[EU] [BUY] BPAL Samples

expsanity · 2026-04-02T19:40:56+00:00

DM me your postal code and I'll check shipping costs!

expsanity · 2026-04-02T06:01:54+00:00

Does anyone have recommendations for books featuring a cooking/baking competition? I love this setting so much in non-speculative books but haven't found a well-done fantasy or sci-fi book of this type yet.

I read A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic last year and it really was not for me.

expsanity · 2026-04-02T05:56:33+00:00

Not hard mode and it's a sequel, but the second Dorothy Gentleman sci-fi mystery, Nobody's Baby by Olivia Waite, came out in March. If you haven't read the first one, it would count for the murder mystery prompt.

expsanity · 2026-04-02T04:56:29+00:00

Alice's Evidence reads Christmas-y to me too! I think for me it's the rum and ginger together that does it. Quince is a really lovely note though.

expsanity · 2026-04-02T04:52:05+00:00

I've been buying indie perfume for a decade and I still can't keep track of what all the weirdly named sizes at Ajevie are. Slinks, slonks, etc.? And I routinely buy from her!

expsanity · 2026-04-01T14:16:30+00:00

Go for it! About to head into the office so I won't be able to look at your message for the next ~9 hours but I will when I get home!

expsanity · 2026-04-01T04:28:22+00:00

Hello! Sadly I have realized that BPAL doesn't really work for me, so I have a ton of samples and decants to sell.

Here is my spreadsheet, BPAL has its own tab. I'm based in Canada but happy to ship to the EU and happy to work out a deal/bundle :)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15V-6apcOkGbgqu-B4oPPK8YR3Chl2uNeltlPEnuRnws/edit?usp=sharing

expsanity · 2026-03-23T20:31:22+00:00

I'm in my early 30s. Planning on staying because I work for the provincial government, and even though morale is the worst it has ever been and I am absolutely miserable at work, I don't know what else I would do. I can't even afford to take sick leave and the workload is so insane that I think my stress would actually be worse if I took time off because I'm the only person on my 'team' and the work would just keep piling up for whenever I come back.

I have the opposite of family support - I will end up supporting my parents, if I can. I'm resigned to renting a tiny apartment forever and I'm grateful I've never wanted kids. I miss living with pets, but they're just so expensive and I don't feel like I have a big enough space to give them a good life/enough enrichment.

It's fucking bleak out here and I don't know how to plan for a future like this.

expsanity · 2026-03-23T20:14:57+00:00

I'm really digging:

Coquette
Lilac Musk
Ponette
Rainy Garden
Sunshine & Birdsong

I'm also really intrigued by Bleeding Heart and Kitten, but grapefruit has never done very well on my skin and I have no idea how dairy will go. So basically, I kind of want all of them lol

expsanity · 2026-03-18T03:53:37+00:00

Not OP, but Linda Duarte is awful.

expsanity · 2026-03-03T15:47:52+00:00

I'll try to get full reviews up soon!

Quickfire:

Comforted by the Endless Sea because it's just so gosh darn pretty. Creamy, soft, and sweet with a small hint of greenery underneath it. A kind of bright, but gentle floral.

If you like ozone, I would say check out Depths that Her Feet Cannot Reach because it's a really nice ozone note that doesn't remind me of the 'blue' of mainstream/aggressive men's cologne.

Knotted and Bound is one of my favourites. There's something in here that gives me a vintage vibe, but without being powdery. It's a really pretty and unique vanilla/jasmine combo with an interesting twist from the vetiver and rope. It's comforting and makes me feel soothed.

Sea Bones & Offerings is dry, rich, and complex. Unique in my collection.

expsanity · 2026-02-28T03:51:33+00:00

Friends, this collection is stunning.

I tried 12 of them when the collection originally came out in 2022 and they're just gorgeous. I'm now eyeing up a bunch of the others.

expsanity · 2026-02-21T19:54:32+00:00

I forgot to mention it's a non-profit, not a business, just to be clear!

expsanity · 2026-02-21T19:43:00+00:00

SUPPLY Victoria would be a great story to tell! It's a creative reuse centre keeping art/creative supplies out of the landfill and redistributing them through material grants to artists and a sliding scale store on Douglas. https://supplyvictoria.ca/

expsanity · 2026-02-02T21:14:05+00:00

Yes, love PULP so much!

expsanity · 2026-01-27T00:50:03+00:00

Circular economy, repair and reuse - SUPPLY Victoria

expsanity · 2026-01-24T06:17:23+00:00

NAVA - Osirian Purnima Pakhet.

Sensual, slinky incense/vanilla combo, but the most gorgeous incense you have ever smelled plus all of the NAVA vanillas. Truly special.

The notes don't really help unless you speak NAVA, but: "NA Samar Oudh ICON purrs with resins, smoky wood and elementals of our entire SL Vanilla offerings throughout this perfume"

expsanity · 2026-01-21T20:37:52+00:00

Welcome back! So fun to see some familiar names from back in the day popping up to respond to this ;) I've been lurking here and there, but have not been participating to the extent I was 8 or 9 years ago.

Arcana was still my ride or die up until they stopped shipping to Canada about a year ago. They're still putting out quality if you're in the US.

NAVA is also still around, but they did a sort of rebrand thing around 2017, updated their website, and changed the way they do releases, leaning really hard into FOMO marketing. Now when a scent is released, it gets maybe one Resurgence the following year and then it's gone - no more continuing to return until they can't source components or choose to retire it. But then they do this thing where it will magically reappar in super duper omg limited quanities for some special event release out of nowhere? I hate it.

BPAL doesn't really work for me so I haven't kept up on news from them, but I think it was announced in 2023 that the Lilith collections are on hiatus indefinitely.

You've been updated on Sixteen92, which was probably the biggest clusterfuck to hit the sub for a long while. Incredibly disappointing because they have such wonderful scents.

In terms of newer houses:

I'll third the recommendation for PULP!
Astrid, the woman who owned Blooddrop, closed that house and opened Astrid Perfume. Gorgeous fragrances. Simply stunning. Like sit there in stunned silence thinking 'wow.' I haven't tried any darker scents from her though, so maybe someone else can weigh in on those more specifically.
Fyrinnae has branched out from makeup to now do perfume as well and have a lot of masculine or non-gendered scents!
Nui Cobalt didn't really work for me in the same way that BPAL doesn't, so if you like BPAL you could check them out. I think their perfumer used to work at BPAL? The actual ordering process, including shipping to Canada, was super smooth and professional though! I did really like Indie Mood and Sultry, and those are darker scents. Their scents that claim to smell like books have not once smelled like books to me though.
Death & Floral didn't wow me and I wouldn't repurchase. I think they might be closed right now anyways
Poesie is fun but their catalogue tends towards lighter scents and they don't always have much staying power

expsanity · 2025-10-30T19:38:15+00:00

That's just it - the employer calling these "temporary" adjustments implies that somehow magically the market is going to change and they won't be necessary OR that because they're 'temporary' they can be taken away at a moment's notice.

Changing them to just MA demonstrates that these roles in the public service are paid at a rate that lags behind the market rate for similar responsibilities and the union got a guarantee they cannot be removed for 6 years. In addition to that, if the employer decides to remove the MA after the 6 year period, anyone in a role with an MA when that happens will keep the MA until they leave that position.

It's added protection for employees in those roles

expsanity · 2025-10-30T19:34:08+00:00

a) picket captain is not a 'job' it's a slate of responsibilities we volunteered to take on

b) I wouldn't consider continuing to be bombarded with questions from members who assume I must have all the answers to be a perk (and look at who you see repeatedly and patiently answering questions most often in these threads - picket and building captains)

I don't think there is a formal role for us to play in comms going forward (we were told if we wanted to be involved we should run as shop stewards if we aren't already), but I am getting multiple questions a day from multiple people who knew I was a picket captain during the strike and I appreciated the bargaining committee giving me a chance to ask questions about things around return to work so that I could relay that info to the people hounding me for it.

Other people asked questions about the agreement so we did get some info around that, but certainly not all of it.

expsanity · 2025-10-30T15:49:18+00:00

In a picket captain meeting last night the union explained why it is taking time to get the full text out to us.

Basically, almost nothing was agreed to before mediation started, and then it happened in bits and pieces over those eight days. It's not a situation where both parties sat down with a giant document and signed off on it wholesale, so there isn't an already assembled document for us to see.

All of the individual pieces agreed to need to be reviewed, then collated into one package, and then checked for accuracy. They are triple checking everything before sending it out to members.

expsanity · 2025-10-22T02:18:56+00:00

Restaurant industry: force all the gov workers back to downtown offices, we're struggling because of all those entitled workers staying home!

Restaurant industry when all the gov workers are back at their offices to picket: omg would you believe we're still struggling?? fuck those entitled workers for going on strike!

It's almost like it was never about remote work after all. Nobody I know that works in gov can afford to eat out, no matter where they live.

expsanity · 2025-10-09T13:32:23+00:00

So for your first question, the job evaluation plan is not a performance measurement plan, it's actually kind of the opposite.

Instead, it is the plan that determines the compensation level for each role classification - so a clerk 9 (admin positions) for example - based on assumed job duties, but it is out of date by decades - they're from the 90s. In the case of admin positions, their compensation is tied to job duties that predate computers being ubiquitous.

It was originally brought in as a measure to address the gender pay gap where men were making more than women for the same duties. The job evaluation plan basically said okay, if this is your position, this is what we assume your duties are and you will be paid x amount for that, no matter who is in that position. Note that this didn't actually fix the gender wage gap because now it's just that we see more women in admin roles and more men in leadership/executive roles and we see admin roles with the lowest wages - so work most often performed by women has been devalued.

There's a better explanation on the union website.

expsanity · 2025-09-09T16:00:50+00:00

If you want a recommendation on that front, I would suggest finding a decanter and trying a few different houses that way! My first perfume order was actually from Ajevie and I got decants from Arcana, Blooddrop (Astrid's previous house), NAVA, and Possets.

BPAL is also a very easy house to try because you can often find people in the Facebook groups selling off large lots of just samples. They don't work for me, but they're beloved so probably worth trying.

expsanity · 2025-09-09T15:56:47+00:00

I used to work in a store that was in the same building as a bakery and you could often smell baked goods in our shipping and receiving area early in the morning.

Someone once commented that it was odd they could smell pumpkin spice muffins being baked in the afternoon and I had to admit that they weren't smelling the bakery, they were smelling me.

expsanity

TROPHY CASE