Miskatonic University
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

I love this perfume, it pulls beeswax and Irish coffee on me (not in a way that is too boozy) with a woody background. This is a perfect fall scent and one I wear when I've had a bad day to cheer me up.

BPAL says this perfume oil smells like a “venerable New England university, whose vast library holds many rare, diabolical and obscure arcane works, including one of the few surviving legitimate copies of the Necronomicon.”

I have no idea what a Necronomicon is, nor do I intend to look it up. But in general, I think this perfume is a good example of what books smell like when their pages absorb environmental odors, sucking them in and then exhaling them over the course of decades every time the book is opened by another student.

Whoever opened this particular book was obviously drinking an illicit Irish coffee at the time, and spilled a little on the pages – sweet, creamy coffee with a hit of whisky, mingling with the musty vanillin dryness of the pages of the book.

Like many indie perfume oils, this one nails the creative brief in that it captures the exact scent of an imagined scenario; but whether you'll find it pleasant to wear is another thing altogether. There is, for me, something cloying and queasy-making about such a literal Irish coffee note, and the initial effect is like being breathed on by someone with coffee breath. It's almost too intimate a smell.

I like it much more later on when the coffee dies down a bit and allows the dustier, woodier notes to come through: it really does smell like the pages of a book in a house where coffee is being prepared. The paper note is enticingly musty and sweet, with a faintly soggy cardboard edge that reminds me of Holy Communion wafers. In a good way.

Heavenly! I'm not usually one for coffee, but I'm absolutely carried away by the creamy sweetness here.