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.)