic harmony
To music in his soul. May it not be
Celestial lyres send hints to him? He grieves
That half the sweetness of the song, he leaves
Unheard in the transition. Thus do we
Yearn to translate the wondrous majesty
Of some rare mood, when the rapt soul receives
A vision exquisite. Yet who can match
The sunset’s iridescent hues? Who sing
The skylark’s ecstasy so seraph-fine?
We struggle vainly, still we fain would catch
Such rifts amid life’s shadows, for they bring
Glimpses ineffable of things divine.
– Henrietta Cordelia RayDusk-purple jasmine and wild plum, orris absolute, honeysuckle, red mandarin, and benzoin.
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Lines to a Nasturtium (A Lover Muses) Perfume Oil
Add to cartAnne Spencer
Flame-flower, Day-torch, Mauna Loa,
I saw a daring bee, today, pause, and soar,
Into your flaming heart;
Then did I hear crisp, crinkled laughter
As the furies after tore him apart?
A bird, next, small and humming,
Looked into your startled depths and fled…
Surely, some dread sight, and dafter
Than human eyes as mine can see,
Set the stricken air waves drumming
In his flight.
Day-torch, Flame-flower, cool-hot Beauty,
I cannot see, I cannot hear your flutey;
Voice lure your loving swain,
But I know one other to whom you are in beauty
Born in vain:
Hair like the setting sun,
Her eyes a rising star,
Motions gracious as reeds by Babylon, bar
All your competing;
Hands like, how like, brown lilies sweet,
Cloth of gold were fair enough to touch her feet.
Ah, how the sense reels at my repeating,
As once in her fire-lit heart I felt the furies
Beating, beating.
Hair like the setting sun, eyes a rising star, and a heart fire-lit: golden amber, warm nutmeg, cardamom pod, tolu balsam, sweet patchouli, vanilla absolute, wildflower honey, lovage root, and cacao. -
Mama Gein Perfume Oil
Add to cart“So there went Augusta, another woman crushed into nothing by a man’s world. It had happened to millions before her, and has happened to millions since.”
Crushed baby’s breath dusted with baby powder.
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Marian Perfume Oil
Add to cartI don’t belong here.
A respectable, virtuous vintage musk smeared with blood and spiked with the coppery scent of fear.
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My Country Perfume Oil
Out of StockI love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!
– Dorothea MackellarHer far horizons, her jewel-sea: a rose-tinted sunset of amber salt spray azure musk.
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No Man is an Island Perfume Oil
Add to cartNo man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
– John DonneWarm, dark patchouli, hazelnut cream, coffee bean, cassis, tonka bean, purple sage, and bourbon vanilla.
Proceeds from the sale of this oil will be donated to the Los Angeles Food Bank so we can do our part to prevent and ameliorate food scarcity in the community.
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Non-Compliant Perfume Oil
Add to cartToo butch, too femme, too sexy, not sexy enough, too smart, too big, too loud, too angry.
Sugar and bile, leather and blood, honey and rum, shredded patchouli and vetiver, tobacco and lime.
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O Spirit of Love Perfume Oil
Add to cartO spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
— OrsinoEffervescent rose chypre and bourbon vanilla.
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On Imagination Perfume Oil
Add to cartThy various works, imperial queen, we see,
How bright their forms! how deck’d with pomp by thee!
Thy wond’rous acts in beauteous order stand,
And all attest how potent is thine hand.From Helicon’s refulgent heights attend,
Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend:
To tell her glories with a faithful tongue,
Ye blooming graces, triumph in my song.Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies,
Till some lov’d object strikes her wand’ring eyes,
Whose silken fetters all the senses bind,
And soft captivity involves the mind.Imagination! who can sing thy force?
Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
Soaring through air to find the bright abode,
Th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God,
We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,
And leave the rolling universe behind:
From star to star the mental optics rove,
Measure the skies, and range the realms above.
There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,
Or with new worlds amaze th’ unbounded soul.Though Winter frowns to Fancy’s raptur’d eyes
The fields may flourish, and gay scenes arise;
The frozen deeps may break their iron bands,
And bid their waters murmur o’er the sands.
Fair Flora may resume her fragrant reign,
And with her flow’ry riches deck the plain;
Sylvanus may diffuse his honours round,
And all the forest may with leaves be crown’d:
Show’rs may descend, and dews their gems disclose,
And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose.Such is thy pow’r, nor are thine orders vain,
O thou the leader of the mental train:
In full perfection all thy works are wrought,
And thine the sceptre o’er the realms of thought.
Before thy throne the subject-passions bow,
Of subject-passions sov’reign ruler thou;
At thy command joy rushes on the heart,
And through the glowing veins the spirits dart.Fancy might now her silken pinions try
To rise from earth, and sweep th’ expanse on high:
From Tithon’s bed now might Aurora rise,
Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies,
While a pure stream of light o’erflows the skies.
The monarch of the day I might behold,
And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold,
But I reluctant leave the pleasing views,
Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse;
Winter austere forbids me to aspire,
And northern tempests damp the rising fire;
They chill the tides of Fancy’s flowing sea,
Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay.
– Phillis WheatleyThe unbounded soul: a vibrant, airy, uplifted amber with smoked vanilla and coconut, tuberose, orange blossom, wildflower honey, and sheer musk.
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Peach Chypre Perfume Oil
Add to cartA twist on a traditional early 20th century sweet chypre with red labdanum, oakmoss, 3-year aged patchouli, Italian bergamot, and peach.
Peach Chypre debuted at DragonCon this year as a fundraiser response to Governor Kemp’s monstrous and misleadingly-named “Fetal Heartbeat” bill: proceeds from the sale of this scent benefit Planned Parenthood.
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Penny Rolle Perfume Oil
Add to cartIf it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I ain’t broke.
…and you bastards ain’t never going to break me.
Red sandalwood, shea, sweet patchouli, cardamom, pecan, and caramelized amber.
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Pirates! Perfume Oil
Add to cartGunpowder and salt-crusted leather, casks of scorched spices, sweet rum, and a clink of golden amber.
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Please Scream Inside Your Heart Perfume Oil
Select Options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Please Scream Inside Your Heart Sticker
Out of StockPlease do not stick these on or inside your heart.
Illustration by Drew Rausch for Black Phoenix!
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Please Scream Inside Your Snake Oil Perfume Oil
Add to cartTying in with our experimental work in fear: we have screamed into our Snake Oil… and we can’t stop sniffing ourselves! BPAL’s signature scent — deep, rich earthy notes swirled with vegetal musks, sugared vanilla bean, and dark spices — has been polluted by the funnel cake frenzy that is our Please Scream Inside Your Heart perfume blend. The results are so comforting, we almost forgot why we started screaming in the first place. (Almost.)
Note: This product DOES NOT come with the limited edition sticker that was included with Please Scream Inside Your Heart. Just one more thing to scream about! (Elizabeth clearly has a possum bias. -Ed)
Label art by Drew Rausch!
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Possessed Teen Perfume Oil
Add to cart“This is the ideological force driving all those stories about toxic period blood and PMS-induced hauntings. In a culture where we’re trained to protect children and loathe women, the border zone between the two states is the subject of intense superstition and terror.”
Skin musk and soap, smoldering with ash and exorcism incense.
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Psalm 146:9 Perfume Oil
Add to cartThe Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
Cacao, labdanum, vetiver, and bourbon vanilla.
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Shipwreck Graveyard Perfume Oil
Add to cartSeaweed-wrapped planks of red oak, white pine, and cedar coated in thick algae, a tangle of hemp rope, cast iron cannons thick with rust, all enveloped in a ghostly gasp of white musk, bergamot, ambrette, and jasmine sambac.
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Socrates Perfume Oil
Add to cartSOCRATES of Athens (c. 470 BCE – 399 BCE)
To Socrates, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” He did his examining publicly, by elenchus, which is italics for “the question-and-answer analysis of ideas.” (We still call this “the Socratic Method” and it still bugs people.)
Socrates portrayed himself as a “gadfly” to the torpid “great and noble steed” of the state, and powerful Athenians agreed, though they were not universally grateful.
Socrates also claimed he had a mystical inner voice (his daimonion) and it dissuaded him from such deeds as seeking high office. Ineluctably, this daimonion and his many other peculiarities were weaponized by Athenians of high office.
Despite his patriotic service – as soldier, as divinely-appointed nuisance of Athens – Socrates was tried, convicted of impiety and corruption of the youth, and sentenced to death by drinking Conium maculatum, which is italics for poisonous hemlock.
Socrates remained Socrates to the last.
…I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to address you, weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as I say, are unworthy of me. But I thought that I ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger: nor do I now repent of the manner of my defense, and I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live.
– Plato-s ApologyInspired by anointing oils used in the philosopher’s time after partaking in public baths: orris root, ambergris accord, frankincense, olive blossom, black fig, and marjoram.
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Sonnet Perfume Oil
Add to cartAlice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
I had not thought of violets late,
The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet
In wistful April days, when lovers mate
And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.
The thought of violets meant florists’ shops,
And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine;
And garish lights, and mincing little fops
And cabarets and soaps, and deadening wines.
So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,
I had forgot wide fields; and clear brown streams;
The perfect loveliness that God has made,—
Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.
And now—unwittingly, you’ve made me dream
Of violets, and my soul’s forgotten gleam.
Heaven-mounting dreams: a cluster of wild violets, the first lilac blossoms of spring, honeyed honeysuckle, ylang ylang, a touch of fennel, and cerise musk. -
Spirit Fingers Perfume Oil
Add to cartWhat do we want?
TO GIVE THEM THE FINGER!When do we want it?
OH MY GOD ALL THE FUCKING TIME??A giant foam fuck you: cotton candy, red pepper, and clove bud.
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Sustained Boos Perfume Oil
Out of StockTrump attended Game 5 of the World Series, and when he was announced on the public address system after the third inning, the crowd surged into a “sustained booing” that hit almost 100 decibels.
Both the living and the dead are offended by this administration’s cruelty and perfidy.
This scent is both ethereal and heavy; it is a booming roar of derision, a howl of resistance echoing into the darkness: a chilly aldehyde with blackened clove and coffee bean, black sandalwood, nutmeg, nag champa, white amber, and benzoin.
Proceeds from the sale of this scent benefit the ACLU. Art by Drew Rausch!
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The Catholic Perfume Oil
Add to cartSearch your conscience.
Digital repentance, analog guilt: sacramental incense and a snap of ozone.
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The Choirs of Angels Perfume Oil
Add to cartThe Choirs of Angels, Hildegard von Bingen 1151-1152
“I always thought these holy mandalas looked a little bit like saintly Spirographs. Also: can you imagine peeking into the inner sanctum of a superfluity of mysterious nuns and discovering them lounging around, playing with Spirographs and Fashion Plates and LightBrite toys?”A radiant blend of three frankincense oils, white bergamot, crystallized cistus, lavender, angelica root, and fiery neroli.
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The Kangaroo Perfume Oil
Out of StockKanagaroo, Kangaroo!
Thou Spirit of Australia,
That redeems from utter failure,
From perfect desolation,
And warrants the creation
Of this fifth part of the Earth,
Which would seem an after-birth,
Not conceiv’d in the Beginning
(For GOD bless’d His work at first,
And saw that it was good),
But emerg’d at the first sinning,
When the ground was therefore curst; —
And hence this barren wood!Kangaroo, Kangaroo!
Tho’ at first sight we should say,
In thy nature that there may
Contradiction be involv’d,
Yet, like discord well resolv’d,
It is quickly harmonized.
Sphynx or mermaid realiz’d,
Or centaur unfabulous,
Would scarce be more prodigious,
Or Pegasus poetical,
Or hippogriff — chimeras all!
But, what Nature would compile,
Nature knows to reconcile;
And Wisdom, ever at her side,
Of all her children’s justified.She had made the squirrel fragile;
She had made the bounding hart;
But a third so strong and agile
Was beyond ev’n Nature’s art;
So she join’d the former two
In thee, Kangaroo!
To describe thee, it is hard:
Converse of the camélopard,
Which beginneth camel-wise,
But endeth of the panther size,
Thy fore half, it would appear,
Had belong’d to some “small deer,”
Such as liveth in a tree;
By thy hinder, thou should’st be
A large animal of chace,
Bounding o’er the forest’s space; —
Join’d by some divine mistake,
None but Nature’s hand can make —
Nature, in her wisdom’s play,
On Creation’s holiday.For howsoe’er anomalous,
Thou yet art not incongruous,
Repugnant or preposterous.
Better-proportion’d animal,
More graceful or ethereal,
Was never follow’d by the hound,
With fifty steps to thy one bound.
Thou can’st not be amended: no;
Be as thou art; thou best art so.When sooty swans are once more rare,
And duck-moles the Museum’s care,
Be still the glory of this land,
Happiest Work of finest Hand!
– Barron FieldWild grass, mosses, lemon myrtle, cinnamon myrtle, and bush nut.
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The Things We Do Make Echoes Perfume Oil
Out of StockGoldfish-orange overripe mangoes, blackcurrant, strawberry pulp, red benzoin, honey, streaks of white ginger, a splatter of star anise, an erratic jolt of eucalyptus and mint, and a dribble of absinthe.
Words by Neil Gaiman, art by David Mack.
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The Wish Perfume Oil
Add to cartThe Wish, Theodor Von Holst, 1840
“I’ve always wanted to know what wishes are longed for in the dark-eyed gaze of this intense young woman. Myself, I simply wish to rifle through the box of baubles and jewels in the bottom right of the canvas. Maybe help myself to that pearl-tipped hat-pin.”An incense of candied smoked fruits, Oman frankincense, red oud, labdanum absolute, sheer vanilla, patchouli, red musk seed, osmanthus, and datura accord.
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The Witch/Strega Perfume Oil
Add to cartThe Witch/Strega, Angelo Caroselli, 17th Century
“Look at this witch’s face! You know she’s going to be a cutting-clever one, uttering snarky-sneaky observations that make you both gasp and splutter with repressed laughter about mutuals you can’t stand. I want to be her Facebook friend. She’d be a scream in a Netflix watch party.”Leatherbound tomes and rose cream, flickering flames of twin ambers, and a cascade of shadows: black oud, teakwood, black beeswax, 13-year aged patchouli, cinnabar, balsam, sweet labdanum, tonka bean, and smoke.
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The Woman at the Edge of the Woods Perfume Oil
Add to cart“This is the primal threat in our earliest stories: a woman who lives on the outskirts of civilization, rejected by her community; a woman who is old, ugly, asexual; a woman who is, alternately, too beautiful, too sexual, too self-possessed; a woman who knows things others don’t know, and can do things others can’t do. When the loop of patriarchy closes, it can feel inescapable. Yet the way to freedom has been here, in our monster stories, all along. From the beginning, we’ve known that a woman who leaves society as we know it, who heads out to the dark and threatening spaces beyond the world we’ve built, will find not her death but her power.”
A scent of power and wisdom, resilience and rage: a patchouli bramble embraced by creeping ivy and rose thorns, protecting a glade populated with mandrake root, yarrow and nettle, Roman chamomile, purple sage, elderberries, sweet myrrh, smoky vanilla husk, and willow branches.
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Waltzing Matilda Perfume Oil
Out of StockUp sprang the swagman and jumped into the waterhole,
Drowning himself by the Coolibah tree;
And his voice can be heard as it sings in the billabongs,
“Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.”Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, my darling.
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.
Waltzing Matilda and leading a water-bag.
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.
– Banjo PatersonDusty vanilla bean and Moreton Bay Fig.
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We Wear the Mask Perfume Oil
Add to cartWe wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, –
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
– Paul Laurence DunbarThis poem – this song – is one that has moved me since my childhood, and it’s so incredibly difficult to translate it into scent. I don’t know if I am capable of doing honor to Dunbar’s words; all I can do is craft something that is akin to how much this makes my heart clench. The scent I have chosen is a soft lavender with dry woods, carrot seed and iris, sandalwood smoke, and wisteria.
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What You Want and Being Happy Are Two Quite Different Things Perfume Oil
Out of StockThe knife’s blade of temptation: sweet pomegranate and fig, carnal tuberose, tobacco leaf, and a trail of smoke.
Words by Neil Gaiman, art by David Mack.
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Woman as Dragon Perfume Oil
Add to cart“The archaic mother – the mother who reproduces without male permission for her own satisfaction – is the least human of the female monsters because she poses the most profound existential threat… The Mother is female bodily self-determination, full-fledged and uncontrollable, out of the ocean and stomping skyscrapers, turning the male world to rubble. She is what happens when the Furies come home.”
A fiery red musk with crushed ginger root, black upturned soil, dragon’s blood resin, clove bud, pink peppercorn, tobacco absolute, red amber, patchouli, black oud, blood-caked tar, vetiver, and cedar.
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You Get What Anybody Gets – You Get a Lifetime Perfume Oil
Out of StockAn unimaginably ancient scent, older than time. The gentle, fluttering embrace of oblivion: myrrh and blackened champaca blossom, attar of oudh, black amber, Casmir wood, and dried fig.
Words by Neil Gaiman, art by David Mack.
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Zechariah 7:9-10 Perfume Oil
Add to cartThus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.
White magnolia blossom, champaca, and red oudh.