doomsday_disco

There are a lot of wax makers who add zucchini bread fragrance oils to their various bakery-scented waxes, and this blows those scents out of the water. The zucchini bread is more prominent than the pumpkin on me, sufficiently zucchini-y and more bread-y than an actual loaf of zucchini bread, but the pumpkin is there, adding a bit of sweetness, warmth, and some non-overwhelming spice. I don't love it as much as last year's Pumpkin Maple Nut Bread Atmo, and I suspect I'd like Halloween Hagelslag more than this once I get my decant (based off of my own scent preferences), but if you're a fan of zucchini bread and want to smell like it, you should give this one a try.

This may be like... a pumpkin 'single note' featuring the slightly vegetal, yet sweet, and not overly spiced pumpkin note found in scents like Moroccan Pumpkin Patch (NOT Moroccan Pumpkin), Dorian in the Pumpkin Patch, and Mouse's Long and Sad Pumpkin. I'm not really getting the booze from it, nor the vanilla. It's not a scent I could really see myself reaching for on its own, but I do want to try layering it with Morocco to see if I can get something similar to 2013's Moroccan Pumpkin Patch. If you're looking for a pumpkin scent that isn't heavily spiced, I recommend giving this one a try.

Sanguine jelly packed with bloody red holographic glitter.

The Lovebirds wanted to be spooky this year, and we didn’t have the heart to tell them that no one will be fooled. A frothy strawberry malted with papaya juice and black cherries, topped with marshmallow cream.

A Lupercalia Box of Chocolates scent that was supposed to go live this year but we were short on components. A chocolate truffle filled with wild plum, amaretto, burgundy wine, and black currant.

Miel Et Ambre (golden honey and golden amber).

Happy Halloween, all! Brian here — Doc Constantine to some — making my occasional guest appearance narrating BPAL scent copy. The Porcelain Bat came into our lives last year, the morning we staggered home from New York Comic Con. Samantha and I were running on fumes—suitcases still in the car, clothes sticky from the long drive, brains mushy from lack of sleep. All we wanted was showers, silence, and unconsciousness. Instead, at the crack of dawn, we encountered a fluffy ball of chaos. Sam was the first to notice. She was upstairs when she heard a shuffle in the bathroom. At first, she thought it was a mouse, but when she leaned closer, she froze. Pressed against the frosted glass of our under-sink cabinet was the very distinct, unmistakable silhouette of a bat. One wing splayed, tiny body smushed, like it had been waiting all week for us. Her scream shook the walls: “BRIAN! THERE’S A FUCKING BAT IN THE BATHROOM!” I was so exhausted that her words barely made sense. “I know all those words,” I muttered, “but not in that order.” By the time my brain caught up, Sam had cracked the door open. The bat had managed to get out from under the sink and was boinging around the bathroom like a rubber Halloween toy brought to life. It zipped around the bathroom, frantic, wings flicking against tile and towel racks. For a creature that small, it felt huge—its wingspan may have been a mere handful of inches, but to us, shrieking bat-startled banshees, it was a twenty-foot beast. Everyone’s goth AF until a bat is flying straight at your face in your own house. Sam called every bat rescue service in Delco and all neighboring counties, but no one could give us an assist until at least ten hours later. We didn’t have that kind of time, not with the bathroom locked down and our bladders on strike. So we started preparing. I pulled on every piece of protective gear I owned: chainsaw helmet, gloves, goggles. If I could’ve found hockey pads, I would’ve worn those, too. Sam looked me over and frowned. “BUT YOUR NECK ISN’T COVERED!” I glared at her. “Don’t.” “WHAT IF IT’S A VAMPIRE BAT?” The joke is funny in hindsight, but in that moment I wasn’t laughing. I peeked through the old-fashioned keyhole, heart hammering, but saw nothing. Was it perched on the towels? Hanging from the door? Clinging to the ceiling like some tiny gargoyle? There was no way to know. So finally I muttered, “Fuck it,” shoved open the door, and went in with a plastic storage bin and a scrap of cardboard. Luck was on our side, and the little guy had ended up in the bathtub. The porcelain sides were too slick for him to climb: a tiny prisoner in the big white basin. Carefully, gently, we lowered the bin over him. He rustled his wings but didn’t fight. We slid the cardboard underneath, lifted him up, and carried him outside. Out on the porch, we set the box (opened, so he could make his way out on his terms) on a shady table and let him rest. Our tiny intruder, the Porcelain Bat, had survived his ordeal. And so had we. The sweet little guardian of our bathroom sink. The warm, unsettling thrum of musky fur and leathery wings smushed against frosted orris root and vanilla plaster dust.

The crescendo of a phantom’s caress: golden frankincense and cardamom smothered by honeyed kisses of labdanum, red rose, merlot, black oud, and myrrh. After all these dreams there remained on waking a remembrance of having been in a place very nearly dark, and of having spoken to people whom I could not see; and especially of one clear voice, of a female’s, very deep, that spoke as if at a distance, slowly, and producing always the same sensation of indescribable solemnity and fear. Sometimes there came a sensation as if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek and neck. Sometimes it was as if warm lips kissed me, and longer and longer and more lovingly as they reached my throat, but there the caress fixed itself. My heart beat faster, my breathing rose and fell rapidly and full drawn; a sobbing, that rose into a sense of strangulation, supervened, and turned into a dreadful convulsion, in which my senses left me and I became unconscious.

Prototype of an unreleased scent for a media tie-in. A perfume for shapeshifters, charmers, and agents of chaos and transformations. Green-gilded leather, patchouli leaf, golden bergamot, agarwood, fiery clove, ti leaf, and amber.

Vanilla and Tobacco Flower.

Ancient, fossilized amber resins, ritual incense, witching herbs, and scorched linen enveloped in a darkly glowing halo of cinders and smoke.

For the spooky kids down the shurr.

The Lovebirds wanted to be spooky this year, and we didn’t have the heart to tell them that no one will be fooled. Fuzzy foamed milk with peppermint cream, green currants, and sugared green apple.

A luminous cold flame: chilled bergamot, Ceylon cinnamon, white clove bud, amber, and incense smoke. Between these passionate moments there were long intervals of commonplace, of gaiety, of brooding melancholy, during which, except that I detected her eyes so full of melancholy fire, following me, at times I might have been as nothing to her.

Every leaf tells a story.

Every leaf tells a story.

In the bottle and freshly applied to my skin, I swear this smells just like a bowl of Cap'n Crunch Berries Cereal? 👀 This is not a bad thing. I wonder if it is the malted aspect of the milk with the berry notes giving me that Cap'n Crunch vibe? Then the cherry pops up, and it's glorious, but fleeting, leaving behind mostly a strawberry milk scent with like... a spoonful of Cap'n Crunch instead of a bowl of it. After a few hours of wear, the scent is pretty faint, but I think I smell some papaya behind the strawberry milk, because I briefly smelled something that reminded me of the Papaya, Passionfruit and Candyfloss b-side. I'll be keeping my decant (in the original bottle -- woot!), and I'll spend more time with it to see if I need more of it. I really enjoy the unexpected Cap'n Crunch... I just wish this lasted longer. But maybe once I wear this for my scent of the day and slather it all over, it will have much better staying power. I should also mention that Fairy Lobster Foam was a funky dairy disaster on me, but this one, fortunately, is not!

Green Lovebat starts off with the green apple and peppermint in full force. After a while, the green apple loses its sugared aspect and becomes more tart, and the green currants emerge, making the scent even more tart. The peppermint is quick to calm down, and the milk emerges; it's definitely a dairy milk note, but it isn't super buttery (and it is a very accurate milk note). By the end of the day, this is a milky green apple and currant scent with just a hint of coolness left behind from the mint. Green Lovebird is my preferred Lovebird, but oddly enough, Pink Lovebat is actually my preferred Lovebat! If you're looking for a milky green apple, though, this one is for you!

Tartly sweet, brusquely pavement-kissed, zesty with fermentation, dusted with leaf-litter, and relished by opportunistic squirrels craving a tipple.

Sidewalk Apples starts off with a blast of tart (but not green!) apple and a whoosh of dead leaves on some pavement. I wouldn't let the fermented aspect of the scent scare you away, as I believe that is just highlighting the intense apple at first -- there's no whiff of decay! At one point, I couldn't help but wondering if there were some motor oil or something akin to the Lab's ink note on the pavement, as it veered into a more industrial phase, before settling into what I would describe as Dead Leaves and Cement Atmo plus apple. Dead leaves and I don't really get along, so this isn't a bottle for me, but if you and dead leaves get along and you're looking for a more atmospheric apple-y scent, give this one a try!

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.

The red apple is the star of the show on me throughout wear. I say sweet because there's no tartness, not because of the caramel or toffee -- because neither of those notes are distinct on me (there's a candied aspect, but I'm not getting any buttery caramel or toffee), and the same goes for the cinnamon and almond, shockingly. I do get the popcorn by the end of the day, where it manages to cozy up to the apple note, but by that point, the scent is pretty faint. This comparison will probably help maybe only a handful of people, but it reminds me of the jar of scoopable County Fair wax I have from Zeep Bath (which closed this year). That one also reads mostly a sweet red apple to me, although it is said to contain funnel cakes, handmade caramel apples, and kettle corn. I'd recommend this to someone who wants a pretty straightforward, non-spiced, sweet red apple scent.

Incandescent, glittering musks, pearls of sweet Florentine iris, and an indigo sigh of blue cypress, Italian bergamot, pink jasmine, cistus, white amber, mimosa, and black lilies.

A glass of midnight stout, thick with black chocolate and roasted barley, its foam kissed with bitter espresso. A pale disc of buttered shortbread rests against the rim, crumbling into the inky depths. A strange eclipse of comfort and shadow: warm, crumbly biscuit and golden butter swallowed by a swirl of dark malt, molasses, and cocoa.

A 99-cent drugstore eyeliner freshly melted with a Bic lighter, in concert with the leathery metallic gleam of a well-loved pyramid spike bracelet.