How do you apply your BPAL oils?

[enozgirl]

That's how I've been applying my one lonely 5ml too, Andra. I tried the "finger over the top" method and ended up with a hand that was way too June Gloomy

[VelvetSky]

I use a coffee stirrer. I don't like Q-tips...the cotton soaks up some of the oil.

[merveilleuse]

last night i placed an order for some glass bottles and droppers [although i just wanted wands] from lavender lane .

the shipping is rather outrageous, but ..

we'll see how this goes, anyway. i like to have things organized, all in little bottles with little labels.

[you can order amber, clear, blue, + green bottles .. neat]

[vige]

i decant oil from the big bottle into these.....

http://www.sunburstbottle.com/Merchant2/cat13.html

"1/8 oz. Amber with Plastic Tester Rod"

it works great! big nuff so you dont have to refill often, but small nuff that contamination isnt to big of a worry and if it spills it not the end of the world! (yeah, right!) they have other sizes as well, big i like the 1/8 oz best. you can buy droppers as well, i clean mine with alcohol, of course. ( to MissAnthropy)

xoxo

vige

[evil_laugher]

For the two 5 ML bottles I have, the little white cardboard paper inside the lid always stick to the bottle when I take the lid off, instead of to... the actual lid. Because the glue doesn't work anymore or something. So I use the oil residue left on that to apply on things.

[Pauline]

i decant oil from the big bottle into these.....

http://www.sunburstbottle.com/Merchant2/cat13.html

"1/8 oz. Amber with Plastic Tester Rod"

it works great! big nuff so you dont have to refill often, but small nuff that contamination isnt to big of a worry and if it spills it not the end of the world! (yeah, right!) they have other sizes as well, big i like the 1/8 oz best. you can buy droppers as well, i clean mine with alcohol, of course. (   to MissAnthropy)

xoxo

vige

I have the 1/8oz vials with tester rods as well! I ordered 30 of them. They are perfect for decanting and if you want to dilute your oils.

 

It saved the day when i discovered that my new Queen of Hearts bottle was actually cracked! That would explain why it was constantly leaking even though I always made sure it was kept upright. Anyway, I decanted the contents and it filled 1+ 1/2 vials.

 

My order came with 2 extra tester rod caps so I just use those to apply from other big bottles.

[asa805]

This is my first big bottle (red moon) and so far ive wasted soooo much of its precious contents because i cannot seem to get it out right. I tried turning over (as that seems the only likely way to get it out) and a whole gush of it comes out the sides (of the little plastic stopper thing). I dont know if i have a faulty stopper but its not working out well. Should i take th estopper off? Then how should i take the oil out... i really dont want to put my fingers in it and then ruin it but i hate to waste so much, not to mention douse myself with a ton of it and either have to wash it off or walk around giving people headaches (like my friend tonight )

 

ANyone else having this problem? If you dont use the stopper what is the best method to get the oil out without touching it?

[Salice]

One thing several of us have done, or have been experimenting with is opening the 5mL (or 10mL) bottles and, rather than tipping them, rubbing the mouth of the bottle against our wrists.

 

It seems to apply a decent amount, enough to scent without overwhelming. I suppose it's kind of the same principle as 'dipping your fork' when you eat salad dressing. It gets just enough without wasting any, and it takes a while before you notice a distinct difference. Some of you that slather probably wouldn't like this, however.

 

I've also wondered about glass cocktail stirrers or the like. The glass won't absorb the scent, after all, like some items would.

[Pauline]

I tried turning over (as that seems the only likely way to get it out) and a whole gush of it comes out the sides (of the little plastic stopper thing).  I dont know if i have a faulty stopper but its not working out well.  Should i take th estopper off?  Then how should i take the oil out... i really dont want to put my fingers in it and then ruin it but i hate to waste so much, not to mention douse myself with a ton of it and either have to wash it off or walk around giving people headaches (like my friend tonight  )

 

ANyone else having this problem?  If you dont use the stopper what is the best method to get the oil out without touching it?

That doesn't seem quite right. The purpose of the stopper is to only let 1 or 2 drops out at a time. It seems yours is faulty. Take it off.

 

As to how to apply the scent without it... hmmm... I'm experimenting with a couple of methods. I decant into another vial, this one with a tester rod. But I have tried tipping the bottle over while the cap is on tight, then righting it, taking the cap off and tapping the oil that got on the inside of the cap onto my skin. This works for the caps with the little plastic nub inside them.

 

I think the Qtip option is also very popular too. You just dip the Qtip into the vial and use that as a tester rod. However, there has been some criticism about it wasting too much (the cotton absorbs too much oil). You could just take the cotton off the end and have a little homemade plastic rod.

[asa805]

Thanks very much. I think the stopper is definatley faulty so i will remove it and try the bottle tip method first... then i will use a qtip sans cotton if that doesnt work. Thanks for the help... and thanks to whomever moved my thread into the right place... sorry i put it into the wrong place

[Ina Garten Davita]

I remember Beth posting that shaking is bad for the oils but rolling gently is a good thing. Now here's the problem. I can't get the bloody oils out of the reducer caps without shaking them to break up the airbubble that seems to be preventing the preciouss from dropping out. Now the reducers are good for protecting the preciouss from spillage but if I keep shaking it it might be ruined. ARRRGH!

 

Any advice, other than telling me to remove the reducer caps, which I may have to do anyway??

 

Thanks folks, love you guys.

[summer]

And here's another question too --

 

Some of my big bottles I got to use in oil burners. If the bottle doesn't have a dropper/stopper/whatever on it, does anyone have any ideas for how to get 3-4 drops into the burner without pouring the whole bottle out? Quite frankly, I'm mystified, and I'm really hoping that my Namaste and Oneiroi bottles come with stoppers, because I find it difficult even to pour from the imp bottles!

 

*scratches head*

[MissAnthropy]

Any advice, other than telling me to remove the reducer caps, which I may have to do anyway??

 

Thanks folks, love you guys.

I get those reducers off with pliers. Gently. Very gently. For me, they're just downright annoying.

 

-Leslie

[Penance]

Another idea would be to use one of the glass stir rods that they use in laboratories for application. Glass is sterilizable and it doesn't absorb scent (at least not too bad), so they'd be perfect for the job. Just a thought.

 

~ Penance

[ChupaChup]

I remember Beth posting that shaking is bad for the oils but rolling gently is a good thing.  Now here's the problem.  I can't get the bloody oils out of the reducer caps without shaking them to break up the airbubble that seems to be preventing the preciouss from dropping out.  Now the reducers are good for protecting the preciouss from spillage but if I keep shaking it it might be ruined.  ARRRGH!

 

Any advice, other than telling me to remove the reducer caps, which I may have to do anyway??

 

Thanks folks, love you guys.

I really dislike the orifice reducers, I emailed Nella to ask her to leave them out of the 5mls I have on order. They either dispense way too much oil or nothing comes out and I end up shaking the bottle. Then of course, a whole bunch comes out all over the place. When you take the reducers out, you end up wasting a whole bunch of oils. So it will be nice to get the bottles from the lab without them. I just got some caps with glass wands here, they fit the lab's 5mls perfectly.

[capricious]

I use a capillary tube and it is perfect!

It sucks up just enough oil and comes out just a bit at a time when I dab it on so I don't accidently overload. Also, since it is glass it is easy to sterilize between oils.

[VelvetSky]

I have reducer caps on all of my bottles now, but I have used plastic swizzle sticks.

[Miggins]

Hope this isn't *too* much of a silly question, and it's only a tiny bit off topic... ish , but does the Lab automatically put reducer caps on bottles these days? Although I'm not ordering any bigger bottles for a while, I just wanted to know for future reference.

[renaissancerouge]

All of the bottles (5 and 10mls alike) that I've ordered since late July have had reducers on them, and I LOVE them. One drop is usually more than enough scent for a workday, and even if you use more, you can be as judicious as you want. There's always enough residue sitting on the reducer for touch ups, too. I don't know, I'm a wasteful person when it comes to perfume and gobbling it up, so I like them.

[pekeana]

My bottle of The Hesperides has a reducer cap on it, but my bottle of Chaos Theory does not.

 

I'm a klutz. I freely admit this. Thus, I'm scared to death to use my Chaos Theory unless I decant it out to an imp, because of the lack of a reducer to prevent spillage when I put it on.

 

However, with The Hesperides, usually all I have to do is turn it upside down and jostle it ever so slightly -- not shake, usually just twitch -- to get a drop or two of the Precious out.

 

So, um, yeah -- I either decant Chaos Theory or I get one of my brother's porcelain chopsticks out of the cabinet and use them to apply.

 

I prefer the reducers simply because I am a klutz.

[Miggins]

Thanks, guys. Probably best that I request reducers when I order big (or bigger) bottles. I'm a klutz too, t3andcrumpets.

[Penance]

I have a reducer phobia...they make me nervous. Every time I try to use my Queen of Spades, about half the bottle tries to come gushing out through the reducer, effectively flooding my arm with it...which wouldn't be so bad if I had more of it to spare, but I don't and it's making me paranoid.

 

I stick to the old glass stir-rod in the bottle trick. I got the idea from that one perfume store...the one that I can't remember the name of...anyway, they had beakers of oils that you could mix to create your own scent and they had little glass rods with rounded ends in them to apply and stir with, so that's what I do now.

 

Bottom line? Reducers are not my friend...at least not with thin oils like Queen of Spades.

 

~ Penance

[silverangel]

I am starting to hate the reducers...I need to remember to request that beth not put them on. They're a pain when I decant and usually I get nothing when I flip the bottle over but then all of a sudden it comes running out to great me! So, I've been prying off the reducer caps and throwing them out (pitty, 'cause that's an entire application for me!) and I have been decanting into smaller bottles for my own use (either an 1/8 oz with a wand on the cap or little 1/16 oz bottles that are small enough to cover with a finger and tip over and apply with my fingertip.)

[Red_Hot_Mama]

There is a "trick" with the reducer caps, if anybody would like to know. Well, I'll tell ya anyway.

 

If you hold the bottle up to a bright light(just for a moment you guys!), you'll see that the cap has a little feeder tube. If you tilt the bottle, ever so slightly, with that part of the cap in the deepest part of your remaining oil...the oils will come out readily. Sometimes too readily.

 

Trick or no trick, there are some oils which are "thin" & they will "pour" out..no matter what. Maybe we should start adding a "Viscosity Rating" to our reviews?

 

With these, I actually put the cap against my skin & tip the bottle. Of course, I do this only after dripping oil all over at least once AND only with the bottles I know I am keeping.

 

In conclusion....I'll wait until you are done talking in the back.

 

Thank You.

 

Now, as I was saying, reducer caps...when you get to the point where there is less oil in the bottle than the length of the feeder tube, (Seee, you need to pay attention) then the only way to get the remaining oil out of the bottle is to pry off the reducer cap.

 

To be continued...

 

Lesson 2: How to pry off the BPAL reducer caps without getting oil all over yourself & the ironing board cover.

 

RHM

[Ina Garten Davita]

 

You have a future as Dean of BPAL University, Mama!