Day 1543 – BPAL’s Thirteen (13): September 2019

Tags

angelica, bergamot, blue tansy, borage, BPAL, chamomile, cubeba, Frankincense, hops, In Memoriam, king mandarin, Lavender, limited edition, listea cubeba, litsea, mandarin, Oman frankincense, patchouli, Roman chamomile, sandalwood, tansy, thirteen, ylang ylang

Scent Name: Thirteen (13): September 2019

Manufacturer: Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab – Limited Edition: Thirteen

Scent Description and Notes: “13 is significant, whether you consider it lucky, unlucky or just plain odd. Many believe it to be unfortunate…

…because there were 13 present at the Last Supper.
…Loki crashed a party of 12 at Valhalla, which ended in Baldur’s death.
…Oinomaos killed 13 of Hippodamia’s suitors before Pelops finally, in his own shady way, defeated the jealous king.
…In ancient Rome, Hecate’s witches gathered in groups of 12, the Goddess herself being the 13th in the coven.

Concern over the number thirteen echoes back beyond the Christian era. Line 13 was omitted form the Code of Hammurabi.

The shivers over Friday the 13th also have some interesting origins:

…Christ was allegedly crucified on Friday the 13th.
…On Friday, October 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrests of Jaques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and sixty of his senior knights.
…In British custom, hangings were held on Fridays, and there were 13 steps on the gallows leading to the noose.

To combat the superstition, Robert Ingersoll and the Thirteen Club held thirteen-men dinners during the 19th Century. Successful? Hardly. The number still invokes trepidation to this day. A recent whimsical little serial killer study showed that the following murderers all have names that total thirteen letters:

Theodore Bundy
Jeffrey Dahmer
Albert De Salvo
John Wayne Gacy

And, with a little stretch of the imagination, you can also fit “Jack the Ripper” and “Charles Manson” into that equation.

More current-era paranoia: modern schoolchildren stop their memorization of the multiplication tables at 12. There were 13 Plutonium slugs in the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. Apollo 13 wasn’t exactly the most successful space mission. All of these are things that modern triskaidekaphobes point to when justifying their fears.

For some, 13 is an extremely fortuitous and auspicious number…

…In Jewish tradition, God has 13 Attributes of Mercy. Also, there were 13 tribes of Israel, 13 principles of Jewish faith, and 13 is considered the age of maturity.
…The ancient Egyptians believed that there were 12 stages of spiritual achievement in this lifetime, and a 13th beyond death.
…The word for thirteen, in Chinese, sounds much like the word which means “must be alive”.

Thirteen, whether you love it or loathe it, is a pretty cool number all around.

…In some theories of relativity, there are 13 dimensions.
…It is a prime number, lucky number, star number, Wilson Prime, and Fibonacci number.
…There are 13 Archimedean solids.

AND…
…There were 13 original colonies when the United States were founded.

Says a lot about the US, doesn’t it?

This version of 13 is a departure from our usual theme for this ongoing project. So many of us are going through so much right now; it seems right to make an oil that contains 13 herbs, flowers, and resins of peace, tranquility, and grounding: lavender, litsea cubeba, sandalwood, ylang ylang,  king mandarin, patchouli, blue tansy, Roman chamomile, bergamot, Oman frankincense, angelica, hops, and borage.“ -https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/limited-edition/13-perfume-oil/

Oil Color: A pale white wine colored oil.

Bottle Design and Artwork: This is a standard 1/32 ml imp that has been decanted for me by Absinthetics. Her label features the scent notes on the back along with her decanting information and the scent name. The label art is as follows on the front:

Image from https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/limited-edition/13-perfume-oil/

Scent:

• ITI: This 13 is very much a departure from the previous years.  It’s softly citrus-like (it’s not mandarin, so I think it might be the litsea cubeba) with bright ylang ylang and strong, soothing herbal overtones, especially of chamomile, borage, a sliver of lavender.  There’s an interesting resinous musk under all the herbal elements too.
• Wet: I wasn’t expecting the gentle sandalwood and alluring frankincense to be so forward on my skin, but they waft beautifully forth, followed a few seconds later by the lovely and centering herbal notes.  After 10 seconds, the listea cubeba and ylang ylang with a squirt of mandarin reach my nose, like waves upon waves lapping at the shore.  Dang.  I wish I had gotten a bottle of this.
• Dry: This still had some throw midway through the day, but by the end of the evening, this scent is a sedate and soothing combination of lavender, chamomile, and a hint of blue tansy.

Other Impressions: None

Day 1319 – BPAL’s Snow Moon 2019

Tags

a little lunacy, A Little Lunacy 2019, A Little Lunacy: February 2019, angelica, angelica root, apple, BPAL, crystalline musk, frozen apples, In Memoriam, Musk, pale musk, snow, snowdrops, tea, tea leaf, white apples, white tea, white tea leaf, yuzu

Scent Name: Snow Moon 2019

Manufacturer: Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab – A Little Lunacy: February 2019

Scent Description and Notes: “The cold earth slept below;

Above the cold sky shone…

Some consider December’s full moon to be Snow Moon, but the cold, bleak white silence of February also bears the name. Snowfall is at its heaviest, food is scarce, the past year’s harvest has been exhausted, and driving winds, sleet, and bitter cold make hunting near-impossible. It is a desolate time, a solitary time, a time of conservation and introspection; in February, we are confronted with loneliness and want, and are challenged to find strength in the darkness.

Snow, endless snow, and a glimmer of hope illuminated by the reflection of Brigid’s flame. Snowdrops pushing through a pale white blanket of crystalline musk, pale white frozen apples, white tea leaf, yuzu, and angelica root.” -https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/in-memoriam/a-little-lunacy/snow-moon-2019-perfume-oil/

Oil Color: A light yellow oil on my skin.

Bottle Design and Artwork: This is a standard brown apothecary bottle.  The label wrapped around the bottle features the name of the company in bolded pale ballet pink block font shadowed in black along the bottom.  Above that is the name of the scent in in a larger version of the font, although in a dusky rose color.  The label art is as featured below:

Artwork by Caldecott-winning illustrator and author and all-around amazing human being and bestest of friends, Dan Santat. Image from https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/in-memoriam/a-little-lunacy/snow-moon-2019-perfume-oil/

• ITB: Fruity, frozen, and crisp.  I certainly am getting pale frozen apples as the most forward note and it simply makes my mouth water! I can’ almost see the frost on its skin.  The whole beautiful scent-scape is heightened by the pure yuzu, swelling together with the apple about angelica root and shimmering musk.
• Wet: Delicious and invigorating!  The pale frozen apple note is just as crisp and cold as in the bottle, heightened by the yuzu, which mingles beautifully with the angelica and white tea leaf.  The musk resonated between the bottom and middle of the scent, adding the impression of a gauze swaddling the crisp and frozen fruit notes.  The brightness of this scent reminds me of a cross between The Body Shop’s Fuzzy Navel and Dewberry.
• Dry: I get a hazy, coolly musky impression sweetened in long-ado desiccated apple and powdered angelica.  Honestly, it reminds me of my  grandmother’s home.  I’m a fan.

Other Impressions: None.

Day 1308 – BPAL’s Vital Fluid

Tags

An Evening with the Spirits, angelica, benzoin, betel leaf, BPAL, galbanum, In Memoriam, labdanum, limited edition, mastic, olibanum, red benzoin, red benzoin absolute, yule, Yule 2018, Yule 2018: An Evening With the Spirits, Yules, Yules 2018

Scent Name: Vital Fluid

Manufacturer: Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab – Yule 2018: An Evening with The Spirits

Scent Description and Notes: “Modern philosophy has admitted a plenum or universal principle of fluid matter, which occupies all space; and that as all bodies moving in the world, abound with pores, this fluid matter introduces itself through the interstices and returns backwards and forwards, flowing through one body by the currents which issue therefrom to another, as in a magnet, which produces that phenomenon which we call Animal Magnetism. This fluid consists of fire, air and spirit, and like all other fluids tends to an equilibrium, therefore it is easy to conceive how the efforts which the bodies make towards each other produce animal electricity, which in fact is no more than the effect produced between two bodies, one of which has more motion than the other; a phenomenon serving to prove that the body which has most motion communicates it to the other, until the medium of motion becomes an equilibrium between the two bodies, and then this equality of motion produces animal electricity.

—Wonders and mysteries of animal magnetism displayed; or the history, art, practice, and progress of that useful science, from its first rise in the city of Paris, to the present time. With several Curious Cases and new Anecdotes of the Principal Professors, 1791.

The breath and tears and pulse of all life; the fluid that flows through all creation, permeating space and time and spirit: olibanum, red benzoin absolute, labdanum, betel leaf, galbanum, mastic, and angelica.”  -https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/winter-collection/yule-2018/an_evening_with_the_spirits/vital-fluid/

Oil Color: A deeply cherried walnut wood.

Bottle Design and Artwork: This is a standard 1/32 ml imp that has been decanted for me by Yowahoshihime. Her label features the scent notes and her decanter information on the back. The front has the name of the  scent and company name along with the label art, which is as below:

• ITI: Golden rays of sumptuous honeyed resins.  Be still my heart!  The combinations of resins – benzoin, sweet olibanum, mastic – are just delightful in their purity and radiance, especially with angelica gently elevating the scent just so.
• Wet: It’s very similar wet, although I can detect the mastic a little more clearly, seconds before it’s subdued by brightly resinous tones.
• Dry: Warm and welcoming, I keep getting beautifully golden whiffs of this delightful scent.  The silage here is excellent – decently long, but not overbearing.  Elevator approved. Honeyed angelica, olibanum, benzoin, and feint labdanum swirl together in a delightful sweetly resinous frenzy.  This is something I could imagine Cleopatra or The Queen of Sheba wearing.  Wow!

Other Impressions: “It smells like somebody rubbed butterscotch on a new car.” -Tony

Day 363- BPAL’s Touched Twice

Tags

angelica, BPAL, champaca, champaca flower, coconut, cyclamen, event exclusive, frangipani, Frankincense, Himalayan mogra, limited edition, mogra, Musk, Oud, red sandalwood, Rose, rose absolute, sandalwood, super limited edition, the last unicorn, vanilla, vanilla musk, white cyclamen, white oud

Scent Name:  Touched Twice

Manufacturer: Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab – The Last Unicorn: Super-Limited Edition: 8/6/11, 2p-6p PDT

Scent Description and Notes: “TOUCHED TWICE
It was long that the unicorn stood by Prince Lír before she touched him with her horn. For all that her quest had ended joyously, there was weariness in the way she held herself, and a sadness in her beauty that Molly had never seen. It suddenly seemed to her that the unicorn’s sorrow was not for Lír but for the lost girl who could not be brought back; for the Lady Amalthea, who might have lived happily ever after with the prince. The unicorn bowed her head, and her horn glanced across Lír’s chin as clumsily as a first kiss.

He sat up blinking, smiling at something long ago. “Father,” he said in a quick, wondering voice. “Father, I had a dream.” Then he saw the unicorn, and he rose to his feet as the blood on his face began to shine and move again. He said, “I was dead.”

The unicorn touched him a second time, over the heart, letting her horn rest there for a little space. They were both trembling. Prince Lír put his hands out to her like words. She said, “I remember you. I remember.”

As delicate as life, as gentle as death, and as powerful as love: sheer, luminescent vanilla musk with frangipani, red sandalwood, frankincense, champaca flower, coconut, rose absolute, white cyclamen, Himalayan mogra, angelica, and white oud.” -BPAL

Cyclamen: Is a flowering tuber that smells sweetly delicate, and often described as a “transparent” scent.

Mogra: This is jasmine sambac, or jasmine with a slight cedar quality.

Oil Color:  A slightly orangish pink peony color.

Bottle Design and Artwork: This is a standard vial / imp size (1/32 oz). Rlaenth decanting this one for me, recording the scent notes in cursive font along the back.    The front features the words in a dark grey or light black color that read “Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn” at the very top.  Just below that in a mavued fuchsia field box is white text that features the name of the scent.  The image is a beautifully rendered pencil drawing of the last unicorn giving life back to the fallen price by touching her horn to his chest.

Label art was created by Renae De Liz, the artist on IDW Publishing’s six-issue comic miniseries of The Last Unicorn. Renae worked on The Last Unicorn comic with her husband, colorist Ray Dillon. – BPAL

Scent: 

• In the Imp (ITI): Coconut, frangipani, rose absolute  sweet musk, and something that’s faint and delicate – perhaps the cyclamen.
• Wet: Beautifully pink and frilly white with hints of pale lavender – for some reason, colors come to mind before notes.  Ocne I get down to business  I get ripe coconut flesh, white oud, vanilla, subtle mogra, blooming rose absolute  and exotic frangipani.  It’s something rather special.
• Dry:  It’s faint after 14 hours of wear, but I can still make out the lush coconut, fragrant frangipani, sweet rose, and undertones of musk

Other Impressions: “It smells like rose and amber.  It’s interesting.  I like it!” -Tony

Day 141 – BPAL’s The Harlot’s House

Tags

Angel's Trumpet, angelica, balsam, bewitching brews, BPAL, copaiba balsam, oakmoss, olibanum, oude, sandalwood, tea, violet, white sandalwood, white tea

Scent Name: The Harlot’s House

Manufacturer: Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab – Bewitching Brews

Scent Description and Notes: “We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot’s house.

Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The “Treues Liebes Herz” of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille.

The took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.

Then, turning to my love, I said,
“The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust.”

But she–she heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.

Then suddenly the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.

And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.

The dead are dancing with the dead, the dust is whirling with the dust:angel’s trumpet, violet, white sandalwood, oude, copaiba balsam, angelica, white tea, olibanum, and oakmoss.” -BPAL.org

Oil Color: A very faint, cloudy yellow.

Bottle Design and Artwork: This is a standard vial / imp size (1/32 oz). The label wrapped around the bottle features an Art-Deco inspired Phoenix with the the name of the company at the bottle of the image. On the other side, the title of the scent written in large, clear black font outlined with red on the front.

Scent: 

• ITI:  Sharp white florals, either the angelica or white trumpt seem to dround out everything else.I can smell a little bit of the tea and oakmoss if I concentrate, but none of the resionous notes are apparent.
• Wet:  The sharp flowral has been replaced with an almost lemony quality.  The tea and violet I think could make this combination, perhaps with a little oude.  I can barely discern the sandalwood underneath the angel’s tumpet and the angelica.  It reminds me of a garden tea party with lemon curd treats.
• Dry:  It’s gone a bit soapy now, but it’s a floral soap with a bit of powder. However, it’s not unpleasant and it does read as feminine.

Other Impressions:  That’s a first.  I think this is the first overtly flowery scent that my husband likes.