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Since 2026 contains a whopping THREE Friday-the-13ths (Fridays-the-13th?) we’ve decided to call in some misfortune-warding reinforcements. Each version of this year’s 13 perfume oil will be accompanied by its own bonus luck charm: a free 1/32oz imp of an original perfume oil inspired by lucky finds from our seasonal crossroads wanderings. Those who collect all three will end up with a veritable bracelet’s worth of lucky charms to treasure and wear as needed! March’s charm: FORSAKEN ELEPHANT PUPPET. A little gray elephant puppet discovered on a Minneapolis sidewalk, carried forward as a guardian of small miracles. Well-loved gray cotton, clover honey, kettle corn, and soft white amber. (The review thread for the 13 that belongs with this scent can be found here.)

Gigil. I don’t think there’s an exact translation for this in English, but this is basically Cuteness Aggression, Filipino-style. Good gigil is the feeling of being absolutely overwhelmed by cuteness – VIBRATING because of someone or something’s intense cuteness – like you JUST CANNOT HANDLE THIS LEVEL OF CUTENESS. It’s a feeling somewhere between adoration and agitation? The uncontrollable urge to squeeze someone’s cheeks? Clenching your teeth because you cannot handle the cuteness you are experiencing? The feeling you get when you see a puppy or kitten so cute that you want to cry or scream? I know y’all know what I’m talking about. So, what does nanggigigil ako sayo translate to? It’s sort of… I CANNOT HANDLE HOW CUTE YOU ARE. IF I DON’T SMORSH YOUR CHEEKS I AM GOING TO LOSE MY MIND. Ok, that’s not the literal translation, but you get the gist. (Bad gigil, on the other hand, is when you are about to go volcanic with irritation. When your eyes are watering and your hands are clenching and your teeth gnashing because you are frothing with frustration. There’s too much of that in the world right now, so we’re not going to go there. I’m all bag gigil’d out. I’ve had enough bad gigil to last me a hundred lifetimes.) A scent for all of us who have been exploded by someone else’s cuteness: ube candyfloss and rice paper-wrapped red bean custard candy.

A song of surrender: rose syrup and honeyed pomegranate bound in amber resin, vanilla silk, and leather.

White tea, black cherries, gardenia, tonka bean, carnation, and almond.

Death had come into the land from the time Osiris had been closed in the chest through the cunning of Sêth; war was in the land; men always had arms in their hands. No longer did music sound, no longer did men and women talk sweetly and out of the depths of their feelings. Less and less did grain, and fruit-trees, and the vine flourish. The green places everywhere were giving way to the desert. Sêth was triumphant; Thout and Nephthys cowered before him. And all the beauty and all the abundance that had come from Rê would be destroyed if the pieces that had been the body of Osiris were not brought together once more. So Isis sought for them, and Nephthys, her sister, helped her in her seeking. Isis, in a boat that was made of reeds, floated over the marshes, seeking for the pieces. One, and then another, and then another was found. At last she had all the pieces of his torn body. She laid them together on a floating island, and reformed them. And as the body of Osiris was formed once more, the wars that men were waging died down; peace came; grain, and the vine, and the fruit-trees grew once more. And a voice came to Isis and told her that Osiris lived again, but that he lived in the Underworld where he was now the Judge of the Dead, and that through the justice that he meted out, men and women had life immortal. And a child of Osiris was born to Isis: Horus he was named. Nephthys and the wise Thout guarded him on the floating island where he was born. Horus grew up, and he strove against the evil power of Sêth. In battle he overcame him, and in bonds he brought the evil Sêth, the destroyer of his father, before Isis, his mother. Isis would not have Sêth slain: still he lives, but now he is of the lesser Gods, and his power for evil is not so great as it was in the time before Horus grew to be the avenger of his father. – Padraic Colum In the account preserved by Plutarch in On Isis and Osiris, Osiris is betrayed by the cunning of Set and sealed within a chest, a king slain and committed to silence and darkness, his body later torn and scattered across the land he once made fertile. Death enters Egypt with that closing of the lid of his sarcophagus. Destruction engulfs the kingdom, and the fertile soil of grain and vine yield to the encroaching desert. Isis refuses the reign of fragmentation and shadows. In a boat of reeds, she searches the marshes, patient and relentless, gathering one fragment and then another, though the gods’ penis has been consumed by a river fish. She laid the pieces together and reformed Osiris through spell and sacred utterance, enacting the mystery that Plutarch describes as the restoration of the good and ordered principle against chaos and devastation. She fashioned a phallus for Osiris through her craft and magic, and conceived their son, Horus. As Osiris was reconstituted, peace returned, the fields bloomed green once more, and through their union, a third god is created. Alchemically, the body is dissolved into multiplicity, scattered into chaos, and through the labor of love is gathered and consecrated into renewed form. From this restored polarity emerges a third: Horus, the child born of their union, guarded by wise Thoth and steadfast Nephthys, raised to confront and overcome Set. In Horus, the Lovers create continuity and correction, a living reconciliation that tempers destruction without erasing it, for even Set remains, diminished and bound within a larger order. Esoterically, this is sacred marriage enduring beyond death, the Lovers as integration and reconciliation of life and afterlife and the power of the passion and devotion of the lovers to create new life from death. Isis does not deny mortality but transforms it. Through her love and labor, Osiris lives again, enthroned in the Underworld as Judge of the Dead, dispensing justice and granting immortality through balance. The union of Isis and Osiris is altered yet unbroken, shifted from earthly kingship to eternal dominion. This is the Lovers as cosmological force, the force of the reassembly of creation itself. Isis and Osiris embody the Lovers as divine covenant transcending death, unconditional devotion that restores wholeness, and the sacred act through which two become not only one, but three. Their bond does not end at the tomb; it passes through it, transforms it, and returns bearing life immortal, a testament that love, when joined in true polarity, does not perish but remakes the world. Blue lotus incense and kyphi resin dancing in a dusk-shadowed temple, black loam of the Nile and green papyrus crushed beneath bare feet, myrrh and cassia steeped in date honey, a glimmer of lapis and gold leaf pressed into linen, and a surge of floodwater returning to parched earth.

Scarlet silk, sweetened rice milk, ube, peony petals, candied ginger, persimmon, red dates, red carnation, lavender, and red amber.

Mandarin A strawberry stain on scarlet silk: strawberry nectar and translucent lychee folded into rock sugar and creamy sandalwood.

Russet Honey, Patchouli, and Tobacco Absolute.

Lilac-soaked amber cream, orris root, blue lotus absolute, white sandalwood, and purple yam.

Honeyed orris root, mahogany, amber cream, smoked vanilla, and golden carnation.

Peru balsam, champa absolute, sugared patchouli, toasted cardamom, black pepper, labdanum, and coffee bean.

French lavender, Thai coconut, cherimoya, and ube.

Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear. I have as much right As the other fellow has To stand On my two feet And own the land. I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I’m dead. I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread. Freedom Is a strong seed Planted In a great need. I live here, too. I want freedom Just as you. – Langston Hughes A scent for community, for communal power, for collective justice; a fragrance of sustenance, comfort, resilience, justice, and the stubborn belief that sweetness belongs to the living, here and now. Crusty brown bread still warm from the oven, golden wheat, clover honey, sweet butter, oat milk, chamomile, and a soft breath of vanilla.

Fuel and fire for speaking out against injustice: a heap of warm spiced funnel cakes with a scoop of coffee ice cream. Proceeds from this scent will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union. To learn about how the ACLU will be challenging Trump’s agendas in court, visit them here. Note: If you are confused, the original scent description on the website said cinnamon ice cream. It was mentioned that this was an error and that it should actually be coffee ice cream in a live sniff on Thanksgiving.

An oil of purification, renewal, and the banishment of stagnation. Use this oil to cleanse your home and the spirit within it simultaneously. Scrub away the accumulated weight of winter: old griefs, old dust, old patterns that no longer serve. Invite the new light in. Contains: white pine, hyssop, lemon verbena, juniper berry, sweet grass, camphor, angelica root, rosemary, white sage, and yellow bergamot.

Ulmus rubra’s mucilaginous inner bark produces a thick, protective gel that coats and soothes the throat in herbal medicine, and in rootwork this same quality becomes an act of slippery sorcery: thanks to the Doctrine of Signatures, the same mechanism that heals the body becomes armor against the violence of speech as wicked words slide away, accusations refuse to stick, and malicious talk loses its purchase and slides away, harmless. Governed by Saturn and resonant with the Air element, the domain of communication and the spoken word, slippery elm carries correspondences that reinforce its purpose. Saturn’s cold discipline enforces silence and binds the tongue of the enemy while Air governs every form of speech, rumor, and persuasion. Slippery elm sits at the crossroads of both. In hoodoo and rootwork, this translates into a robust tradition of anti-gossip and protection work and is a guardian of reputation. Slippery elm is carried in mojo bags, powdered into sachets, burned over charcoal, and sewn into charms. Pinches of the bark placed in the four corners of a room are said to protect the home from evil; a knotted yellow thread tied around the bark and cast into fire is a traditional working to cease all gossip directed at you. Keep the root close to your body wherever two-faced company gathers. In court case work, slippery elm shields against false accusations and slander, helping a difficult case move smoothly toward resolution. Slippery elm does not merely silence: it may be worn as a charm to cultivate eloquence, and it loosens the tongue when silence has become a trap or a curse, granting fluency and persuasion to those who carry it while denying the same to their enemies. A nutty, earthy-scented root with a whisper of benzoin, bourbon vanilla, and slippery, sweet sugar cane.

A doobie-tinged rendition of BPAL’s classic Smokestack scent. Greenish flue gasses belch from colossal steel and concrete monoliths, forming bloated clouds in the dusk-dark sky. Creosote, coal, sticky resin, industrial waste, and a bellow of mary jane.

Folks, I’m telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between. ― Langston Hughes, Advice

A garden enclosed is my sister. – Song of Solomon, 4:12

If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. – Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Nets of jewels, exquisite fragrant banners, Brilliant lamps hung like clouds; Covered with various decorations, The world-transcending true knower sits within. – The Flower Garden Sutra

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Shimmer sativa green jelly! All of our nail polish is hand crafted by Haute Macabre!

Blackberries and Coconut Cream.

A fluttering tempest of black oud, indigo poppy, pale lavender, blue lilac, white tea, ambergris accord, and sweet pea. Frances Macdonald