Spring 2020

  • BPAL brimstone logo with the text After the Winter

    After the Winter Perfume Oil

    Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
    And against the morning’s white
    The shivering birds beneath the eaves
    Have sheltered for the night,
    We’ll turn our faces southward, love,
    Toward the summer isle
    Where bamboos spire the shafted grove
    And wide-mouthed orchids smile.

    And we will seek the quiet hill
    Where towers the cotton tree,
    And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
    And works the droning bee.
    And we will build a cottage there
    Beside an open glade,
    With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
    And ferns that never fade.

    – Claude McKay

    Turn your face southward toward the summer isle: rolling green grasses, Taitian vanilla, white coconut, fig, orange blossom, baobab leaf, and golden amber.

    Out of Stock
  • BPAL brimstone logo with the text Every Day You Play With the Light of the Universe

    Every Day You Play With the Light of the Universe Perfume Oil

    Every day you play with the light of the universe.
    Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
    You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
    as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

    You are like nobody since I love you.
    Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
    Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
    Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

    Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
    The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
    Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
    The rain takes off her clothes.

    The birds go by, fleeing.
    The wind. The wind.
    I can contend only against the power of men.
    The storm whirls dark leaves
    and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

    You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
    You will answer me to the last cry.
    Cling to me as though you were frightened.
    Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

    Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
    and even your breasts smell of it.
    While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
    I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

    How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
    my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
    So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
    and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

    My words rained over you, stroking you.
    A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
    I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
    I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
    dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

    I want
    to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

    – Pablo Neruda, translation by WS Merwin

    Skin-warmed honeysuckle, plum and cherry blossoms, and amber cream.

    Out of Stock
  • BPAL brimstone logo with the text Hope is the Thing With Feathers

    Hope is the Thing With Feathers Perfume Oil

    “Hope” is the thing with feathers –
    That perches in the soul –
    And sings the tune without the words –
    And never stops – at all –

    And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
    And sore must be the storm –
    That could abash the little Bird
    That kept so many warm –

    I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
    And on the strangest Sea –
    Yet – never – in Extremity,
    It asked a crumb – of me.

    – Emily Dickinson

    Warm, golden, feather-soft: orris-dusted amber, white honey, osmanthus blossom, and star jasmine.

    Out of Stock
  • BPAL brimstone logo with the text Hope

    Hope Perfume Oil

    Hope was but a timid friend;
    She sat without the grated den,
    Watching how my fate would tend,
    Even as selfish-hearted men.

    She was cruel in her fear;
    Through the bars one dreary day,
    I looked out to see her there,
    And she turned her face away!

    Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
    Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
    She would sing while I was weeping;
    If I listened, she would cease.

    False she was, and unrelenting;
    When my last joys strewed the ground,
    Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
    Those sad relics scattered round;

    Hope, whose whisper would have given
    Balm to all my frenzied pain,
    Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
    Went, and ne’er returned again!

    – Emily Brontë

    Sharp and cynical: bitter mimosa, smoky opoponax, Oman frankincense, French beeswax, and linden blossom.

    Out of Stock
  • BPAL brimstone logo with the text Lines Written in Early Spring

    Lines Written in Early Spring Perfume Oil

    I heard a thousand blended notes,
    While in a grove I sate reclined,
    In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
    Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

    To her fair works did Nature link
    The human soul that through me ran;
    And much it grieved my heart to think
    What man has made of man.

    Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
    The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
    And ’tis my faith that every flower
    Enjoys the air it breathes.

    The birds around me hopped and played,
    Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
    But the least motion which they made
    It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

    The budding twigs spread out their fan,
    To catch the breezy air;
    And I must think, do all I can,
    That there was pleasure there.

    If this belief from heaven be sent,
    If such be Nature’s holy plan,
    Have I not reason to lament
    What man has made of man?

    – William Wordsworth

    And I must think, do all I can, that there was pleasure there: gilded golden roses, wildflower honey, lush magnolia, tuberose, peony, and clove.

    Out of Stock
  • Portrait of John Donne as a young man, artist unknown

    No Man is an Island Perfume Oil

    No 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 Donne

    Warm, 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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  • BPAL brimstone logo with the text Song of Hope

    Song of Hope Perfume Oil

    O sweet To-morrow! –
    After to-day
    There will away
    This sense of sorrow.
    Then let us borrow
    Hope, for a gleaming
    Soon will be streaming,
    Dimmed by no gray –
    No gray!

    While the winds wing us
    Sighs from The Gone,
    Nearer to dawn
    Minute-beats bring us;
    When there will sing us
    Larks of a glory
    Waiting our story
    Further anon –
    Anon!

    Doff the black token,
    Don the red shoon,
    Right and retune
    Viol-strings broken;
    Null the words spoken
    In speeches of rueing,
    The night cloud is hueing,
    To-morrow shines soon –
    Shines soon!

    – Thomas Hardy

    A warm amber carnation with patchouli root, ambergris accord, balsam of Peru, vanilla absolute, black pepper, clove husk, ochre leather, and pimento berry.

    Out of Stock
  • BPAL brimstone logo with the text the Enkindled Spring

    The Enkindled Spring Perfume Oil

    This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
    Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,
    Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between
    Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

    I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
    Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
    Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,
    Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

    And I, what fountain of fire am I among
    This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed
    About like a shadow buffeted in the throng
    Of flames, a shadow that’s gone astray, and is lost.

    – DH Lawrence

    A verdant inferno of daffodils, tulips, voluptuous pink peonies, star magnolias, and a blaze of crisp, green leaves.

    Out of Stock
  • BPAL brimstone logo with the text the Instinct of Hope

    The Instinct of Hope Perfume Oil

    Is there another world for this frail dust
    To warm with life and be itself again?
    Something about me daily speaks there must,
    And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?
    ‘Tis nature’s prophesy that such will be,
    And everything seems struggling to explain
    The close sealed volume of its mystery.
    Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace
    As seeming anxious of eternity,
    To meet that calm and find a resting place.
    E’en the small violet feels a future power
    And waits each year renewing blooms to bring,
    And surely man is no inferior flower
    To die unworthy of a second spring?

    – Hohn Clare

    A melancholy violet oud with dry cedarwood, cognac, and tolu balsam.

    Out of Stock
  • BPAL brimstone logo with the text To Hope

    To Hope Perfume Oil

    When by my solitary hearth I sit,
    When no fair dreams before my “mind’s eye” flit,
    And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
    Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
    And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head.

    Whene’er I wander, at the fall of night,
    Where woven boughs shut out the moon’s bright ray,
    Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
    And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
    Peep with the moon-beams through the leafy roof,
    And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof.

    Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
    Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
    When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
    Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
    Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
    And fright him as the morning frightens night!

    Whene’er the fate of those I hold most dear
    Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,
    O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer;
    Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow:
    Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed,
    And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head!

    Should e’er unhappy love my bosom pain,
    From cruel parents, or relentless fair;
    O let me think it is not quite in vain
    To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!
    Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
    And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head!

    In the long vista of the years to roll,
    Let me not see our country’s honour fade:
    O let me see our land retain her soul,
    Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom’s shade.
    From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed-
    Beneath thy pinions canopy my head!

    Let me not see the patriot’s high bequest,
    Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
    With the base purple of a court oppress’d,
    Bowing her head, and ready to expire:
    But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings
    That fill the skies with silver glitterings!

    And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
    Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
    Brightening the half veil’d face of heaven afar:
    So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
    Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
    Waving thy silver pinions o’er my head.

    – John Keats

    A luminescent perfume of silver fir needle, mugwort, frankincense, hawthorn wood, yellow tobacco flower, orris concrete, and bois de rose.

    Out of Stock