Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's Magdalene

MAGDALENE
A stirring yet gentle perfume. The scent of love and devotion mingled with an undercurrent of heart-rending sorrow.  A bouquet of white roses, labdanum, and wild orchid.

Magdalene is a sadly discontinued scent from the Sin & Salvation (General Catalog) collection. In the bottle, what first strikes my nose is a sharp, green rose note. BPAL roses are really unpredictable, though- they can range from absurdly stuffy to hysterically shrill to utterly deranged. This is an unexpected BPAL rose, with a pleasant, rather "normal" floral roundness, a reasonable, refreshing greenness, and an unusual depth.

On first application, Magdalene has a burnt note that reminds me of the off top notes of my vintage Le Galion Snob. There is something about these burnt chemicals hovering over an otherwise pleasant floral that I really love. It's like a synthetic rebelliousness, a shabby chic dress, the chaotic beauty of imperfection.

Magdalene then settles down into one of my favorite BPAL rose scents. Everything about the description is true: roses, orchids, labdanum; stirring yet gentle; love and devotion mingled with heart wrenching sorrow. The order of words is important here- it is first, love and devotion, then sorrow. The sweet, gorgeous floral notes are grounded by the labdanum, and it is the conflict between them that makes the emotion of this perfume so expansive.

It reminds me of a more gothic take on the same expansive conflict present in Guerlain's Après L'ondée. Après L'ondée is a play between wet, tearful florals: rose, iris, and heliotrope; and the grounding bouquet de Provence: thyme, rosemary, and sage. The result is revelatory: it is the shift from rain to sunlight, from tears to a smile.

Whereas Après L'ondée has a holy, transcendent quality to it, what I love about Magdalene is its shift, not to clarity, but to darkness. Après L'ondée's play between sorrow and hope seems to pray that hope will conquer. Magdalene, on the other hand, lets the darkness in, and the play between love and sorrow suggests that sorrow will win. The scent passively, but seductively, accepts this idea, and dries to a dark, rosy labdanum. The entire experience is sexy, complicated, emotional and beautiful.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's Incubus

INCUBUS
As if, with beasts' eyes, angels led
The way, I slip back to your bed,
Quiet as a hooded light,
Hushed by the shadows of the night.

And then, my dark one, you shall soon
Embrace the cold beams of the moon,
Around a fresh grave, the chilling hiss
Of serpent coiled shall be my kiss.

When morning shows his livid face
Your bed shall feel my empty place,
As cold as death, till fall of night.

Others take tenderness to wife:
Dread gives away your youth and life
To me, to be bride of fright.
Spectral white musk and the heart-stopping chill of sheared mint, fanned by caramel-touched body heat, and the diabolical sensuality of black musk, nicotiana, and sage. 

I am not quite sure how to begin reviewing Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab scents.  The Lab puts out a huge number of perfumes, both in the General Catalog and Limited Edition, and each one has a complex, often obscure, inspiration.  Unlike mainstream perfumes, with recognizable top notes, hearts, and dry downs, BPAL scents are unpredictable: some are linear, and others change in surprising ways.  BPAL uses perfume as a medium to express ideas, illustrating characters, places, and concepts through scent.  This does not always result in pretty perfumes to be worn for the sake of smelling nice, and some BPAL scents seem to be intentionally unpleasant or disturbing.

It is a little overwhelming knowing where to start, and while there is a whole, chaotic BPAL Forum dedicated to discussing the scents, there aren't a lot of books or criticism written on BPAL.  Fragrantica and Basenotes include only some of their scents for review.  My standbys, NST and Perfumes A-Z don't cover BPAL scents.  BPAL is a different, alternative kind of company, drawing less from mainstream or niche perfumery, and more from "homeopathy and aromatherapy" and "the conceptual theories of hermetic alchemy." 

BPAL scents are also released in groups that relate to each other thematically, and it seems like one way to understand these perfumes conceptually would be to smell all the scents from one particular category, then move on to the next.  However, I don't really have the time or money to do that, and through a series of events I have come into possession of a huge mishmash of BPAL imps and bottles, so I'm just going to start with the ones I like, and maybe in a couple years I'll have made a dent in their catalog.

Incubus is an incredible scent from the Diabolus collection, available in the General Catalog.  "Mint" and "caramel" seem like a terrible combination on paper, but out of the bottle, it's a loud, green fresh note paired with a round, sugary skin scent that is striking and sexy.  BPAL's tobacco scents always win my heart, and Incubus is no exception.  The green freshness fades as it dries down, and the nicotiana and sage notes come forward to create a sweet, herbal tobacco heart.  It's a warm, masculine, sensual skin scent that perfectly illustrates the devilish concept.  I love it.