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!)