doomsday_disco

This is predominantly about the butterscotch ale on me, which has some effervescence to it in the beginning. Then it's all butterscotch and buttery pumpkin that fortunately isn't a spicebomb. Definitely one for fans of butterscotch!

A rapidly melting tower of vanilla ice cream thoroughly glooped with marshmallow sauce and amethyst syrup, speared with shards of waffle cone.

An aromatic crusty loaf covered in pre-bake slashes to create a floral pattern on top, flecked with flax, sesame, pumpkin seeds.

You’re a grownup, no one can stop you from slurping up clouds of rooty foam from around a giant glump of pumpkin ice cream squished onto the rim of a frosted goblet.

Pomegranate and Red Rose.

Lavender cotton candy fur and vanilla popcorn balls, sent skittering out of the kitchen with a good-natured wave of our polished wood rolling pin.

A goblet of pale liquid gold infused with an almost iridescent shimmer of lavender essence.

Here’s hoping 2026 is less an endless replay of spectacular wipeouts and fail videos and more a year that finally sticks the landing. Leather tack, saddle soap, bay rum, carmine wool, black silk, crushed winter grass, a billowing cascade of pipe tobacco, and a shot of adrenaline.

A festival of frights. A jolly, hulking golem dressed in a gloriously tacky sweater: honey-dipped amber and pocket-warmed gelt, a basket of pumpkin rugelach, a smushed sufganiyah, and a touch of latke grease.

Disclaimer: this perfume oil is not blue, it is not combustible, and it is not caffeinated.

Fir needle, white chiffon, honey dust, moss velvet, white musk, and baby’s breath. Franz Skarbina

A jolly Christmas for some. For others? Not so much. Frosted sage, icy green and menacing.

Thick slices of coconut-frosted coconut cake dunked in a vat of Snake Oil.

A frost-edged nave of stone, where stained glass glimmers with the light from prayer-lofted votives. Spirals of incense drift through the chill winter air, mingling with the solemn drip of beeswax from altar candles. Cedar pews gleam under centuries of prayer, and the air hums with hushed devotion.

What is this choc’ed-of mystery of birth But being mounted bareback on the earth? We can just see the infant up astride, His small fist berried in the musky hide. Ruby chocolate, red leather, red musk, red berries, red mosses, balsam, and passion flower cordial.

A tumultuous scent for tumultuous times: dragon’s blood resin, black clove, thunderous black musk, scorched 7-year aged patchouli, tabac absolute, and crushed pomegranate.

This one is mostly about the dragon's blood (an incense-y variety, not a spicy floral one!), musk, and pom on me, with a dash of clove, and surprisingly, very little tobacco or patch. The dragon's blood is the dominant note at first, but the musk gains strength over time and eventually becomes the dominant note on me. I get great longevity and throw from this. Layered with the Clove and Sweet Incense duet, it really amps up the clove and incense aspects, and the duet reigns throughout wear, backed by the main notes of the moon. I don't need a bottle of this one, but I'll probably hang onto my decant.

Clove and Sweet Incense.

I finally reached near the bottom of my to-test decant pile, which means it was time to finally get around to testing this. I was putting it off because I kept feeling like it smelled farm-y in the bottle. And yeah. There's clove as the star of the show, backed by a slightly funky incense note. Eventually, the funk goes away, and the clove calms down, so that it is mostly incense backed with a bit of clove. I still don't love that dose of farm I got, though. 😅 Layered with its moon, I mostly got incense and clove sans farminess, though, backed by dragon's blood, musk, and pomegranate.

“O father, see yonder! see yonder!” he says; “My boy, upon what doest thou fearfully gaze?” — “O, ’tis the Erl-King with his crown and his shroud.” “No, my son, it is but a dark wreath of the cloud.” A dread shape forms in the mist: chilled white musk, rain-soaked earth, and a gleam of blackened steel.

An aromatic panel of gingerbread conveniently drilled at hip-height, smutted up with patchouli and boozy brown musk.

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom, Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them. Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff. And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment. You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound. And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour? In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes. And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free? If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead. You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them. And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed. For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride? And if it is a care you would cast off, that cart has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you. And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared. Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape. These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling. And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light. And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom. When the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light: frankincense and myrrh smoke, silver musk, ambergris accord, ti leaf, benzoin, and violet ash.

O, who rides by night thro’ the woodland so wild? It is the fond father embracing his child; And close the boy nestles within his loved arm, To hold himself fast, and to keep himself warm. The pale sugared blossoms of innocence wrapped tightly in sleet-soaked arms. Vanilla bourbon, cream peony, and white carnation enveloped in a warm, protective fortress of tonka, white cedar, orris root, red amber, and leather.

This strongly reminds me of Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris (Lilith meets the Gargoyles of Paris: stone and ancient incense, beeswax and lavender smoke). I believe this hair gloss features the same incense and stone notes, although I'm not really getting any beeswax from the scent in my hair. The hair gloss has great longevity. Most hair glosses disappear not long after I apply it to wet hair, but I was still able to smell this one when I held my hair up to my nose by the end of the day. In dry hair, it was more noticeable and had even better longevity, but this isn't one of those hair glosses that hits you with a cloud of scent when you go to wash your hair, and it's not one that will linger after a wash. I'll definitely be hanging on to my decant of this, but I don't think I'd reach for it enough to warrant a full bottle -- mainly because I don't have a ton of church-y or resinous scents in my collection to pair it with. But if you enjoyed Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, you should enjoy this, too.

It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind, That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself. And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed. Like the ocean is your god-self; It remains for ever undefiled. And like the ether it lifts but the winged. Even like the sun is your god-self; It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent. But your god-self dwells not alone in your being. Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man, But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening. And of the man in you would I now speak. For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime. Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world. But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you, So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also. And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all. Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self. You are the way and the wayfarers. And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone. Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone. And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts: The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder, And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed. The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked, And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon. Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured, And still more often the condemned is the burden bearer for the guiltless and unblamed. You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked; For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together. And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also. If any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife, Let him also weigh the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements. And let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended. And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots; And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth. And you judges who would be just, What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit? What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit? And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor, Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged? And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds? Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve? Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty. Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves. And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light? Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self, And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation. Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves: Oman frankincense, Peru balsam, cardamom, and smoked amber. The sales from February, March, and May’s scents from the Prophet series (On Giving, On Eating & Drinking, On Work, On Joy & Sorrow, On Buying and Selling, and On Crime and Punishment) benefit the ACLU because we are in desperate need of civil rights protections right now. The Take Action area of their website presents handy opportunities for speaking out against current and ongoing injustices, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.