kebechet

Fin, I'll take free cheese over free chonies any day of the week.

This is from the time stamp on your email to us: From: Broken Angel [mailto:***@***.com] Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 9:57 PM To: answers@blackphoenixalchemylab.com Subject: Order Problem..... You were answered within 22 hours, by our house manager himself. I don't mean to seem abrupt, but I think that an answer received within one business day is unreasonable at all, especially considering the volume of email we are receiving at this time. With regards to the 5ml and 10ml bottles and the imps: We are using medical equipment that fills each bottle and vial precisely. The variation occurs in the depth and dimension of the glass, not with the amount of oil, as I have stated elsewhere. When we were, unscientifically, eyeballing each bottle, our customers received what was the same amount to the naked eye, not what was actually 5ml, 10ml or 1/32oz of oil. The viscosity of the oil may have some effect on the appearance of fullness. With regards to unanswered emails: At this time, the customer service email box has three emails in the inbox: two from me, and one that is Viagra spam. Now, you say that the orders were incorrect. Was that simply with regards to the fullness of the bottles? There was only one incident of mass spillage recently, and that was with Naughty & Nice. I know that this last part is going to come off as really unpleasant, but it really bothers me when people complain about the number, or lack of, freebies in an order. They are free. Free imps. They are not free for us. It takes materials to create them and labor to assemble them. They are sent as a courtesy, and we do our best to see to it that all orders have a little extra something. Sometimes, in the swirl of activity, free -- again, free being the operative word -- imps sometimes get overlooked. But they're free. Not paid for, free. And it is a courtesy. I don't get free cheese when I go to the market. I don't get free hair dye when I go to the salon. I don't get free panties when I go to a lingerie shop. If I did get any of this, I would be grateful and would consider it a bonus. But it is not something that I expect, or demand, and I do not consider the lack of gifts from a company to be a commentary on their service. You're not starting anything. If emails are somehow not getting to us, or if our replies are not being seen, I need to know about it. Can you please PM me with your name and email address and I can see if I can find anything. There is a possibility that we are being spam-blocked or filtered by your ISP.

Sara, Anthony and Forest all take care of the customer service emails, and no email goes unanswered. What email address are you sending your inquiries to?

I’m sorry about making this kinda short, but I’m a little behind on a few things because of my two days out, and I’m trying to catch up on heaps ‘tween working on the update. =P Its been a nutty month. 13 is going live around midnight tonight. It will stay live through the 15th, and will come down with Budding Moon. I say 'around midnight' because... well, you know me. I'm always late. 8) A Demon in my View and the Yule scents will also come down when Budding Moon vanishes. Venus will parallel Budding Moon… just in time for Valentine’s Day. On the topic of VD [poor-taste pun’like foolishness], a few Valentine’s LE scents will go up with Budding Moon. The Budding Moon tees will go live as soon as I have everything ready on BPTP. Cross your fingers that I’ll be done messing with the site tonight. The next Poe set and the Chakras will not be live until at least February. I know I’m missing something I meant to say, but… I guess I’ll cover anything that’s escaping me when 13 goes live tonight. Heh!

We're doing Convergence in NOLA. Show up, or be tarred and feathered.

We seem to be having a problem with mail that's coming in to our mailing addy... the Hillhurst one. From now on, please send all snail mail orders to BPAL's physical address: Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab 5523 Satsuma Ave North Hollywood, CA 91601 I will update the info on the site when I get a moment. Thanks!

First off, the thing you guys want to know most: All orders that were placed prior to November 15th have been shipped, within the time limit prescribed by the USPS in order to be received in time for Christmas. The only exceptions are the few orders that, for one reason or another, are on hold, and all the involved clients have been contacted by Sara. Leave it to someone like me to start a Holiday Love Post with a Neener, but… to those few skeptics that accused me of playing semantics games with the ‘guarantee’ notice on the front page: pttttttttttht. As if I’m that sort of person. Thanks to innumerable hours of overtime and gratuitous bribery, we did it, like Brian and I guaranteed we would, and though it’s a little frightening to say that it is now in the hands of the post office… well, we did our best, they’re in the post, and hell willing, you’ll all have your boxes in your hands in a timely manner. I know that Love Fests get overcooked this time of year, but everything I say is blurted with the utmost blathering sincerity, so suffer through another “I Love You Guys” post… Thank you to all of our customers… not just for supporting us, but for all the friendship, kindness, patience and love that you’ve shown all of us throughout 2005, and during all the years that we’ve spent cranking out scents. On a personal level, so many of you have been there for me during times of crisis, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. On a business level… its obvious that we couldn’t be where we are without all of you, but I believe that it is always important for me to express our sincerest, most heartfelt gratitude. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I think that the most wonderful thing about my own experience with BPAL is the unbelievable community that it gave birth to. My life has become more beautiful for having known you guys, and that is something brilliant that I’ll have with me for the rest of my life. And now, love for the Rats: A huge thank you to all the guys at the Lab that put so much love, effort, time and sweat into seeing to it that we made our deadline. A huge thank you to the Bottle and Vial Rats: Forest, Julie, Elysia, Vlad, Stephen and Lauryn. A huge thank you to the Pack Rats: Sara, Josh, and Matt. A huge thank you to the Customer Joy Rat: Sara. And finally, a ginormous fucking thank you to Anthony, the Head Rat, for all those insane, 14+ hour days and 3am clock-out nights spent shipping his ass off. Love, squishy hugs and thanks, also, to my partner in BPAL Shenanigans, Brian, the Blonde Rat, and to my consort, Puddin. These are two men that I can’t live without. Happy holidays, everyone. I hope that 2006 doesn’t kick our asses, that the year is full of bright beginnings, painless endings, and enough debauchery to keep us all busy without landing us in jail.

The USPS does not seem to be updating C&S status. If you have received a C&S notice from us, or from the Trading Post, rest assured that the package is in the hands of the post office. Neither we, nor Teddy, are sitting on any boxes.

Happy holidays, everyone! This is a tiny update, as we’re still in the middle of Yule shipping, and we’re bracing ourselves for the first updates of the New Year. Holiday Moon, Luna and Mercury are $15 each, are live for the usual Loony time, and can be found on the Limited Edition page. Holiday Moon tees and the first of the BPAL statues [and two corresponding scents: La Fée Verte and Hellion] can be found at Black Phoenix Trading Post. Teddy and his goblin posse at the ‘Post are on pins and needles awaiting the arrival of the first aroma lockets. Look for those in the upcoming month.

Snow Moon: Brick & Mortar Pajama Extravaganza We will be open for Snow Moon on Thursday, December 15th, from 5pm til 10pm. Due to the daytime lack of parking and out of courtesy to our 9-5 clientele, we're going to be opening at night . The address is: 5523 Satsuma Ave North Hollywood, CA 91601 ::|:| mapquest |:|:: ::|:| yahoo maps |:|:: It may be a little hard to find. Satsuma looks like an alley, but isn’t. The building itself is a warehouse covered in gloriously strange pale blue aluminum siding. Sexy. We’re on the right side of the building. Mr. Thrifty [our mini-skeleton] will be in the window, and there’s a very obviously half-finished budding new herb garden in the front. While you’re in the area, you may want to hit up three other shops on our street. There are two wonderful architectural salvage places and a great stained glass shop. Tell them the new freaks down the road sent you. 8) The primary problem that we may have this week [and forever afterwards] is parking. There are four spaces in front of BPAL. Ok, now onto the Plan: Unfortunately, our wretched credit card system is still unprepared for retail in-store sales. At the moment, the damned thing won’t even let me log in. Anyway, all in-house sales on Thursday will have to be either cash, or through PayPal. We will have a terminal set up there for people who want to use the latter. The next bit is almost verbatim from the last two Will Calls: If you would like to place an order for pick-up on Snow Moon, please do the following: Email us at willcall@blackphoenixalchemylab.com with your order. Payment may be remitted by PayPal ahead of time to willcall@blackphoenixalchemylab.com, or you can pay at Pick Up with cash or using one of our computers as a PayPal terminal. When making your payment, please omit shipping charges. You may purchase any current catalogue oils, as long as we have them in stock. Anniversary scents will be available, as will Yule LE's. Please remit all PayPal pre-payments by 11pm PST on Wednesday, December 14th, so that we can get your orders together. Some t-shirt overstock from BPTP will also be on hand, but those will have to be in-store purchases, since I'm not positive which sizes and styles will be there. Snow Moon tees will be available for purchase, and the first of the Black Phoenix statues and pendants will also be ready for preview and purchase. We will do our best to accommodate all orders of 5mls and imps, but sales will be based on availability. Imp Packs will be available, but we would prefer that, if you are going to purchase imps, you pre-order them so we can expedite the process. In all cases, its probably best to pre-order anyway, so we can make sure we have the oils allotted, or will be able to tell you beforehand if we’re out of stock. You get the gist. At this time, we cannot accept checks, money orders, or credit card payments for WC. Since we're opening at night, pajamas are welcome, but optional. Sara is swamped, so please direct all questions to Teddy at tradingpost [at] papow [dot] net. Teddy will do his best to help you out with anything that comes up. <-- Happy Wagner Valkyrie

Hi guys. I want to thank everyone for their friendship during what is, for me, not exactly a happy time. I can't tell you how much it means to me... and reading the support thread was indescribable. You all really did help me get through the worst of this. BPAL will be open on Dec 15 for Lunacy. Once I get home from the Lab, I'll repost ordering instructions here, with specifics on what will and won't be ready on that day. *hugs!*

I feel weird posting like this, but I always feel its best to be upfront. Someone close to me passed away last night, so even though its business as usual here at the Lab, I'm not feeling very communicative. I don't want anyone to think that I'm blowing them off, so I'm explaining why I'm going to be a little distant for a week or so. Thanks for understanding!

The three new tees and the first of the hoodies are live! Also, the Naughty or Nice Inquisition has begun. The Inquisition commences tonight, and draws to a close on December 3, 2005. - - - Due to the addition of the hoodies, and the imminent arrival of the statues, bottle-tops and lockets, there is a new shipping scale based on weight. Please refer to the BPTP FAQ for more information.

To celebrate three years of making everything around us smell, I’m posting the prototype list for 2006’s updates. As you already know, the following are in the works: 51 Anath Apocalypse Ariel Astarte Avalon Babalon Bé b'lia Belshazaar Berlin Bien Loin D'Ici Boleskine Camlann Ceylon Conjuration Decadence Dragon's Teeth Elegy Ennui Erebos Eurydice Event Horizon The Eyes of Beauty Fascination Freyja Giza Gossamer Havana Hel Hi'iaka Howl Isolde Jinx Koshchei Lemuria Loki Lorenz Attractor Melbourne Miranda Mu Na-maka-o-Kaha'i Nairobi Naked Singularity Oblivion Odin Orlando Orpheus Pandemonium Percival Prospero Rebecca Requiscat Risis Romeo Rosmerta Sanguine Moon Schrodinger's Cat Set Sidhe Superstition Tannhauser Thou Art That Tristam Tsuyu Val Sans Retour Vampyre Vesuvius Vitriol Wasp in a Wig Xanadu Xochiquetzal Yekum ... and the Mock Turtle's Lessons Several limited editions will be coming in sets this year. The first pairings of the year will be... Agony & Ecstasy Cain & Abel With more pairings to come. In the beginning of the year, A Demon In My View will be followed by a Limited Edition series dedicated to Poe’s stories. Other LE sets will rotate throughout 2006. Also in the works for 2006+: Abattoir Adamian Alarbus Anzu Apophis Aavak Aquidah Ariel Archimedes Aufhocker Autolycus Bahamut Basilisk Betrayal The Black Hills Black Lily Black Orchid Blood Lily Bleeding Heart Blessed Virgin Butterwort Caliban Carmilla Chiron Chudo-Yudo Cobweb Corpse Flower Damballah Death Cap Demetrius Devil’s Tongue Dilmun Dragon Lily Dragon’s Reverie Dreamtime El Arbol de la Muerte Embraced Euryale The Extasie Falak Fallout Falak Fiend Ghastly Gloaming Howl The Huluppu Tree Iseut aux Blanches Mains Jessamine Ken-Yu Kurnugi Lavinia Lethe Love-Lies-Bleeding The Magi Mediatio Medusa Miranda Moksha Monster In My Closet Monster Under My Bed Mukti Nebuchadnezzar Nepenthe Nineveh Notre Dame Opium Poppy Ozymandias Pease-Blossom Pleasure Dome Privet Prospero[/s] Quinta Essentia Saladin Scourge Seventh Seal Sheol Solve Et Coagula The Song of Songs Speakeasy Stavin’ Chain Stingray Strangler Fig Sundew Tiamat Toxin The Travail of Passion Trinity Vesper Iris Water Hemlock Yellow Oleander Zaire Acta Sanctorum Alchemical Allegories The Arthurian Collection The Chakras Demonology The Great Alchemists Collection La Garde The Loas Nursery Bogies & Fearsome Critters Quantum Physics The Sphinxes … plus, further additions to Excolo, the Panaceas, Wanderlust, Ars Draconis and Illyria, a new section dedicated to scents inspired by physical artforms, and the usual gloomy poems, perverts, playwrights and poisonous plants. In December, BPTP will have the first of the bottle-clutching statues. In January, Tedwin will be debuting the first of our scent lockets. The prototypes have been finalized, and they are KILLER. Also in the beginning of 2006, coffin-shaped imp boxes. As always, we’ll keep you posted. As for the rest of the day... well, your narrator is passing out. Thank you so much, everyone! You make life worth living! Edit: I've crossed out the ones that have been released so far. It will help twofold: Beth will be able to keep track and the rest of us can still go "Oooh I can't wait till _____________ comes out!" It will be edited as needed by a mod or Beth herself ~ BDS, April 2006 Ditto, though I may have missed a few. ~Morrighana, March '07

Holy Hell, I need to go to bed.

:|:|| snow moon ||:|: Art, of course, by the Doodle Goddess!

Seriously, can this month be weirder? Like I said in another thread, even the moon itself is giving me grief. Three things are going to be tackled here: Snow Moon online [both at BPAL and BPTP] and the brick and mortar shenanigans. Snow Moon: BPAL Snow Moon is going to go live on the site tomorrow night at midnight, along with the extra bits of anniversary stuff. Because of the weirdness of the full moon this month, Snow Moon will stay live until just after midnight on the 17th. Let’s say, for the record, at about 12.01am PST, November 17th. We will keep the Halloweeners up until the 17th, too, for simplicity’s sake. The anniversary stuff will be live until December 1st, with the exception of any GE scents that are introduced at that time. Those will, clearly, stay live indefinitely, barring component issues, yadda yadda. You know the drill. I am a MASTER of stating the obvious! =D Go me! Snow Moon: BPTP The Snow Moon tee will go live tonight, assuming that I can get the page to upload correctly. Ftp is not being my friend at the moment. The Snow Moon tee will come down on November 17th. Within a week’s time, the next phase of tees and hoodies will be available. In December, BPTP will begin selling three types of Black Phoenix incense. I sure as hell hope you guys like the incense: I had a massive spilling incident during an over-enthusiastic grind-and-dip session, and now my favorite jeans reek of Dragon’s Blood. Permanently. Heh! The coloring on them now looks a bit like a Rorschach Blot Test. Look at my pants and tell me what /you/ see. Oh, I’m a laff-riot. Beaver Moon: Brick & Mortar Shenanigans Because of the moon’s wackiness this month, we will be open on both Tuesday and Wednesday, from 12pm-7pm. The address is [dramatic pause and drumroll, please]: 5523 Satsuma Ave North Hollywood, CA 91601 ::|:| mapquest |:|:: ::|:| yahoo maps |:|:: It may be a little hard to find. Satsuma looks like an alley, but isn’t. The building itself is a warehouse covered in gloriously strange pale blue aluminum siding. Sexy. We’re on the right side of the building. Mr. Thrifty [our mini-skeleton] will be in the window, and there’s a very obviously half-finished budding new herb garden in the front. If it isn’t totally obvious from my description so far, this is still a work in progress. By Snow Moon the place should be closer to my ideal, but as far as this week goes… well, please be patient. We’re doing our best to juggle this in with the usual late-year madness, and decorating is going to have to be on the back-burner til later in the year! While you’re in the area, you may want to hit up three other shops on our street. There are two wonderful architectural salvage places and a great stained glass shop. Tell them the new freaks down the road sent you. 8) The primary problem that we may have this week [and forever afterwards] is parking. There are four spaces in front of BPAL. =P Ok, now onto the Plan: Unfortunately, our wretched credit card system is still unprepared for retail in-store sales. At the moment, the damned thing won’t even let me log in. Anyway, all in-house sales on Tuesday and Wednesday will have to be either cash, or through PayPal. We will have a terminal set up there for people who want to use the latter. The next bit is almost verbatim from the last Will Call [reiterating a little bit of what I just said, yes, but I’m getting too loopy to edit]: If you would like to place an order for pick-up on Beaver, please do the following: Email us at willcall@blackphoenixalchemylab.com with your order. Payment may be remitted by PayPal ahead of time to willcall@blackphoenixalchemylab.com, or you can pay at Pick Up with cash or using one of our computers as a PayPal terminal. When making your payment, please omit shipping charges. You may purchase any current catalogue oils, as long as we have them in stock, for Will Call pick up on that day with the exception of the following: All Yule LE’s Bess Cobra Lily Ode On Melancholy Yew-Trees Both Blood Moon and Beaver Moon will be available, as we were unable to open our doors on the last Lunacy. Please remit all PayPal pre-payments by 11pm PST on Monday so that we can get your orders together. Some t-shirt overstock from BPTP will also be on hand, but those will have to be in-store purchases, since I'm not positive which sizes and styles will be there. We will do our best to accommodate all orders of 5mls and imps, but sales will be based on availability. Imp Packs will be available, but we would prefer that, if you are going to purchase imps, you pre-order them so we can expedite the process. In all cases, its probably best to pre-order anyway, so we can make sure we have the oils allotted, or will be able to tell you beforehand if we’re out of stock. You get the gist. At this time, we cannot accept checks, money orders, or credit card payments for WC. I am going to try and have a set of sniffers for some of the Yule scents there as a preview, but none will be ready to go out the door. We’re also hoping to have a few sample sticks from the first batch of incense, but I can’t make any promises. Once things calm down a little, we’ll be able to open up to the public a few days a week. For now, though, walk-in is limited to Lunacy Days until further notice. Teddy, Fritz, Forest and I will be rotating working the front. I really, truly hope to see you guys this week! Please direct all questions to answers@blackphoenixalchemylab.com. Sara will do her best to help you out with anything that comes up. I’m prolly forgetting something. Gah! <-- For reasons that will become clear eventually, Happy Sumo Guy has been replaced by Happy Bishop Guy

Things to do on the Day of the Dead! The Olvera Street Procession The Folk Tree 22nd Annual Day of the Dead Altars and Ephemera Exhibition SelfHelp Graphics' 32nd Annual Day of the Dead Celebration Not A Cornfield's Ofrenda

May all your houses remain tp-free. =)

Medea, because that's who I am this year. =) Picking up a Cabbage Patch Doll to butcher tomorrow morning. I'd love to see photos of everyone's outfit next week.

Guess who's back? Antique Lace! Back in her old home in the Bewitching Brews neighborhood.

Things that suck: The Lab is moving. Thanks to the madcap, wacky antics of our local phone company, we won't have phone service until next Friday, and no DSL until the Friday after that. We will be shipping out of our houses [oy vey] and answering emails remotely, and due to the disruptive nature of moving, we'll be shut down on packing for about 72 hours, starting tomorrow. We will do our very best to get the process over with as quickly as possible, but I want people to be aware of the situation nonetheless. Things that don't suck: The Lab is moving. More space means more efficiency, and that means we might be able to speed things up a little bit more. In addition, we've finally got a wee space to dedicate to will-call and the occasional walk-in. In other words, the Lab is finally going to be opening its doors for at least a few hours a week. We still don't have the funds or the manpower to open up to the public full-time, but its a start. When will we be ready? We're aiming for the next full moon, but that's barring incident... ... and there have been heaps of Incidents this month. We'll do our best, and, of course, I'll keep everyone posted. I'm sorry if I've been a little out of touch lately. This moving thing has me twitching and foaming at the mouth.

BPAL’s Big Pink Beaver is up way freakin’ early because my beau’s birthday is on the 17th and damn it, we’re going to Disneyland for two days. From the Shiny & New page: Updated just shy of Blood Moon, 2005. I'm opening this update with a hyooge, squishy public display of affection for my consort, the Great Love of My Life©... my Ghoulie Goalie, Tedwin. Its the big lug's birthday on October 17th. Not only is he my Prince Charming and Knight In Shining PVC, he's also the man in charge of the Black Phoenix Trading Post. Please feel free to send him all the dirty limericks, suggestive photos and crass come-on's that you want in his PM or email box. He's a Libra; he'll love it. We will do our best to see to it that all orders placed before November 15, 2005 get to you in time for Christmas. No offense intended to anyone that celebrates any other winter holiday; I refer to Christmas simply because it’s the primary gift-mania holiday of the season, and a good roadside marker for us, so to speak. Anyway, we will be working a hell of a lot of overtime to see to it that we get everything out as quickly as possible, but look at it this way… if you’re buying someone BPAL for the holidays, at least you’re getting part of your shopping done early. [snort!] Upwards and onwards… Much of the information pertaining to the current LE’s can be found on the Limited Edition page, so I won’t repeat it here. Bess and Ode On Melancholy are new to Bewitching Brews, Baudelaire makes another appearance in Love Potions with Sed Non Satiata, and the Garden has two new sprouts: Cobra Lily and Yew-Trees. Black Phoenix Trading Post has a heap of new items coming soon. Beaver Moon is now live there, too, and later in the week you’ll see the first of their hoodies and the Humane Society fundraiser tee. The first of the lockets will be live later in the year; YES! – the molds are now being cast. Around the same time, the first of the statues should be ready to go live, and thanks to the BPAL Doodle Goddess, more tee designs will go live soon. For the record, BPTP now ships internationally. Please refer to Tedwin’s FAQ for more information. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab will be celebrating its third burf’day on November 18. I have something suitably twisted planned, so keep your eyes peeled. Edited to add: You got it: that's the new Loony Tee at Black Phoenix Trading Post. Smushy chunks of love to Tedwin and Macha!

Have you been naughty or nice? Let the Yule Imps at the Lab decide! Coming next week on BPTP: the Imps Invade the North Pole. [inspiration for the Invasion: the BPAL forum’s bastion of Hello Kitty Justice, Sarah!] The Beaver Moon tees will go up as planned, but there will be a week's delay on the hoodie / tee Humane Society incept date. We want to make sure you have the best garment possible, and we were a bit disappointed with the last hoodie test. It'll go live as soon as we get everything perfected.

Thanks to all of you guys we've raised $1758 so far for Katrina Relief. =) Please keep your eyes peeled for a BPAL tee and hoodie benefiting the Humane Society, artwork by our Macha, on the BPTP site during Teddy's Beaver update!