starfish327

this may be the imp that brings my boy over to the dark side. he says that it smells exactly like absinthe- eerily so. i'll take his word for it.

in the imp: cologne wet: more cologne dry: wow. there was a perfume that i used to wear in high school that smelled exactly like this. it was blue and came in a bottle shaped like a crystal or a chunk of ice, i don't remember the name of it off the top of my head. i like this blend but i don't think i can pick out any individual notes. the boy cautiously sniffed the imp but he wouldn't open it. he says that it smells like he'd probably wear it, but he likes things with dragon's blood in it. this is the closest that i've gotten him to try bpal...

Have you tried Metal Phoenix? I'm wondering if Torture Queen is anything like it. I love Metal Phoenix but can't seem to find a bottle for sale. Oh and yes......Ded Moroz is really nice on this man! : ) It has a masculine quality without being 'dood-fume' to the extreme. I like it. i agree. i didn't think that ded moroz wasn't that masculine until i compared it to snow maiden, and moroz was definitely the guy of the two.

in the imp: bitter herbs wet: bitter herbs. and i'm sneezing which means that one of those herbs is basil. dry down: italian seasoning mix with slight orange. i was really hoping for less herbs and more orange and florals- i can wear florals when mixed with citrus. but no i smell like the herbs you put on a pizza.

i'm apparently allergic to something in grand guignol. it's the only blend so far that i've had a response to, but it was caused a burning pain on the application point.

in the imp: oh blood orange how i heart you... wet: blood oranges and lily dry: blood orange, with a stronger white floral and a touch of ecucalyptus.it's fairly balanced. it reminds me of body wash for some reason. this is pretty. it's nice. it's behaving much better than its psych counterpart. but i'm not really a fan of pretty and nice. i'll use the imp, definitely but i'm not seeing myself wanting to replace much more than another decant of it, if that.

Welcome to the BPAL forum. or internet comms in general.

I cared about whether they were using commercial prefabricated blends intended for lotions and candles. I got an answer to that and I'm grateful. Alternatively, I'm not personally invested in natural vs. synthetic (although other people with health issues are), but I would still like a definitive answer and have received no straightforward answer from lab staff about that topic. Clearly there isn't enough information out there on the natural vs. synthetic question since many people give contradictory answers and the lab remains totally mum on the subject. I'm getting annoyed with being picked on just because I want a straight answer. What kind of world do you live in where a consumer asking if a product is all-natural is the same as harassment? you are most likely not getting a direct answer because you are NOT in fact asking the right people who would have that information. it has been suggested numerous times that you contact the company directly, and you seem to be more interested in asking people who, while perhaps being deeply involved in this comm, are not actually working with the oils. the lab may be 'mum' because they have, quite frankly, better things to be doing with their time than scoping the boards for random customer service questions that pop up. the fact that the owner of the company herself gave you an exceptionally through answer to the vast majority of your questions is telling in and of itself. the fact that you continue to press the issue and look for things to question is telling as well. and yes that question has been answered on that thread. in short: beth made a line of protos once with synthetics. she didn't release. she doesn't use the term all natural anymore because of that line. however the blends since then have been, to my knowledge after reading that thread, all natural in that they are not created chemicals. a customer asking a question is not harrassment. not approaching the appropriate people repeatedly will in fact raise red flags for people.

in the imp: musk and powder wet: skin musk, slightly sour, and powdery dry: the same. but the throw scent is much better than up close- not nearly as sour. something underneath the sour white florals. not really my thing, it's getting better the longer it's on and it's loosing its sourness. maybe i'll try layering it with something.

Exactly! But now we know without a doubt that the lab makes all its own accords, so we can bask even further in their awesome 1337 skillz. (And I guess you haven't run into too many crazy quilt artists! Some of those people act like you're a total hack if you don't harvest the berries to craft your own dye and do everything short of weave your own fabric. ) oh no i have. today's part of this thread actually is tame compared to some i've seen go on on other sites about SOCK YARN of all things....

that's actually part of what's been bugging me about this all day. even if they were pre-blended, they aren't just being dumped in a bottle. it's like being upset with someone for using pre-packaged dyes or pre-prepped blanks for indie dyed yarns...it's what you do with it that matters*. *i am and always will be a fiber nut if the fact that i keep gravitating towards those comparisions are any suggesting.

i think that may be the most epic response to any internet thread i've read, anywhere...

i actually did this weekend. i thought it was cool. my boyfriend was less than impressed.

and this is exactly why i stick with bpal. beth does use oils which appeals to me and works better with my wonky skin- but beyond that, i don't like wearing what other people are wearing. i knit for the same reason. i know that i'm not wearing a completely unique blend (i could go to strange brews down the street, get my own oils, and mix them myself if i wanted that) but it's a lot less common than the stuff that i can smell on five seperate people walking through the student union at the local campus. I realize I'm not the only person wearing Snake Oil in the world, but I'm the only one wearing it in MY world.... oh i can't even argue that at this point, most of my friends have the same blends that i do...lol.

and this is exactly why i stick with bpal. beth does use oils which appeals to me and works better with my wonky skin- but beyond that, i don't like wearing what other people are wearing. i knit for the same reason. i know that i'm not wearing a completely unique blend (i could go to strange brews down the street, get my own oils, and mix them myself if i wanted that) but it's a lot less common than the stuff that i can smell on five seperate people walking through the student union at the local campus.

Smells delicious. okay now that was just mean...points up. Don't you know I'm a mean mean girl? (AHH! I just noticed Pyramid Head in your sigline! Holy crap, that's awesome! And so appropriate! And awesome!) thank you. i am full out scary fan girl. check my photobucket- i did one for the great sword of war and one of my gore shock icons is a medical monster from SH2.

I guess it comes down to worrying or at least feeling like I'm being cheated or deceived. I want to buy products from people who care about excellence, not price or prolific production of a new perfume every other day. I don't want to be fooled by creative copy. Maybe Beth is spending day in and day out in the lab dutifully mixing her own essential oils to create violet, musk, amber or sandalwood from scratch. Maybe you all are right. But the blog comments planted a pretty big seed of doubt that I'm having trouble uprooting. the only response that i have to that is that perhaps you need to be reading other reviewers then and try to get a balanced view of reviews that aren't just bpal is horrible (which seems to be the standpoint of the original critic- that it's cheap and for people who don't know any better) or the boards where people are going to tell you that it's great. again though i think what people are trying to suggest is that excellence generally has very little to do with price. reputation maybe and name recognition, but not excellence. in all honesty though it really does sound that even if you love the imps that you get that you're never going to be comfortable with the company, and to each his own. i think everyone probably has at least product that they're like that with (you'll never get me in the same room as an iphone, i think it's all hype).

Smells delicious. okay now that was just mean...points up.

the truly annoying part about all this is that i really do want grilled cheese right now and i can't have it.

Ok, ok. Fair enough. I suppose we can both stand a bit of honest from the other side, however misinformed we think each other are. Thanks for keeping it civil. Notes that I like? Hmm. Amber, incense, smoke. Grass and woods (sandlewood, cedar, cyprus). Vetiver. Cardamom. Vanilla. Lavender. Citrus, but not too heavy. you'd like most everything that i've liked then: st. john's eve, the great sword of war, akuma, dee, nephilim, torture king (but torture king's getting increasingly hard to find but black death's supposed to be similar).

I'm sorry but that sentiment makes me really angry. This is exactly what you accuse BPAL of doing. So maybe you should sit back a minute and think of whether we should be just as mad at you. Beth takes enormous amounts of pride in her work and will take YEARS to perfect a blend. It is RIDICULOUSLY insulting to say that she just slaps together fragrance oils like a generic chain candle maker. You should have read the FAQ and About Us sections of the site, and the FAQ section of this board before you started making judgements. You know... I would really take what you said more seriously if BPAL didn't produce hundreds of fragrances every year for the exact same (very low) price. The people on Luca Turin's blog had a point about the basic logistics/economics of it all. I'm trying to do the reading suggested by so far I'm still left uneasy. And for the record, while I did quote people who compared bpal to velveeta, I never endorsed their view. just out of curiosity, why? you still haven't said why that makes a difference to you. and they NOT all the same price. it may not be an astronomical difference but the more complex LEs do run at least 2 to 5 dollars more expensive. okay i'm going to expand on my line of thought on this, with a medium i'm much more comfortable with. i'm a handspinner- i spin my own yarn. you can have fiber A costing $10 an ounce from one 'house' and costing anywhere between $10 and $20 an ounce from other 'houses'. there can be some discernible difference, but generally it's a matter of production cost, not quality. if fiber A comes out of a house where it's say $2 an ounce i might be concerned but i'll try it first before i start saying that it's too cheap to be quality because everyone else sells it at a higher margin. if there's fiber B, with fiber B being a blended line that's being sold at $10 an ounce but everyone else is selling at higher prices based on colors, if anything, i'd be concerned that there was so much variation for essentially the same product, especially if other 'houses' are selling at roughly the same price point (which BPAL is for its market, actually). meaning that i'd be wondering if they're sinking their money into packaging and advertising as opposed to the actual product and are inflating their costs that way. i want to pay for the product, not the reputation. i actually got into bpal because someone gave me imps randomly a couple of years ago.

To add to this, it's common that the way perfume reacts to your body chemistry changes around your period. It can also depend on and differ with changes in your diet, stress level, activity level, and many other factors. oh yeah. anything with even a hint of amber or incense turns into the exact same scent on my skin for three days of the month. it's more than slightly annoying.

i apparently never got around to posting my review of lump of coal, so here we go: brownies. end of story. brownie batter, baking brownies, fresh brownies. unfortunately i think it's too strong for me, but i was more than grateful for the chance to test it.

traded a testable rare that i'll never use but was glad to test for this and an imp of perversion from a very close friend. 2008 version. in the imp: fruit compote. seriously. it smells like brown betty. wet: crumb topping on the compote. spiced sugar. dry: spiced caramel. it's burnt sugar with fruit undertones. STRONG, and high throw. i wore my normal imp swipe and i'm in a caramel haze. hopefully it's settle down a little before my boy comes home from work.

This was really helpful. Thank you so much. Your comment felt really...honest. (And thanks to other people who responded! I'm kind of overwhelmed right now with links and comments...) Well, I went to makeupalley and picked out the most popular, generally appealing ones I could find: Snake Oil, Dorian, White Rabbit, Old Morocco, Dana O'Shee, and Vixen. I was really hoping to find a smooth smokey lavender but I didn't want to risk it early on without being more educated. if you can find it on a sales board try to find a sniffie of a farewell to false love. if i remember right it's smooth lavender, i don't remember about the smoky part, but you could layer it with another blend.