Flesh It Out: It’s Lupercalia Season, Baby! Time to Slather on Some Porn-inspired Perfume? Fuck Yeah!

Want to smell sexy, flirty, delicious, or downright slutty? I guarantee there’s a blend for you at Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab………..

Scent has always been something that’s instrumental in attraction between humans. Pheromones just do so much stuff naturally, and then we apply all sorts of plant oils and unguents and extracts to the mix and those play nicely (or not!) with our natural scent and there are so many different ways to combine all of the fragrance notes out there.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is the best indie perfume house you may have never heard of, despite them being founded in 2002. They are now based in Philadelphia after transplanting from Los Angeles last year. They have literally thousands of different blends, sold in the cutest little brown 5 mL bottles, Because they are all-natural oils, a little goes a long way and a bottle can last a long time. Many folks who “don’t like perfume” have actually enjoyed their products because the synthetic chemical irritants found in many commercial products are just not present and an oil is something that you wear close to the skin and doesn’t tend to overwhelm the people surrounding you with scent if you apply sparingly. Each scent is a work of art in olfactory form, and inspiration for these blends comes from sources as diverse as the Bitch Planet comics and the works of Neil Gaiman to The Bible and Shakespeare. It’s a bonus that their products are cruelty-free and mostly vegan. Everything made by BPAL is intended for all genders to wear-- there are no silly rules!

If you have heard of BPAL, you probably fell in love with it like I did way back in 2004 and you’re a part of their cult-like (in a good way) fandom. In addition to an extensive general catalog of scents available year-round, they release new scents roughly every full moon with several larger major seasonal collections throughout the year-- Halloween, Yuletide, and Lupercalia being the largest of those. Lupercalia (peep Darklady's column all about it at that link) is based on the Roman holiday that was celebrated on February 15 and was a festival of fertility and purification. Lupercalia at BPAL is easily the smuttiest, sexiest collection of the year. This multi-part collection goes up for sale around mid-February and stays up through the spring. Its sister collection, Novel Ideas For Secret Amusements, comes up around the same time and together they celebrate lots of aspects of love, lust, springtime, and sex!

Joining me to talk about perfume, sex work, Lupercalia, and everything else is Tom Bloom, Marketing and Relationships Manager at BPAL.

Hi, Tom! How’s life in the Lab? Tell us all about this year’s Lupercalia launch!
"I'm headed to our new facility in Philadelphia as we speak. We moved cross-country from L.A. late last year and it's been a very strange time of adjustment for all of us. But we haven't really missed a beat with our major perfume launches, and Lupercalia 2023 may be the greatest of them all. It's upwards of eighty individual fragrances — a staggering release for any perfume house, let alone an indie. But don't be afraid, these are broken up into specific categories which are easier to wander through.

In addition to the main category of scents celebrating Lupercalia, mostly via examples of classical poetry, we have fresh twists on tropes associated with romance, such as Box of Chocolates (a series of unusual cacao-based gourmand scents) and Silk Flower Bouquet (a batch of fantastical, Technicolor-esque florals). The returning Cherry Bomb series offers variations on one of nature's lustiest fruits; a new series called Raunchy Hearts takes a common Valentine's Day tradition way too far; and of course there's the Shunga art appreciation series called "Novel Ideas for Secret Amusements," which is, as usual, the largest part of this annual launch."

Leave Marks label art

The first "Novel Ideas For Secret Amusements" series was released way back in 2008. It’s made an appearance most years since then and certainly has some of the best scent names! What inspired the Lab to dig up this glorious ancient filth from the Edo period of Japanese history and interpret it in scent?

"Elizabeth, our founder, is half Filipino. I think the mix of cultures in her household contributed to her wide-ranging tastes in art and literature from a young age, and this was expressed very early on in BPAL's output as well, in the artistic inspirations and the scent ingredients she felt drawn to. People tend to approach fragrance as a very Western art form, often heavily laden with orientalism, and that's all wrong. Its roots trace literally everywhere, and learning about it is basically a re-education in world history.

So in the Shungas, folks will not only encounter visual artworks and historical portrayals of sexuality which they've perhaps never encountered before but also fragrances that serve as a transliteration of that style or era into scent. This is often represented in notes with a particular ethnic or geographical association, such as washi, matcha, plum blossom, hinoki wood, etc. But she also paints from her complete range of scent notes, including elements that seem anachronistic or wrong for the region: blueberry, cacao, things like that. And this is where I think the real BPAL magic occurs, because here's where the artwork's color palette or the original artist's humor begins to emerge in the scent, and the result is a very modern creation that seems to conjure and pay tribute to the past.

I'd say overall these tend to be whimsical, playful scents, some of which pleasantly hint at sexual smells and secretions, or knit together human sexual relations with natural landscape elements in a way that suggests we're all just creatures with bizarre mating rituals, who are inseparable from the world that produced us.

On the sales end, I've gotta say again that the explicit sexual nature of this collection makes it extremely difficult to market online. We can't run ads, our posts about it are often suppressed, challenged, and taken down. The Shungas are truly a labor of love, and we basically rely on word of mouth from customers to help inform the public about them. That's what makes coverage like this such a goddamn joy!"

What are your top three scents from this year’s Novel Ideas For Secret Amusements?

"We never consciously repeat any Shungas from year to year, although there've been so many that I often get messages from Elizabeth which are like, "Does this dick look familiar to you? How about this one?" One of those was this year's ABALONE AND PEACH BLOSSOMS ("Crushed abalone accord, sea salt, peach blossoms, sweet plum, water lily, and pink grapefruit"), inspired by art featuring a woman being amorously impaled on what appears to be this giant octopus's long, anthropomorphically improbable nose. I had to write back like, "Not sure, but I thiiiiink I'd remember that?" I didn't start paying close attention to releases like these myself until maybe 2012, so I'm not the most reliable smut historian.

Label art for Abalone and Peach Blossoms

I'm always most interested in the Shungas that portray homosexuality, or the most outrageously fantastical ones like FELLATIO BY A VULVA-FACED DEMON ("Laotian oud, bitter almond, agarwood, black pepper, and skin-warmed spice") or GIANT VAGINA GHOST MONSTERS ("Hazelnut, chebulic myrobalan, red sandalwood, cinnamon, sweet amber, loukhoum, dates, and myrrh").

Fellatio by Vulva Faced Demon label art

Giant Vagina Ghost Monsters label art

These artists found endless inspiration in every single wrinkle, divot, vein, and sprout of hair on the human body, so there almost seems to be a kind of competition in terms of who could create the most outlandish or attention-grabbing illustration. Put eyes on it! Make it wheelbarrow-sized! Literally whatever."

What led the creatives into saying "yes, Lupercalia should be a big collection for us". Halloween and Yule are pretty obvious wide-interest/big sellers, but what made them take the plunge into the sexy and smutty?

“I think the gateway here relates to sex work, which was already a thematic undercurrent in earlier BPAL releases. Historically, sex workers have always been making use of fragrances, both as personal adornment and as magickal or aphrodisiacal enticements, and would have had access to rare concoctions as a result of proximity to their customers among the ruling elite. If fragrance has always served as an advertisement for sexuality, then anyone working in that world would likely have invested even moreso.

Choke Me Label Art

From the beginning, we've tinkered with historical formulas and gathered artistic inspiration from these sources. So, if we were going to time a perfume launch with the romantic furor around Valentine's Day, there's no way folks were gonna get a sanitized, purely heterocentric version. They were going to get perfumes like BRIGHT RED DILDO, a leather and honey blend inspired by lines from the Greek poet Herodas (which sadly did not return this year).

The customer response to this was great, and there weren't as many obstacles in those days to reaching folks online with NSFW materials. And the rest, as they say, is history!”

What are your top three (or so) Lupercalia scents from this year’s release?

"This year was challenging because a wayward shipment of ingredients cost us most of our annually returning faves like SMUT and LUPERCI. Ever since 2020, there's always some fresh new challenge with every release.

Green Lovebird Label Art

Pink Lovebird label art

But we did manage to bring back the Lovebirds (GREEN LOVEBIRD "Vanilla mint, spun sugar, and pistachio" and PINK LOVEBIRD "Cotton candy, cardamom, and confetti cake")— two perfumes which can be layered together, inspired by a pair of vintage decorative birds that I rescued from someone's "free" pile in Los Angeles. Romance always seems to contain a promise of rescue from some other imminent timeline that seems far worse, or at least more boring. These little trash birds became a kind of mascot for our 2020 Lupers, which we released right on the cusp of full lockdown. I'm excited to bring them back against this new backdrop, folks could probably use the optimism.

Pearl Necklace label art

Broken Stems label art

Two others I'm really excited about are BROKEN STEMS "A rejected bouquet tossed in the gutter: oozing broken stems, macerated rose petals, gasoline, and asphalt", which is a heartbreak scent that features a gasoline note, and PEARL NECKLACE-- which I suppose is self-explanatory: "Skin musk dribbling with pear cream, orris root, vanilla bean, and raw honey.""

Tell us all about the Lab's most popular blend by far, SNAKE OIL.

"I love sharing lore about SNAKE OIL. This is a perfume that Elizabeth originally created for herself to wear, and I doubt she had any idea that it would become such a cornerstone in BPAL's business — often the art we love the most, or make to satisfy our own tastes, never really takes off with others. This is a supreme source of frustration for many artists.

I think there's a distinctly aphrodisiacal aspect to this fragrance. The simplest way to describe it is a sweet, musky, resinous vanilla patchouli blend. It's enjoyed by people of all genders, and ages beautifully into a whole different creation, and there's an entire secondary market for finely aged bottles. I know some folks are buying fresh Snake Oil and then basically not touching it for many years.

One of the biggest challenges we've probably had to endure is the global shortage and price surge affecting vanilla, which put us in a Snake Oil drought for years. We were finally able to resolve it by dipping deep into our reserves of aged patchouli and vanilla, which we ourselves had been saving for the rainiest of days. So the current iteration of Snake Oil is completely identical in formula, but some of those components are more aged than they normally would've been before the pandemic."

If you were to pick three currently available General Catalog blends that one should pick from to wear on a date with someone they have the bigtime hots for, what would they be and why?

“Oh wow. We have a whole collection of these called Ars Amatoria, but the three I would suggest to newcomers would probably be:

GOLDEN PRIAPUS

"A truly carnal, energetic men’s blend: vanilla and amber with juniper, rosewood and white pine." I find this one really soft and seductive, but thrumming with a strange, dark power. I'd disregard the gendered language in the description, truly anyone can harness this priapus!

PERVERSION

"Smoky rum and black tobacco with a whisper of steamy leather with a splash of crystalline chardonnay, layered over a sensual, sweet, and deceptively magnetic base of tonka." What a fun conversation starter, if nothing else.

SATYR

No scent notes are listed for this one, but it strikes me as a more aggressive cousin to SNAKE OIL and smells absolutely filthy.

What other upcoming projects should we be looking for from BPAL, especially ones of an erotic or adult nature?

"We're about to release a series of eight fragrances based on the 1989 avant-garde erotic horror/comedy Dr. Caligari, which has remained a cult film basically since it debuted, despite difficulties with staying in circulation. The film has been restored for a forthcoming Blu-ray release, which should help with that quite a bit! Our licensed scents will debut at a special screening in New York City on March 4th and then online at the BPAL website later on. Here’s a couple of sneak scent previews:

Label Art for Tongue Wall

TONGUE WALL
"Fleshy and fruity: guava musk, slick strawberry lip gloss, and blood-tainted digestive juices."

Doom Cake Label Art

DOOM CAKE
"A drug-induced vision of grabby, gore-slicked tentacles erupting from a facade of thick buttercream and lemon sponge soaked in cherry-flavored goo."

XXX Means Kisses Label Art

XXX MEANS KISSES
“Life imitates bad art.”

"A rare portrait of innocence and integrity amidst the corruption of Caligari’s asylum. Tart hibiscus, skin musk, shea, and the faintest whiff of nicotine."

Where does one go to read up and find out about these scents and narrow down your list before making a purchase?

"Our website itself is a perpetual work in progress, and I know it can be confusing to navigate for folks who are just getting started. Just know that every product includes tags that can help you fine-tune your search on specific scent notes, like "Rose" or "Black Musk" or "Neroli," and so forth. The best place to look for reviews is the BPAL.org web forum, which comes up right away in web search results for pretty much any BPAL fragrance, new or old. This fan-moderated community has been running for eons, which means you can browse reviews going back nearly 20 years in addition to newer releases. We owe so much to the community for helping guide folks to secondary market options like perfume swaps and decant circles.

After the pandemic cut off folks' ability to come to our events and sniff scents in person, we established a greater video presence on YouTube — and more recently on TikTok, where we're still finding our people! The YouTube series 15 Minutes of 'Fume is basically just myself and my partner Galen (who also works for the Lab full-time) poking our noses into as many bottles as possible and describing them out loud for onlookers who might be hesitant to buy based on the product summary alone. We try to just keep it light and entertaining, and of course, reactions to scent can be very subjective, but it's been exciting to be able to stay connected to BPAL folks in this way. Here's the latest episode where we try our hardest with that Raunchy Hearts line from Lupercalia":