November 16, 2023

Sea Otter is still available in both sizes, as is Côte, also recently released. Just announced a new limited-release tobacco-cedar fragrance, LOST IN TIME - which apparently fills a need among fragrance fans for a simple, naturalistic tobacco-cedar fragrance that avoids the usual tropes of sweetness, fruits and tonka. Seven bottles are initially available, most of which are spoken for, and once a larger batch is mixed (next year) it will be available as samples. Actual release will probably next fall.

October 15, 2023

Sea Otter will be released Saturday, November 4. I’s a new, very much improved version of the original, which several people thought was one of my best. Probably one of the more original applications of oud oil; though I’m not familiar with many others, most seem to fall into familar categories of rose-oud, etc. There’s rose and oud here but used in a pretty atypical way with an emphasis on oceanic freshness as opposed to the usual ‘opulence’.

Côte, the first of the EDT series, was released in September and is still available in both sizes; prices are lower because it’s less concentrated but it is a strong, lasting fragrance that compares well to the EDPs in terms of performance. The 100ml size of Wendover is now out of stock until the next batch is ready but there are a decent number of 50ml bottles still available.

Lockdown, a limited edition for American Perfumer, was released in May and has been very well-received. It will be released again in 2024 with slight modifications.

March 19, 2023

Wendover, Pool Boy and Film Noir are now available again and the new batches are very nice. The new batch of Silver may also be the best so far. Assam is currently unavailable, including samples. There’s a new, larger batch in the works that is almost complete but will need to age a couple months.

Orpheus is a finalist for Basenotes Best Artisan Perfume of 2022 and Clandestine Laboratories is a finalist for Best New House.

January 22, 2023

The first bottles of Wendover sold out within a day but there’s still almost half the batch left and those bottles will become available this week after I receive labels. The current batch of Film Noir is running very low and samples are temporarily unavailable until the new batch is ready, probably within a couple weeks. Vert is indefinitely unavailable because the new version doesn’t seem to be connecting with people the way the original one did and I want to add some new materials I received recently. The current batch of Silver is also almost gone but a new, larger batch is almost completed.

December 4, 2022

Eight bottles of the now-finished Assam will be available at noon EST on Saturday December 10. Samples are temporarily unavailable while awaiting more oud oil with which to complete the remaining concentrate. Looking good for this being available on a semi-regular basis in the future and the new version is now really good, possibly better in some ways than the original but overall very similar.

October 11,2022

The next limited release will be Orpheus. Samples are already available and a limited number of full bottles will be available starting at noon EST on Saturday October 29. A detailed description will be available on the limited releases page soon; it’s basically a boozy and slightly smoky citrus-incense-tobacco-amber fragrance that has proven popular so far with those who have tried it. Pool Boy is still available also; it was probably a bit late in the year to release a fruity-floral-tea-woody-musky fragrance and once the current stock runs out it probably won’t be available again (except as samples) until next summer.

September 12, 2022

I’ve finally finished a new fragrance, Pool Boy, and will release it as a limited “small batch” of 6 100ml bottles and 18 50ml bottles this Weds, Sept 14 at 7PM EST. After much thought about how to deal with my backlog of unreleased fragrances without crowding my line and creating an insane amount of work for myself, I’ve decided the way to go is to add a second line of limited-release fragrances that I’m not committed to keeping in inventory. I’ll be releasing these every month or so for the next year and availability will vary depending on how small the batches are and how quickly they sell. These will include new fragrances which will potentially be added to the line if they’re successful enough as well as true limited-run fragrances that depend on materials I can no longer get.

I’m also changing the sample sets to allow these fragrances to be chosen as samples, even if they haven’t been released yet. This will give people a chance to try them ahead of time, something I could have planned better with this release.

Pool Boy is a refreshing unisexy fruity tobacco number with notes including lemon iced tea, guava, passionfruit, lavender, iris, rose, cedar, tobacco, vetiver and deer musk. Just the thing for when you need someone to come over and…clean your pool.

September 5, 2022

Été Noir is not performing as expected so far and release is now delayed indefinitely. Kicking myself now for thinking that it would be straightforward to improve Film Noir in any way, since it’s pretty great to begin with. As the summer is drawing to a close, it makes sense to aim for early next summer rather than trying to rush it. In the meantime, I’ve mixed a new, even larger batch of Film Noir concentrate so that it can age while there’s still plenty of the current batch. Of course, there wasn’t enough of the original Spanish lavender left but I think I’ve managed to find a combination of three new lavender oils that makes for a pretty close match. This promises to be the best batch/version of Film Noir ever and should provide a stable formula going forward that’s not limited by materials that have become unavailable - but it will take months of aging to be sure. In the meantime there’s still plenty of the current batch left, which is as of now the best batch so far.

August 14, 2022

Fragrantica writer Partic Rhys did a line review of Clandestine Laboratories along with interviewing me. Very positive and a fun read!

 August 14, 2022

Été Noir will be released by the end of the month as a limited release of approx 20 bottles with samples also available. Because it’s a limited release, this initial batch will only be available in the 50ml size; I’ll add the larger size for the next batch, assuming it’s a hit. I hope people will appreciate that although it’s a limited release, the price will be the same as my regular fragrances and samples will be continuously available; the number of full bottles available will depend on how many samples are ordered. Although I’m warming a bit to the idea of doing limited releases, I really don’t want to encourage FOMO blind buys.

Speaking of limited releases and FOMO, the new larger version/batch of Assam is coming along nicely. I recently decided the new oud seems a bit thinner than the original, so I juiced it with a small amount of a wonderfully stinky Assam Double Super grade oil. This helps quite a bit with richness and longevity. Still on track to be released this fall and this time there should be enough available that it doesn’t sell out right away. The label will be slightly different so that the original bottles will be easily identifiable.

 July 23, 2022

Really good news here. After making a couple breakthroughs last weekend and letting things settle for a week, Été Noir (an ‘intense’ version of Film Noir with improved longevity in hot weather) seems like it's basically good to go, even though it hasn't aged much. My original overly optimistic timeline now seems accurate after all.

For anyone interested in the process: simply changing the balance of base and topnotes did not work because the fragrance then both lacked bloom and the texture and character of the original, plus the green tea seemed to thin out the body and over-emphasize the dry-smoky qualitites (which many people don't even notice, but which are actually very present in the original). The substitution of geranium for rose also seemed to make it a bit thin, without the impact I'd hoped for. As a result, I added back in the rose element (which is not rose absolute - not because I'm cheap but because it wouldn't work well in this context) and then boosted the lavender and rose with traces of some very powerful floral chems which, thankfully, don't seem to stand out at all but give the fragrance a bit more body and floralcy. I then doubled the oud, adding a really nice Vietnamese oil that works well in this context. It's interesting to see how much oud contributes to the character of the fragrance; if I didn't list it as a note, I doubt anyone would even know it's there but it's definitely a major contributor to the drydown and overall performance of the original. Despite being only about half a percent in the concentrate it contributes hugely to the noirishness,

I think people will find it performs as advertised, with the same overall character but a slightly richer, fresher and more floral top and midnote, better longevity and more body in hot weather without smelling noticeably more artificial.