doomsday_disco

Writhing shadows and jutting gray stones stabbing through a starless sky: dark vetiver and blackened patchouli cling to cold rock, while opopanax and resin-weeping trees smolder into thick, hypnotic smoke.

Ecstasy and heresy on the Heath of the He-Goat: molten labdanum drips like blood onto bare skin, red musk thrums with carnal hunger, and gleaming red amber smolders against the writhing curve of the body.

Delightfully moisturizing and fragranced to charm, not overpower. Treat your skin to a touch of luxury with this sumptuous, softening blend. 

13-year aged red patchouli, Damascus rose resin tar, blackcurrant syrup, Egyptian myrrh, and crimson musk seed.

Ingredients: Water, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Stearic Acid, Emulsifying Wax, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Optiphen Plus, and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfume blends. 

A dirge sung to Atropa bella-donna: caramelized patchouli root, crushed purple berries, and opium tar.

The silent, obsidian pool of narcosis, a dark reverie whispering horrid secrets: indigo oud, laudanum accord, myrrh, red musk, and black kyphi.

This is mostly about the Rosenkuchen with a splash of coffee in the background. It's too cinnamon-heavy for me, but I'm at least glad that it wasn't strong on the milk note. After a while, the celestial amber musk emerges, and it ends up being all about that note on my skin by the end of the day.

I don't dislike it, but I wish my skin hadn't amped the cinnamon in the baked good note and that I had gotten more coffee from this.

I don't know what happened with this one, but it didn't smell particularly sugary or strong on the berry note in the vial, and on my skin, it was all soap.

I was expecting this to be like the belladonna berry note in Beautiful Death, but with some sugar, but this isn't like that at all.  

This duet is heavier on the absinthe than the lavender. It starts off being very black licorice-y but then ends up calming down to a citrusy herbal green swirled with a bit of lavender.

Definitely one for absinthe lovers.

I really thought this would be a win and almost blind bottled it, but I ended up going the decant route, and I'm glad I did. I get lightly smoked lavender and pine and then, wham! An unlisted red musk note emerges, and I amp that note, so it is a very musk-swirled lightly smoked lavender with a hint of pine on me.

WHY

This reminds me of Madrigal from Lupercalia 2024 (somnambulic lavender, wild plum, Siamese benzoin, and sugared opium tar) without the lavender. This is mostly about the perfume-y opium tar on me, backed by the plum cognac (which isn't as plum-y as the straight up plum in Madrigal), and a tiny bit of Snake Oil's musk and spices... but my god, the Snake Oil is hella light here and cannot hold a candle to that opium tar. I'm really surprised, since Snake Oil is generally a powerhouse on its own, although it has been lighter in color and throw since I think 2019...

I think I'll hang onto my decant to see how this ages, but I don't think this is Snake Oil-y enough for me to warrant a bottle (and I'm no longer getting bottles to age just to see if I love them in the future).

I'm getting a heady white floral note and a fuckton of red musk. The ink is there at first, but it gets overtaken by the heady floral note and the vat of red musk after about an hour, and the red musk is the dominant note by the end of the day.

My skin amps red musk, and I'm not a fan of the note, so this isn't a win for me.

Cake for Breakfast is mostly about the bread of the pain au chocolat for me (I'm actually not getting the chocolate) and the black tea. I get a light touch of peach silk (which is like a light peach note) and a bit of the cherry during the wet phase of the scent and for a little while after, but after that, it's all about the bread and tea. The cream emerges and makes this a buttery bread backed by some tea after several hours of wear.

I wish I were getting more cherry like the other reviewers! As it is, it's a good bread scent, but I have enough buttery bread scents that I don't need more in my life.

Alas, I'm getting black licorice too. No opium or lychee, just black licorice on my skin.

Wahhh.

I love the cherry in this, which reads like cherry candy to me -- but sadly, it is fleeting and quickly gives way to the peach, which is super light. I forgot about the popping peach in the description and thought the peach was akin to peach gummy rings.

I so wish the cherry had stuck around and that this scent were stronger!

Note: I'm not sure what gurjum balsam smells like, but I can say that I don't get any of the Christmas-y balsam from this.

I grabbed a decant of this because I thought it would be a good scent for when you're ill (kind of like Only a Sip), and the lemon and ginger combo definitely does make me think of drinking hot tea with fresh ginger and lemon slices in it when I have a cold or sore throat. The clove cozies up to those notes also adds to those tea-when-you're-under-the-weather vibes. Although I am not familiar with the balsam note, I do think it might be what's lingering in the background after a few hours, adding a gentle woodiness to the scent.

I like this enough to keep my decant around to wear when I'm not feeling great... but I haven't yet decided if I need more of this before the Shungas go away.

Green grapefruit, a shudder of grass blades, peppery geranium, green tea, orris stems, rice sprouts, and white ginger.

Nishiyama Hoen

A chorus of moonflower, princess of the night, woodland tobacco petals, white gardenia, narcissus, cashmere wood, green apple, and datura alight with a maestoso gust of incandescent incense smoke.

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant

Sheer white vanilla with strawberry cream, star jasmine, mallow blossom, vanilla sugar, pink lotus petals, lychee, rosehips, russet amber, and pink sandalwood.

Alphonsine De Challié

Then a mason came forth and said, Speak to us of Houses.

     And he answered and said:

     Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls.

     For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.

     Your house is your larger body.

     It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? and dreaming, leave the city for a grove or hill-top?

     Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.

     Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.

     But these things are not yet to be.

     In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together. And that fear shall endure a little longer. A little longer shall your city walls separate your hearths from your fields.

     And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?

     Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?

     Have you rememberances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?

     Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?

     Tell me, have you these in your houses?

     Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master?

     Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.

     Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.

     It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.

     It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.

     Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.

     But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.

     Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.

     It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.

     You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.

     You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.

     And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.

     For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.

Morning mist and the songs and the silences of night: a soft, hazy nocturne of moonflower, dew-touched lavender buds, rose hips, and night-blooming jasmine.

And the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes.

     And he answered:

     Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.

     And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.

     Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,

     For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.

     Some of you say, “It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear.”

     And I say, Ay, it was the north wind,

     But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.

     And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.

     Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.

     And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?

     And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

Sunlight on skin: sweet amber, honey dust, golden sandalwood, and soft musk.

Looks like someone’s been nibbling a bit too much grass! A sun-faded, plasticky shell of rice milk and marshmallow illuminated from within by 420 watts of weed-wafted glowing green amber.

Sing a song of sixpence,

A pocket full of rye.

Four and twenty blackbirds

Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,

The birds began to sing.

Wasn’t that a dainty dish

To set before the king?

A delicacy to be puffed and then passed, dainty as you please: rye puff pastry crust splitting apart to reveal a cacophony of musky wild blackberries stewed in kush-infused butter.

Helps you hold onto what you have.

Contains: alfalfa, patchouli root, Irish moss, five finger grass, sassafras, cinnamon, bay laurel, bergamot, allspice, and thyme.

Mushrooms and Moss.