Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab sometimes collaborates with other retailers or organizations, such as Urban Outfitters, horror bookstore Dark Delicacies, or the Mütter Museum, to create retail-exclusive scents available only at that location. One of their semi-recent collaborations was with goth fashion blog Haute Macabre, for a trio of perfumes: the eponymous Haute Macabre came first, and was followed by the duo As Above and So Below.
Price: $27 for a 5 mL amber glass bottle of perfume oil with polyseal cap. Shipping to the US appears to be $7; international shipping seems to be available, though shipping to the UK came up at an eye-watering $15 when I tested it out.
Samples: A three-pack containing sample vials of the three Haute Macabre exclusives is available for $16.
Description from the website: "Oak leaf, bourbon vanilla, almond husk, and black leather accord darkened by a 13-year aged black patchouli."
The last three notes listed fight for dominance when this is first applied to the skin--it's an interesting mix of smoky, dark leather and sweet, slightly alcoholic-smelling almond, with a bit of murky, dirty patchouli thrown into the mix for confusion.
As it dries down, it develops an oddly camphorous, sharp note that cuts into one's sinuses, like that leather motorcycle jacket was doused in Vicks Vapo-Rub. From comparison with other BPAL scents like The Antikythera Mechanism, I think this may be due to the oak note. It simultaneously gives the scent an interesting freshness and powerful, eye-watering sillage; I think this is one you'll either love or hate, no in-betweens. I vacillate between the extremes on different days--sometimes I apply it and can't stop sniffing myself, but other times I wear it and it's oppressively strong. The oak does also definitely lend a more traditional wood note that can be smelled from a few inches away, helping to ground the scent.
Despite the sharp top note, the scent has a certain cozy creaminess to it; I don't find the vanilla particularly strong, but I think it's combining with the almond to soften and sweeten the edges of the perfume. By about an hour into wear, it's almost purely a black leather and patchouli scent, with that mild base vanilla subtly helping give it a more lived-in, mellow feel.
Final verdict: I enjoy leather scents, and I think it's quite delicious, but honestly, it may not really be worth $10 more than BPAL General Catalogue leather scents (more, if you include the shipping charges!). Everything in it sounds good and smells good at first, but leather notes are so dominant, I think they all tend to drown out less powerful scent notes, and so many of BPAL's leather blends settle into something really similar to each other after about an hour. I do wear this somewhat regularly, but if the sample pack had been available at the time I bought this, I probably would have just gone for that and been satisfied instead of buying a full 5 mL bottle.
What are your favorite leather scents? Have you tried any BPAL retail exclusives?
Note: this scent is vegan.
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