Happy Birthday, killabeez!

[gwyn]

I hope you have a wonderful birthday. Meeting you has been one of the best things that's ever happened to me in fandom, and I hope the upcoming year is fantastic and gives you everything you want.

***

Question for any of my flist BPAL fans out there. I have been interested for a while in your little fandom (it is! It's a fandom!) but I confess that a lot of the basics around it elude me. A lot of the more poetic and annoyingly obtuse scent descriptions bewilder me -- I have a few scents I have to avoid, and I would actually like to know what's in them, but the writers are very busy being purple and I can't quite tell what I would be getting. I'm finding regular perfumes aren't doing much for me these days, and I like perfume oils better, so I'm quite interested in what they offer, but I can't seem to really figure out what I need to get started. feochadn said she thought there was an LJ or something like that just for n00bs that gives you a rundown, or maybe it was a web page. Anyone know, or want to walk me through it? How do you know what you want to try, or do you just grab whatever and go? How much is an imp, actually? (Measurement numbers are fairly meaningless to me.)

I find the site a little hard to read -- even with the text enlarged, I can't really read it well without leaning toward the screen. I guess they think anyone interested is all young and gothy, but some of us are old and gothy (at least, I was a goth back in the day before they even had a name for it -- really, really old!). We have bad old people eyes. Which is why I probably need a BPAL pal -- sometimes trying to read through that dense text in such a small font makes me give up after a while so I'm not finding out what I need to know.

Comments

[superplin.livejournal.com]

Heh, I just presented at a conference talking about BPAL as a fandom, so I totally agree! (To keep up the analogy, I watch the show but don't qualify as a fan. Well, much.)

You've got most of the useful starter information already, so just add me to the list of people willing to send imps. Also, despite my above disclaimer, over the past couple of years I've ammassed a decent collection of bottles, and would be glad to decant for you any of interest. Be sure to list your fave and stay-away notes, too, since I have a fair number of LEs (limited editions) that aren't available anymore, that you might be interested in.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I can't believe how generous everyone is about sharing not just the info, but the actual products themselves. I was seriously considering jumping in by ordering an LE that is going off sale in a couple days -- that Purple Passion sounds utterly divine, and if it doesn't work, I can always pass it along, it sounds like! I think that's a huge plus toward getting me interested -- it's not like buying regular perfume in a store; if it doesn't work, I can share it with someone else, and there is so much activity and information around things that it really does feel like i'm just in a new fandom. That approach appeals incredibly well to me; fannishness is just how I know to do things!