Failmingo

Sorry Beth, but you can't hold onto these forever! We're inviting everyone to go on a little crate-digging adventure in BPAL's catacombs, featuring a bunch of limited quantity prototypes, misfires, and lost souls which never ended up seeing the light of day. This is their moment! https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/rarities-and-b-sides/

Good morning, all! Wanted to poke my head in here and remind everyone that THIS Saturday is Courtney's latest Lunacy event in Vermont, from 4pm to 7pm. You'll find her at Scout, located at 696 Pine St. in Burlington. Meanwhile, we have just finalized our date for a July event here in Minneapolis. Come see us on July 19th, from 12pm to 3pm at Odd Mart!

I actually rushed to go test this because of @auraysu's review, since I have been exploring a newfound fondness for grapey scents (officially declared or otherwise). I dunno if my mind would've gone there without reading this, but it did now! I can track the Lab's moonflower and datura notes (the latter being a bit purpley), tempered here by the woods and incense smoke. It's reminding me of old school GC dark florals like The Caterpillar and Death Cap, sweetened up with apple in a way that keeps the drama of the other notes from skewing too heavy or tragic. Very apt transliteration of the painting!

For he seemed to me again like a king, Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld, Now due to be crowned again. A sinuous leather variant of BPALs Snake Oil. Only side-by-side with Snake Oil can I tell the difference between these in the bottle. It really was appropriate to name this after the snake's skin -- the leather wraps around the familiar blend like a sheath. And it's a grower, constricting slowly until it just might become the thing someone notices about the scent if they just happened to catch it in passing. It also nicely amps the woods in Snake Oil, which probably don't get enough love. If you have a man in your life who loves Snake Oil but it's too sweet for him to wear, he will probably be unstoppable with this.

While some are celebrating this month's Strawberry Moon, we've gone darksided and introduced Crow Moon Lunacy instead... and 13! In addition to the expected offerings, we've launched the Lab's very first LOTION blend (previously only available via Haute Macabre's launches) as well as a handful of summery hair glosses. Beth is planning to add a new Lunacy Duet lotion each month, and I'm very much looking forward to this slippery new chapter in our collective lives. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/june-2025-lunacy/ Here's your reminder that Yule 2024 will be leaving us on July 1st! This also spells the beginning of the end for our Boney Moon/Death Moon Lunacies, which will be departing at the end of next week. (The Prophet fundraiser oils, however, will be staying up all year until the set is complete!) As ever, thank you so much for helping us get the word out about new releases as well as things you've loved from past ones. Visibility and engagement on social media profiles has been especially low, and from what we've been hearing from other small businesses, we're not alone in this. Your signal-boosting always matters, and we're always grateful for it!

It's a new dawn for TAL! Thanks to Samantha, we've got this shop up and running again, looking snazzier than ever. https://www.twilightalchemylab.com/

Century Guild has launched a Kickstarter to release new fine art prints of Gail Potocki paintings, and we've bottled two of them to contribute to this effort: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/centuryguild/gail-potocki-botanica-no-23-symbolist-occult-fine-art-print?ref=ba5odv BOTANICA No 23 A violent rupture of blood-soaked golden petals threaded with saffron and clove smoke and splashed with blackcurrant and poppy absolute. EVE AND THE SERPENT The Garden is not Paradise; it is a threshold. A whisper coiling through Eden’s dusk: a sinuous sliver of green apple, pomegranate wine, and ripe black fig entwined with night-blooming vines and enveloped in myrrh, fossilized amber resin, and smoky oud.

For Pride 2025, we have bottled the essence of the apocryphal “first brick thrown at Stonewall” and added it to a series of unique perfume oils raising funds for the Stonewall Community Foundation and Philly's local UTDJ. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/brick-by-brick/ I really must say, personally, the support for these issues throughout the BPAL community has been so heartening to experience and observe. It truly makes it easier for me to wake up and do my job each day knowing all of this is still here. I'll be excited to present these scents in person at our Minneapolis Lunacy event on June 21st! To my best knowledge, they'll remain up on our site through the end of June. Happy Pride, everyone!

Hound is a great suggestion for this. My test lately for whether something counts as a true "jasmine" scent is whether my sweetie Ashton calls it out -- he really dislikes jasmine. And this was definitely one that he preferred me not to wear around him TOMIE doesn't bother him, as the jasmine is very smoothly blended into the floral aspect of the scent. Same with Caligari A-Go-Go, which has a woozy jasmine component that I find nice and strong and nocturnal, but I think the other notes (cotton blossom, dirt, petitgrain, tobacco) throw him off the track.

We've done it: the May Lunacy launch has launched, and now we can go back to hiding under the blankets. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/may-2025/

Hallo everyone! We've had a rash of partner launches recently, and instead of doing four separate posts I'm going to just include them all here. Blood Milk has released two new perfume oils, and restocked a bunch of past releases. Go check 'em out! The new offerings: 🖤 BEHELENA The silent, obsidian pool of narcosis, a dark reverie whispering horrid secrets: indigo oud, laudanum accord, myrrh, red musk, and black kyphi. 🖤 BEAUTIFUL DEATH A dirge sung to Atropa bella-donna: caramelized patchouli root, crushed purple berries, and opium tar. The astromages at Sphere + Sundry have released a treasure chest of "Sun in Leo" products in a collection called Golden Titan, which includes four Twilight Alchemy Lab oils. Recapped below, you can peep the ingredients for each on the product page: 🏵️ VALOUR This is an oil of courage and authority, formulated for our challenging times. It strengthens the will, ignites the spirit with roaring flames of Solar energy, and inspires bravery under adversity. This is an oil of ancient heroism and sacred leadership that taps into the stories of mythic heroes, leaders who stood fierce and unbroken against the tide. 🏵️ RESISTANCE THROUGH ART Rebellion, protest, liberation. As far back as at least ancient Egypt, art has been used to protest injustice, ridicule religious and political leaders, promote liberty and social justice, and foster change. This is an oil of creative fire and inspiration – of radical sacred expression – charged with the spirits of both self-soverignity and defiance. It is an oil of fierce imagination and fearlessness that ignites visions of a better future, defies oppression, and enables you to channel your rage or fear into works of powerful art. 🏵️ HEARTGLOW A beam of warm sunlight to ease and heal the spirit, assist in battling sorrow and stress. Helps to warm the heart and soothe the nerves; enables you to better act and react with compassion to both yourself and others. 🏵️ PERSEVERANCE An oil of strength under pressure and calm determination, this is a bulwark against despair that braces your spirit against weariness and fear so you can bear the burdens that life throws at you with grace and power. This is a Sol-powered rooting oil that can be used in ritual or to anoint your body before trials, when burdens weigh heavy or hope seems distant. We also have a new scent offered as a reward in the latest Century Guild Kickstarter to publish a book celebrating Alphonse Mucha's art, which you may add on to any pledge tier for $27. PENSE ET LIS Warm hands running over the well-loved tonka-sweet leather bindings of a cherished book. A flutter of gently-yellowed paper and ink suffused with luminous yellow bergamot, honeyed tea, and lavender sugar. Once again we're observing Walpurgisnacht by contributing to Spiritus Arcanum's amazing annual collection of oils, candles, jewelry, and other fancies marking the occasion. Eleven gorgeous perfume oils in total: AKELARRE 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. 5ml bottle BALD MOUNTAIN 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. 5ml bottle BENEVENTO Witches cavort and the Devil stamps his cloven hoot the base of a venerable black walnut tree, the crackle of scorched wood and the fragrant profanation of dry vanilla bean heralds strange heresies. 5ml bottle BLOCKULA A shadowed meadow stirs under a shrouded moon: crushed bluebells release their bruised perfume, Arctic starflower and wild flax weave cold sweetness into the air. A thrum of patchouli-darkened red musk pulses heavily in the air, spiced with cardamom pods, cacao, and red oudh. 5ml bottle BROCKEN Animalic musk thrums with forbidden heat, while smoke and honeyed sweat braid into an ecstatic frenzy around a crackling bonfire. 5ml bottle NIGHT FLIGHT Flowers long dead twine with petals as-yet unfurled – ghost jasmine, pale heliotrope, asphodel, and black violets – swirling in windswept darkness. 5ml bottle TRAMPLED CROSS Dark frankincense, rose smoke, and oud swirling around splinters of cypress, cedar, and pine in an act of transgressive liberation. 5ml bottle DARK BAPTISM The sacred reborn in darkness, a baptism of liberation: defiled holy water and lily of the valley suffused with black musk. 5ml bottle DEVIL’S TOME Leather crackling under your touch, ink-smudged vows scrawled on incense-stained parchment, the metallic tang of blood and a whiff of brimstone. 5ml bottle COCK’S CROW The heavens awaken, piercing the darkness with the first rays of sunrise, scattering demons and chattering imps to the wind. The sun’s promise of redemption, the renewal of grace, and absolution for all sins: glowing amber, white bergamot, orange blossom, and petitgrain. 5ml bottle ***The perfumes in this collection are offered as a preorder item and will be available to order from Wednesday April 30th until Wednesday May 21st. The orders will be fulfilled afterwards in the order in which they were placed.***

Hi everyone. We've received so many questions about how tariffs and supply-chain issues will affect BPAL's production. How to answer honestly without stoking unnecessary panic? I'll try: We really, really, don't know. 😬 So if there are any fave BPAL products that you consider personal necessities which are *currently in stock*, please understand that we're still getting a sense of what we WILL and WON'T be able to restock, or how much it will cost. We appear to be heading into a component drought that will dictate our output for the time being. The last thing we want is for folks to feel pressured into panic-buying, but we also feel a responsibility to loyal customers who've depended on the same products year after year, or would be disproportionately affected by changes in price that reflect component scarcity. I wish I could offer specifics in terms of which exact ingredients are causing issues, but again: we don't know the extent of this yet. Some of our suppliers have preemptively jacked their prices or just canceled our orders altogether. Communication is proving difficult. We're patiently, methodically doing our best to keep our supply flowing -- holding our breaths the entire time, like every other small biz out there. The prices and inventory currently listed on our website reflect what we KNOW we can provide for now. Beyond here, we'll all be in the same boat of waiting and seeing together. (Disco pic because unsettling news is best delivered with a side of comfort floof.)

Save the date, amphibiennes! On Saturday, May 17th we'll be holding court at Odd Mart in Minneapolis with a limited supply of all the Frog Moon Lunacy offerings, some remainders from 4/20, and more! On Saturdays Odd Mart hosts a regular "Drink and Draw" event which is free for all, with refreshment sales benefiting MIRAC: Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee. We'll be crashing that event with a nice long table and a whole lotta smells. So there will be a nice incentive to hang out and snack and chat, and pretend you can't see us setting up. (Thank you, but we don't need any help!) https://glorpgum.com/pages/odd-mart

The cat's outta the bag! Haute Macabre has debuted BPAL's foray into a whole new product category: scented hand & body lotion. Our opening act is GARNET, rich with 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. More will be on the way!

Frogtastic news: our FROG MOON Lunacy is live, and it looks like some additional critters came along for the ride! https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/april-2025/ In addition to the customary Duets, Ars Anni classical art scents, The Prophet fundraiser scents, and TAL oil, you'll also find a smattering of perfume oils launched in anticipation of 4/20... and also, the stoneware coffee mugs which we debuted at conventions last year! 😱 Spring has fully sproinged with this launch, and if my own packages arrive in time, Galen and I will have all of these new things (minus the mugs) at Odd Mart in Minneapolis this weekend for you to sample and/or purchase. https://glorpgum.com/pages/odd-mart

Sorry to only be sharing this here now! On Easter Sunday (which falls on 4/20 this year, lollll) Galen and will be hazarding our first retail outing in Minneapolis. We've been invited to helm a table at Odd Mart's marketplace event. We'll have the soon-to-be-released 420 perfume oils on hand, as well as other fun surprises! This is by no means a proper Lunacy event, but will help us build up hosting one (likely at Odd Mart) sometime soon. We've made a FB page for Twin Cities-based BPAL events, which you can follow if you wanna keep tabs on these events. Hope to see some of you, and/or any friends you send our way! https://glorpgum.com/pages/odd-mart The teased scents will also be available on BPAL's site as part of the upcoming Frog Moon Lunacy launch: 💚 REVENANT RHYTHM A tousled, sexy mix of patchouli, vanilla, and hemp. Label artwork by José Guadalupe Posada (1852 - 1913) 💚 FOUR AND TWENTY BLACKBIRDS 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. 💚 STONED BUNNY BLOW MOLD 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.

Scent-wise, each of these new Blow Molds go in totally different directions than the previous Halloweenie ones. So while there is some overlap in terms of the glowing amber component, it expresses itself differently in most of these; some of these are sweeter than others, or remain foodier, or involve more of a "plastic" quality, etc. In the bottle, lemon is the star of VWMBM. It reminds me of something from The Fool's Journey, probably one of the Fool or Magician scents: bright and golden and creamy thanks to the lift from the amber, which blurs out the freshness and sharpness. It's like... actually uplifting to smell it, reminding me of gleaming halos and rays of light in religious paintings. Here is the comfort and joy we are supposed to be receiving tidings of. I can't pick out any of the incense notes specifically quite yet, but I BELIEVE. Fresh on the skin that lemon's got a bit more of a zesty zing, but the amber's got a broader range too, bringing a surprising sweetness that is not QUITE a slice of the lemon meringue pie they serve in heaven, but it's not NOT that. And I'm very grateful for that part of it, because otherwise I think lemon might go furniture polish on me. Instead they just kind of hum together. Here's where the frank & myrrh start to assert themselves, but not in a dramatic Catholic way. This is one of those small town congregations where people worship Good Times Jesus. For that reason I'd personally say this reminds me more of an Easter scent, with pastel yellows and cheery messages about how He Has Risen. But that seems fitting for a scent inspired by these campy, cheerful Nativity blow mold scenes with their and blue-eyed Wise Men. It's like a serious religious experience that's been puffed out into something bright and shiny and filled filled with warm air. Glowing blow mold decorations have always been about defying the cold with cheerful sights and pleasant fantasies. Over time the freshness of the lemon truly retreats until it's not even particularly associated with real fruit. What's left is just this smooth, amber-glossed memory of something vaguely lemon-scented. It's lovely! Not overly clean or incense-y, just a lovely pale-golden nimbus of good vibes, man.

I know we've had bready scents before and lavender baked goods aplenty, but a lavender bread scent? The idea seems so obvious, and yet it took this long. The Lab also doesn't do many rosemary scents, so I'm curious to see how detectable that is. In the bottle the lavender is strong and tinged sweet. Possibly there is vanilla involved, but what the sweetness really reminds me of is Japanese milk bread. That being said, there is a robusst crustiness and saltiness poking up from under that, and I think the rosemary would have to be screaming its head off to be detectable through all that, and it's not, so it isn't. Fresh on the skin I do get like a light, savory olive oil sheen over the whole thing. And that's also when the rosemary seems the strongest, enriching the herbal tones. Perhaps because of the contrast, the lavender in this strikes me as the flowering kind, like an actual bit of floral lavender standing out against the savory and gourmand notes. And over time what lingers longest on me is that pale, sweet, milk bread-esque pastry note wrapped in lavender vapor-trails. Faintly beneath that I can still detect the crusty/salty aspect but that is such a neutral tone, almost a skin tone itself when you think about it, that it doesn't arouse much attention. While I think almost anyone can appreciate a bread scent (even if they don't care to wear it), the lavender really does seem to impart an emotional or fantastical quality that makes this a true comfort scent, instead of just a comfort food scent. flowery

We're back on track, babies! The new BONEY MOON and DEATH MOON Double Lunacy launch have got us all caught up with full moon stuffs. Behold! https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/march-2025-double-lunacy/ Please note that we've added a free item that anyone can add to their order: Immigrant Rights "Red Cards" (ours are white) with info provided by the Immigrants Rights Resource Center. These are available in a variety of languages -- English, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese -- and you may select the language and quantity from the drop-down window on the product listing. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/limited-edition/propaganda/immigrant-rights-cards/ And hey, the fact that we're launching two Lunacies means that two Lunacies must also *come down*. So consider this your one-week warning for Beaver Moon and Cold Moon. That includes the Black Moon Rising release and the New Year's Creepers & Oddments mini-series! That's it for now -- thank you for waiting so patiently while we got our collective shit together.

A new collaboration from BPAL & Haute Macabre celebrating the rebirth of spring, when life breaks through the ground and the light shines longer. https://hautemacabre.com/collections/apothecary/products/persephones-ascent-by-black-phoenix-alchemy-lab PERSEPHONE'S ASCENT A glorious blend honoring the benevolence of the season : sandalwood-infused vanilla, vines of pale spring blossoms, honeysuckle nectar, and sweet cream.

Century Guild is publishing a new book exploring witchcraft and the occult through vintage paperback cover art, so you know we just HAD to get on board with that! Two new scents available exclusively via their Kickstarter rewards: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/centuryguild/spell-bound-vintage-witchcraft-occult-hardcover-art-book?ref=profile_created&category_id=45 SENSUOUS WITCH Gliding through the velvet hush of midnight, she moves — barefoot on cool stone, wrapped in a whisper of clove-scented silk. A flicker of candlelight catches the curve of her throat, the glint in her half-lidded eyes. Dark florals, bruised and beckoning — black orchid, scarlet poppy, and moonlit tuberose — whisper their secrets against the heat of her skin. A breath of smoked vanilla curls like an incantation, weaving through ribbons of amber resin and spiced honey. Beneath it all, the slow, insistent pull of patchouli and oud, ancient and aching. This is the art of longing, the alchemy of desire. AGE OF AQUARIUS Ink-dark skies ripple with stardust and prophecy, and the air hums with the scent of revolution: smoked myrrh and velvet incense glittering with ti leaf and Italian bergamot.

If you are reading this, that means Galen and I must actually be moving to Minneapolis in March. Can this be real? How on earth did this happen? Those, reader, are questions to be answered another time. We're gonna run with the assumption that this IS real, since we've already signed a lease and are very busy packing up our apartment in L.A. Among the many WONDERFUL things that will become possible as a result of this move, we're setting our sights on organizing Lunacy events in the Twin Cities once we get settled. I've even got a space that wants to host us! I will definitely announce these meetup opportunities here in the Forum, but I've also made a Page for them on Facebook, akin to Courtney's for the Vermont Lunacy events. Whatever helps folks keep tabs on us! So if ya want, please Like and Follow this page to be notified of any activity over there, even as a distant lurker: https://www.facebook.com/BPAL.MPLS Very much looking forward to the excitement of meeting new people in a new city! TB

After a fair amount of cosmic struggle, we have launched our Lupers: https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/lupercalia-2025/ https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/novel-ideas-for-secret-amusements-2025/ Here, too, is a trio of scents celebrating the 100th birthday of Edward Gorey. This is the beginning of BPAL's new ongoing collaboration with The Edward Gorey House! https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/the-edward-gorey-house/ Thanks for keeping the faith, friends -- and thanks in advance for helping us inform other aspiring Lupercalians that we just made their scent dreams (and a few nightmares) come true.

One, two, three, Haute Macabre perfume oils restocked, muah ha ha! ⚡ https://hautemacabre.com/collections/black-phoenix-alchemy-lab AS ABOVE leather drenched with white patchouli, oak bark, bourbon vanilla, bitter almond, and Moroccan jasmine. SO BELOW Amber and black copal with black coconut, Sumatran red patchouli, green cardamom pod, and golden musk. CITRINE Glittering ambrette seed, crystalline sparkles of lemon and orange blossom, blood orange and orange peel, bay leaf, sweet myrrh, and caraway.

I mistakenly imagined that I'd reviewed this back when it first came out. Apparently not! But I came here to report that it's aged marvelously. This scent would be right at home in the pantheon of mystical/mythical rose blends such as Peacock Queen and Rose Red. Or perhaps in the Last Unicorn collection! It's matured into a playful and luxurious pink rose surrounded by spicy glimmers and golden bokeh effects. The kind of rose that could only grow in a sacred garden protected by high walls, afforded ample sun and plenty of cool green shade. The sweetness imparted by the other ingredients softens the floral bombast. Like the name suggests, there's a quietness and delicacy to the scent that seems to invite itself into one's thoughts and then gently begin coloring them with its rosy pigments. I wore this while using the Rosebud Tarot deck today and it's such an impressive aesthetic match. Dig this one out! Chances are, you could use the mood boost.