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BPAL Madness!
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About this blog

perfume-related ramblings that can't go anywhere else because I'd bore the pants off anyone reading

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I just said something Imunna get smacked around for

Generally I refrain from commenting on BPAL-related issues because the community is kind of touchy, and if you get a bad name from your opinions that'll likely be reflectected in who will buy, sell, or swap with you. To two community members, I've done the same thing myself; and I've gotten caught up in the fandom's crazy-sensitivity before, and it took a reality check for me to get my head out of my butt.   Against my better judgment I weighed in on the issue of pricing/who to sell to and how. I've gotten really good deals on some bottles I wanted to try, and I've made money when I re-sold those bottles after careful thought and found that they totally failed on me, no matter how much I wanted to like them. I have Snow White 2004 in mind here. I've also lost a lot of money in my obsession, by eating shipping costs, reselling bottles at significantly lower prices than I bought for, and in some cases selling underpriced bottles because I wanted to. On balance, I'm still hugely in the red as far as my obsession goes. The concept of 'profit' is utterly alien. For me, the cost is worth it for the delight of sniffing so many scents -- but that doesn't change the fact that it's money I'll never recoup. I don't think I (or anyone else) should be criticised for trying to decrease our losses as much as we can. There are people who try to squeeze every last dime that they can out of their BPAL -- I'm not one of them, nor I believe are most people who sell at higher than they bought. There are other ways to give back to the community, like offering special discounts for n00bs, or selling them things that you'd otherwise only swap away. I've done the latter, and I've seen and applauded people doing the former. You're also not obliged to sell to just whoever comes your way -- if someone pings you and says "I really really really want this bottle" you can take them at their word and offer it to them, even for a discount if it's what you think is fair.   On the subject of ebay, stop bellyaching about letting the market decide what to pay for things. If you don't want to pay $100 for a bottle of perfume, then don't! It's just perfume! If it matters that much more to someone else, then let them have it and keep quiet. Either shell out the money and lose the exact same amount of options they do*, or realise that if you lose the auction, you'll live.   In my own swapping, I tend to favour first people I've dealt with before. There are a couple of people (Chrisann comes to mind) who are just a joy to deal with, and a few more that I've dealt with so many times that I give them preference because of how good they've always been to me. After that, I tend to deal with people who have a good reputation in the community and n00bs. If I find someone who /really/ wants a scent, I like to give it to them if I reasonably can -- I sold an imp of Beaver Moon that I wanted to save for swaps, because the gal was a newbie and I know how hard it is to break into the market and what you usually have to shell out to do so. But the BPAL community /isn't/ a free market -- it's a heavily controlled market, both by price caps in most selling venues and the politics of the fandom. That's good and bad. The good part is, it limits pure profiteering, and ensures that by and large the emphasis is on enjoying scented art instead of narrowly reducing each purchase to a risk/benefit analysis. The bad part is, the politics of opinion are fierce and a little paranoid, and if you're a rare collector building strong relationships is much more important than it should be. The field of people who hold real rares is small, and the people willing to swap those rares is even smaller. It's a microcosm of the world, impacted more intensely. I'm out of rare-collecting, mostly; I sold off most of my rares a while ago, and those that I've kept are for the purposes of briefly testing, then dangling out as bait for the few scents I collect heavily.   --- *I tend to think of money in terms of how many options you give up when you lose it or give it away. Money is worth different things to different people, some people have more or less, and some people have to work much harder than others to scrape together much less. But it's much easier to compare how much freedom or what kind of options a sum of money gives you, since those are much closer between different groups of people.
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SCREAM

I called the Superintendent of Pfoho, and /finally/ got ahold of him He said he's going to mail out all my packages to me today! YAAAAAAY!!!   I really hope he does! Oh that's so good, i really want my goodsmellies.
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Ah-hahahaha! I am the Queen of BPAL from Afar!

Squeeee! Thanks to the ass-saving generosity of my dear beloved father whom I love and adore, I have a Thunder Moon order!   Thunder Moon Cancer (I've been looking forward to this for SO. LONG.) Selkie (yaaaay! my therianthropic is /awesome/!)   Other outstanding order: Blue Moon 2007 Brisingamen     Oh, hearts and flowers, hearts and flowers I'm sooo excited for the Cancer blend. I was expecting it to be a rose/chamomile scent because those are the plants most often associated with Cancer, and I wouldn't have been at all unhappy with that -- but wild lettuce? that sounds yummy, gentle, cool and vaguely sweet. I promised myself that no matter what (unless it was, like, black musk and ambergris and red wine or something) I'd order my birth-month moon and therianthropic. I'm hopeful for Selkie, although I'm shaky on Thunder Moon -- it sounds lovely but a little too masculine/aquatic for me. I'll try it, and persevere, and persevere, and God Dammit my force of will shall prevail.   squeeeee!
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I"m so glad I gave SMUT another chance...

...I've worn it two days in a row, and it smells /amazing/. I can't think how I didn't like it the first time around.   I've been out of the comm for a while, so coming back and seeing how scents are valued differently than they were when I left is very strange. When I first got into BPAL, Mitzvah was the second-least-sought-after NN inquisition scent, and Snowblind imps were going for $20 apiece; I really don't think they would sell if you tried to do that now, because Snowblind Mania has passed. Spooky Mania also seems to have subsided, because nobody really pays it much mind anymore; Snake Charmer is still going pretty strong, Underpants went through an upswing, and Midway rose in value again and then fell (again!). Except for a few things like Storyville, Underpants and VQ (bottle prices for those are setting records) people seem less willing to pay a lot for their scent. $15 decants aren't really selling anymore, and $10 decants -- well, people have to think about it, they don't go like hot cakes. To my mind, that's a good thing.
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Product Love, Take Two

My hoarded, standards, best-beloved and kept-in-stock products   LUSH Snowcake soap *** Lip Lite lip balm Butterball bath bomb   Villainess Scintillating smooch! Scintillating whipped!   Tval Frosty Pop skin smoothie (custom blend) Frosty Pop bath treat
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Isle of Eden: Enthusiasms and Reservations

So I placed my first order with Isle of Eden today. I've been wanting to try their stuff for some time, particularly their shampoo/conditioner since theirs get really good reviews. I signed onto the forum and had a good look through some of the review threads and the photos, and while I'm certainly excited about a lot, I'm not sure their stuff will become a staple for me.   Little things are important. I appreciate when people pay attention to detail; it shows pride in one's own work, and respect for one's clients. IoE's scrubs are coloured, and in the photos on the website the colour is always bright and pretty and appealing. After a peek through peoples' photos, a lot of scrubs seem to have colour that's really poorly-blended, marbled, or just not very true at all. Also, the same item will be packaged several different ways -- sometimes even in the same order! Three 8oz bottles of shampoo will come in three different containers.   But it's the content that counts, right? Well, as far as the colour is concerned, if you're not bothered enough about it to do it right and the content is all that matters anyway, why add colour in the first place? Either blend it well, so that it looks appealing (that's the only purpose the stuff serves after all) or don't put any in at all. And as for the different containers, I just don't get why you wouldn't buy one sort of container and stick to it. If you're changing how you package your product, tell your customers -- it affects how your products are used, especially for slippery hands in the shower. Stuff like this does matter.   Compare this to the way the Lab does business -- or even to Villainess soaps. If there's a packaging change, or the thing-to-be-shipped doesn't look like the thing-in-the-picture, Brooke lets us know. If a formula is experimental and subject to change, Brooke lets us know. Everything in your order looks and feels like what you were expecting it to look and feel like.   IoE's stuff may work just as well as I'd like it to. But the care that goes into BPAL or Villainess isn't apparent, at least from what I've seen. So I'll enjoy what's coming in the mail, but that's about it.
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LUSH: Hey Blondie

Trying to figure out a haircare regime that will coddle and lighten my fine, ash-blonde hair. I'm now using The Blonde shampoo and Marilyn hair mask, which I think will become staples as they both lighten nicely; but I'm finding that the blonde colour they deposit is more yellow than I would like, so I'm thinking about following up with Daddy-O shampoo. I'm also considering investing in a pot of Jasmine Henna Fluff-Eaze hair mask, not that my hair needs deep-conditioning but just to make it a little silkier and shinier. Still experimenting on finding a good conditioner. I think Veganese is going to be it for my regular conditioner, but I'd also like to invest in some Jungle for when I shampoo with Daddy-O and Big (both of which are much more drying than The Blonde).   I have: Marilyn x 4 Big x 2 The Blonde x 2 SAMPLE Veganese SAMPLE Jungle   I want: Jasmine-Henna x 1 Daddy-O x 1 (250mL) >> these two will fall under the Clean Slate promotion Veganese -- whenever they have it back in stock Jungle -- sometime next month, I'll splurge on a piece of this
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Monster Bait: Closet -- a love affair

Monster Bait: Closet was one of the first three BPAL scents I ever tried. The other two were Monster Bait: Underbed, which got jettisoned pretty quickly, and Freak Show, which is a dear favourite. I have a stockpile of MB: Closet -- at one point I had three bottles, which since I have never used up an imp of anything seems a tad excessive. So today, I gave up on my usual policy of using BPAL sparingly, and just slathered. OM NOM NOM.   I need to reiterate my love for this scent. It's blackberry booze on me, at least at first; underneath is this heavy sorta-chocolatey sweetness that I guess is the Red Velvet cake. It stays true the whole time I'm wearing it, and envelops me in this heavy, creamy, sweet-berry warmth which nonetheless isn't too tart. It is one of the first scents I ever fell hard for, and remains firmly on the "Can't Live Without" list. If you have never tried it, do so. It's a stunner.
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