Scent Name: The Ghosts of a Ghost’s Ghost
Manufacturer: Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab – Yule 2018: An Evening with The Spirits
Scent Description and Notes: “Now, suppose this is to be accepted as the rational and scientific explanation of all the phenomena of this order which have been observed since the human race began to conserve records of its own experience. To what conclusion should we be logically forced? The believe in the objective reality of apparitions under such conditions would have to make way for a new conception, but the point which is really at issue between the materialist and the spiritualist would remain untouched. That issue relates to the permanence of the human personality after death. The spiritualist will point you to his own experiences as affording evidence of the permanence of personality. The materialist is certain that all the experiences of which the spiritualist is conscious result from the operation of natural law. But the eternal question of the soul – “Am I an immortal thing?” – is not to be decided either by the proof of the existence of whole armies of ghosts, or by the rational explanation of all apparitional phenomena whatsoever. The spiritualist falls into an easy error in the supposition that a continuance of personality on a new plane implies a permanence of continuity. What guarantee has a ghost of being immortal? Me not he also perish out of his appointed sphere? And why might we not fancy a whole procession of lives in phantom state – each more ghostly, more attenuated than its forerunner – the ghost of a man, the ghost of a man’s ghost, the ghost of a “ghost’s” ghost, until the thin thing fades into nonentity and slips back into the universal element? The materialist falls into an error parallel with that of the spiritualist when he conceives that a rational explanation of all ghostly phenomena has disposed of a belief in immortality. The concept is as independent of evidence, and as unsupportable by evidence as it is indestructible by evidence. We can neither prove nor disprove, but the balance of reason is still upon the side of the believer and it favours strongly the hope of a continued existence and a continued growth. We can but argue from things known. In all nature we find the clearest evidence of law of progress.
– the Occult Review, January 1905
Falling into nonentity and slipping back into the universal element: pallid oakmoss and earthy patchouli tumbling into a void of misty lavender, cistus, and white agarwood.” -https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/winter-collection/yule-2018/
Oil Color: Colorless.
Bottle Design and Artwork: This is a standard brown apothecary bottle. The label wrapped around the bottle features the name of the company in faintly ombre white, shadowed font along the bottom. Above that is the name of the scent in ornate coral script. The name of the collection is in same font as the company name along the top of the label. The label art is as featured below:
Image courtesy of Tiah Schindelheim Rodriguez.
- ITB: It strikes me as lightly gentlemanly and refined. I think the combination of lavender, oakmoss, and cistus skew similar to a fougere to my nose. The lavender itself is a bit more gentle than in other Alchemy Lab scents, which keeps the scent from being strictly masculine. At the tail end of the scent is a beautiful, cool, misty musk that does remind me of gauze or lightly lingering fog.
- Wet: The lavender is much more defined once applied – less medicinal and more soothing, wrapped in oakmoss, mist and a very subtle resinous wood. It reminds me of a less sweet version of the Lab’s Puppet Kitty with more earthy tones.
- Dry: Now that it has had 5 hours to dry, the scent still skews unisex or even masculine to me because of the oakmoss and the subtle lavender. There is just a faint trace of spicy earthiness to the scent, but much of the other notes have collapsed under the oakmoss and lavender.
Other Impressions: “It smells like somebody rubbed Chanel #5 on a leather jacket.” -Tony