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! 

5 hours ago, auraysu said:

I love the Ars Anni line, and most of my BPAL collection are LEs that are conceptually interesting to me. When I saw this released, I bought it because I fell in love with the painting, notes be damned!

Well: it's rather grape-y to me. Some white florals can read grapey to some noses because of certain aromachems (MA, I believe!), and I think that's what's happening here. It's mainly soft grapey white florals, with an undercurrent of soft and hazy incense smoke. I detect a hint of green apple, but it's very muted and I suspect it's because of how the white florals perform for me. This does not read as a purple smell, fwiw- it is a hazy, luminescent whitish scent. 

Pretty! I don't dislike the grape-iness of it and it's a lightly tart, floral haze drifting with a soft white cloud of incense smoke. 

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!

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!

8 hours ago, ShadowEtienne said:

 

It's a relatively recent LE, so not currently directly available, but possibly pretty findable on forum sales. If the other notes in The Hound and the Milk White Doe sound good to you, I did find the jasmine to blend really well into the creaminess of the coconut in it. The notes are: golden sandalwood and liquidambar, cardamom, coconut milk, jasmine sambac, white petal rosewater, and labdanum. To me, the jasmine is a pretty wonderful and important element to the scent, but it's certainly not a pure jasmine scent.

 

I feel like I might have some other thoughts that aren't coming to mind right now. Jasmine is a note that I really like, so I might circle back with another few thoughts later though.

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.

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.)

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.

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

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.

Alright folks, we've done it! 

Our recently refreshed A Little Lunacy page is now topped with additional tiles for The Prophet and Twilight Alchemy Lab -- recurring additions to our monthly launches in 2025. 

All of the Goose Moon perfume + gloss selections are there, as well as a fresh batch of Ars Anni scents, and the WOOD SNAKE perfume for Lunar New Year.

But wait, there's more! 

Along with this month's Lunacy we've finally added the Limited Edition Skull Maskerade series to our shop, a collaboration with artist Carla Wyzgala. And we've also finally added those new RPG perfumes and glosses that we first introduced at Dragon Con last summer!

Everything above can be browsed on one page (alphabetically) via this one little link:

https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/january-2025-late/

Hopefully this will keep you busy for a moment or three while we continue working on Lupercalia! As usual we'll be very grateful if you help us spread the word about these releases among the kind of folks who will be most delighted to know about them. 

Remember: as one moon rises, so another one sets. As such, prepare to bid adieu to last October's HUNTER'S MOON and friends, which will vanish forever at the end of next week. 
 

TB

As someone who shares these tastes, I would definitely grab Dead Leaves, Dried Lilacs, and Labdanum from the Halloween collection before it sails away. 

Hi friends, in wake of the recent catastrophic events which -- unbelievably -- are still unfolding, BPAL has created a small fundraiser scent series to direct funds toward local orgs which are offering help to those affected: Direct Relief, and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. We've also included a list of other orgs which are worth supporting directly, by anyone who is able.

https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/the-city-of-angels/

This series includes four perfume oils (and one hair gloss!) inspired by SoCal-centric botanicals, and we've also brought back three batty-bats from our Limited Edition 2018 Genius Loci series and deployed them to assist with this cause. 

The destruction of the Barrial fam's homeland and the danger faced by loved ones has been profoundly painful for them to witness from afar, and it's been quite unpleasant for Galen and me to experience from our perch just beyond the evacuation zones. We're all grateful for the kindness and support we've received from the BPAL community, and for all the care we see being extended toward evacuees, firefighters, wildlife, and those who've lost everything in the fires.