doomsday_disco

There’s still a little time to kill before the viewing… surely it wouldn’t hurt to stop for a short stack? Black coffee, syrup-drenched buckwheat cakes, and a crusty cruller for the road.

A dream hearse for anyone who grew up presiding over numerous doll funerals: flashy pink guava, strawberry jam, sugared pink grapefruit, blackberry, bergamot, and pink champagne adorned with a gleaming chrome Landau bar.

Nothing will squash our interest in creating new pumpkin scents!

Saying “bone apple teeth” instead of “bon appétit” seems to take on a special meaning in the context of Halloween treats. Here’s a scent commemorating the allure of everything our dentist would have us avoid: a luscious red apple rendered nigh impenetrable by armored plates of toffee and caramel, sprinkled with bone-dry cinnamon-glazed almonds and hard bits of popcorn.

A deep rumbling purr: myrrh, sweet almond, spiced rum, brown sugar, honeyed dates, golden amber, scorched marshmallow, and toasted vanilla musk. Cornelis Visscher

Prototype for a perkygoth project: red velvet cake with strawberry buttercream frosting.

Snake Oil slithering into a pan of baked blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries in a warm pastry crust, topped with vanilla ice cream and molasses.

With apologies to Bram Stoker: though sympathy alone can't alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable… and so can a mouthful of gummi fangs! Daub your pulse points with the scent of chewy red fruit gums and shining white vanilla teeth.

Billowing bulbous blobs of grapefruit marshmallows.

A BPAL favorite since 2005, affectionately nicknamed ‘The Devil’s Bake Sale.’

Vex, the Bone Goddess – summoning rituals of skulls, bones and stones, chanting into the dancing flames, pits of black ash and spice, the door opens. A bone goddess’ sacred incense: fire and ash, bone shards, and stone.

Slushy white mint, vanilla cream, lemon drops, grapefruit, and yuzu!

Sugar-dusted and overflowing with Luxardo maraschino cherries and a hint of blackberry.

Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.” And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed. When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain. And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught. And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. The warmth of shared meals, the pleasure of shared laughter, and the hidden language of sweet, comfortable silences: warm bread, roasted chestnut, oakwood smoke, sparkling bergamot, lentisk resin, and honeyed labdanum.

Pink Peach, Summer Strawberry, and Candied Amber.

A venerable summer update prototype that went unreleased.

A prototype created for a local bakery promotion.

Every leaf tells a story.

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.

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.

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.

A schoolboy’s sickly grin molded from warm beeswax, lips clamped around several rusty nails.

A scent of endurance, of refusal to yield, of journeys undertaken without certainty of return. Dry leaves torn loose from their branches, wind-scorched grasses, weathered bark, soil turned dark by heavy raindrops, and distant woodsmoke. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Creaking wooden beams illuminated by hearthfire, beeswax melting on evergreen boughs, polished wood floors draped in vibrant wool rugs, linseed oil, red currant tarts, a hint of clove and orange peel, and sweet brandy apple cider. Mary Fairchild Low

Crimson musk, sacramental wine, iron oxide, saffron threads, stained linen, and frankincense. Oskar Kokoschka