BPAL Miskatonic University

Coffee has become something of an obsession of mine. Not in the drinking of it, but rather the smelling of coffee. That rich, dark, woody fragrance of coffee is the hallmark of a good morning to me. I suppose it helps that I’m not a coffee drinker so all the terrible mornings don’t sour this scent. But in my search for the perfect coffee fragrance, I’ve discovered one thing; The note does not last. Miskatonic University

In Bottle: Beautiful, creamy, rich coffee with a french vanilla twist in it. I smell a slightly fungal scent in this too that can probably be attributed to Black Phoenix’s dust note. It smells a bit like mushroom to me, but in the bottle, the mushroom is a good pairing to the coffee, making it just a little more complex than, “Here you go, your coffee smell” plunked down onto the table without ceremony.

Applied: Coffee, dense and rich and good enough to taste with creaminess and sweetness mixed into one. Miskatonic University is like a really good cup of coffee–for about thirty seconds. The coffee note in this fragrance is really fleeting on me and disappears in less than a minute. I can try layering all I want but it is not going to stick around on my skin. When that elusive coffee does evaporate it takes the vanilla and the sweetness with it. Remember that mushroom note? After  the coffee departs, the mushrooms absolutely bloom. Actually, I don’t think it’s mushroom I’m smelling but the leftover cream and the dust note mixing together to form this really bizarre tangent with the woodsy notes in Miskatonic University getting a scent that I can only attribute to mushrooms on wood polish. It’s not particularly interesting or nice. Well–that’s not true, it is interesting.

Extra: Miskatonic University is a fictional post-secondary institute located in Arkham which appears in the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Design: Miskatonic University is bottled much in the same way all other Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfumes are. It has a different label to denote its place in the Picnic in Arkham series.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Irish coffee, dust, oak.

As much as I wanted to find that one true coffee scent in this fragrance, Miskatonic University and I were just not meant to be. The coffee note is so fleeting, and I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. It is a top note for me. I just hoped it’d be one of those top notes that defied all logic and reason and hung around a bit.

Reviewed in This Post: Miskatonic University, 2009, 5ml Bottle.