The Story
Why it exists.
Bull's Blood 2nd Edition arrived in 2023, but the story it tells is older. Josh Meyer drew from literary characters who inhabit dusty Spanish villages, bullfighters and boxers, lovers and brawlers, people at the edge of passion, one wrong decision from something irreversible. The name carries the weight of those stories: blood spilled in the ring, blood between sheets, the kind of devotion that bleeds. It's not subtle. It was never meant to be.
If this were a song
Community picks
Fever
Peggy Lee
The Beginning
Bull's Blood 2nd Edition arrived in 2023, but the story it tells is older. Josh Meyer drew from literary characters who inhabit dusty Spanish villages, bullfighters and boxers, lovers and brawlers, people at the edge of passion, one wrong decision from something irreversible. The name carries the weight of those stories: blood spilled in the ring, blood between sheets, the kind of devotion that bleeds. It's not subtle. It was never meant to be.
What makes this composition unusual is how the notes refuse to resolve cleanly. Tobacco and black musk enter together, neither waiting for the other. The Spanish rose doesn't soften the brutality, it insists alongside it. There's a mineral-metallic thread throughout that keeps everything grounded in something almost feral. This is rose without the garden. Rose with blood underneath. The geranium adds an herbal sharpness that elevates rather than sweetens, and patchouli and sandalwood anchor the drydown into something warm but never comfortable.
The Evolution
The opening hits hard. Tobacco smoke and black musk arrive simultaneously, with a mineral edge that sparks before it smooths. Within minutes the Spanish rose pushes through, not delicate, but insistent. The geranium adds a clean-green counterpoint that prevents the heart from becoming too heavy. The drydown is where this lives. Sandalwood and patchouli settle close to skin, warm and slightly animalic, lasting 4-6 hours depending on skin chemistry. On fabric or oilier skin types, it lingers into the next day as a quiet resinous trace.
Cultural Impact
Bull's Blood 2nd Edition divides opinion in the way only bold fragrances can. The community voting split, roughly equal love and hate, is unusual for most releases but is exactly what this fragrance seems to want. It occupies a niche within the niche: for wearers who want tobacco that's been through something, who want rose without the romantic sanitization. The fragrance has a small but vocal devoted readership who respond to its refusal to soften itself.
The House
United States · Est. 2012
Imaginary Authors is a Portland‑based niche fragrance house that frames scent as a narrative medium. Founded in 2012, the label releases limited‑edition perfumes, scented soaps and hand‑poured soy wax candles that reference literary forms such as memoirs, mosaics and secret journals. Each launch arrives with a story‑driven name and a modest glass bottle that lets the fragrance speak for itself. The brand’s catalogue spans more than a decade, from the debut Memoirs Of A Trespasser (2012) to the recent First Peach of the Season (2026), offering collectors a curated library of olfactory chapters.
If this were a song
Community picks
The fragrance sounds like late night in a room that smells like smoke and old leather. A single bare bulb. Talk low. The opening phase, sharp tobacco, black musk, that mineral spark, like a match struck in the dark. Then the rose enters and complicates things: warmth where there was edge, sweetness where there was smoke. The drydown is jazz at 2am, the kind that doesn't need to be loud to hold the room. This is music for people who already know what they want.
Fever
Peggy Lee
