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Showing results for tags 'BPAL 15th Anniversary'.
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On January 7th, I announced that I was preggers to the forum, and pregnancy scents like Irrelevant and Disturbing Surreal Crawdad Dream soon followed. While I was giving birth to Lilith, Brian pulled the trigger on her two birth scents Lady Lilith and Lilith Victoria so they could come to life just as she was entering the world. This began our annual tradition of commemorating each year that we spend with Lilith with a scented scrapbook. We love you, Lilith. More than you can possibly know. The Shunga debuted for the first time, including Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, Men Ringing Bell With Penises, and Glowing Vulva at Ryogoku Bridge. This year also marked the first time that Frederic inspired by Gilbert & Sullivan began appearing every February 29th, and hes been our Leap Year guest ever since! At the December Lunacy event, we began the first of our annual toy drives. In 2008, Black Phoenix Trading Post hosted the Miskatonic Valley Junior Baseball Associations Spring Training Teds vision of little league in Lovecraft Country which ushered in a decade of our ridiculous Lovecraft-meets-Norman Rockwell serials and rotating exhibits in Arkhams Pickman Gallery. I don't have words for how much I love working on our campy Miskatonic Valley scents; how else could I experience a life filled with pancake breakfast summoning circles, demonic art openings, pre-pubescent softball-loving fish people, suave cultist tailors, and goat-headed burlesque dancers? Lilith's beloved lavender coated with sugar crystals, crawdad-bright grapefruit, and a pop of iridescent, loathsome Mi-Go musk. In The Bottle: Sugared lavender. Like TKO's daytime sibling! Wet On Skin: Same, but with the slightest edge of juicy, tart grapefruit. But only slight! Dry Down: Same. This scent stays true from first sniff to dry-down. It reminds me of Lilith's Hair Gloss and also Daybreak, from this year's batch of Lilith scents. As such, I am happy to have it! If you're a fan of those others, or if you're looking for a daytime equivalent to TKO that won't put you to sleep in the middle of the day, this scent is for you!
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In 2009, Dirty South Will call began (we love you, Lisa!), and we were voted Best Scent Indulgence for Your Inner Goth by the Village Voice. E! filmed at Los Angeles Lunacy for That Morning Show, and now that I think of it, I dont know that I ever actually saw that episode. That year, we commemorated the 200th birthday of the death of Edgar Allan Poe at a Dark Delicacies event with Gris Grimly, and thanks to our Who Killed Amanda Palmer series, I was given the inestimable gift of conceiving of a scent based on cupcake spatter pattern analysis. Our Hellboy line premiered in summer of 2009, and not only was the process of translating Hellboy into scent an absolute thrill, I am also now blessed by the inexplicable joy of being able to see a frog in a teacup on our labels every day. I am always deeply moved by Mike Mignolas art and storytelling, and every year I look forward to his October horror film recommendations. The Miskatonic Valley Yuletide Faire was hosted in Innsmouth that year, and the skies over BPAL were filled with the screeches of magah birds and howling servitors. Cigar smoke wafting over Georgia peaches, black goat wool, and a dollop of Mason and Jenkins Port jelly. First on it smells like a fruity, tobacco, Sugar Skull. Definitely has that mapley/caramel sugar note. I'm not getting a lot of peaches more of a mash of juicy red berries. The fruits fade out pretty fast and am mostly left with what I'm convinced is some cousin of Sugar Skull with a hint of fruit and sweet tobacco.
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On our second anniversary, the Lab moved from the Far Land of Spare Oom (gratuitous C.S. Lewis reference) to its first real location in Atwater Village. It was small, it was weird, and we all shared one space, but it was home. In 2004, our real unreal home, bpal.org, was founded by slythwitch, and later that year, shrieking violet took over the helm. Bpal.org has been the source of so much love and joy in my life since its inception, and because of .org, my family bound by love and spirit expanded to include some of the finest human beings I have ever known. The community that grew from .org is incomparable, both on the internet and in the so-called real world; it is a safe haven of wise, witty, kind, compassionate souls, and without it and without the people that I met through it, my life would be so much darker. 2004 also heralded our first press mention (thank you, Bust Magazine!), our first Chaos Theory series, and the first Lunacies. Our first Blue Moon came out in July of 2004, launching the Lunacies that weve been doing ever since. Red Moon was our official first Lunacy blend, followed Harvest Moon, Hunter Moon, and a bajillion other Lunacies over the next eleven years! (Ok, maybe not a bajillion, but Im not in the mood to do the math!) Prior to September of 2004, we dressed our Imps a bit differently. We wrapped synthetic bull sinew around the vials and used handwritten parchment labels. Honestly, it looked amazing, but it was an incredibly time consuming process, and left me with a couple of imp-related battle scars. As of autumn, we switched to the paper labels you see today. Our first activism scents also debuted in 2004: Cerberus (Animal Assistance League of Orange County), Chiroptera (Bat Conservation International), Corazon (Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land), Oisin (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund), and Thunderbird (the Adopt-a-Native-Elder Program), kicking off over a decade of fundraising, advocacy, and charity work. In 2004, Antique Lace first appeared and we introduced our first forum-only blend (Formula 54!). And on December 21, 2004, Dorian a hymn to my love for Ted went live. A memory of Antique Lace, Formula 54s pink pepper, and a splash of Dorian's white tea and lavender fougere. In the Bottle: Good lord- it's Dorian and Antique Lace, together at last! There's also a bright rind of that pink pepper (never had the pleasure of sniffing Formula 54 but I have liked the pink pepper note in other blends. Here's it adds a nice bright bite!) Wet On Skin: The Dorian aspect is strong with this one! But that's not the totality of this scent. The vanilla of Antique Lace is adding a layer of softness and warmth. Dry Down: If you're among the masses that have wept bitter tears at the absence of Antique Lace and also of Dorian, then this is the scent for you. It takes the most beautiful and strong elements of each of those and combines them for a scent that is sweet and lovely and cuddly. It's a dream.
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Our first anniversary! We were still working from the basement at the time, so to speak. (It was actually the spare room at Ted’s place.) In 2003, the scent categories on our site were Bewitching Brews, Funereal Oils, Dark Elements, Sin & Salvation, Love Potions, and Diabolus, and a selection of conjure and hoodoo recipes that I had reformulated for cosmetic use, including #20 Love Oil, All Night Long, Crucible of Courage, High John the Conqueror, and Van Van. Some of the first scents (our original posse!) available on the site were Anathema, Black Rose, Haunted, Darkness, Debauchery, Faustus, Pulse Points, Satyr, Silentium Amoris, Thanatopsis, Venom, Vixen, my interpretation of the four elements (Burial, Inferno, Hurricane, and Undertow) and, of course, Snake Oil. Snake Oil was the first, and Snake Oil will always be part and parcel of who I am. At the end of 2003, we offered the first LEs (Samhain and Spooky) and the first LE series ran (“Five fiendishly festive holiday scents!”), limited to one-hundred 5mLs and seventy-five 10mLs of each: Gingerbread Poppet, Midwinter’s Eve, Rose Red, Snow White, and Yuletide. Cotton Phoenix has a base of our foundation scent, Snake Oil, with a sliver of Snow White, almond milk, and a pillowy poof of marshmallow layered over a sheer cotton blossom musk. It's happened: I've found a new scent to join my pantheon of all-time beloved BPALs. In the bottle and on, it's mostly an almond/marzipan blur of Dana O'Shee and Snake Oil. Every now and then a sniff will conjure the ghost of Snow White mixed in. I love Snake Oil but can get sick of it quickly - somehow that doesn't happen with Cotton Phoenix, it's not heavy or cloying at all. Definitely buying a backup bottle.
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2006 brought us to New Orleans for Convergence XII, which was an amazing event on so many levels, but also marked the first time we were able to get together with our sisters, the moderators of bpal.org. Smut first besmirched the virginal sanctity of our catalogue in Spring, Carnaval Diabolique materialized on August 2nd of 2006, and Black Moon and Schwarzer Mond appeared for the first time over the dark skies of BPAL. That winter, Krampus made himself known in our Yule update for the first time. A scent celebrating fifteen years of the FRUITS of our labor. Haaaaaaaaaa…. I sure love my awful Uncle Jokes. Snake Oil with Schwarzer Mond’s terebinth, a swish of Krampus’ switches, black currant, pomelo, and chthonic black pomegranate. Snowy pine, black pomegranate, a touch of wood and black currant on a musky base. I don't really get Snake Oil from this, and all of the other components win out on my skin particularly the pine and black pomegranate. Good throw and wear length.
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In 2015, it was our overwhelming honor to interpret Legendary Pictures Crimson Peak through scent. The entire process was thrilling, from the first moment we saw concept sketches before production on the film even began, through the crafting of the scents, attending the screening, and finally seeing our Crimson Peak scents and jewelry go out into the world. It was an incredible project that I will never forget. After many long years of labor, the sideshow was back! Carnaval Diabolique returned to town with breathtaking artwork by Julie Dillon, and Black Phoenix made its first sojourn to 221B Baker Street. Inspired by the Supreme Courts Sick Burn Champion and his blistering command of the English language, we created a fragrance set the Collected Poetic Works of Antonin Scalia whose proceeds benefit the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Trevor Project, and the National Center for Transgender Equality. In the same year, we created Palmyra, a charity scent benefiting the UNHCR. This year, we joined forces with our beloved friend, Audra, at Loved to Death in San Francisco. A cursed carnival camped in the foothills beneath a haunted estate: a curl of fortune tellers incense and spun sugar drifting past a crumbling manor. In the Bottle: A very, very faint, sweet, light, wispy scent. It's so light and wispy, that I cannot, at this stage, pick out any notes! All I can say is that it smells "clean" and faintly sweet, but not foody. Wet On Skin: There's a faint lemon aspect that has entered the picture, like a memory of lemon sugar, would be the best way to describe it. I also am getting a hint of a stone note, which I haven't encountered in a very long time! I assume this is the "crumbling manor" aspect that I'm picking up on. So far, this scent is very wistful- it's probably not a coincidence that this is for the Lace year, because there's already a nostalgic quality that puts this firmly in the camp of the Lab's "Lace" scents. Dry Down: Oh. My. Goddess. This is just...heartbreakingly beautiful. The curl of incense is now showing itself. I anticipated it was going to be a sort of heavy, church-y incense like many of the Lab's incense notes of the past. But this, this is something else. It's become like a light, powdered (NOT powder-y) blue lotus incense I had many years ago. It's sweet and soft and nostalgic and just GORGEOUS. In All: Hoard-worthy. I am going to need SEVERAL more bottles of this.
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In 2014, we had the great pleasure of collaborating with Jim Jarmusch on our line inspired by Only Lovers Left Alive. It is impossible to put into words what a great pleasure it was to translate this film and its soundtrack into scent. In the process of creating the series, I sat behind Henry Rollins at the press screening and, a few nights later, watched as he interviewed Tilda Swinton at the screening at LACMA. The first scents in our Kabuki line for David Mack were introduced, and this year gave birth to our Pretty Deadly series for wise, witty, radiant Kelly-Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios, and our first Clive Barker series, the Forbidden. Chic vampires, Old West death parables, Moroccan spices, and futuristic assassins: gleaming black leather and dusty brown leather, chthonic smoke, and cold, gleaming metal meandering through a labyrinthine souk. Oooh! Smells like Brom Bones (cold, musky leather) right on cold sniff. I'm excited. I kind of had a bit of a 'Firefly?' moment when I read the description, so, of course, in it went to the cart. Wet, on me, it's like you can see the leather note kind of... separate... like there's a distinct cold thread spiraling away while this warmer, spicier leather (with lambs-wool, warm, fluffy, worn, loved) emerges, with a hint of incense and spice. But the incense and spice is not overwhelming, and it veers back towards a leather scent just touched with a throb of warmth. I can get a bit of the chrome note (think Katiniya, Torture Queen) underneath everything all, just kind of little neck studs glinting through the leather. There's a bit of smoke in the background, which has a bit of mossiness to it. Overall very well blended. A sexy, kind of edgy western leather scent. Stays close to the skin. It's fabulous!
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Fifteen goddamn years. Were impossible to kill, and we have kept on fighting the good fight with a panoply of scents benefiting environmental, constitutional rights, and reproductive rights causes, including Lordy, Alternative Facts, Fake News, Nevertheless She Persisted, Theoi Nomioi, and Take A Knee. We released several single notes benefiting those affected by 2017s natural disasters, and introduced Spiced Rum Buttercream Coffee and Irish Coffee Buttercream, which benefit the National Center for Transgender Equality. To celebrate the premiere of Starzs American Gods TV series, we revamped and expanded Neil Gaimans American Gods perfume line with brand new scents, a range of nail lacquers, and brand new artwork by the inimitable Julie Dillon. In June of 2017, Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs Brian Constantine got hitched! The ceremony and reception were held at the Mountain View Mausoleum, and was the most beautiful wedding that I have ever seen. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. An earthy scent, with deep, deep roots, bringing stability and security in tumultuous times: 15-year aged patchouli, bourbon vanilla, oakmoss, Himalayan cedar, tobacco leaf, birch tar, tonka bean, and leather accord. In The Bottle: I get the rich, chewy tobacco straight away, followed by the deep, earthy-dirty scent of the patchouli, with an edge of the tonic bringing up the rear, softening the other two and making the scent just slightly sweet. Wet On Skin: The tobacco is CRAZY strong. For those that are interested, this is very similar to the French Tobacco SN that came out about 5 years ago. at this stage, the tobacco is so overpowering that I'm not getting anything else. Dry Down: Upon dry down, the tobacco eases back somewhat, to my relief, and the earthy aspect of the patchouli comes back. There's even a slight smokiness that I attribute to the birch tar. Sadly, I'm not getting anything else right now, but I know that often scent with so many deep rooty notes need some time to age to become truly glorious, so I will tuck this one away and revisit in a month or two
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Our sister shop, Black Phoenix Trading Post, opened its doors on February 13, 2005! On that shiny, fateful day, Teddy opened the shop with one single item: the BPAL-branded “Established 1350AD” shirt. Carnaval Noir, the precursor to Carnaval Diabolique, went live in 2005, along with the first 13. In 2005, we hosted our first Los Angeles Lunacy event, and Winter of 2005 brought us Black Phoenix Trading Post’s first Inquisition – Naughty or Nice. This is also the year that I did my first “love potions” class, which was basically a fireside kegger with essential oils. We vended at our first convention, Convergence 11: San Diego, and Brian and I drank a lot of gin at our booth. Like, a lot. Lesson learned: don’t drink a shitload of gin while vending. A spurt of 13’s omnipresent cocoa staining a Trading Post-inspired leather accord – reminiscent of tight black leather pants – and more than a splash of gin. GIN GIN GIN GIN. This is basically if I doused myself in a bottle of gin, and after about an hour, I get a pinch of cocoa and a touch of leather. The leather gains prominence as the gin dies. But on wet, its all GIN all the time. Which I sort of enjoyed. I do not enjoy black leather. Despite its repeated attempts to love me. Great throw and wear length.
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The great joy of 2016 was the creation of the first perfumes in our collaborative series with Blood Milk. Jesss creativity, artistry, immense talent and beautiful soul is a true inspiration, and designing scents based on her jewelry talismans that inspire me so deeply was such a profound pleasure. 2016 is a hard year to talk about, as that year also saw the onset of tremendous darkness in the United States a brittle victory for hatred, intolerance, and cruelty. We launched our opening volley against it with Nasty Woman, a scent benefitting EMILYs List and Planned Parenthood. A scent of stubborn hope, a light in the dark: golden frankincense and clove, a drop of fiery cinnamon, and white cognac. In the bottle - This is a gorgeous spice, likely thanks to the clove-cinnamon combo. Wet - Oh god. Alllll the cinnamon for a hot minute. I smell like a really creamy Red Hot right now. I like it. Drydown - Maybe it's the season getting to me, but this smells like Christmas. The frankincense lends just enough resin to balance and ground the fierce spice, which has now softened from "hot hot heat" to the warmth and coziness of a fuzzy blanket. I think the cognac keeps the blend from overheating. This is a comforting, robust scent that fades fairly quickly. Verdict - I'm so SO glad to have this. I almost didn't buy Ivory Phoenix because it has a couple worrisome notes for me, but dammit... Stubborn hope gets me every time.
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In 2010, we had the privilege of working with one of the greatest storytellers of the modern era, Peter S. Beagle, and our Last Unicorn series went live. Peter is one of the most kind-hearted, gentlest humans that I’ve ever known, and we bonded over both of us being the children of teachers. In February, we celebrated Valentine’s Day with our Lovecraftian tourism campaign, produced by the Arkham Visitors Bureau: The Miskatonic Valley is for Lovers. Los Angeles Lunacy moved to Dark Delicacies at their Grand Reopening in May of 2010, and Umlaut and Victorian Garden went live at the Mütter Museum in August of 2010. This was also the year that I almost keeled over like a wilted cucumber during my panel at the West Hollywood Book Fair, and the heat was so intense that it demolished the entirety of the tester stock that we’d brought with us to vending and our soaps turned to ooze. In June, Black Phoenix Trading Post sponsored the Carcosan Interdimensional Football Association Underworld Cup XXI Championship. My money was on the P’nathi Bholes to win, especially after they soundly defeated the Gugs 7-0 in the group phase, securing their position in the knockout round. Mist-veiled lilac and salt spray with osmanthus, white jasmine, and icy lavender. Lilac, jasmine, salt and a whiff of lavender. This one is a very lilac-centered blend. The jasmine is most prominent on wet, but it calms down as it dries, and the salt edge appears. When I first apply it, it's almost too much, but if you were looking for a lilac centered blend, seek no more. This one is gorgeous, and feels very historic - like the village where Anne of Avonlea lives in Prince Edward Island. It's got that natural blossom, and salty air, and it just smells clean and pure. Good throw and wear length.
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One of the most challenging projects that I’ve ever undertaken has been our RPG series. In order to execute the series correctly, every possible combination of classes, races, and ephemera had to work together. Years of research and experimenting went into the RPGs, and it was worth it to see a childhood dream come to fruition. Our beloved Courtney brought Vermont Lunacy to (un)life, and our first scents for Pretty Indulgent were introduced. We love you, Courtney and Maggie! We hosted a Klimt-inspired benefit for RAINN, and fundraisers to help send food, water, and basic necessities to Occupy Wall Street protesters. In August of 2011, it was our honor to host a signing for Peter S. Beagle and a screening of the Last Unicorn. Soft brown sandalwood, galbanum, and myrrh. This represents 2011, the year I got into BPAL. I got the bottle yesterday and let it rest until tonight before giving it a skin test, but I did smell it yesterday and it has settled down quite a bit since then. There's something in Pottery Phoenix that I smell in all of the other anniversaries I have. I looked up all the others and there's no listed note that they all have in common, which leads me to think that either I'm just interpreting them all in a similar way or there's a common unlisted note in there somewhere. Pottery Phoenix is a warm, sweet skin scent. It's blended well, so no one note dominates. I see myself wearing this more in the colder, darker months because it's the scent equivalent of a fuzzy blanket and my favorite spot on the couch. Blends with fewer notes usually work best for me and this is no different.
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This is the year that we first presented our Labyrinth and Fraggle Rock lines! Visiting Henson Studios was one of the greatest thrills of my life. How often do you get to meet a Skeksi in person? In 2012, we made our first pilgrimage to DragonCon. While so many incredible memories stand out, the one that is most vivid is us watching in horror as a full-to-capacity elevator (including a Transformer in full-transform) at the Marriott took over two hours to descend 30 floors. Its a fantastic convention, and we are thrilled to make it our Labor Day weekend home every year. A fraggle-shaggy bright scent with a sinister goblin shadow: red currant and King mandarin with a white musk fougere, sweet dried fruits, and smoky myrrh-infused oudh. In the Bottle: Bright and fruity! But there's also an unsettling undercurrent that I can't quite name, like...ammonia? Wet On Skin: Yay, the ammonia has left the building! At this stage, mostly I'm getting sweet, dried sugary fruits and the slightest age of the white musk fougere in the background, which prevents this from just being a silly-kids-games kind of scent. Dry Down: It's funny, I like having fruit notes in things, but I don't like when it's the *only* thing. I need my scents to have some kind of depth, something to hang on to, and this scent DOES that, but not ion any way I've encountered before. If one were to layer Kingdom of Sweets with Red from the Fraggle Rock series, and then tossed in a little of Jareth, minus the leather...you would get Aluminum Phoenix. This isn't one I was sure about, but I'm really, really happy I got a bottle now.
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On November 22 – thanks to our brilliant, beautiful Web Goddess, Kaitlin – the Thirteenth Labor of Hercules was completed, and we were able to introduce our new web site design. Kaitlin, you are amazing and we love you. 2013 ushered in our Dark Crystal Skeksi series, our Gatekeeper scent for Lone Shark’s Maze of Games, the Miskatonic Valley Philharmonic (with special thanks to Erich Zann, Principal Conductor and Music Director, and the illustrious Aylesbury Star Cult Temple Choir), Black Phoenix Trading Post’s sculpture for Neil Gaiman’s All Hallow’s Read, and the Festival, a Yuletide homage to Lovecraft. This year also brought BPAL and Haute Macabre together for our first collaboration. Samantha, you are an inspiration, and it is a joy working with you. Witching time in the hills of Arkham: patchouli and bourbon vanilla, crumbling autumn leaves, sweet black vetiver, and a thin, grey sliver of bonfire smoke. Vetiver, patchouli, bonfire smoke, and a touch of dead leaves. WHY HELLO THERE VETIVER. This has a very acrid, in your face, smoke opening. In fact, I sort of squinted and went Gore Shock, is that you? (I am assuming because vetiver and patchouli). It dries down to a much more calm version of vetiver-patchouli and then you get the bonfire smoke note and a touch of dead leaves. This smells like an autumn bonfire. I think there's been a few BPAL that smell like that. If you're missing autumn's bonfires, or have a thing for V for Vendetta, give this puppy a whirl. Good throw and good wear length.
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In 2007, I married the great love of my life. Teddy and I had dated since 1998, and it seemed that, at last, it was time for me to make an honest man out of him. I had loved Ted since the first moment I smelled him (truth!), and the night that we married was one of the most wonderful nights of my life. At the Lunacy event before the wedding, I was able to celebrate with my .org and local BPAL family, and I cried like a loon. It is a privilege to be part of this family the one that BPAL has gifted to me. It is one of the great joys and honors of my life to have the opportunity to interpret Neil Gaimans stories through scent, and on January 31st of 2007, our first Neil Gaiman scent series debuted: American Gods. Neils body of work has been a tremendous influence in my life, and in a sea of authors whose stories have moved and shaped me, his words have been some of the most impactful. I admire his kindness and compassion, his wisdom and eloquence, and the tremendous amount of work he has done for the CBLDF and the UN Refugee Agency. His stories have helped shape my worldview and my dreams, and I will always be grateful. In 2007, we created the first of many scents in collaboration with our family at Dark Delicacies: the eponymous Dark Delicacies scent. It was soon followed by a series of eerie Lace-inspired perfumes, a scent series dedicated to horror film genres, a celebration of B-movie horror, and a scent series celebrating great duets of horror. In June of 2007, we ran the first of our clothing drives benefitting Los Angeles womens and childrens shelters. This Phoenix is a combination of the Snake Oil and Dorian that Teddy and I wore at our wedding, the red wine we bled into and shared during the ceremony, a drop of lucky honey mead, and the heart of Snow Glass Apples lacquered over pale salt-splashed wood, with a hint of the green walnut I could never get quite right. (Im sorry, Neil! Im still trying!) In The Bottle: A bit of crisp apple with a rind of sea salt. Wet On Skin: Same, with a slight hint of wood in the background. Dry Down: An apple peel on a piece of driftwood that's washed ashore, lightly sprayed with an afterthought of Dorian. Despite this description, I should note that this scent is surprisingly light and delicate, and has NO traces of water or ozone notes- this is strictly dried, salt-crusted drift wood I'm talking about here. The longer I wear it, the more the apple fades, leaving this incredibly delicate take on Dorian worn whilst walking on a sand bank. In other words: swoon-worthy.
