doomsday_disco

Blackened lavender and sensual rivulets of labdanum with Oman frankincense and raw cacao.

And finally, we’re bottling up some Lemon Chiffon Pumpkin Pie as a reminder that a little silliness, joy, laughter, and sweetness will help sustain us, fortify our spirits, and get us through to the other side.

A Winter Solstice gourmand: a ground almond snowpack glistening under a chilly scattering of sugar-bright stars, standing out against a night sky of the darkest cacao.

Perk up and relax at the same time! A steamy shot of espresso spiked with hazelnut syrup and crowned with pale purple foam.

Tomato fruit and leaf, a skritch of soil, spicy geranium petals, orange blossom, marigold, and sultry musk. Takahashi Shōtei

This one features a dry (like, the cold air is nipping at your nose) snow note (I don't really get any vanilla from it, alas!) with some coconut rice and creamy condensed milk in the background (the latter of which is missing in action at first, but becomes more noticeable later). I am not getting any evergreen or minty-ness from it like with some of the other snow notes from the Lab. It ends up settling into that dry snow scent with some cool coconut by the end of the day. While this isn't something I could see myself reaching for, I do think it was fun to try it. I would have never imagined a perfume with snow and rice together!

I got this to see how it compared to The Storm with its vanilla and mosses. Well, this is nothing like The Storm, which I prefer as far as vanilla and mosses go, but someone looking for a deep, mossy incense blend touched with balsamic woods should appreciate this one. I was really hoping for lots of vanilla cream to go along with those notes, but it was not a main player on me (although sometimes I find the scent just needs a little age for the vanilla to peek out).

I bought this because of the cause, because I love many of the Lab's sweet pea scents, because I enjoy the notes listed here, and because I thought that it might be a cousin to Mouse's Long and Sad Tale. But I've tested this twice, and for some reason, it's just not jiving with me. I think it's the combination of the almond milk with the sweet pea. They're the strongest two notes in the scent (with the sandalwood coming out after the scent has been on the skin for a few hours), and to my nose, the almond milk overpowers and clashes with the sweet pea. Sadly, I'm not able to detect any of the vanilla, and when I wore Mouse's Long and Sad Tale last week, I was swooning -- but this just doesn't produce the same feeling for me despite sharing some notes. Since I can't see myself wearing this over Mouse's Long and Sad Tale, Serving Fish, or the Sweet Pea single note, I'm going to let this bottle go.

Pine needles, licorice root, cypress, king mandarin, roasted chestnut, sage leaf, and bourbon cream.

Sweet pipe tobacco, cherry wood, the warm, worn leather of an easy chair and a pleasant, subtle waft of fireplace smoke.

Tolu balsam, angelica root, smoked tonka bean, brown sandalwood, bourbon vanilla, orris absolute, agarwood, and fig wood. Francisco Goya

Sometimes I wonder about the choices I made in life that led me to making things like a Meatball Jazz Hands perfume. Honestly, it’s more of a flourish or a reveal gesture, but it’s still jazz hands to me. Honeyed fig, brown labdanum, spiced ginger cider, and pink peppercorn.

Electricity, which is an atmospheric emanation from God, and which is moved by his will, is that substance out of which all worlds and their splendid appendages were made. Hence, it will be perceived, that electricity contains all the original properties of all the various substances in being. All the varieties of the universe around us – all the beauties and glories of creation upon which we look with so many thrilling emotions of delight, were produced from electricity, which is the inexhaustible fountain of primal matter. By the living energies of the Divine Mind, electricity was condensed into globes ; not instantly, but gradually. The heaviest particle took the lowest point, or common centre, of our globe, and so on, step by step, lighter and lighter, till we reach the surface, which is a regular mould. On this we find water, a substance still lighter than earth ; next air, which is lighter than water, and so on till we reach the sun, which is the highest point in relation to our system, because it is the common centre. The sun is, therefore, pure electricity. Hence, the twenty-nine globes, belonging to our system, are electrically, geologically, and magnetically made. They are but twenty-nine magnets revolving around our sun as a centre. The sun being pure electricity or primal matter, is but an emanation from the Deity. It is consequently in a positive state. Hence, electricity is continually passing from the sun, as a common centre to the twenty-nine surrounding worlds : on the same principle that it passes from a positive to a negative cloud. Having done its duty in giving light, heat, and vegetation, as well as magnetic power to the globes, it is returned by reaction to the sun, and these two motions from the vertices that roll worlds around him. It is impossible that there can be any inherent attraction or repulsion in matter. Attraction and repulsion are but different dispositions of electricity. The best magnets are now made for the galvanic battery. Hence, electricity, galvanism and magnetism, are but in substance one and the same fluid, and the Eternal Mind, so that all the powers of attraction and repulsion originated in Deity. His will comes in contact with electricity, and through that subtle agent he moves the whole immeasurable universe in accordance with nature’s law. All worlds are in motion. They roll rapid as the lightning’s blaze, and in the most apparent confusion ; yet all is calm, regular, and harmonious. God is, therefore, connected with his universe, and superintends all its multifarious operations. Tho’ he is thus intimately united with inert matter, yet is he distinct from the whole. Thou apart, Above, beyond ; O tell me, mighty Mind, Where art thou? Shall I dive into the deep: Call to the sun? or ask the roaring winds For their Creator! Shall I question loud The thunder, if in that the Almighty dwells! Or holds he furious storms in straitened reins, And bids fierce whirlwinds wheel his rapid car! The Pittsburgh Post, 9 August 1847 The divine spark from which all things emanate; the perfume of the profound, unseen forces that connect us to the cosmos: the cold brilliance of metallic aldehydes, lemon pith, ambergris accord, and white lavender tethered to terrestrial patchouli, violet leaf, and a mineralic musk.

Pomegranate, Honey, and Mimosa.

Chills and thrills, but certainly no frills: a polluted, rough-riding version of the Traditional Sheet Ghost: cool white cotton, marshmallow fluff, and lemony Oman frankincense, marred with suspicious blotches of coconut oil and a cigarette burn.

A sleek, seductive eternal slumber: silky ripples of spectral lavender cascading around the labdanum-shadowed absence of a living being.

D is for Dog-Face: a Medieval marzipan suffused with frankincense smoke and splashed by sacramental wine.

Melancholic white rose petals drifting in a pool of white musk, bitter almond, and icy vanilla. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome, possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet. Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it.

Chestnut and Patchouli.

… it is very far, indeed, from being an acknowledged fact that the spirits of the departed return to earth and make their presence known by causing a commotion among a man’s furniture. Glasgow Morning Journal, February 22, 1865 A raucous thump of polished mahogany, rosewood, red leather, and walnut hurling through a haze of whiskey and cigar smoke.

Rivulets of beeswax, a blackened wick, and a shuddering gust of smoke.

Goddess of phantoms and of shadowy play, whose drowsy pow’r divides the nat’ral day: ink-black opoponax absolute, glittering amber, caramelized oud, black styrax, and Oman frankincense.

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.

Vanillekipferl plunked in a pile of pine needles.

Chase away the sads with a sip from a cheery snowglobe filled with slushy grenadine and lemon-lime soda, topped with a maraschino cherry and illuminated from within by 40 watts of glowing amber.