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.