Corpse Bride A fairytale about a beautiful, rotting zombie girl looking for love

I recently was reminiscing over the zombie craze that hit us all a few years back – everything from my favorite Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. Of course, the continuing gory saga of The Walking Dead, ZNation, to the only-slightly disgusting romcom Life After Beth.   And it seems like for a while there, everything you read, watched on TV or at the movies was about the fictional, yet impending Zombie Apocalypse and What Happened After. 

Tim Walker Tim Burton for Harper's Bazaar Magical Fashion

And being a horror fan as well as a perfume junkie, I wondered what meeting a zombie might smell like. Especially if that zombie was a maybe-boyfriend or girlfriend before the world went to hell.   Well, I believe I know now – because Victor Wong of Zoologist Perfumes has just released Bat, an earthy, fruity, so ripe-it’s-rotting new fragrance that announces the scent of a lovely young girl who might be just a tad past her expiration date.

Zoologist Bat Eau de Parfum

This is a good thing, people.  Zoologist has fashioned a series of fanciful, unique and slightly unhinged fragrances since the launch of the innocently animalic and award-winning Beaver a year ago.  Since then, we’ve also been treated to Panda, Rhinoceros and Hummingbird.   For this latest release, Zoologist has enlisted Art and Olfaction Award Winning  Olympic Orchids perfumer Ellen Covey to bring this Bat out from under the eaves and into the (fading) light. 

Helen Bonham Carter and  Bat Zoologist

Bat begins with a decidedly odd pairing of a ripe, alcoholic banana note paired with raw, damp earth.  It’s got a lush and tropical feel, sure, but there’s no coconut oil and Pina Coladas here – just dense vegetation and lulling wafts of ripening fruit.   Your nose has to make an instant decision about what’s happening to it:  is this a pleasing fruity fragrance or an earthier, more vegetal one?  There’s something dead here, definitely – the smell of overturned earth is too prominent – perhaps that fruity fragrance exploded from the inside about an hour ago? But with Bat, Zoologist plays a fun trick on our senses, similar to the linden blossom and castoreum trip Beaver introduced to us in 2014. 

Tim Burton Helena Bonham Carter Vogue UK December 2008 Tales of the Unexpected 

Instead of soft florals meeting raw animalic skank, Bat seemingly offers up a bright, bouncy fruit scent that carries with it the hard minerals and rain-soaked spongy waft of dark, fresh earth (that perhaps someone might have risen up out of and just now happens to remember what you meant to them.) The drydown arrives quickly, and turns the damp, dark earth into a musky sun-baked brick of leather shot through with a slight tonka sweetness and a reedy twinge of light, near-grassy vetiver. The drydown is wonderfully done here – the swing from damp, damp, wriggly earth to dry belt leather is disarming and fun.  (Your miss-you-so-much zombie girl just happened to LOVE wearing your biker belt right before that nasty virus hit.) The sillage is intimate, and the power is average here – for such a bold, sweet and earthy scent, the radiance stays close to the skin. 

Tim Burton/Tim Walker for Harper Bazaar

All in all, Bat is a fun, unexpected, and slightly scary perfume.  The combination of ripe, tropical sweetness layered over spongy, damp, dank earth notes is quite disarming and strange.  But for all that, Bat is compelling and wearable. There’s enough sweetness here between the banana in the top notes and the tonka/sandalwood feel in the drydown to make it approachable, yet the mineral tang in the heart combined with all that wet, wet earth tells also of something (or someone) approaching that recently spent more time buried in the ground.  

But you know, for those of you whose love is strong enough to scoff at the notion of ‘Til Death Do Us Part, Bat could be your summer love scent.  Who am I to judge? 

Pam Barr, Senior Contributor

Art Direction:MC

Disclosure sample sent for consideration, opinions my own

Notes: Banana, Soft Fruits, Damp Earth, Fig, Tropical Fruits, Mineral Notes, Myrrh, Resins, Vegetal Roots, Furry Musks, Leather, Vetiver, Sandalwood, Tonka  

Thanks to Victor Wong and Zoologist, we have a draw for two worldwide registered readers of a deluxe sample pack of Bat, Beaver Panda, Rhinoceros, Hummingbird and To be eligible, please leave a comment about your favorite zombie show or movie, or your favorite Zoologist perfume.  Draw closes 1/8/16. 

We announce the winners only on site and our Facebook page, so like CaFleureBon and use our RSS option…or your dream prize will just be spilled perfume.