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White mint, the Lab's icy slush note, and citrus! I don't get the vanilla cream at all - I wish I did, because that would add some sweetness. But I do like it - it's crisp and refreshing, and wintry in a snow-and-citrus way (you know how oranges are associated with Christmas, and also lemon drops, and maybe citrus-y gumdrops? it's like that, with snow-slush) - so it's kind of a nice change from the usual peppermint or cinnamon or gourmand types. My bottle label has a misprint, just fyi for any others out there - the art and name on the front is right, and the scent is right, for Yellow Snowballs, but the description section on the side talks about a blood-red voluptuous rose! (Might be Peacock Queen?)
- Today
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For some reason it smells soapy on me. The funnel cake is pretty faint. So the overall scent is not very gourmand.
- Yesterday
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His appetite is insatiable! Crumbs of gnawed marzipan and toasted hazelnuts tumbling through a thicket of patchouli and gunpowder and bouncing off of a throbbing cherrywood ramrod.
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Liqueur-soaked twin cherries reeling from a double pony-kick of pink pepper and white ginger.
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Buttercream-frosted angel food cake and a smear of strawberry lip gloss.
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Have I spoken this day of aught else? Is not religion all deeds and all reflection, And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom? Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations? Who can spread his hours before him, saying, “This for God and this for myself; This for my soul, and this other for my body?” All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self. He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked. The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin. And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage. The freest song comes not through bars and wires. And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn. Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all. Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute, The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight. For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures. And take with you all men: For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair. And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees. A perfume of the sacred in the ordinary and the value of labor, joy built from the things you carry into the temple of your days. Golden hay, frankincense tears, hearthsmoke, amber-streaked cedar, and beeswax.
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2025 version. This blend goes on with what I'm now familiar with as dead leaves' big flare-up / immediate die-down, then I get a whiff of warm, dry, smoky spice, which gives the impression of a burning pile of leaves. It's a sweet hay-like tobacco/smoke mingling with spice that reminds me very much of the spice accords in Circe Transforming and A Dance to the Music of Time. There's something in this, I think probably the amber, that's lending a sort of round smoothness to the blend, softening what might otherwise be sharp edges of spice, smoke, and dead leaves. Around two hours in, The Death of Autumn coheres into a pretty harmonious blend, where I have difficulty picking out individual notes, more like the experience @gentle-twig described. I wasn't able to detect any florals, but given how well-blended this one is, I wouldn't be surprised if they were in there adding some subtlety I can't name. About average throw and longevity, and nothing goes sharper on me towards the end of the day as is often the case with other blends. The Death of Autumn fades away quite gently, like the last plume of smoke from a friendly autumn campfire.
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Full, rich, unapologetic floral. On me this is primarily jasmine and honeysuckle, in rather equal measure; lilac comes out more on the drydown, but is definitely secondary to the other florals for me. This is gently indolic, but mostly just very deeply floral; I can only detect the amber as perhaps adding a resinous depth. Sophisticated, billowing, and creamy. I very much enjoy this and am so glad to have obtained a partial bottle secondhand; it pairs especially well with Persephone's Ascent, but I love it with all my jasmine/honeysuckle/white floral perfumes.
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In the wet form, the nuttiness from macademia is strong and there's something sweet in the foreground but it doesn't smell like white chocolate to me. As the scent develops the sweet aspect starts to smell like buttery popcorn? I'm guessing it's the white chocolate. As it dries down the nuttiness and white chocolate become more balanced.
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No, you've definitely helped!! Thank you so, so much! This has helped a lot! 😊💖
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Luna-pythia. I think shampoo vibes depends on your shampoo....i don't use scented shampoo. I also have not sniffed Startling Sack. I will say since strawberry is in so many products I can see the nexus. I am very picky with fruits, i don't like many. Rat crackers specifically gives me a scented candle vibe. I mean it would make a great shampoo scent? Beths champagne note had always given me actual champagne (vs shampoo or lotion) and its reserved in this blend. Sorry I can't be of more help
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I hope it's okay to ask, but does it give shampoo vibes? My concern is the champagne note like Startling Sack O’Ladybugs (notes: Strawberry-chunked prosecco) smelled like clean strawberry shampoo to me...
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It smells sticky sweet. The marshmellow leans more vanilla to my nose. There is some cardboard scent in the background which makes it slightly dry and not overwhelmingly sweet. In the dry down the cardboard scent disappears so it's mostly sweet.
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Anne Bonny fans, take note: this is the frankincense in that blend or I'll eat my shoe! I would layer this with Anne Bonny and add the Palo Santo & Patchouli hair gloss and smell better than 99.99% of the human population on any given day. Such an essential Duet!
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Pleasant, friendly, clean, and the dead leaves note lends it a touch of outdoorsyness. Pretty high throw, especially when wet, but inoffensive enough to play nice in a crowd. Unfortunately not to my tastes, which trend darker and earthier. I thought I might get lucky with the skin musk, as I do enjoy Flaming June and You May House Their Bodies, but musks can be difficult for be (especially white or "pale" musks), and this one plays more like a clean skin than the more funky version.
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You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether? And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart. And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing. When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet. Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion. For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive: And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted: Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard. It is enough that you enter the temple invisible. I cannot teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips. And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains. But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart, And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence, “Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth. It is thy desire in us that desireth. It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also. We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us: Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.” A scent for wordless communion, an immersion with the divine: silver frankincense and white myrrh, blue lotus absolute and white sandalwood.
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Pleasure is a freedom-song, But it is not freedom. It is the blossoming of your desires, But it is not their fruit. It is a depth calling unto a height, But it is not the deep nor the high. It is the caged taking wing, But it is not space encompassed. Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song. And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing. Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked. I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek. For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone; Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure. Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure? And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness. But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement. They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer. Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted. And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember; And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it. But even in their foregoing is their pleasure. And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands. But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit? Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars? And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind? Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff? Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being. Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow? Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived. And your body is the harp of your soul, And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds. And now you ask in your heart, “How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?” Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees. Be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees: candied rose petals, red honey, sweet berries, and luxuriant red musk.
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You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance. Ecstatic unbecoming: earth-warmed patchouli, sweet myrrh, terebinth, galbanum, gurjum balsam, and black amber.
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Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle. Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.” And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.” The tired and the weary say, “Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit. Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.” But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains, And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.” At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.” And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.” In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.” And in the summer heat the reapers say, “We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.” All these things have you said of beauty, Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight. People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror. You are life and you are the veil; a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted: saffron-threaded sandalwood, white ambrette, wild narcissus, smoky yellow tobacco flower, and gilded vanilla.
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An oil for new beginnings in the new year. Use to clear out residual emotional, spiritual, and social debris, break cycles of repeating narratives, old drama, lingering resentments, and stale grudges, and purify spaces, tools, and the self in preparation for a fresh start. Sweep your literal and metaphorical thresholds clean and step forward unencumbered. Contains: frankincense, rue, three mints, angelica, cascara sagrada, yarrow, bay, lemon verbena, lime, and salt.
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Hearthglow, a cousin to BPAL’s Heartglow, is an anointing oil for keeping the home safe, welcoming, and quietly joyful. It is an oil of gentle warmth, built to protect the household and its inhabitants, comfort and honor house spirits and guardians of place, encourage peace and understanding, and create an atmosphere of love, emotional safety, and mutual care. Suitable for use in ritual work and to anoint doorframes, hearths, windowsills, and keys. Contains: fossilized amber resin, frankincense, dragon’s blood resin, orris root, red sandalwood, lavender, patchouli, clove, allspice, burdock, sweet orange, honey absolute, sweet grains, and marjoram.
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“What a bewitching girl…” A facade of innocence shattered by a demonic chortle of black honey bubbling up from an abyss of burgundy pitch.
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A schoolboy’s sickly grin molded from warm beeswax, lips clamped around several rusty nails.
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Bringing you the colors of spring! Tawny golden musk and cherry-blossom lipstick smeared over blood-slicked fangs.
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Lady of the Black Cat skull: sweet innocence with a dark mystery, wrapped in black leather and lace, guided by dreams and succumbing to nightmares. Sugared amber, orchid petals, and vanilla chiffon spiced with smoked cardamom.
