August 9, 2007

Touches of Fall

As I sit here and type this I can hear the crickets outside my bedroom window. This can sadly mean one thing, Summer is soon coming to an end.

I always get kinda melancholy when the season changes and a new one begins. It’s almost as if I am saying goodbye to friend that I won’t see for an entire year!

The good news is that soon the weather will get cooler, the leaves will start to fall from the trees, and the nights will become longer. All this adds up to the upcoming holiday that I may very much like more than Christmas. Some of you may guess what Holiday I am speaking of but some of you may well not be familiar with it in your part of the world. Halloween 🙂

Halloween holds a spot near and dear to my heart not only because it’s my birthday but because it’s just a generally awesome Holiday! I love everything about it! Candy, costumes, nutty (like me) caramel apples, kids….!

I think one of the best things about Halloween is when the beauty industry takes a step into it and store shelves not only line up with candy and decorations but Halloween themed bath goodies, perfumes, and an assortment of bits that any girl will love!

I’m particularly partial to heading into Bath and Body Works when they start loading their shelves with body lotions, shower gels, and body sprays in an array of funky Halloween blends like Spicy Pumpkin, Apple, etc….! I’m quite curious what they’ll be introducing in the Temptations line for Halloween/Fall!

Many smaller shops online take part in the festivities of Halloween and theme many products for the Holiday!

One particular shop that I know and love dedicates an entire line of perfume oil to the Halloween holiday!

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab or BPAL to it’s diseased, addicted fans (Hey I can call them diseased because I’m one of the club with a gold membership card!) releases anywhere from 10 to 15 limited edition perfume oils every year for Halloween! This is truly an eagerly anticipated event for fans everywhere!

If you aren’t familiar with the Lab let me give you a very brief introduction to it.

The Lab started out as a very small operation that sprung up into a pretty huge full time online shop! It’s immensely popular and has an order wait time of 20-45 days!!!!!!!!!!! They sell 5ML bottles of highly concentrated perfume oil in a variety of scents. Perfume Oil is very potent and strong, a dab will last all day and into the evening too! 5ML seems small but it will last you a long time since you’ll be applying so sparely. The Lab, sadly, isn’t particularly a great place for people like me. Reason being is because they lack fruity, food, and sweet blends. A majority of the catalog are earthy, herbal, dark blends which I can’t stand. These have a huge cult following and many girls absolutely love them. Personally they aren’t for me. The good news is that if you dig deep enough you’ll find quite a few gems in the catalog! They release limited edition scents quite often and with every new moon they release a fragrance dedicated to that particular moon! I find that the limited edition scents are where the real treasures lay! They do Halloweenies during the Fall and Yule blends during the winter and Christmas Holiday! They also have themes for Valentine’s Day but those are normally too dark for me! They even went so far as to release some very silly Paris Hilton in Jail themed oils! Now if you are weary and just want to try they offer what they call “imps” of catalog blends. Imps are tiny vials of oil for you to test and see if you’d love a larger bottle! 6 are $19.50 plus shipping! They also include imps with any full size bottle purchase as an extra little gift for purchasing!

Well that’s a bit of background info on the lab….

Mostly I’m excited because shortly towards the middle or end of the month (Depending on Beth’s, the owner, schedule) the Halloweenies will pop up and be available for purchase!

Each year I really get excited to see which blends will make a come back from the year before and which new blends will be available! If you LOVE Halloween as much as I do you’re in for a real treat if you do decide to order from the Lab! The past few years I’ve collected many a fantastic perfume oil! Spicy Pumpkin, Candy scents, and so many other interesting bits and bobs have popped up! I’m especially a huge fan of the Pumpkin Patch oils which are released in a set of 5 and consist of 5 different blends of pumpkin mixed with different notes such as cocoa, pomegranate, and more!

These are actually a good investment. Sounds weird doesn’t it? Perfume Oil an investment. But actually they are. Bottles have ranged, over the course of a few years, from $14 to $17.50 and $20-22 for Limited Edition. Now if you hang onto a particular blend long enough you can fetch triple or more your money back! Not that I’d sell ANY of my rare blends EVER but it’s an interesting little fact of information to share! I’ve seen bottles of Pumpkin King go for $300 on E-bay! I’ve also seen many bottles from the Carnival Series go for $90-$120! I’ve even heard rumors of unreleased blends going for $500!!!!!!!

Occasionally with the Limited Edition blends the Lab’s Trading Post shop will release special oils that are a bit more costly! Last year they released 4 blends entitled Trick or Treat. It consisted of 4 oils, 2 Trick and 2 Treat. In order to get the oils you had to plea your case of which you wanted and why! It was all in good fun and made your purchase interesting and fun 🙂 I got all 4 of the bottles! They cost $50 each and came with a cute little T-Shirt! The oils are well up in price now on E-bay but I refuse to part with them 😉

Soon the new blends will be released and again the yearning for a new scent will fall upon me and others like me!

If you’ve never purchased from the Lab before now is a good time as any to start checking it out and see which Halloween blends will pop up that you might be interested in!

If you need any help deciding on a particular scent do let me know as I’ve tried plenty!!!!

Happy Shopping!

I leave you with some pictures from my collection!

Trick or Treat Oil Blends from Halloween 2006

Pumpkin Patch Oil Blends from Halloween 2005

A few of the Halloweenies from Halloween 2006

A few Halloweenies from Halloween 2005 (As you can Sugar Skull is in both this picture and the one above! Sometimes oils get a reprieve and make a reappearance from year to year! I always buy the reruns because the blend is sometimes slightly different from the year before and it’s delightful to pick apart how they differ from year to year!)

6 Comments

About the Muse

Isabella MuseIsabella is just an average everyday geeky girl who doesn’t blend her eyeshadow correctly, wears too much blush, and hopes she never finds her holy grail products because she likes the thrill of the chase so much. Her mission is to bring you super honest reviews on makeup, skincare, fragrance and all things beauty. She’s in no way an expert on the topic and she sure as hell isn’t a super model. But she’s passionate about makeup and is seeking like-minded individuals that like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain, and ones that enjoy spending hundreds of dollars at Sephora without feeling buyer’s remorse. If you’re that person feel free to reach out and leave a comment or follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Bloglovin‘.

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Comments

  • Decorative Diva

    Do you mind if I ask you what your favorite BPAL scents are? I’ve looked at them several times and thought about ordering, but never done it.

  • the Muse

    hey dd!

    It’s hard to pick b/c most of the ones I adore are LE 🙁 yak!

    I’ve been meaning to do a round up review of scents I love!

    General Catalog I do love are:
    Eat me
    Drink Me
    The Hamptons
    Red Queen

    Mmmm…SO many ack! LOL!

    I’ll do a round up soon!

    Don’t order yet. As the update for halloween will be live shortly 🙂

    and the next act of CD 🙂

    so maybe something from those two new collections will tempt!

    Especially if you adore halloween as much as me!

  • Decorative Diva

    Halloween is my favorite holiday.

    I'm curious about some of their scents.

    I try to avoid scents with patchouli, lime and lavender.

    Scents with Cherry, Chocolate, Vanilla, and some ambers and musks appeal to me.

    These are the scents I've been interested in from BPAL.
    Mad Tea Party-
    Drink Me
    Eat Me
    King of Hearts
    The Red Queen
    2, 5 & 7

    Bewitching Brews-
    Blood Kiss
    Bon Vivant
    Fae
    La Belle Dame Sans Merci

    Other-
    The Ecstasy of Infatuation
    Cheshire Moon
    Vice
    Hollywood Babylon

    The scents I wear right now are Victoria's Secret Very Sexy, Alfred Sung Shi, Kenneth Cole Black, Guess Gold, and Hugo Boss Deep Red.

    VSVS – clementine and cactus flowers, vanilla orchid, blackberry, white amber and pimento

    AS Shi – water lily and fig leaves, orange blossom and frangipani, water musk and silver birch.

    KCB – Black Violet, White Hyacinth, Fresh Citrus, Tuberose, Magnolia, Lotus Flower, White Musk, Orris, Sandalwood, Sweet Amber

    GG – a fruity oriental fragrance with top notes of citrus, golden apple, and pineapple; a heart hyacinth, pink pepper, water lily, jasmine, and rose with a base of vanilla, musk, sandalwood, patchoul, honey, and amber.

    HBDR – pear, cassis, clementine, blood orange, fresia, pittosporum, ginger flower, hibiscus seeds, Californian cedarwood, cashmeran musk-like notes, vanilla.

    If I wear KCB or HBDR I end up smelling my wrists all day, loving what that turns into on my skin.

  • the Muse

    hey you 😉

    I have a few imps if you wanna try some.

    Ditto I can't stand anything that's dirty smelling and that's patchouli as far as I am concerned 😛

    All of the following are great:

    Drink Me
    Eat Me
    King of Hearts
    The Red Queen
    2, 5 & 7

    In particular the rose blends are always super on my as they turn almost to a candy rose scent! So wonderful! I love how beth captured the green grass and the heavy floral scent of the rose with 2,5, and 7! It's a favorite of mine!

    Eat me an drink me are both very foody!

    I haven't tried any of the following:

    Blood Kiss
    Bon Vivant
    Fae
    La Belle Dame Sans Merci

    Nor these:

    Cheshire Moon
    Vice
    Hollywood Babylon

    I've heard raves for Hollywood Babylon though!

    The thing with Bpal is you have to hit the right blend that works on your skin!

    I'll try my hardest to do a round up review soon!

    I've just been swamped silly with everything else 🙂

  • Decorative Diva

    I’m dying to hear a review from you on BPAL.

    I think that you probably share similar tastes in scents with me, so your reviews will be awesome 🙂

    And yes, I think patchouli smells icky!

    The candy rose thing sounds awesome.

  • the Muse

    hey dd sorry for the delayed reply 😉

    Agreed patchouli is simply aweful yak!

    😉

    I’ll do these reviews soon!