Mostly about perfume oils.

I didn't get much done this week. Including, as of yet, the mask. Oops.

I got my order from Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs, though. And have been playing with scents. Since I mentioned it before, I figured I would follow up with my impressions and some notes. A lot of people rave about these scents. They neglect to mention the downsides. I understand why: the oils are great (though not all work with everyone's skin chemistry - Morocco and I, for example, do not get along - if I wanted to smell like a department store perfume counter, I could do that a lot more easily...). The two big drawbacks I see are shipping (which is fairly clear on the site - they give times in business days on one of the pages - it took 3-4 weeks for me to get my oils) and opening the imp's ears (which almost no one talks about).

Opening a new-from-the-lab imp ear is an experience. It's hard if you're just guessing how to do it, and it's likely to get you coated in perfume oil (waaaay more than you need, trust me) if you lose patience or if you are just unlucky. It can be done and, in fact, once you find a method that works for you it isn't even that hard. I was advised to rotate the cap or to rock it back and forth. The latter worked for me; the former didn't; but for others the reverse is true. What I found works really well: use a thin cloth (or a bit of kleenex, in a pinch) to wrap the bottle and cap - no more than one layer on the cap. Use your dominant hand to rock the cap back and forth while your other hand holds the bottle gently. Eventually the cap will start to actually life a little with the rocking. Do NOT pull, even when it does this. Rock it some more until, when one side rises, you can leave it there if you take your hand off. At this point, lift very slightly as you rock it back the other way and it should open.

It will almost invariably spatter at least a few drops, sometimes more. That's what the light cloth is for: so that you don't wind up wearing too much oil if it spatters. If it spatters at all, some will soak through the cloth and get on your fingers, though.

Seriously, seriously impressed by these blends, however. Very glad I did order. Just...don't want to enthuse at people without warning about opening the samples as it is a bit too exciting when one explodes all over you....

Also, the unofficial but affiliated forums have a lot of good commentary, reviews of scents, etc. (They're not maintained by the lab, but the reviews are linked from the names of the oils on the search page, so....) You can't see everything that's in there by a long shot unless you sign up, but you can see the reviews.