Failmingo

Hoping to do a Summerween live-sniff soon, but in case that takes a minute, figured I'd sketch out some impressions of this scent, which I have been DYING to smell. In the bottle I'm getting full-bodied Neapolitan freeze-dried astronaut ice cream sandwich, including chocolate wafer. There is a scuzz of smoke floating around it which is easily overpowered by the sweetness, creaminess, and nostalgic familiarity of these classic flavors combined all in one scoop. On the skin I immediately get a jolt of sticky tartness from the labdanum, and the clove grows fangs. It's both darker and warmer than I was hoping for in an ice cream scent, decidedly polluted, like that same sandwich found underneath a bar table at a goth club. Not bad, but more of a traffic jam of notes, right at the instant when I was expecting smoothness. And yet, and yet! Within a few minutes, everything settles down and re-blends itself into a rich, creamy concoction that is recognizably Neapolitan, topped with a drizzle of angst. The clove steadily becomes more noticeable as "clove" than as "smoke" which helps impart some of the desired coolness, although the gummy labdanum still suggests a treat that is actively melting. I think the labdanum clings tightly to the strawberry component, and the clove to the chocolate, leaving the vanilla to fend for itself in a smaller supporting role. It seems like from a distance the clove might be the most distinctive and recognizable note, appealingly ensconced in a murky dessert-y sweetness, but up close I can still pick out the individual flavors. All in all, this is totally great! I was promised a Neapolitan ice cream perfume with a funky attitude, and that's what I got. My childhood sweet tooth is happy, my teenage disaffection feels SEEN and VALIDATED. Two scoops way up!

This was posted on Instagram last week, wanted to make sure it was properly announced here. Exclusively from Haute Macabre: DRACONIS Once the guardian of the garden of Hesperides, the Dragon constellation Draco coils around the sky’s north pole. Never sleeping and never setting below the Northern Horizon, Draco and its Draconis stars within are now the celestial guardian, forever watching over us all. A protective blend of dragon’s blood, clove, and amber. https://hautemacabre.com/products/draconis-by-black-phoenix-alchemy-lab-1

Here's your formal notification that 2025 Lupercalia + Shungas will be removed on August 1st. That's also when we'll yoink the 4/20 scents and the Frog Moon Lunacy. Lots coming down at once! The Girth of Venus collection from Lupercalia will be excised and turned into its own regular LE category.

Oh, how we hath launched! Our Hungry Ghost Moon Lunacy is here, and it brought friends from the Other Side: 👻 Duets, Hair Gloss, and Lotion! 👻 The Prophet fundraiser scents 👻 A new GC Hair Gloss 👻 A flight of SUMMERWEENIES 👻 Additional Rarities & B-Sides 👻 Ars Anni classical art scents 👻 A new Twilight Alchemy Lab oil Gosh, is that everything? I think it is! https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/july-2025-lunacy/

Sorry Beth, but you can't hold onto these forever! We're inviting everyone to go on a little crate-digging adventure in BPAL's catacombs, featuring a bunch of limited quantity prototypes, misfires, and lost souls which never ended up seeing the light of day. This is their moment! https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/rarities-and-b-sides/

Good morning, all! Wanted to poke my head in here and remind everyone that THIS Saturday is Courtney's latest Lunacy event in Vermont, from 4pm to 7pm. You'll find her at Scout, located at 696 Pine St. in Burlington. Meanwhile, we have just finalized our date for a July event here in Minneapolis. Come see us on July 19th, from 12pm to 3pm at Odd Mart!

I actually rushed to go test this because of @auraysu's review, since I have been exploring a newfound fondness for grapey scents (officially declared or otherwise). I dunno if my mind would've gone there without reading this, but it did now! I can track the Lab's moonflower and datura notes (the latter being a bit purpley), tempered here by the woods and incense smoke. It's reminding me of old school GC dark florals like The Caterpillar and Death Cap, sweetened up with apple in a way that keeps the drama of the other notes from skewing too heavy or tragic. Very apt transliteration of the painting!

While some are celebrating this month's Strawberry Moon, we've gone darksided and introduced Crow Moon Lunacy instead... and 13! In addition to the expected offerings, we've launched the Lab's very first LOTION blend (previously only available via Haute Macabre's launches) as well as a handful of summery hair glosses. Beth is planning to add a new Lunacy Duet lotion each month, and I'm very much looking forward to this slippery new chapter in our collective lives. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/june-2025-lunacy/ Here's your reminder that Yule 2024 will be leaving us on July 1st! This also spells the beginning of the end for our Boney Moon/Death Moon Lunacies, which will be departing at the end of next week. (The Prophet fundraiser oils, however, will be staying up all year until the set is complete!) As ever, thank you so much for helping us get the word out about new releases as well as things you've loved from past ones. Visibility and engagement on social media profiles has been especially low, and from what we've been hearing from other small businesses, we're not alone in this. Your signal-boosting always matters, and we're always grateful for it!

It's a new dawn for TAL! Thanks to Samantha, we've got this shop up and running again, looking snazzier than ever. https://www.twilightalchemylab.com/

Century Guild has launched a Kickstarter to release new fine art prints of Gail Potocki paintings, and we've bottled two of them to contribute to this effort: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/centuryguild/gail-potocki-botanica-no-23-symbolist-occult-fine-art-print?ref=ba5odv BOTANICA No 23 A violent rupture of blood-soaked golden petals threaded with saffron and clove smoke and splashed with blackcurrant and poppy absolute. EVE AND THE SERPENT The Garden is not Paradise; it is a threshold. A whisper coiling through Eden’s dusk: a sinuous sliver of green apple, pomegranate wine, and ripe black fig entwined with night-blooming vines and enveloped in myrrh, fossilized amber resin, and smoky oud.

For Pride 2025, we have bottled the essence of the apocryphal “first brick thrown at Stonewall” and added it to a series of unique perfume oils raising funds for the Stonewall Community Foundation and Philly's local UTDJ. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/brick-by-brick/ I really must say, personally, the support for these issues throughout the BPAL community has been so heartening to experience and observe. It truly makes it easier for me to wake up and do my job each day knowing all of this is still here. I'll be excited to present these scents in person at our Minneapolis Lunacy event on June 21st! To my best knowledge, they'll remain up on our site through the end of June. Happy Pride, everyone!

Hound is a great suggestion for this. My test lately for whether something counts as a true "jasmine" scent is whether my sweetie Ashton calls it out -- he really dislikes jasmine. And this was definitely one that he preferred me not to wear around him TOMIE doesn't bother him, as the jasmine is very smoothly blended into the floral aspect of the scent. Same with Caligari A-Go-Go, which has a woozy jasmine component that I find nice and strong and nocturnal, but I think the other notes (cotton blossom, dirt, petitgrain, tobacco) throw him off the track.

We've done it: the May Lunacy launch has launched, and now we can go back to hiding under the blankets. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/may-2025/

Hallo everyone! We've had a rash of partner launches recently, and instead of doing four separate posts I'm going to just include them all here. Blood Milk has released two new perfume oils, and restocked a bunch of past releases. Go check 'em out! The new offerings: 🖤 BEHELENA The silent, obsidian pool of narcosis, a dark reverie whispering horrid secrets: indigo oud, laudanum accord, myrrh, red musk, and black kyphi. 🖤 BEAUTIFUL DEATH A dirge sung to Atropa bella-donna: caramelized patchouli root, crushed purple berries, and opium tar. The astromages at Sphere + Sundry have released a treasure chest of "Sun in Leo" products in a collection called Golden Titan, which includes four Twilight Alchemy Lab oils. Recapped below, you can peep the ingredients for each on the product page: 🏵️ VALOUR This is an oil of courage and authority, formulated for our challenging times. It strengthens the will, ignites the spirit with roaring flames of Solar energy, and inspires bravery under adversity. This is an oil of ancient heroism and sacred leadership that taps into the stories of mythic heroes, leaders who stood fierce and unbroken against the tide. 🏵️ RESISTANCE THROUGH ART Rebellion, protest, liberation. As far back as at least ancient Egypt, art has been used to protest injustice, ridicule religious and political leaders, promote liberty and social justice, and foster change. This is an oil of creative fire and inspiration – of radical sacred expression – charged with the spirits of both self-soverignity and defiance. It is an oil of fierce imagination and fearlessness that ignites visions of a better future, defies oppression, and enables you to channel your rage or fear into works of powerful art. 🏵️ HEARTGLOW A beam of warm sunlight to ease and heal the spirit, assist in battling sorrow and stress. Helps to warm the heart and soothe the nerves; enables you to better act and react with compassion to both yourself and others. 🏵️ PERSEVERANCE An oil of strength under pressure and calm determination, this is a bulwark against despair that braces your spirit against weariness and fear so you can bear the burdens that life throws at you with grace and power. This is a Sol-powered rooting oil that can be used in ritual or to anoint your body before trials, when burdens weigh heavy or hope seems distant. We also have a new scent offered as a reward in the latest Century Guild Kickstarter to publish a book celebrating Alphonse Mucha's art, which you may add on to any pledge tier for $27. PENSE ET LIS Warm hands running over the well-loved tonka-sweet leather bindings of a cherished book. A flutter of gently-yellowed paper and ink suffused with luminous yellow bergamot, honeyed tea, and lavender sugar. Once again we're observing Walpurgisnacht by contributing to Spiritus Arcanum's amazing annual collection of oils, candles, jewelry, and other fancies marking the occasion. Eleven gorgeous perfume oils in total: AKELARRE Ecstasy and heresy on the Heath of the He-Goat: molten labdanum drips like blood onto bare skin, red musk thrums with carnal hunger, and gleaming red amber smolders against the writhing curve of the body. 5ml bottle BALD MOUNTAIN Writhing shadows and jutting gray stones stabbing through a starless sky: dark vetiver and blackened patchouli cling to cold rock, while opopanax and resin-weeping trees smolder into thick, hypnotic smoke. 5ml bottle BENEVENTO Witches cavort and the Devil stamps his cloven hoot the base of a venerable black walnut tree, the crackle of scorched wood and the fragrant profanation of dry vanilla bean heralds strange heresies. 5ml bottle BLOCKULA A shadowed meadow stirs under a shrouded moon: crushed bluebells release their bruised perfume, Arctic starflower and wild flax weave cold sweetness into the air. A thrum of patchouli-darkened red musk pulses heavily in the air, spiced with cardamom pods, cacao, and red oudh. 5ml bottle BROCKEN Animalic musk thrums with forbidden heat, while smoke and honeyed sweat braid into an ecstatic frenzy around a crackling bonfire. 5ml bottle NIGHT FLIGHT Flowers long dead twine with petals as-yet unfurled – ghost jasmine, pale heliotrope, asphodel, and black violets – swirling in windswept darkness. 5ml bottle TRAMPLED CROSS Dark frankincense, rose smoke, and oud swirling around splinters of cypress, cedar, and pine in an act of transgressive liberation. 5ml bottle DARK BAPTISM The sacred reborn in darkness, a baptism of liberation: defiled holy water and lily of the valley suffused with black musk. 5ml bottle DEVIL’S TOME Leather crackling under your touch, ink-smudged vows scrawled on incense-stained parchment, the metallic tang of blood and a whiff of brimstone. 5ml bottle COCK’S CROW The heavens awaken, piercing the darkness with the first rays of sunrise, scattering demons and chattering imps to the wind. The sun’s promise of redemption, the renewal of grace, and absolution for all sins: glowing amber, white bergamot, orange blossom, and petitgrain. 5ml bottle ***The perfumes in this collection are offered as a preorder item and will be available to order from Wednesday April 30th until Wednesday May 21st. The orders will be fulfilled afterwards in the order in which they were placed.***

Hi everyone. We've received so many questions about how tariffs and supply-chain issues will affect BPAL's production. How to answer honestly without stoking unnecessary panic? I'll try: We really, really, don't know. 😬 So if there are any fave BPAL products that you consider personal necessities which are *currently in stock*, please understand that we're still getting a sense of what we WILL and WON'T be able to restock, or how much it will cost. We appear to be heading into a component drought that will dictate our output for the time being. The last thing we want is for folks to feel pressured into panic-buying, but we also feel a responsibility to loyal customers who've depended on the same products year after year, or would be disproportionately affected by changes in price that reflect component scarcity. I wish I could offer specifics in terms of which exact ingredients are causing issues, but again: we don't know the extent of this yet. Some of our suppliers have preemptively jacked their prices or just canceled our orders altogether. Communication is proving difficult. We're patiently, methodically doing our best to keep our supply flowing -- holding our breaths the entire time, like every other small biz out there. The prices and inventory currently listed on our website reflect what we KNOW we can provide for now. Beyond here, we'll all be in the same boat of waiting and seeing together. (Disco pic because unsettling news is best delivered with a side of comfort floof.)