Mandrake Apothecary is a pagan-run perfumerie that specializes in cruelty-free, handmade scents. They first appeared in the Chateau back in November, and they recently sent us a surprise package full of dabbables.

First of all, a moment for the care taken in the packaging. An almost clothlike butterfly tissue…

…cocooning a meticulous arrangement of samples. You gotta love it when a merchant puts your merch together like this.

I love what happens when the underground reinterprets traditional beauty packaging. (Ridiculous tangent: A few months ago, a salesperson in Macy’s bombarded me with a yelp of, “would you like to try HEIRESS?” Good gods, why don’t you just ask me if I’d like to try on a spritz of formaldehyde?) Here we have the little sample dram nestled booklike between an ingredients list and explanation of the name.

So what have we here? The Natural Perfumes are artisan scents, such as Asherah, a blend of grapefruit and florals named for the Queen of Heaven. Anima reclaim the feminine aspect: Medea, which features ginger lily, pink lotus, and blood orange, Sophia, where the frankincense and myrrh of her biblical background is sweetened with vanilla, white lotus, and orange flower, Lilith, who’s made of sage, three kinds of frankincense, and a distillation of baked mud from the Ganges in sandalwood, and Jezebel, a pairing of jasmine and leather. Spiritus is a line of autumn-themed oils and includes Pan Dulce, “sweets for the dead,” in homage to both Day of the Dead and the origins of trick or treat in Ireland, Cafe y Cacao, chocolate warmed up with coffee and cinnamon, and Ofrenda, a meditational oil for All Saints Day blending Mexican copal, fir needles, and tonka beans. A couple more scents that I didn’t see on the website but were thrown in anyway were Nyx, flowers with musk ambrette, and Tisane, darjeeling mixed with rose. (which, now that I’m reading the site again, is part of a new tea-themed collection.)

Samples run $4 apiece, with discounts on volume ordering. Overall, quite nice between some unusual ingredient combinations and the gift-wrap presentation.