shriekingviolet

Initial Impression: Bright red fruit grounded with smoke and wood. After Wearing It: Delicious! I wasn't sure whether or not I'd love this scent. There isn't one note in the list that I don't like, but my general opinion on fruity scents is that less is more. I love plum, I love pomegranate, I love berries, but I like them more as accents in nonfruity blends that in scents that showcase them. Fruity blends can often smell too much like hard candy for my taste, which isn't bad for a room scent but not my thing for a personal fragrance. Dionysia though, is an interesting success. On me, it definitely is a fruity blend. I don't really smell the benzoin, patchouli, mahogany or the frankincense. It's all about the plum, the pomegranate and the raspberry, and each note is so bright and so juicy. But somehow, the fragrance is kept in check. It's bright and fruity, but not too cloying, overripe or candylike. And it has an unusual depth to it, that if I were to guess came from the mahogany. The fruity notes are so distracting I can't be sure. The effect is subtle, but lovely, giving a slight earthiness to an otherwise bright purple scent. Final Thoughts: Fabulous! Still a bit too fruity to make it into my regular rotation, but I love it all the same. I'd like to try it in an oil burner as it seems like it'd make a gorgeous room fragrance.

Initial Impression: Sweet berries tempered with tea leaf. After Wearing It: This scent is dominated by the acai note, though it's not quite as powerful on my skin as it is in the bottle. In the bottle, it was berry with a hint of tea leaf, but on it smells like someone steeped the berries in tea. The tea leaf and the chrysanthemum note give the acai an earthiness that I couldn't smell in the bottle, so rather than being bright and candylike, it's more grounded and sultry. I can smell the jasmine, but thankfully it's more of a subtle nuance than a major player. Jasmine can often go loud and shrill on me, but that wasn't the case here. Even after 8 hours, the jasmine never became unpleasant. I couldn't really smell the white musk at all, but I could smell something sugary lurking in the scent that I couldn't identify. Daiyu is a warm, cheerful scent. It's somewhat exotic, yet still is sort of comforting and familiar. It's fruity without being too fruity, and never gets cloying. It has a zen like balance that's very appealing. Final Thoughts: Very nice, though not necessarily me. I loved the acai berry in this fragrance, but I'm not big on tea (except for chai, that's different ). Either to drink or to wear, and while it can be nice when it's a small part of a complex blend, the tea note was rather prominent here. Which I'm sure pleased Sarah, but it's not my style.

Initial Impression: Floral. Very floral. With just the slightest mossy undercurrent. After Wearing It: First applied all I smelled is rose, lots of rose with a green undercurrent that I'm guessing was the sage. After a few seconds, the calla lily rode up and then it's all rose and lily. Which smells really heinous on me. Like a combination of the guest soap from my grandmother's house and hair spray. It's so awful that I was tempted to wash it off immediately, but I always try to give every blend a fair shake because you never know how a fragrance will develop until you give it time, so I persevered. Unfortunately things didn't get any better for me. Even after two hours, I couldn't pick up any of the other notes in this blend and what I could smell didn't get any more pleasant. After hour three, I finally gave up and washed it off as the smell was started to give me a headache. Final Thoughts: Definitely not for me. Not a big surprise as I don't do well with rose and lily, but this was particularly bad on me. None of the other notes were strong enough to overcome their presence. I'm sure this could be lovely on someone who does better with florals, but on me it was a disaster.

Initial Impression: Honeyed caramels with a kick of something darker lurking underneath After Wearing It: From the note list, the early buzz on this scent and even the way it smelled in the bottle, I was expecting Agrat-Bat-Mahlaht to smell pretty foody but it wasn't much at all on me. That teak note that was lurking in the background really bloomed when it hit my skin, so when I sniffed my wrist right after application the first thought that came to my mind was "mmm teak-y." Which made me giggle, as it seemed like a very appropriate joke given that this scent was made with Karyn in mind. (to anyone who doesn't know Belladonnastrap well enough to get that, the theme of the summer forum layout was due to her incessant begging me for a tiki skin) I'm assuming an unintentional one, but way clever if it was on purpose! Anyway the teak note is gorgeous. Dark but not harsh, and not dry like some wood notes can be. It combined with the honey, skin musk, amber and a touch of caramel to create a very richly dark scent that was deeply sweet, but not at all cloying or foody. I didn't notice any of the cream accord in this scent, which was a good thing for me. "Milk" notes are hit or miss on me. Sometimes they're light and creamy, sometimes they're sort of sickly cloying, or at worst they go sour on me like curdled milk. I don't know how cream would have played on my skin with the teak, so I was grateful that it never showed up. I didn't notice the apple blossom either, but I think I was just too distracted by the heavier notes to notice it. Final Thoughts: Overall I would describe this scent as being like a darker and more complex version of O. It's very sexy and a little on the heavy side, but wonderful. One of my favorite Grindhouse scents for sure!

Initial Impression: Red musk with a hint of patchouli and lotus root. After Wearing It: Warning: Marianne is STRONG and slatherers like me should try on a dab first before deciding whether or not it's safe to apply as usual. I applied Marianne in my usual excessive fashion as I was rushing out the door in the morning and regretted it as soon as I got into the car. Not because it didn't smell lovely, mind you, but just because it was so potent. Applying Marianne the way I did was like taking a huge gulp of tequila when you assumed it was beer. Nothing wrong with tequila or drinking in excess, but when you're expecting something much weaker, it's more than you signed on for. The cloud of fragrance filled my entire car so much I wondered if people could smell it in the next car over even with my windows up. I felt highly embarrassed when I got to class, as while I'm obviously a fan of smelling good and scents with throw, I don't really want to share my perfume with the entire room. And that strength stayed strong for all three hours of my class. But on to the smell! Wet and for the first hour or so, Marianne was very "perfumey" and I mean that in the best possible way. It reminded me of all the good parts of the expensive and classic oriental perfumes that have maintained their prestige over the past century, only better. It was a very musky floral with a bit of patchouli to ground it, though not the springy sort of floral that often goes soapy and stringent of me. It was rich and heady, and the red musk that accompanied it just sang on me. I love red musk, can't get enough of it, and it really worked well in Marianne. The scent felt very refined and sophisticated, yet aggressive and a little intimidating. The scent of a real lady who knows what she wants, and isn't too shy to seize it. The final dry down for this blend is slightly sweet. The lotus root peeked out and softened the floral notes and the red musk got a bit chocolatey on me, as it tends to do with my skin chemistry. Not in a foody way, but it gives the fragrance warmth and depth. I'm not sure I ever really smelled the black currant or bergamot in the scent. They might have added nuance to the fragrance but I wasn't able to pick them out on my own. This scent lasted for a good 10-12 hours too, though, thankfully, it wasn't QUITE as strong after the first 3-4 hours. Still kept a decent amount of throw though all day long. Final Thoughts: A winner, and a blend I'm sure will earn many fans. Unlike some of the early commenters on Marianne, I didn't think it smelled much like Snake Charmer though. Where Snake Charmer is thick and resinous, Marianne is much more floral. The only thing I thought they had in common was its musky quality. If I had to pick any bpal fragrance to compare Marianne to, I'd say Hell's Belle though Marianne isn't as creamy or have the subtle citrus kick.

Initial Impression: Warm, sweet and slightly nutty. After Wearing It: For some reason, when I first looked at the note list, I was expecting Inez to be a powerful and heavy scent but it wasn't. For all the resin and wood notes, I found it to be like a stream of sunshine: full of warmth, gold and light. It was a very comforting fragrance, very sweet and a bit powdery. I didn't get the cedar or myrrh in this fragrance at all, maybe a bit of the red sandalwood, but it was elusive. It was mostly amber and vanilla musk with a touch of spice from the carnation. The scent was fairly consistent and didn't do a lot of morphing on me, but after the first couple of hours, it got a little less powdery on me which made the scent smell more foody. Specifically? Like those animal cookies with pink icing that come in the hot pink bag. This is at least the third BPAL fragrance (Hod and Forbidden Fruit were the others that I can remember) I've tried that I've had that have smelled this way on me. I think I've finally figured out that fragrances that smell predominantly of amber plus one sweet note (usually vanilla, sometimes lotus) and not much else go "cookie" on me. Which isn't a bad thing at all, but not for every day. I like foody scents, but prefer them in bath products over perfume unless I'm just in the mood for them. Final Thoughts: Overall pretty good. On me it had good throw and lasted about 6-8 hours. And while it's not a scent I think I'll wear often (it's almost too yummy! ), I can see this one becoming very popular.

Initial Impression: Floral musk, with a hint of sweetness in the background. After Wearing It: Wet, this was very strong and heady on me. The Babylonian musk was prominent and nearly dizzying, wrapped with the springy notes of lilac and hyssop. I'm not entirely sure what kind of musk Babylonian musk is, but it seems to have more in common with white musk than red or black. It's not quite as light and airy as white musk though, which is fine as I'm not too fond of white musk (red's more my speed), but this is nice. After the oil is given a few moments to settle down, the vanilla tea and coconut start to slide into the action. The fragrance is still that of a musky floral, but the vanilla tea wraps the blend in a sugared sweetness that's very appealing. The coconut is more subtle. I can definitely smell it, but it's more nuanced than the other notes. It's not the sweet and tropic coconut I get from scents like Elegba, more like the light, textured note in the sadly discontinued tarot blend The Star. It's slightly waxy, and it gives the blend structure. Within an hour, the vanilla tea note takes center stage of this blend, and the floral notes move into the background. The musk tones down a bit to join the coconut in its role as fragrance support staff, and the tobacco finally pops up to help temper the sweetness down a notch. Its dry down reminds me of Dorian, though with coconut rather than lemon. Final Thoughts: Fabulous scent. Lovely and sweet, yet sophisticated. I think this one would please a lot of people, even the ones who are scared off by lilac. I'm not a big fan of springy floral notes, but its effect in this fragrance was beautiful.

QS and I are poking around. There might be the occasional hiccup.

Hey lovelies! Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that about 75% of the mod staff of this forum will be away next week from October 30-November 3 to attend Ted & Beth's Pirate Nuptials in Vegas. And the celebrate my birthday on the 1st! Though I think a handful of us are bringing laptops (though not me), we likely won't be spending too much time checking in here and thus any questions, comments, etc. during this period should be addressed to one of the moderators still on duty (see list below). Obviously, I think they'd appreciate it if PMs were kept to a minimum so they're not inundated with cries for help, so if something comes up next week that can wait until everyone else gets home, we'd appreciate it if you waited. Patience is important as well as a smaller staff means it may take longer for PMs to be answered! They also cannot be used to cash in reward points, so any requests for titles, inbox expansions, etc. will have to be made before Monday or after Kate and I return. Mods Still Available: Clephan Clover Grrrlennyl Jessica Parrot_Suspect Sheila Shollin Kate will be home a day earlier than me (Friday, Nov 2), and all of the mods on duty have both of our cellphone #s in case of emergency (hacking, hardware failure, etc.). Mind the babysitters and be good kids! Everyone enjoy your Halloween and we promise to deliver pictures of the wedding when we return!

We finally got the upgrade behind us! Or at least behind us enough to reopen the forum. I'm still tweaking the gallery a bit, but not doing enough heavy lifting to where I need to keep everyone out of the rest of the forum to accomplish it. If you run across any bugs we might have missed, please send a PM to either quantum spice or myself. We'll try to get it fixed ASAP. There's not too many new toys this time as the newest version of invision board focused more on optimization, security and behind the scenes stuff, but I still have a few things to point out. First of all, you can now go into your control panel and set what color, font, etc. you want your posts to be in by default. Those of you who have been around since the very early days of the forum will remember that we used to have something like this but had to do away with it one upgrade. I finally found another version of this modification that I was happy with and so it has returned. We've also finally been able to edit the board code so that the often-requested point reward of Unlimited Member Title Changes can be offered. It's price is 750 points, and if "purchased" you'll be able to change your member title however often you want through your member control panel. Also Invision packaged a new default skin with 2.3 that I like waaaaaaay better than the old IPB Default (which I'm still keeping for those who do like it), and it's the new face of the work skin. It can be found on the drop menu under "IP.Board Pro." Lastly, I wanted to post a reminder that it's important that people keep an eye on this announcements area. I know the forum downtime came as a bit of a surprise to people, even though I posted an announcement about it coming up this past weekend. Kate checked the stats and it showed that only about 1 in 5 of all members that have visited the forum since I posted the announcement actually stopped to read it. I don't want to have to subscribe everyone to this section of the forum, but I will if the next time we have scheduled forum downtime it's met with as much surprise and confusion. We don't make announcements often, but we do make them for good reason so we'd really appreciate it if you read them. It makes our job easier. Welcome back! ETA: OH I forgot one thing. We installed a new search engine, so you can now search for words smaller than 4 letters (than not ones with as few as just one). I know this has also been something people have been hoping for, so we're excited to release it. It also appears to be faster than our old one so that's also good news.

We're going to be doing some software and system upgrades this weekend, so the forum is going to be offline for at least part of this coming Friday. I'll probably take the forum down late Thursday night/early Friday morning when I get started. I'm not sure how long it will take, but I'll give the ballpark estimate of 12-18 hours. So back up any info on here you may need on Friday before then! Thanks!

I (along with Sarah, one of our retail mods) will be without internet access for the next week as we travel down to sunny (and insufferably hot) Florida to vacation. If you have something in the meantime that needs admin attention, please contact Quantum Spice or Morrighana. I'll be back Friday the 17th guys!

OK so this isn't technically a forum related announcement, but it's not every day our of our mods opens her own e-business! Jennifer Williamson (better known to us here as Macha, the Lab's soap maker and Doodle Goddess) has opened up The Silk Road Trading Company, her own soap site. She will still of course be making the BPAL scented soaps that sell on the BPTP website, but here she's selling soaps that are completely her own creation. The company has its own forum too, though you all are still welcome to discuss her soaps in our B&B area the same way you would for another etailer. Let's make Macha's first day in business a profitable one! I've already got my order in!

It didn't occur to me that I'd ever have to spell this out, but it appears that I do so I'm going to say it here. It is not acceptable to put any member of the mod team on your block list for PM communications. Moderators need to be able to contact you for administrative purposes, and to block them is to become an obstruction to their job here. To make a mod go through another mod or admin to get in touch with you when they have a legitimate need to get a message through to you is not okay. I went through the contact table in the database today and changed any records I found (not that there were many at all) where a regular member had a mod on their block list. Those affect can consider this announcement their verbal warning. In the future, blocks against mods will removed and the membered will be admonished by pm. If that member is ever found blocking a mod in the future, they risk receiving a temporary suspension from accessing the board. The block feature in the software is designed to block harassment should it ever occur. I find it unlikely that one of my mod staff will merit this feature be used against them, but should it happen, you should bring it to the attention of another mod or admin and if need be, we will ask said mod to refrain from contacting you for any other reason apart from doing their job. That said, I should also advise against putting a mod on ignore for similar reasons, though doing so won't merit punishment because you can still access posts of people you ignore and I couldn't assume that you weren't still making an effort to keep current on board policies, etc. simply because the mod is on ignore. It's still not a good idea though. Sorry about the terse announcement, but I feel pretty strongly about this and think it's very important. Allowing the mod staff to perform their duties is part of being a member here, as you wouldn't have a board to post on if I didn't have the help I do to run the board.

For those of you who didn't check the status blog at anytime in the last 24 hours, yesterday the forum's database kept breaking due to resource issues on Monday and I took us down for fear of things getting worse and breaking to the point it'd be difficult to fix. The forum using even more processing resources, bandwidth, and RAM than it was a year ago when we were forced to seriously upgrade our hardware. Like at least 50% more, if not double that, so quantum spice had been talking about eminent hardware upgrades for a few weeks now and decided to go ahead and do it two weeks ago. I got the new server last friday and began (slowly) getting things set up over the weekend, hoping for a slow, smooth transition with minimal downtime. Funny how things work. I was just telling Beth a little more than a week ago that I wanted to go ahead and get us moved as I was afraid that if we didn't act we'd see repeats of what happened back in march of 2006. In my head I was picturing issues popping up like in June or July, not 9 days later. But it was fortuitous I guess because it meant that the move was well underway when I had to unexpectedly start the server evacuation, which means we were only down for 22 hours rather than a week or more the way we were last year. As for the move, I think everything made it over okay. If there are any missing posts, topics or PMs that you notice, please PM me to let me know. I can't promise I'll be able to retrieve them, but if they're important I will do my best. Also for the next 24 hours, I wouldn't be surprised if some people were still unable to access this new server using our domain address. Domain propagation relies on the ISP to update their records and point to the new IP address, and some ISPs are quicker to do so than others. The process can take up to 48 hours (I started the process at like 5am CST this morning FTR), but obviously it doesn't have to take that long. My ISP handled it about 9 hours, but quantum spice's ISP is still pointing the domain at the old server if that's any indication. So sorry to inconvenience or disappoint anyone still unable to access the forum. It's out of our hands!

OK guys, I know this is going to be long, but I have a lot of new info to cover spanning five topics: What's New? What's Missing? What's Moved? Known BugsNew Policies What's New? New Skins I designed a skin series for the different seasons. To access different skins, scroll to the bottom of the screen. There will be a drop down menu on the lower right. Personal Profile Portal Invision Power Board 2.2.0 has a totally redesigned portal page with the following features: Friends list - manage your friends for easier PMing, to see if your friends are currently online and display your friends on your profile. comments - allow visitors to leave comments on your profile. You can set to moderate all new comments before they're shown. Recent visitors - recent visitors are shown on profile. Your content - show your recent posts / blog entries / gallery uploads on your profile Personal statement - add a short bio for others to read Easy access to edit your location, age and IM details New Text Editor New Style The text editors, both standard and rich text (WYSIWYG) have been completely rewritten to make them more intuitive and faster to load. Clutter has been reduced with the new dynamic menus. Switch You can now switch between the rich text editor and the standard editor without the need to reload the page or visit your User Control Panel. Close Your Own Swap Topic It's been requested, and it's finally here. You can now close your own swap topic when you're finished with it. And yes, you still will get that reward point! Further instructions here. Beefed Up My Assistant You can now read and reply to recent PMs from the 'assistant' draggable "window." Forum Visibility The main forum index too cluttered for you? Tired of the long scroll of areas you don't read? You can now specify which forums you want to appear on the main forum and which you don't. Settings for this feature are in your control panel (click the link marked "controls") under the heading "options" which is near the bottom of the column, as Forums Visibiltiy. What's Gone? Features No Longer Around: The following features are no longer with us. Most of them were code modifications that were designed for the previous software, but were not updated for the new version and I couldn't get them to work. In the case of the similar topics, I just didn't take the time, though would consider bringing it back if people want it. I may put the others back them if they become available again. Delete PM After Forward/Reply (it was a check box that deleted a pm for you after you replied to it) Similar Topics Mark PM as Read-Unread PHPSpellChecker Specify Favorite Smilies (the new smilie setup is rather nice though so I hope that's some consolation!) What's Moved? As you may have noticed, the forum structure has changed a bit. No forums have been deleted but one was added (BPTP Chatter), one forum (Swaps) became a category, five subforums were promoted to forums (TAL Chatter, and all 4 swap subforums), and one forum (Beyond Perfume) was demoted to a subforum of BPAL Chatter. So be sure to poke around and become reacclimated! Also in the topic view, a few buttons that were there before have been eliminated. Rather than having a button to pm someone, there's a link to PM someone in the drop menu that appears when you click their username. In that menu you'll also find other helpful links, so do take a peek. The member online indicator has also moved from being a button at the bottom of a post to an icon to the left of a member's username in topics, PMs, etc. Lastly the gender indicator is something that the software now incorporates more into its layout and so it created a whole new mechanism for it. Because of this everyone's gender was reset but can be easily respecified in your profile. Known Bugs Both the Spring and Summer skins look wonky in the blog area. I'll make another attempt to try to fix them when my eyes stop crossing when I look at code! The Fast Reply won't open for IE users on certain skins. No clue why, but it won't. To side step this problem, I recommend all IE users to go into their board settings (which can be found in your user control panel/ "Controls" under the heading "options") and for the "Open Fast Reply automatically when available?" setting, select Yes. Not a perfect solution but it should suffice while I figure out what the real issue is. The Quick Edit may act wonky at first. During our "bug hunt" we've found that it often acts up the first time you try it as the old javascript file from before is still in your cache. Refreshing once or twice seems to help. If you still have issues the full edit should still work. PM count may be wonky for some. This should correct itself over the next couple of days as the forum becomes active again. New Policies Reminders & Warnings After an intense discussion with the moderators and member feedback (both officially and "word on the street"), we have decided to overhaul the warning system. Automatic PMs. One of the comments made was that people didn't know when a warning had been issued because the individual issuing the warning didn't send a PM. Now, the warning system will automatically send you a PM with the text of the message if the contact fields are left blank. Reminders. We now have official rule reminders, which will be used the first two times you break a rule (for instance, creating a duplicate topic, or swapping outside the swap area). Instead of issuing a warning, we'll just send you a PM letting you know that a rule has been broken and the reminder will be logged. So, the first (and second) time you break a rule, you'll be reminded. The third time you break that same rule, you will warned - but if (say) you get reminded for swapping outside the swap area today, and you then make a duplicate topic tomorrow, you'll still get a reminder about duplicate topics rather than a warning. Reminders will disappear 9 months after they are issued. So if you make two duplicate topics today, and then a third next March, rather than getting a warninng that third duplicate topic will earn a reminder as the previous reminders will be off of your record. But, if you had made the third duplicate topic tomorrow, you would have been issued two reminders and a warning. The user notes log (formerly known as the warning log) now looks like this: Warnings will still be issued on first offenses in the case of severe misconduct (things that are more behaviorally-based, like trolling or member abuse), and like under the old system, a warning's impact on your warning level (the number under your name next to "Warn: ") will degrade after 3 months. Additionally, reminders may be used by the swap moderators as a way to communicate with you when we have received swaplift reports. Official Mod Posts In the past, we've had people say that they have a difficult time discerning when one of our moderators is posting as a moderator and when she is posting as a contributing memer. To help eliminate this confusion, all "Mod Posts" are to going to be posted under the account cheekily named "Voice of God." Not a reference to the status of course, but in the spirit of those loud declarations over the PA system that come out of no where when you're out shopping and make you jump. All mod posts automatically log who is posting them and display that information for everyone to see, so while this adds an official tone to some posts it doesn't confuse things by adding anonymity. Well I think that covers everything. If you have any questions feel free to PM quantum spice or I. Missed you all!

Just hopped out of a Zazzle bath! Very nice! Cocoa is rich in antioxidants and increases blood circulation. The scent is energizing and comforting, and is believed to be a gentle aphrodisiac.Sodium bicarbonate, citric acid, shea oil, coconut milk, refined extra virgin olive oil, cocoa powder, witch hazel, cocoa absolute. [/i] Pre-dunking: The bomb's a light brown, the color of instant hot cocoa mix. Smells like hot cocoa too, mild and sweet. And maybe my nose was just playing with me (as my hot cocoa is usually flavored with a shot of peppermint schnapps or irish cream), but I did detect a hint of mint. Very faint, more of a nuance really. In the bath: Zazzle's really fizzy. I dropped it in almost as soon as the water started running and it didn't quit until shortly after I turned off the tap. My tub is by no means large, but it felt like it took a little more time than the other bombs I've used recently (Lush & Fantasy Bath). The brown coloring (cocoa powder I'm guessing. It's definitely a powdered color additive) dispersed through the bath giving the water the color of watered down cocoa. Not a deep enough brown to look like the lake of liquid chocolate in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, but enough brown so that the water doesn't look like it was simply dirty. The water itself felt nicely silky. I could feel the shea oil in the water, though not enough to where it felt slick. It was just nice and soft. The scent of the bath was subtle. Not gooey/chocolaty or overwhelmingly foodie and sweet, but smelling mildly of fine cocoa powder. The throw wasn't too powerful in the bath, but my tub is shallow so my head is usually a good 12-16 inches above the water. It's about the same level of throw I get from a Lush bomb. Out of the Bath: The water drained pretty cleanly without leaving any oily residue or color stains in the tub. There were a few remnants of cocoa powder on the tub floor, but they were easily flushed out with a few splashes of clean water. I noticed my bathroom smelled more of cocoa that I expected it to as I was getting dressed. My whole bathroom smells the same way it did when I was in the tub: a light fine cocoa scent. I can smell it a bit in my hair and wafting off my hands now too as I type. My skin feel lightly moisturized. Soft, but not at all greasy. It might not be enough to keep people with really dry skin from having to use lotion daily, but enough to keep them from feeling dry and itchy post bath which is something I consider to be a must from any bath product. This was really nice! Not my favorite of the BPTP bombs I've tried so far, but I'd consider repurchasing.

Hey boys and girls! Invision Power Services, the dandy people who wrote the forum software we use, released a major upgrade last fall and Quantum Spice and I are finally ready to upgrade the software. The new software has a few new bells and whistles that we're excited about and I've got a couple of new skins to roll out at the same time. We think everyone will be pleased! I'm giving you guys plenty of notice because this will require some downtime, hopefully not much, but I'd count on at least 9-12 hours if not a full 24 as after the upgrade script goes through converting the database to the new version, we'll still need to go through and upgrade skins and bug check everything. And obviously, if things go well less downtime will be necessary, if things get bumpy it'll take longer. I'll try to post progress reports at the status blog while I'm working. The upgrade is planned for Wednesday, April 25th. The forum will go down at 12am EST om Wed (which would be late Tuesday night for many depending on their timezone) and stay down until at least midday on Wednesday. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to copy any contact info that may need for swaps and what not to someplace off forum if they don't do that already so that in the event the upgrade does take longer than planned, everyone can operate their swaps or other communications without access the forum for a few days. Thanks everyone!

Peace, serenity, tranquility, silence. Sodium bicarbonate, citric acid, shea oil, coconut milk, witch hazel, Bulgarian rose absolute, Australian sandalwood essential oil, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's Elixir blend. Pre-dunking: A large white balm that had a herbal/floral scent. Smells like lavender and rose with a touch of lemon. It's just like sniffing Quietude oil straight from a 5ml, which is nice. You can't smell the "bomb" part at all. In the bath: I should say upfront that I've owned a bottle of Quietude and it didn't do a lot for me. I didn't care for the way it smelled (just not my taste), and I couldn't get it to do much for me as an aromatherapy treatment. So when I hopped into a tub of this, I wasn't expecting to like it much and was hoping the scent wasn't too strong. I was partially gratified. The intensity of the throw on this bomb was good. Strong enough to where there was a good cloud of scent coming up from the water and I could smell it without having tosink too low into the water or take ridiculously deep breaths, but not so strong that it was overwhelming. Still didn't care much for the way it smelled, but boy was the scent effective in what it was aiming to do. Without even really trying to get into the experience, I started to feel my mind blank after a few minutes of soaking. It was more than just the relaxation of body you'd expect with a hot bath, but I very nearly felt sedated. Not drowsy mind you, but so tranquil I almost felt a buzz in the back of my brain as if my cerebrum was being treated to a massage. All of the stress from my long day at work just melted off and I felt pleasantly numb. After that, the smell of Quietude ceased to displease me. Other things to note about the bomb in the bath: since it was a white bomb, the water was nice and clear. No murkiness whatsoever, and the water was soft and silky. Out of the Bath: I don't really remember smelling much of Quietude as I got out or after I was dry. But I wasn't feeling too sharp or observant afterward so I may have just missed it. My skin was very soft and moisturized. And there was nothing to clean up post bath, no oily residue left or anything so that was very nice. The bath didn't make me tired or sleepy, but just very relaxed. It was very nice. I think Quietude is my favorite bomb so far, and I expect to be buying plenty of these when I get paid next! They seem just the cure needed for a really hard day.

As I've marked on the calendar, from the 18th until the 25th, I'm going to be out of town on holiday. And as my vacation this time is going to be on a cruise ship that charges extortionist rates at their internet cafe, I'll be completely without internet access during that time. Therefore any and all technical related questions and cashing in reward points PMs need to be sent to quantum spice unless their not time sensitive. Also, I've asked Morrighana to help me and quantum spice by stepping in and helping some of the admin duties in my stead. She doesn't have a lot of forum tech knowledge so she won't be able to help anyone on that score, but if anyone has any comments, complaints or questions that need admin attention, you can send them to her and/or quantum spice. And because my internet is acting up, this may or may not be my last time signing on before I leave, so if you've sent me any PMs and I don't respond by Sunday afternoon, please resend them to Morrighana or quantum spice if they can't wait. Thanks! Cruise fell through and I'm back home.

I don't think anyone means to discount market research as an important element of a capitalist system, but at the same time, I don't think the fact that it's a normal element of the business world means that we the maintainers (mainly myself, quantum spice, and to some extent the mod staff) have to agree to allow for the forum we built and run to serve as a goldmine of information for people on the look out to profit off of our members. The issue is not so much that Michele would want to see what type of blends people would be hot to buy, it's knowing that those of us in charge feel strongly about reserving that element of the forum for the lab alone and not respecting that. It'd be like if all of my neighbors decided that the pool in my backyard was open for their use since, after all, pools are for swimming. What does it matter that the pool resides on private property and enclosed by a tall fence, who am I to tell them that they can't swim in a swimming pool? We can all agree that that sort of logic is warped right? And that I'd be within my rights to contact the police if said neighbors refused to acknowledge that taking a dip in my backyard without my consent constituted as trespassing, yes? We tolerate feeding the competition in the less direct way of allowing members to enable each other, but we are not supportive of etailers profiting off our forum in a more proactive fashion. We don't hide that fact. And while we don't expect other business people to like that policy or even agree with it, they have to respect that if they want the privileges of full membership here. Our playground, our rules, and given that they basically get free ad space here by us allowing our members to discuss their business on site, I don't think it's too much to ask. There may be basic laws of capitalism, but there are also basic principles of what is and isn't allowed to occur on private property. And just like businesses can forbid solicitation on their property, we're within our rights to demand what sort of behavior is and isn't okay from etailers so long as they're on our turf. We have the right to say that we don't put the effort into keeping this place running so that business people, who do not contribute to the maintenance and upkeep of our forum, can mine us for information so that they can increase their own profits. Sounds perfectly reasonable, right? It's why Michele can get away with, say, not allowing Beth or any friend-of-Beth membership at her forum. Capitalist norms don't trump all there either. I personally wouldn't care if Michele did massive amounts of market research at any unaffiliated forum on the internet that allowed such things. Because it's true, it's not a crime. But denying the right of a site owner to decide what is and is not an approprate use of the fruit of their labor? That's a horse of a different color.

Ehhhh that's probably not what we'd do. Though the constant allowance=endorsement sentiment that keeps getting repeated by members certainly does make me keep thinking about it, but I try to avoid throwing babies out with bathwater. There are plenty of wonderful etailers out there and we like reading and chatting about them as much as everyone else, it's a fine line of how to balance the good with the bad. I think we'd sooner see a departure of topics discussing other perfumers (as this is not the first dramatic topic we've had concerning a competitor, it was about this time last year there was a round of Atropa's Cottage drama) rather than a closure of the retail area. Oh and filigree_shadow, just wanted to make a minor correction: After her access was restricted, she did still have access to other etailer threads. Everything in the retail section was still open to her. She was only shut out of Suggestions, Swaps, & BPAL + TAL chatter areas. Otherwise, very detailed post. I'm impressed.

Hey everyone! As I'm sure some of you have noticed the "members who have viewed this topic" today is missing. Quantum spice and I are trying to revise the way it work so that the data it creates doesn't take up quite so much room in the database (at last check it was taking up nearly as much room as our member table and was slowing our backup system a bit!). Hopefully we'll be able to get it back up in the next week or so (depending on how successful we are), but in the meantime when we're tinkering with the code, you may run into the occasional error. For this we apologize. Thanks for your patience!

Big forum updates today folks! After a few months of working on them, we're finally ready to release our new projects: Swap Feedback Link Engine Community Gallery Swap Feedback is a sort of review engine that enables people to leave feedback for their swap transactions. The forum has gotten so large that we understand that some people might feel less secure selling and swapping here than they might have when we were a smaller community. Now people will have a way to keep better tabs on the swap histories of others. We hope this new feature will give our members a feeling of additional security here. The rules for the Swap Feedback are as follows: The Community Gallery is a place where members can store images for use here at the forum. You can upload and link avatars, sig images, and other pictures to use in your posts or it can be used as your own online photo gallery. Most members will start out with about 500kb of space, with additional space available for "purchase" with reward points. See the guidelines section regarding reward points for details. The rules for the Gallery are as follows: Lastly, the Link Engine is a place for members to share their favorite links with other members. Think of it as a collective bookmark list. At this time only members with 50 posts or more are allowed to add links (though people with less can still view, rate and comment on links), though this may change in the future. The rules for the Links Area are as follows: Also, not sure how many of you noticed, but on Wednesday (I think) I installed a new hack on the forum that allows you to choose which emoticons appear for you on the "clickable smilies" box on the post/reply screen. This should give everyone the easiest access to the smilies they use the most. To access this feature, click the "Favorite Emoticons" link at the bottom of that smilies window and a popup window should come up that'll allow you to select/unselect different smilies. (if it doesn't launch the pop up the first time you click it, try refreshing the page and try again). I think that's all! If anyone has any comments or questions feel free to contact quantum spice or myself. Enjoy!

The update appears to have gone really smoothly this time around and was done with minimal downtime. Three cheers for upgrading test areas first so all of the modifications can be added before I take things down! I think everything went ok, but if you notice any new bugs that you didn't notice prior to this evening let me know via pm!