I usually get a drink from the vending machine when I'm at school. More specifically, I usually get a Mountain Dew. I like the taste, and the caffeine keeps me awake during class.
Tonight, I decided to be a grown-up. I'm 35 now, after all. Probably time to stop drinking sodas. I'm afraid I'm at the age where I can no longer tell myself that I will address my bad habits when I'm older. I am older now.
So... I chose the Diet Lipton Green Tea with Citrus instead of the Mountain Dew. And get this: It was good! I mean, spectacularly good. I really like it. I feel kind of stupid for drinking so many Mountain Dews when I could have been drinking this tea drink instead the whole time. The taste is great, and it has zero calories and no carbonation. (One of the reasons I like Mtn Dew is that it seems to have fewer bubbles than other sodas. Not a fan of the bubbles.)
I'm never going to like carrots as much as potato chips, but I wonder how many other healthier things I can find to replace other bad habits. I did already replace most of my cheeseburgers with Boca cheeseburgers (yummy!), and now I've found this diet green tea drink instead of Mountain Dew.
I think I'll make an effort to try new things for the next few weeks and see what I find.
Was I really gone for that long? My sales post went to the dead area. Whoops. I didn't think I was away for that long.
Stupid school sucking up all my time.
Sometimes I worry about my nose. My sense of smell, I mean. Particularly about perfume.
The problem is that over the past year and a half or so I've tried so much BPAL that I can discern notes. I guess that's a good thing, but it's also kind of a bad thing.
Like, grapefruit. I used to dislike it, but I've grown to like it. I remember when I first started trying BPAL oils, when I smelled grapefruit I'd think, "Ugh. Who wants to smell like breakfast. Bleah. Next!" And now I've tried so many grapefruit ones that I appreciate that sparkle it can give to a scent. There's really nothing like it. Manhattan is one of my favorite scents.
But, when I wear it, do people who aren't used to grapefruit scents think, "Ugh! Why does she want to smell like breakfast? Bleah."
There have been many times that I get an imp and look up my old notes where it says that I thought it smelled like bathroom cleaner or lemon pledge or something else undesirable. And then I smell it again a year later with my trained nose and think something like, "Say, that's quite a nice tea and lemon scent, I wonder why I thought it smelled like lemon pledge before?" And then I start wearing it.
Maybe it really still smells like lemon pledge to most people but I just can't tell anymore?
I don't want to walk around feeling like I smell like a playful berry with a hint of some herb but in actuality I just smell like bathroom air freshener. I can smell nuances, but can other people? I honestly don't know. When I started collecting BPAL I couldn't tell. It smelled good, bad, strong, cheerful, spicy, odd, musty, citrusy, etc. There was no "gosh, I really love the grapefruit peeking out from under the violet, and the white sandalwood underneath it is a subtle but warm touch." It would have been "This smells funky. Pass."
I hope I'm not walking around smelling weird but thinking I smell fantastic.
I'm procrastinating studying anatomy right now. Again. So here are my thoughts about the glorious update!
Wolf Moon. Winter air, Terebinth pine, juniper berry, dusty orris, deep amber, white sandalwood, black musk, blue cedar, and tonka.
If this smells anything like the previous version, I'll like it. I enjoyed that cold and sort of aquatic feel to the first Wolf Moon -- it was good with the musky scent. Got a bottle.
Lycaon. A monstrous, brutal, and bloodthirsty blend: blackened myrrh, crushed olive leaf, black musk, spikenard, frankincense, cypress wood, opoponax, white ginger, and patchouli.
Sounds monstrous for sure. I have no idea what to think of it. Spikenard is probably the ONLY note I can count on ALWAYS hating. Ick. However, I really like opoponax, myrrh, and patchouli, and I think that crushed olive leaf would be interesting too. Got a bottle of this too, but I think it was kind of a risky choice.
The Salon!!!!
I honestly could not afford to get all the bottles I want right now (Christmas coming up and everything), so I just got an imp pack.
The Arrival at the Sabbath and Homage to the Devil, Antoine-François de Saint-Aubert.
Bourbon vanilla, benzoin, caramel, Mysore sandalwood, aged black patchouli, carnation, and iris florentina.
Holy moly. Um, yes please!!! If I could have picked just ONE bottle, this is the one.
The Cup of Death, Elihu Vedder.
Peach blossom and peach tree leaf, Mysore sandalwood, French lavender, bois du rose, myrtle, and blue yarrow.
Hmm. Possibly too feminine for me, and maybe too herby. I don't know what blue yarrow smells like in perfume, but I know what yarrow smells like in the wild. I think the myrtle and yarrow combination might make the whole thing smell a bit too weedy for me.
Cupid Complaining to Venus, Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Apple blossom, fig, white peach, honey absolute, red sandalwood, and wild thyme.
What is honey absolute? I've never seen that. Everything in this sounds fabulous except the thyme... and maybe honey absolute wouldn't smell like play-doh on me like honey usually does. Fingers crossed!
The Ecstacy of St. Theresa, Gianlorenzo Bernini.
Frankincense, iris, white gardenia, Roman chamomile, amber, and agarwood.
I bet this smells breath-takingly lovely. Sigh. Blends like that make me wish that I was breath-takingly lovely so that I could wear them. Unfortunately, scents like that are usually at odds with my Dr Martens' boots.
Garden Path With Chickens, Gustav Klimt.
Damp grass, ivy leaves, morning glory, daisy, rose geranium, heliotrope, white gardenia, climbing roses, peppery nasturtium, phlox, begonia, verbena and sun-warmed herbs.
I know people are going ga-ga over this, but I will tell you a secret. I hate chickens. I've hated them since I was a little girl on my grandparents' farm. And this blend sounds like it'll be way too flowery for me anyway.
The Great He-Goat, Francisco Goya.
Haitian vetiver, Egyptian amber, carnation, black musk, pomegranate, patchouli, and smoked ginger.
This one, on the other hand... yeeeessss, that's more my style. This one's gonna be a doozy.
The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed With the Sun, William Blake.
Daemonorops, vanilla, Indian sandalwood, Mexican copal, hyssop, muguet, sweet pea, amber, hazelwood, galbanum, hiba wood, and orchid.
I'm concerned about the sweet pea but there are so many other notes in there that I love. I have high hopes for this.
Itasô Kansei Nenkan Jorô No Fûzoku, Wada hori Yû.
Osmanthus, white honey, ti leaf, hibiscus, and sugar cane.
I've got no frickin' clue what this will smell like. I can't imagine. Can't wait to try it!
Judith Victorious, Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Chestnut blossom, lily of the valley, King mandarin, French magnolia, and golden musk.
This is going to be glorious and triumphant, I just know it. If I had been able to choose bottles to buy, this would have been the one that I picked because it sounded so good even though I couldn't tell what the combination would smell like.
La Mort Qui Danse, Félicien Rops.
Black pepper, white ginger, Calla lily, and lily of the valley.
Oh... sad and funereal. But white, and clean. My favorite kind of floral!
The Lantern Ghost of Oiwa, Shunkosai Hokuei.
Black tea, cherry blossom, ho wood, calla lily, rice wine, and white mint.
There are only a couple of blends with mint that I like, and I honestly think this is going to be one of the good ones. That whole combination just sounds fabulous.
Les Anges Déchus, Edouard Cibot.
Khus, blonde tobacco, life everlasting, orris root, black currant, cabreuva, Spanish moss, leather, and ambrette.
I love this painting. And I want something that has the ingredient of "life everlasting." Even if I'm unsure of the Spanish moss.
Lot and His Daughters, Hendrik Goltzius.
Indonesian black patchouli, petitgrain, brandewijn, incense, saffron, lemon peel, myrrh, skin musk, bourbon geranium, and tangerine.
This painting makes me feel uncomfortable. I think this blend will make me feel that way too.
Melancholia, Albrecht Dürer.
Blue lilac, white sandalwood, stargazer lily, paperwhite narcissus, ylang ylang, delphinium, and cypress.
Blue and sad. I bet this will be a lovely shade of blue though. I have my fingers crossed for this one as well.
The Sailor's Den, Félicien Rops.
Orris, bay rum, palm, coconut meat, oak wood, tobacco, linen, blue lilac, and leather.
Woohoo! This one's a shoe-in for me. I can't imagine that I won't like this. Bet it'll smell great on the hubby, too.
Three Gorgons, Gustav Klimt.
Egyptian amber, mandarin, tangerine, black pepper, tobacco, and vetiver.
Oooo. Dark and smoky with bright tangerine top notes. I bet I'll like this one.
And... of course,
Shub-Nuggurath. A blend of ritual herbs and dark resins, shot through with three gingers and aphrodisiacal spices.
Pass! Guess I'm the only person in the world who didn't care for this one. Ginger's tricky with me, and I like Gingerbead Poppet a lot better than Shub.
Has it been a month since I wrote anything here? Sheesh. I thought it had been maybe a couple of weeks.
I would really like to start writing more in this blog because I don't have any RL friends who are into BPAL, except my husband. My LJ journal is mostly just full of entries that have a company's name in the title and then a list of all their products I've tried and whether or not I liked them. I suppose it's not helpful to anyone but me.
And I don't want to be all over the place making all kinds of posts everywhere about every BPAL oil I try because I don't want to be a pest. Plus, it seems like it's very easy to irritate people on the Internet, so I'm cautious about that. (If someone heard me talking it would sound different from the way text looks.) People tell me that I have an extremely expressive face, and I also gesture with my hands a lot, and all of that gets lost when I type.
So I guess I'll just post here. It seems pretty unobtrusive. And I'm pretty sure no one is reading this anyway.
Andrabell's recent blog entry made me think about why I like to write blogs -- I started replying to her blog and then I realized that was WAY too much for a comment so I'm transferring it over here.
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Here's why I write personal stuff in blogs and LJ: I'm extremely indecisive and I like to talk through things with other people, in case they have ideas or points that I just haven't thought of. Or maybe they can see possible outcomes of decisions that I haven't considered. Or maybe sometimes I just want to hear "Yeah, you're on the right track."
The thing is, I just don't have very many real friends. Except for my three sisters and my husband, I have a total of three friends. One of them is a male drinking-buddy type that I see once every few months, one of them is a super-busy role model type (also male) that I talk to about my plans and ambitions, and the other one is so wrapped up in her own self and her own problems that mainly our friendship consists of her calling me and me listening to her. As far as "girlfriends" go, I am extremely lacking. I haven't chatted on the phone or in person with anyone about my own problems/issues in months. Literally.
In real life it's hard for me to make friends. I don't seem to have much in common with most women I meet, and men usually have wives or girlfriends who disapprove of them hanging out with me. I'm extremely introverted, and I'm a housewife who leaves the house twice a week to go to class (plus running errands and stuff like that). Even if I did make friends easily, I don't have much opportunity to meet anyone. The women I've met through the forums and LJ have pretty much become my "real life" friends.
I was watching the movie Tombstone yesterday, and in it a guy asks Doc Holliday why he puts his life on the line for Wyatt Earp. Doc says it's because Wyatt is his friend. The guy says "Hell, I've got lots of friends." Doc says: "I don't."
I guess most people have a network of friends they can call up and talk to whenever they want. I don't.
I can barely believe how much gorgeousness the Lab has created in the past few months. I have been thinking that after the hugeness of Carnaval Diabolique, Halloweenies, Order of the Dragon, Yule, a whole new Salon set, and the ToT inquisition, they'd probably be taking a break for a while. I thought that the next CD act would be kinda small, the size of one of the first two acts, and I thought that Lupercalia would be on the small side as well. Maybe 6 or 7 bottles.
Here are my thoughts and what I got:
HUNGER MOON. Ozone, white sandalwood, crystallized white amber, verbena, oakmoss, clary sage, and a hint of white citrus rind.
I bought a bottle because I always buy Lunacy bottles. However, I don't expect to like this. Citrus and herbs are usually bad for me.
BAKENEKO. Warm amber musk, Satsuma tangerine, black tea leaf, cardamom, cherry blossom and cinnamon.
Again, I bought a bottle because it's a Lunacy blend, but I'm not sure it'll work on me. My skin amps cardamom and cinnamon to overwhelming proportions. Both in the same blend is very probably a deal-breaker.
ABHISARIKA. Damascus rose, African orchid, cream accord, and Kashmir musk.
I love the idea behind these. I would have bought the whole set if I had enough money. I heavily debated whether to buy a bottle of this one, and I probably should have. But I just wound up joining a decant circle to buy a decant of it. At least it'll be up for a while so I'll still have a chance to get a bottle later. I don't usually like blends that are too rosy, but the orchid, cream, and Kashmir musk sound wonderful.
KALAHANTARIKA. hyssop, lavender, balsam of Peru, jonquil, and elemi.
Potentially too strong for me. I'll be interested to find out what it smells like, but I'm not going to go out of my way for it for a while.
KHANDITA. fiery saffron, neroli, severe black musk, rose otto, and a harsh splinter of rosemary.
It's funny, I was all prepared to order this one until I saw the rosemary, and then I balked. Maybe I shouldn't have. I usually like the other notes.
PROSHITAPATHIKA. blue iris, fennel, dark musk, verbena, and a drop of star anise.
This is the other one that probably won't work for me. I tend to dislike sharp scents, and the fennel and star anise might be too much for me. Also I usually don't like verbena at all.
SVADHINAOPATIKA. golden amber, oude, red sandalwood, massoia bark, honey, and currant.
Um... yeah, I got a bottle of this one. Holy crap. That sounds marvelous.
VASAKASAJJA. skin musk, wild orchid, champaca flower, amaranth, tonka bean, and French vanilla.
Had to get a bottle of this one too. It sounds feminine but not overly so, and rich and slightly decadent. I love the description, too.
VIRAHOTKANTITA. blue lilac, snowdrop, bergamot, night-blooming cereus, frankincense, Himalayan cedar, and stargazer lily.
This definitely sounds like it will smell like sadness. I bet it'll be very pretty, too. I'd like to find a decant of it.
VIPRALABDA. benzoin, Greek sage, hay, melaleuca ericifolia, oakmoss, and blue chamomile.
I have no idea what that will smell like. I'd like to try a decant of it.
DOLCE STIL NUOVO. rose otto, carnation, vanilla flower, lavender and jasmine with the clarity of crystalline white musk and the warmth of golden amber.
Eek. Those flowers are usually much too strong on me. I'd try a decant of this, but I doubt it'll work for me.
CHINTAMANI-DHUPA. Pound well together sandal-wood, Kunku, costus, Krishnaguru, Suvasika-puspha, white vala and the bark of the Deodaru pine; and, after reducing them to fine powder, mix it with honey and thoroughly dry.
Got a bottle of this because I'm dying to know what it smells like. The description is very intriguing.
KANISHTA. black opium, Haitian patchouli, jasmine sambac, French magnolia and kush.
I didn't realize until after I submitted my order that I did NOT have this one in my order. Stupid oversight. I really meant to buy a bottle of this. It will be in my next order. This sounds like exactly the sort of scent that I love.
KHAJURAHO 2007. honey, date palm, tuberose, davana blossom, amber, white sandalwood, vanilla bean, Damask rose, and champaca flower.
I had a bottle of this from last year, and although I thought it smelled fine, I never wore it. Sometimes I'd pick it up thinking I might wear it that day, but I always put it back down and picked something else. I like the scent, it's just not me, I guess.
LUPERCI 2007. raw, down and dirty patchouli, Gurjam balsam, and essence of Sampson Root sweetened with the heightened sexuality of beeswax, virile juniper, oakmoss, ambrette seed over honey and East African musk.
I had a bottle from last year, and I thought it was going to smell good on me. I was really excited to try it. But both times I tried it, all I got out of it was juniper. One of my least favorite notes. My husband didn't like it on me either. So I swapped the bottle, and I've never regretted it.
NIGHT'S PAVILION 2007. White musk, osmanthus, Nile lily and frankincense.
I may have tried this last year, but I don't remember it very well. I do know that every time I've seen it up for swap/sale I've passed it over rapidly. I believe that I did try it and I thought it was too sweet and feminine for me.
THE OBLATION. A stirring blend of dianthus, French lavender, blackberry, and white honey.
I think that poem is wonderful and moving. In the old days when I had a job I would have bought a bottle of this just from the poem alone. However, now that I'm unemployed and my husband decides how much money I can spend, this would have been a risk for me because of the lavender. I couldn't resist signing up for a decant, though. I bet I'll like this despite the lavender.
THE PERFUMED GARDEN 2007. Myrrh and Moroccan jasmine with apple peel, Indian sandalwood, myrtle, quince, citron, and thyme poured over soft musk.
I had a bottle of last year's version, and I thought it was too feminine so I sold it. Then I got together with another BPALer and she had a bottle of it she wanted to swap. I sniffed it and tried on a little bit, and I realized that I do like it. It is feminine, but I'm not as anti-feminine as I used to be. So now I have that bottle.
RED LANTERN 2007. Golden amber, blonde tobacco, Sudanese black coconut, rich caramel, black currant, white opium and delphinium laced with a sensual blend of Asian spice.
I had a bottle of last year's version for many months, and I finally realized that I never wear it and I might as well sell it. I just sold it a couple of weeks ago. It's a great scent, and I liked it, but I see no reason why a whole bottle of it should be sitting in my BPAL box getting no love when they are lots of people around who would wear it and enjoy it.
SMUT 2007. Three swarthy, smutty musks sweetened with sugar and woozy with dark booze notes.
I still have at least three bottles of last year's version. Maybe four. This is one of my husband's very favorite scents on me. I'm not allowed to wear it out of the house.
ELIXIR X: GRR. Headache relief.
ELIXIR XI: OOF. Sinus pain relief.
ELIXIR XII: UGH. Muscle ache relief.
I didn't try any of these, but that imp three-pack is very tempting. I think I'll order the imp pack with my next order.
And now for the OMG Carnaval Diabolique scents:
THE PARLIAMENT OF MONSTERS. Dust, incense, wet tobacco, and a curl of opium smoke.
I signed up for a decant of this. I expect to like it, but I'm not sure I'll like it enough for a whole bottle. I already have other bottles that have a similar scent.
ARACHNINA, THE SPIDER GIRL. A swirling, hypnotic perfume of black currant, poppy, red and black musk, lilies, nicotiana, and patchouli.
I signed up for a decant of this too, but that was sort of dumb. I should have bought a bottle. There is no note in there that I don't like. In fact, I like them all a lot. I'm a huge sucker for red musk.
ESHE, A VISION OF LIFE-IN-DEATH. The perfume of life-in-death: embalming herbs, black myrrh, white sandalwood, black orchid, paperwhites, tomb dust, and Moroccan jasmine.
The description for this one creeped me out. In a good way, of course. I didn't sign up for a decant of this because I was put off by the embalming herbs. Those usually overpower a blend on my skin. I will eventually swap for a decant of it to try, though.
FAIZA, THE BLACK MAMBA. black amber, caraway, oakmoss, green sandalwood, bergamot, jasmine sambac, gardenia, orange pulp, vanilla, blackberry, black musk, white honey, ti leaf, and ginger.
I got a decant of this because there are quite a few notes in there that are usually not good on me. (oakmoss, jasmine, gardenia, ginger). However... those are all notes that have on occasion surprised me by not ruining a blend. So, we'll see.
ASP VIPER: Snake Oil with red mandarin, myrrh, and almond.
Want to try a decant. Might be great.
AUSTRALIAN COPPERHEAD: Snake Oil with acai berry, amber, cardamom, neroli, and smoked vanilla.
Not sure about the cardamom, but the other ones sound good. Will like to swap for a decant eventually.
BANDED SEA SNAKE: Snake Oil with oakmoss, sea moss, and olive leaf.
Hmmm. I'll try it eventually, but I'm in no hurry on this one. Oakmoss and sea moss are usually not so great for me.
BOOMSLANG: Snake Oil with cocoa, teakwood, and rice milk.
Bought a decant of this. I bet those notes smell lovely with snake oil.
CORAL SNAKE: Snake Oil with blood orange, red apple, lemon peel, plumeria, and gardenia.
Hmmm. Probably not. Apple, lemon, and gardenia are usually no-nos for me.
COTTONMOUTH: Snake Oil with linden blossom, calla lily, passion flower, and narcissus.
Snake Oil with a bunch of floral notes? I'm not sure what that will smell like. I'd like to try a decant of it, though.
DEATH ADDER: Snake Oil with vetiver, black coconut, vanilla, and opoponax.
I allowed myself to buy ONE Snake Pit bottle unsniffed, and this is the one I chose. I bet I'll love this. Opoponax, vanilla, and vetiver are three of my favorite notes.
GREEN TREE VIPER: Snake Oil with four mints, bergamot, and green tea.
Mint is usually not my thing.
HABU: Snake Oil with ho wood, teak, black musk, and bamboo.
I carefully considered this one. I didn't buy a decant of it but probably should have. This will be one of the first ones I'll be looking for when people start swapping/selling their decants.
KING COBRA: Snake Oil with orris, frankincense, and copal.
I like copal but frankincense tends to make blends too high-pitched and sweet on me.
SAW-SCALED VIPER: Snake Oil with cinnamon, cassia, and red ginger.
Much too hot for me. I had a vial of Beth's experimental cinnamon Snake Oil, and it was too cinnamony for me. I like plain Snake Oil better.
TEMPLE VIPER: Snake Oil with sugar cane, frankincense, champaca, opoponax, labdanum, and hyssop.
This one might be one I like despite the frankincense. I truly love champaca and opoponax, so I bought a decant of it.
WESTERN DIAMONDBACK: Oil with leather, tonka bean, red sandalwood, and sage.
I didn't get a decant of this, mostly due to my dumbness. I should have. I will look for this one first when people start selling/swapping decants.
HOPE & FAITH, THE SIAMESE TWINS. Hope is sugared violet, Faith is sugared rose.
Love the description for this one, but those florals usually don't work for me.
ISAAC, THE LIVING SKELETON. Bourbon, tobacco, dry bone, bay rum aftershave, and sleazy cologne.
I bought a decant of this because I think my husband will like it.
KATANIYA, THE CLOCKWORK WOMAN. Gentle flowers over hot metal, shocked to life with electricity.
I don't know what this will smell like. I'd like to try a decant eventually. I often like the metallic blends, but I already have several of them.
MESKHENET, THE VULTURE MAIDEN. Frankincense, hyssop, hibiscus, river reeds, orris root, palm frond, and olibanum.
I don't think those notes will work for me. I'll try a decant eventually, but it's not high up on my list.
THALASSA, THE GALAPAGOS MERMAID. Seaweed, kelp, salty ocean spray, bitter almond, night-blooming jasmine, frankincense, and benzoin.
VERY unlikely to work for me. I don't like the scent of seaweed and kelp at all.
TIRESIAS, THE ANDROGYNE. Dark, moody, and bittersweet: black currant, patchouli, tobacco, cinnamon leaf, caramel, muguet, and red sandalwood.
Great description, and I love the song Gloomy Sunday. I think I might like this one a lot -- I bought a decant of it, and I'm betting it will be my first CD Act III bottle purchase (after Death Adder, of course).
THE WILD MEN OF JEZIRAT AL TENNYN. Fiery, primal, and precociously diabolical: red amber, Spanish moss, Indonesian patchouli, ambergris, red pepper, two cloves, and vanilla flower.
I wonder if my husband would like this. He liked Fire Eater. It's just too hot-sounding for me.
WULRIC, THE WOLFMAN. Friendly, charming, and cuddly, but possessing one hell of a mean streak: cocoa absolute, French vanilla, birch tar, lavender, bourbon vetiver, wild musk, clary sage, and cistus.
This might smell very good on my husband. I bought a decant of it so he can try it.
ZARITA, THE DOLL GIRL. white carnation, iris, orange blossom, and sugared cream.
This will probably be too feminine for me, but I wouldn't mind trying it.
PRIALA, THE HUMAN PHOENIX. Three deep, dark myrrhs, smoke, and cinnamon bark.
I bought a decant of this, and I'm really impatient to try it. I love myrrh and smoke. I wonder if I will end up wanting to buy a whole bottle.
I just caught myself in the act of chewing a fingernail. It had a little tear in one side, and now it's gone.
This upsets me because my new year's resolution for 2006 was to stop chewing my fingernails. It's a habit I'd had since I was a kid. I bit my fingernails all the time, and my hands never looked pretty and womanly. They always looked beat-up and rough because of having terrible fingernails. So I quit. I reallly, honestly quit. I spent all of 2006 trying to figure out how to care for fingernails because I'd never had them before. They'd get long and I'd say "Wow, look at my long fingernails!" My husband would say, "Yep. Here's the nail clippers." It took me almost a year to use the clippers because I was so upset about the idea of cutting down the fingernails that I had been so good about growing. I was filing, filing, filing constantly.
This winter I've learned about nail brittleness. Almost all of my fingernails have started to get cracks on the edges, fairly far down. I tried to glue a couple of them, but that only held for a few days at the most. Plus I messed with them absent-mindedly. Yesterday I realized that so many of them had those cracks that I'd better just cut them all down. I cut them to a reasonable short length. A little white crescent moon on the ends of my fingernails.
The problem is that now they're so short they're the perfect biting height. Earlier tonight I was feeling annoyed and irritated about something, and before I knew it I'd lost a fingernail. Crap! Now I have to go through that whole agonizing torture of forcing myself NOT to mess with my fingernails all over again until these grow out. Luckily they grow fast (I never knew my fingernails grew so rapidly until I started letting them grow -- they're like weeds!), but it'll still be several weeks before I can stop thinking "DO NOT BITE FINGERNAILS!!!" in the back of my mind at all times.
But, hey. If a bitten fingernail is the worst thing to happen to me this week, that's a damn good week, in my book.
Here's a strange question for you. What do you do when you realize that your professor is giving wrong answers in class?
Last quarter I had a 300-level anatomy class. This quarter I have a 100-level physiology class. This is the first time this professor has taught at Northwestern -- usually she teaches at a community college.
Last week she mis-identified a bone on her own lecture slide as a humerus when it was very clearly a femur. She sort of hemmed and hawed over it for a couple of seconds and then said humerus. So it wasn't just an oral typo.
Last night she spelled the muscle sternocleidomastoid wrong on her lecture slide, and then she mispronounced it as well. But the real kicker was that she had it up there as an example of how muscles are sometimes named based on their points of insertion. She said this muscle is named for its three insertion points: the sternum, the clavicle [both true] and... "mastication, which is chewing, which means it goes into your neck." Ummm... no. It's attached to the mastoid process, which is a piece of the temporal bone of the skull that sticks down behind your ear.
I realize she may need to simplify some explanations because it's a 100-level class, but simplify does not mean the same thing as "tell students the wrong answer." When a student asked her what the difference was between "extends the thigh" and "extends the leg" when we were talking about different muscle functions, she didn't know the answer. Our anatomy professor beat us over the head with learning to call the upper part of the lower limb the "thigh" and the lower part of the lower limb the "leg." She told us specifically not to call the whole lower limb the "leg" because that was anatomically incorrect. So why did my physiology professor not know that?
I don't know what to do here. I paid full Northwestern tuition for this class, and this is the first time at Northwestern that I felt like I was getting a crappy education for my money. All my other Northwestern professors have been stellar.
Should I go to the dean? Should I ask my advisor what I should do? I've never been in this situation before and I don't know how to approach this.
I have been visiting my sister for the past five days, and in her house they go to bed at 9 p.m. on work nights -- I go to bed around 4 a.m. and sleep until noon. So since I had a bunch of free time where I was sitting around my sister's house by myself with none of the usual distractions at my own home, I decided to be productive. I tried to consolidate my BPAL reviews into one location.
And HERE is the humongous result. It took me roughly 20 hours, and it's still pretty crappy and incomplete. Man, there are a lot of different BPAL oils.
I've been inspired by the recent spate of blogs about bringing out the inner sex kitten, so...
I woke up my husband at 4:00 in the morning for purposes of sex.
This was a pretty common thing when we were first together, but after six and a half years it's not as common as it probably should be. I'm not even sure if you can say "not as common" if it's like once in three years.
When he got home told me he was tired at work all day today but he was also happy. Maybe I should do that more often.
Next on my sexy agenda: Tweezing my eyebrows into pinup-style arches!
Here's what I got imps of:
BLACK LILY -- This is beautiful, one of my favorite BPAL florals. I already have a bottle, but I need the imp for my "entire GC" imp collection.
DEVIL'S CLAW -- I have no idea what to expect from this, smoky brown-black sounds good... not sure about the yellow-bright.
LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING -- Really, really looking forward to this. Beth does "velvety" really well.
SLOBBERING PINE -- I don't usually like pine scents, but this one sounds different. Also I like the word slobbering.
THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS -- I haven't had much luck with the Funereal Oils, but I'm interested in this because of the cemetery grass and lilies.
LILIUM INTER SPINAS -- I usually like fig, but green fig might be a little too strong for me. Not sure about this one.
THE TEMPTATION -- Not sure about this one either -- might be too floral for me.
MANIA -- I can't imagine what this might smell like. I think I might like it, though. A lot.
HORREUR SYMPATHIQUE -- I expect I'm going to love this one.
Here's what I got bottles of:
BLACK ICE -- Sleet, vetiver, cold wind, and smoke? Yes please!
THE DARKLING THRUSH -- Everything in this sounds good to me except maybe the violet. We'll see.
HALÔA -- Frankincense sometimes makes the whole blend too sweet for me, but everything else in it sounds good, so I took a chance.
KNECHT RUPRECHT -- This might be a little too woodsy for me but I like the poem so I'll give it a shot.
KRAMPUS -- This one sounds the BEST. I always like red musk and leather.
SNOW-FLAKES -- Not entirely sure what this is going to smell like, but I just have this good feeling about it. I love snow flakes.
SOL INVICTUS -- This is the one that most worries me from my order. I think I haven't worn Et Lux Fuit even one time after testing it, and this one could be similar. I like amber, saffron, and heliotrope, but everything else in it could be iffy.
THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT -- This one sounds pretty good. It might be a little too spicy for me, but I have to try anything with myrrh and dark musk.
These are the ones I hope to find decants of:
HERR DROSSELMEYER 2006 -- My husband has 4 bottles of last year's version, so we probably don't need any more. I wouldn't mind getting an imp to compare though.
JACOB'S LADDER 2006 -- I've had a bottle of last year's version for almost 8 months and I've worn it exactly twice. I like it, but I never seem to reach for it. I'd like a new decant of it to see if it smells any different aged though.
JÓLASVEINAR -- The dealbreaker in this one was the dirt and moss. They go bad on me more often than not, and dirt always overpowers every other note. I'd try a decant or sniffie, but I don't expect this to work.
LICK IT AGAIN -- Didn't really like Lick It because I don't care for peppermint scents. I'd try it to make sure, but I have big doubts.
MIDNIGHT MASS 2006 -- I had a bottle of last year's version, swapped it, had second thoughts and got another bottle, then swapped that one too. I think it's just too sweet an incense scent for me. I like darker incense like Al Azif better.
THE SNOW MAIDEN -- This just sounded a little too young and innocent for me personally. I'd like to try it, but from the description I don't think I'll like it.
STARDUST 2006 -- Still have a bottle of last year's version, and I never wear it.
YULE -- Holly berry, mistletoe, thyme, verbena, evergreen, frankincense, and juniper are ALL usually no-nos for me. I highly doubt I would like this.
And I'm going to have to make another order and get a bottle of 13 because I completely forgot to order it.
I have sent a crapload of money to the Lab in the past three months. Seriously. Way too much. I've been saying for the past month or so that I need to do some serious reducing of my collection, but I barely did any. Now it has become a dire need. I have no more room for more BPAL bottles, yet more will be on their way soon.
Argh, it's been a crappy week. Sort of. Mostly due to this damn cold. I hate being sick. It makes me mad to be sick. I don't know how to stop getting angry about it, but I wish I could. I think that if I spent my mental energy concentrating on getting better rather than perpetuating my foul mood I might recover more quickly. I am the whiniest, rottenest, most annoying sick person you've ever met.
But! At least it's starting to go away. Probably by next week I'll be fine. And next week is more important than this week because next week it's my birthday.
Ye gods, 35 years old. Holy crap. Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that I was 25? It sure seems like it. I remember once when I was little complaining to my dad that time goes so slow (when you're little the time just drags on and on until the fun things happen), and he got this funny smile on his face and said something like, "When you get older, it'll go by a lot faster." As usual, Daddy was right.
One of the things that bugs me about being this old is that I have just started to realize that I can say things like, "Yeah, but that happened 20 years ago" to my friends from high school. Twenty years ago. TWENTY. I'm starting to remember 30 years ago with increasing clarity. I don't feel old when I look in the mirror, or even when I overhear teenagers talking and their inane conversations drive me up the wall. I always thought that would make me feel old, when I realized that I didn't have anything in common with teenagers any more. But nope, that's not it. It's that I used to feel like I had so much of life ahead of me. Now there's a huge swath BEHIND me, 35 years' worth... that's what gets to me.
Don't get me wrong, looking back doesn't make me feel like I regret anything. I might not have the life I imagined I'd have, but it's pretty damn good. In fact as I've gotten older I've taken care of myself better -- I actually look better now than when I was 28. I'm definitely more financially comfortable. And I'd like to think I'm wiser, too. All in all not too shabby.
Anyhoo, enough of that. Mostly I wanted to write about my week, so I don't know how I ended up with that birthday-related nostalgia.
This week, I submitted two more Trick or Treat pleas. I was really hoping to be able to do four, and hopefully (maybe) get all the different ones, or at least have something to swap for any I didn't get. But it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to afford one more submission before the deadline. Alas! I keep telling myself I have too much perfume oil as it is -- I need to do a serious reduction of my collection. But I've been at this BPAL thing for 8 months now, and the oils are still coming in at a much faster rate than they're going out. The good news is that I haven't been buying from eBay in quite a while; mostly I'm just ordering from the Lab. The bad news is that the reason I don't want to buy any of the older scents is because I've already tried nearly all of them.
And now I'm tired and I'm going to bed. Good night!
ETA: I actually wrote this on about April 8th, I just never figured out the Publish button thingie until just now.
Allrighty, figuring out how to set up this blog wasn't too rough.
I wanted to start a blog because my BPAL habit is getting out of control. Not in terms of sheer numbers of imps and bottles, mind you -- that would be silly. Clearly I can never have enough BPAL. The part that is out of control is the organization of it.
I have a box for keeper bottles, a box for keeper imps, a box for swaps, and a box for imps I haven't tested yet. I also have a box for frimps from the Lab because I like to keep those separate so I know which ones were "straight form the Lab" for swaps. Everything in my "keep" boxes has labels on the top. The imp labels are color-coded by scent category.
I have a color-coded spreadsheet that lists all the oils, their categories, their notes, a basic summary of what I read of their reviews, and my own thoughts on them.
And apart from that, it's a DISASTER. I forget I bought an imp from my wishlist and I buy it again from someone else. My to-be-tested imp box is overflowing. I can't sell or swap anything to save my life, so I end up with like 3 imps of Jabberwocky that I'll never wear. I begin to panic because I'm terrified I'll swap something that has been tampered with before I got it unbeknownst to me, and then I'll get blacklisted in the whole community, so I start to think I need at least 2 of everything before I can sell it so I can compare them and make sure they both seem legit. I have reviews of some scents and not some of others, and I've already swapped away a few imps that I didn't write reviews/thoughts for, so now I'm thinking I'll have to buy the buggers again. And the biggest horror of all: What if my tastes change? What if my skin smells different today because I used the Decadence smooch? What if something I thought I hated and swapped away turned out to be something that I will love 1 year from now? I better just keep everything...
I keep telling myself I will NOT buy any more until I get this situation straightened out. But here I am at 11:00 on a Friday night trolling the sales posts to see if by some miracle someone has an imp of Spanked they want to sell. Sigh.
ETA: This was from April 10.
I can't find the appropriate thread right now so I'm putting this here.
Holy fricking crap. This has been one of the best days I've had in a long time. I'm thinking it ranks right up there with the day we brought our puppy Prudence home.
I had so many packages delivered today that the mailman left one of those plastic mail bins outside my front door. And this is what was in it:
My March update order with 5mLs of Peony Moon, the two Monster Baits, Saturn, and Uranus. And 3 imp packs with imps of all but two of the March GC updates, plus 13 frimps. YAY!
I also got packages from herbhealer (Thunderbird!!) and sheila (with tons of stuff off my wishlist that I bought from her, including a 5mL of Beatrice, which is now my spring scent!).
In addition to that, I got my "mystery box" from eBay, which had in it decants of Peony Moon and the Monster Baits! Plus tons of other stuff too, including 7 BPAL imps!
I also got my fabulous order from Arcana, with soaps and perfume oils, and they frimped me a couple of oils plus a free big bar of Dia de los Muertos soap!
And here is where I'm saving the best for last.
I got a total of 13 decants that I bought from lorajc, including these:
Snowblind, Skadi, Queen of Spades , and FORMULA 54.
This has been my BEST BPAL DAY EVER!!!!
Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who sent me these great packages!!!
Hunh. I didn't know they could do that. I mean, I guess somewhere in the back of my head it must have registered that maintainers can shut down comms, but I was totally surprised by the announcement. To be honest I didn't know that Beth started alchemylab, I figured that some people started it with her blessing and she jumped in from time to time to make comments or suggestions.
It seems a drastic step, which makes me wonder how bad it's gotten for Beth and the Lab. I seriously bet there are times when she just wants to scream at everyone for being such nitpicky demanding dumbasses. (I just hope she's never wanted to scream at me for being said dumbass.)
Personally, I think that shutting it down is a great idea. Hell, if I ran a business and maintained a comm associated with my business, and the comm was full of people jacking up the prices on my products and selling them to make profits, and talking trash about my business and each other, I'd want to shut it down too.
I know that some people are upset because they feel like they'll lose touch with some folks they had gotten to know, but for the most part I think those of us who like to talk to each other are over here on the forums anyway. Hopefully the people who like the "community" aspect of alchemylab will come on over.
I'm really enjoying my psychology class. It's Psych 110, just the basics. I resist the temptation to play amateur psychologist armed with only half a quarter of 100-level knowledge (because it ANNOYS THE HELL OUT OF ME when college kids think they're an expert on a subject after taking one semester of it), but my professor has a PhD in cognitive psych from the University of Chicago and she's a damn smart woman to boot, so I trust what she says.
Last night we were talking about motivation and emotion. She was discussing the various reasons why people are motivated for certain behaviors, and she briefly touched on compulsive shopping and hoarding. Her explanation was that people use this behavior to fill the void in their lives that is usually caused by depression. If someone experiences a sadness mood, they are motivated to change circumstances in their lives. Some people misdirect this motivation into changing material things in their lives (selling a bunch of their own crap on eBay and then buying a bunch of other stuff) rather than changing the things that SHOULD be changed (i.e. their partner, their job, whatever). Ultimately this makes the person more depressed because they've just racked up a bunch of new bills and the new material things didn't make a difference to their depression.
I was all set to get defensive and huffy about this because I hoard perfumes and bath/body stuff, and I also sell stuff I don't want and buy things that other people didn't want. I don't think it has anything to do with trying to fill a void that's caused by depression -- I actually LIKE swapping and hoarding. I feel very pleased and happy when I look at all my BPAL bottles. They're little bottles of beauty, and I'm glad that they're in my life.
If I feel particularly sad one day and I try to soothe myself by buying a BPAL bottle from somebody's swap post, I don't think I should feel bad about it from someone telling me that I'm screwed up psychologically for doing this. Dammit that perfume DOES make me feel better, and I love the anticipation of waiting for some lovely BPAL to show up in my mailbox.
So as I was feeling all defensive and ready to raise my hand and tell the professor "You're WRONG, I indulge in retail therapy on occasion and it's not due to depression it's because I LIKE IT."
And then she said, "People who exhibit this behavior will buy 40 sweaters in one day and never even take them out of the bags, they'll stash the bags in hiding places around the house so that their significant others won't see them. They get no pleasure from actually having the things they bought, they just feel a compulsive need to buy something. Then they'll have no money when it's time to pay the rent or the electric bill or the car payment, so their depression becomes even worse."
Oh. THAT kind of compulsive shopping. Um, yeah. That's not the kind that I do.
The Carnaval is awesome, the Salon updates look wonderful, and I can't wait to try the new Wanderlust scents. Everyone involved has been working so much to get this accomplished, and they must be so excited for it to actually be live.
And I'm really irritated that I've been watching that hijack thread about the people complaining about the price changes going into effect early. I shouldn't have done that. Now instead of feeling happy I feel pissed.
I'm thankful we got any warning about the price increases at all -- I can't think of any other business owner who has warned me a few days in advance of increasing her prices. It appears that the only reason Beth did that is that she cares about her customers and wanted to give people one last chance at the prices that were sending her business into insolvency. For people to be complaining about that kind of generosity, mainly because their own personal circumstances prevented them from being able to take advantage of it, seems undeservedly harsh.
And the nit-picking about the hours is very strange. I didn't hear one single person complain that the CD banner on the BPAL site said it would be coming in JULY of this year and it didn't. No one said "That's untruthful and bad business practices and when I tell my clients something will happen on such-and-such day it happens." (Which, let's be real, can't possibly be true. I worked in the business world for 12 years and precious little happened exactly when it was supposed to.) And yet when it comes to a $2.50 price increase, suddenly people want to quibble over a few hours. In fact they want to quibble about it SO BADLY they write multiple insulting posts about it and in general bring down the whole squeefest excitement of update night and try to make Beth feel like crap on what should be one of the best nights of her whole year.
I call Bad Form.
One thing I hardly ever talk about is politics. I'm not the type of person who likes to get involved in endless debates between groups of people who will never agree, and all the name-calling and finger-pointing depresses me a lot. I've learned to keep my mouth shut about these things at family functions because both my family and my husband's are Republican and devoutly Catholic. There are certainly aspects of their views that I respect -- they're not fanatics, and they're not ill-informed. They just have different priorities and principles than I have. They don't preach their views at me, and I give them the same courtesy. I'm pretty comfy in this setup. Live and let live, as it were.
I'm not a demonstrator, a protestor, or an activist. I write letters and emails, and occasionally I give a little bit of money, but in general I stay away from public rallies and things of that nature.
So! Lil' ol' politics-shy filigree_shadow received an email from Barack Obama's exploratory committee a few minutes ago suggesting that I might be interested in attending an event in Springfield, IL, on Saturday morning. They say he will be making an announcement concerning his presidential campaign. I can only guess, judging by the list of locations currently on his tour schedule (Iowa next, and then New Hampshire), that he will, in fact, be announcing that he definitely is going to run.
For the first time in my life, I actually want to go to an event like this. Springfield is about three hours away by car. I have no plans for Saturday. The only thing stopping me from going is possibly inclement weather.
I've never heard Obama speak in public, and I'd like to. Of course, there's also an Obama Rally in Chicago on Sunday afternoon, which is much closer to me, so perhaps I should just go to that.
Still, I'd kinda like to go to the Springfield announcement. It could end up being an historical event.
I had just decided to put away my laptop and go to bed when the announcement email popped up in my InBox. I didn't even know there was a chance it might go live tonight, so it was a big surprise. But YAY, I didn't miss the update!
Here are my thoughts (apart from the general about Neil Gaiman scents!):
THE CAROUSEL: AMERICAN GODS
BILQUIS: Honey, myrrh, lily of the valley, rose otto, fig leaf, almond, ambrette, red apple, and warm musk.
I will love to try a decant of this because I like a lot of those notes. I had to be picky about which bottles I got, though, due to a rather small PayPal balance, so I decided against ordering a bottle of this. The honey, ambrette, and red apple are possible no-nos on me.
MAD SWEENEY: Barrel-aged whiskey and oak.
Not sure on this one... I like oak but whiskey is iffy.
MAMA-JI: Spices, cardamom, nutmeg, and flowers.
I don't think that one's going to work on me either. I usually stay away from spices.
MR. IBIS: Papyrus, vanilla flower, Egyptian musk, African musk, aloe ferox, white sandalwood.
I have to try this one as soon as possible. I really like all those notes. I ordered a bottle.
MR. JACQUEL: Golden amber, hyssop, North African patchouli, and embalming spices.
This could be really great -- when I was reading the description I accidentally read "embalming spices" as "embalming herbs" and remembered that the herbs haven't worked on me. I didn't order a bottle because of that, and now that I realize I mis-read the description I wish I would have tried a bottle.
THE CAROUSEL: ANANSI BOYS
MR. NANCY: Sugar cookies with bay rum, tobacco, and lime.
I love sugar cookies and I like those additional notes! This was the first one I saw that I didn't even have to consider -- I knew instantly that it would be in my order.
SPIDER: White ginger, artemesia, vetiver, nutmeg, King mandarin, bergamot, and lime.
This one threw me for a total loop. I have no idea what that will smell like. I'll be on the lookout for decants for sale as soon as people start getting their bottles.
LIMITED EDITION: LUNACIES
CROW MOON: This is the final Full Moon of winter. The call of the crow signals the end of the frost, and their scent, of vervain, black violet, white musk, and Chinese cedar, is brushed by the last cold wind of winter on their wings, and the scent of evergreen boughs touched by the season’s final flowers and the first blossoms of spring: wintersweet, green-barked dogwood, primrose, snowdrop, and lenten rose hellebore bouquet.
I got this because I get all the lunacies, but I am almost positive that the "cold wind of winter" aspect is going to mess up the scent for me. It always does.
OBOROT
Balkan fir sap, dark mosses, Greek Mountain tea flower, black pine, salty ocean spray, deep black earth, and a moon-touched magickal incense of sandarac, frankincense, and ravensara.
I got this one too for the same reason, but fir, pine, moss, and earth are all bad on me. I don't expect I'm going to like it, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
LIMITED EDITION
FIRE PIG
A new year’s blessing! Peony, China’s national flower, with bamboo for flexibility, plum blossom for perseverance, courage, and hope, tangerine for wealth, orange for happiness, lychee for household peace, pine resin for constancy, golden kumquat, pussy willow, and quince for prosperity, narcissus and King mandarin for good fortune, and peach blossom for longevity, with a splash of blazing red of dragon’s blood… to help you scare away the rampaging Nian.
Well, I did like Peony Moon, except that I thought it didn't seem to be too terribly complex -- this one sounds a lot more interesting. I'm not sure about it though, and since it'll be up for a while I figured I could take some time deciding on it.
I know a lot of people think that cat-macro-speak is really cute and funny, and I'm glad that people are enjoying themselves.
Personally, though, I really dislike it. A lot. It was sort of cute the first time I saw a cat macro about a year ago, but it got old fast, and now it's pretty much into clenched teeth territory.
It wasn't so bad when the macro thread first came out and it was contained just to that thread, but that way of writing and arranging words/letters has now leaked into posts in other threads and it's been showing up on the LJ BPAL communities too. It's gone beyond just being annoying for me. I can ignore it if it happens once in a while, but all of a sudden it's everywhere.
I guess that means I have to avoid the forums and the LJ communities for a while. It's kind of weird because I feel like I've put up with lots of things -- being swaplifted, being snarked at, trying to avoid the drama -- and in the end it was cat-macro-speak that ended up being more than I could deal with.
Although I like my in-laws, sometimes I feel very uncomfortable in their house. I get tired of being interrupted mid-sentence to be told, "Let's talk about something else," or "New topic!" It appears that new additions to the list of things not to be discussed in front of them are: human anatomy, common cold symptoms (I'm not talking snot here, I mean saying that your throat feels dry and scratchy), and dogs accidentally becoming pregnant.
If anything could be construed as even slightly gross or possibly related to sex in some way, apparently it's entirely off-limits.
My husband's mom asked me how my classes were going, and when I started talking about the anatomy paper I wrote about macular degeneration, she asked what causes it. I began to tell her that it's often caused by blood vessels bursting or leaking, and oh no, that sounds AWFUL, I can't talk about that. While we were having this conversation and she was telling me that she didn't want to hear anything that "sounds awful," she was tearing apart a cooked turkey with her bare hands and splitting it up into storage containers. I shit you not.
Look, I've got no problem with being proper and avoiding certain topics. I don't waltz in there and start describing the way my dog's poo has looked strange lately or give graphic descriptions of gunshot wounds. But it's gotten to the point where I feel like every time I open my mouth they tense up and wait for something even remotely unsuitable to come out so they can shout "New topic!" at me.
They really pride themselves on having what they think are good manners. Thus the restricted conversation topics. At some point I will probably tell them that their methods of telling people that a topic is inappropriate are exceedingly BAD MANNERS. A cultured person would gracefully redirect the conversation or excuse himself or herself and go to another room.
But, these are the same people who hang up the phone without saying "Good bye," blow their noses at the table, and drop quotes from Rush Limbaugh into the conversation. They think it's perfectly fine to attempt to correct an adult's behavior the same way you'd correct a child. His mom knows that I like crossword puzzles and has seen me working on them about 80 times, and yet a couple of days ago she felt the need to go on for five minutes about how crossword puzzles are a complete waste of time and she prefers words in sentences arranged in a book.
So probably I expect too much.
I made the awful mistake of returning to MySpace after an absence of several months. The MySpace group for my little group of college friends apparently had people flocking to it in droves while I was away, and now it's full of people I knew 15 years ago in college.
Clicked on the picture of a girl who didn't like me because she thought I caused her boyfriend to break up with her. She's gorgeous now. Clicked on the picture of a guy I dated on and off for a few years but lost touch with. He's a damn fine-looking man. Clicked on the picture of a guy who was full of himself and was a dick to me. Still looks like he's a dick. Clicked on the picture of a guy I dated for a couple of years. He's been hitting the gym. He never looked that good when he was with me.
And what do you see if you click on my photo? A dumpy-looking middle-aged woman with a stupid hairstyle who has gained 25 pounds since college and looks like a mess. Niiiiice.
I was feeling pretty embarrassed about the whole thing and ranting about it in an exaggerated fashion to my husband -- he pointed out that it is impossible for everyone I knew in college to be better-looking now than they were then. I know that. It's not everyone. Just everyone I dated. And the girls who were catty to me because I went out with the lovely sensitive goth boys that they were all swooning over. I would not be at all surprised if some of them looked at my photos and thought, "HA! She got fat and ugly. Good."
I usually don't think I look that bad. I think for whatever reason people often tend to be close to people who are more or less at the same level of attractiveness, and in my current circle of RL friends I don't feel out of my league with any of them. But when I was in college, I paid a lot more attention to my appearance. (These days I'm lucky if I'm wearing two shoes from the same pair half the time.) If there was such a thing as a beautiful people goth/skater clique at my university, I was probably in it. Those people wouldn't give me the time of day right now. They don't let you back into the beautiful goth people club if you gain 25 pounds and move to the suburbs.
In a couple of days this probably won't bother me any more, but right now I'm unhappy that I thought I was comfortable with my appearance and where I am in my life right now... and apparently I'm not. Apparently I am embarrassed by it. This revelation is unsettling to me.
[instead of posting in the H&EE thread, I told people there that I would write my opinions here instead.]
Very brief background if you have no idea what's going on here: Heaven & Earth Essentials is an etailer that sells perfume oils and bath & body products. The owner's name is Michele; her account name in this forum is anxious1. She has been a member here since November 2005. The thread for her business was started here in January 2006.
So, let me give you a hypothetical scenario.
How well do you think it would go over if a new BPAL competitor joined the BPAL forum and almost immediately asked what the most popular BPAL scents are? And what if she also asked how people were getting a hold of unreleased BPAL scents? I bet people might think that was odd -- if they knew she was a competitor. However in this scenario, the new competitor hasn't revealed herself as a competitor yet. She has only said that she is the business owner of an unrelated business and a LUSH fan.
OK, what if she then started buying a whole bunch of BPAL bottles, and then she resold them to BPAL fans on the BPAL forum for a profit. Say you look at her sales post in March and you see FORTY-THREE BPAL GC 5mls on her sales post for $14 each. Think that would go over very well? Yes -- you read that right. A BPAL competitor making money for herself off of BPAL products directly under the nose of the BPAL owner. Not only that, but you happen to notice in someone's post from April that this new competitor was also putting samples of her own oils in with the BPAL packages she sold to people.
How about if she then started talking up her own company on the BPAL forum, communicating directly to BPAL customers about her own business. She was answering questions about her products, telling people when their orders shipped, and announcing new product updates on her site. (You are aware that running the BPAL forum takes money and time. You think it's strange that this competitor is allowed to use the BPAL forum for free as her own personal communication tool for her business.) Say the forum administrator warns the new competitor a couple of times that she's breaking the etailer rules -- which are outlined clearly for all to see -- but the new competitor doesn't change her ways. The forum adminstrator then makes her customer service posts invisible and restricts her access to some of the other parts of the forum. The new competitor says it was just a misunderstanding on her part.
Keep in mind that until this new competitor had her access restricted, she had access to all the members' posts about which scents they liked and didn't like. Just like any other forum member. She had access to etailer threads of her other competitors, where she could see what people liked and didn't like about those businesses as well.
[ETA: please see shriekingviolet's comment below for a correction about the above paragraph.]
When people on the BPAL forum ask the new competitor about her ingredients in her oils, the new competitor says in one case that she has made a couple of mistakes on her site and that she doesn't really use a Chocolate EO; in another case she said that she uses real ambergis. At that time, she also had Lily of the Valley EO and Lilac EO for sale on her site -- but you've been reading this newsletter, which contains some conflicting information. A little bit of foreshadowing here: Later, in a post in another thread, she says she's been a "perfumer" for 20 years. You might wonder how a "perfumer" with that much experience would mix up what's an essential oil and what's not, or how a person with so much experience in the field could possibly not know that real ambergis is illegal.
Then this competitor comes out with a new perfume that is remarkably like one of BPAL's most recently released AND most wildly popular Limited Editions. She mentions that she "has been told" that her version has more buttery vanilla. She says it's a coincidence and nothing more. When asked about her ISO for that particular BPAL LE only a few weeks before her own very similar oil was introduced, she changes her tune and admits that she did in fact try that BPAL oil (she hasn't just "been told" about it), and she says she wanted more of it because she liked it. She claims that her version of the scent had been in the works for months. Just coincidence, she said.
During the blow-up about this remarkably similar product, the new competitor states that she loves BPAL and respects Beth, and in fact she only wears Beth's oils and not her own. You can't help but notice that for all her proclaimed love of BPAL, this new competitor has up until that point posted exactly one BPAL review in the forum, and it was to say that MB Closet smelled like cat pee.
In a discussion about using stock oils in scents, the new competitor calls herself a "perfumer" and says "I don't do dupes and I don't relabel." Yet when you look at her site you see a dupe of LUSH's Karma right there!
And say that BPAL has been doing, oh, I don't know, a special Limited Edition scent called "Cinco" on Cinco de Mayo for the past two years, and suddenly this new competitor comes out with her own product called "Five" especially for Cinco de Mayo too. But she says, once again, that hers has been in the works for a long time and that it is merely another coincidence.
Finally, the forum administrator of the BPAL forum comes into this new competitor's thread to explain that the new competitor's account has been suspended because she broke the forum rules by creating a duplicate account. She used the duplicate account to get around restrictions that were placed on her first account so that she could snoop about BPAL's business and BPAL's fans some more. The administrator can prove this with IP addresses showing duplicate accounts accessed from the new competitor's home and work. (And your husband is a Database Administrator, so you know perfectly well what IP addresses are and how they are logged.) The administrator also says that the new competitor has been borrowing a friend's login to browse the BPAL forum as well. She says she was posting under the friend's login as well.
At this point, how many people do you guess would be big fans of this new competitor and unwilling to believe that she has exhibited some shady business practices?
You guys, Michele has done every single one of those things and they are all recorded in the BPAL fan forum. Check her posts. It's all right there. (Except that her customer service posts in the H&EE thread were made invisible, so I'm just going off memory there.) I swear to you, I am not making this up. Every single bit of information in that huge "hypothetical" scenario above came from Michele's own posts and the H&EE thread. All I did was put it in one place.
Please note that you can look at all her posts yourself by going into her profile (anxious1), clicking on Profile Options, and choosing the View Member's Posts option. This is all right there, out in the open for anyone to see.
So here are my major concerns:
- I don't like re-selling BPAL for profit in any case, but I think it is especially reprehensible behavior for a BPAL competitor. Bad form. To the nth degree.
- On top of that, I think that slipping some samples of her perfume oils into her BPAL sales packages is... well, I want to say it's a dirty trick, but I'll leave it as just saying completely disrespectful and inappropriate.
- She was not upfront about her status as a BPAL competitor when she joined this forum and started asking questions about the most popular BPAL scents and how people get a hold of unreleased scents. That's called market research. This tactic in particular makes me angry. I did not write my reviews and posts here so that a BPAL competitor could come along and use what I've written to think up new ideas to make herself money. I resent that.
- I might have bought her story about one "coincidence" of copying BPAL. Maybe. But two? Nope. Fool me once...
- Someone who supposedly has 20 years of experience with perfumes really ought to know what's an essential oil and what's not. She also ought to know that real ambergis is illegal. I don't believe she's telling the truth about her experience. Also she claimed to have a Lilac EO (and a couple of others). I don't believe she's telling the truth about her ingredients, either.
- She refused to sell her products to olympia301, citing oly's post in the H&EE thread as the reason why. (Oly questioned a couple of Michele's ingredients.) Nobody, and I mean no one, should get retribution from an etailer for comments they make about that etailer on bpal.org. That's just wrong. By the same token, people who consistently post glowing remarks about the etailer in bpal.org should not receive preferential treatment by the etailer.
- She used bpal.org as a free service to communicate with current customers and answer questions of potential customers. No, wait, I should clarify that. It was free to her -- but it was not free. Someone was paying for it. The fans of her competitor were paying for it. The only thing that stopped her from using it for her own purposes was having her account restricted. Just asking her to stop didn't do the trick.
Michele has said several times that the reasons for issues with her were misunderstandings or coincidences. I just flat-out do not believe her. She said she is the manager of a Fortune 500 IT department, and she owns her needlework business as well as her bath & body business. Clearly this is not a stupid person. I think she knew exactly what she was doing when she came to the BPAL forum: She was reading all our posts and finding out which scents we like best and why. She was studying up on other etailers and their products. She was noticing how much money people are willing to spend on perfume oils and on bath and body products. She was buying up Beth's oils like mad and then just sniffing or testing them and re-selling them for a profit. She found a HUGE potential market here -- not to mention free market research -- and she exploited it. In my opinion, that's the bottom line. She saw what was going on here and decided she wanted a piece of the action.
Let me draw some comparisons between Michele and roostersgrrl. Both of them:
- Tried to come off as BPAL fans in order to be welcomed into the community.
- Were secretly (or not so secretly) using this community to pad their own pocketbooks.
- Hawked their own wares to BPAL fans inside the BPAL community.
- Claimed innocence and misunderstandings whenever anyone brought up issues with them.
- Showed a blatant disregard and disrespect for the Lab.
- Had nearly every mod breathing down their necks at every turn... which they used to try to convince people that they were being unjustly persecuted and singled out.
In roostersgrrl's case there was a very good reason for that attention from the mods -- don't you think it's likely that in Michele's case there's a very good reason for it too? I look at that H&EE thread, and I see red flags everywhere. Warning sirens screaming, horns blowing, the whole nine yards. And I'm quite sure that the mods know a lot more about this situation than they're telling us.
Roostersgrrl got basically exiled from the community for what she did, but people are still buying Michele's products and talking about them in bpal.org. A lot of people have said things like "well, that's between Michele and the mods" and "whatever else she does doesn't matter because she's nice to me." That's exactly what people said about roostersgrrl too, you guys. I said those things. Then later I felt like a schmuck for having been duped by roostersgrrl. I don't want that same sort of thing to happen all over again -- a lot of the people who post in the H&EE thread are people I like and care about. I think Michele is pulling the wool over their eyes, and it bothers me a lot. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the mods are wrong, maybe everyone who has noticed something fishy about Michele is wrong. But there are quite a few of us who feel this way.
So do I have too much time on my hands and should I get a job in a research library? PROBABLY. However, I'm not posting this for my sake. What I want is to put this here so that in the future someone won't end up in the situation I was in with the roostersgrrl fiasco: "Why didn't anyone tell me about this stuff?!?" Here it is. I'm telling you.
If it seems like I'm singling out Michele, it's because I visit this site every day, and I read a lot of the threads. I haven't noticed any other etailer behaving like Michele has. Not one. She's the only one who is doing this. I don't have a problem with her products -- they're not for me, but I'm not going to say that no one could possibly enjoy them. That's just not true. Plenty of people like them a lot. What earned Michele my criticism isn't her products or her company -- it's her behavior here in her competitor's fan forum. If she had never come into this forum, I probably wouldn't have ever said a bad word about her.
