Updates/info for synecdochic's BPAL decanting

Forgot to update with this yesterday, and y'all should've gotten notification emails anyway, but: I did manage to get the international packages out with yesterday's mail as well! Everything has now been shipped. Let me know when you get the packages, and be sure to leave feedback on the feedback post.

I'm going to wait a bit before running the next Gaiman circle -- not only was that a hell of a lot of work, we're about to hit the Halloween/Yule season, and there's rumors that the Carnivale Diabolique is coming back, so I'm going to wait a bit so I don't get slammed with another combined circle like that. (It was not fun having to shuffle both circles' worth of decants and signups!)

Everything's been bagged up now. Tomorrow we bubblewrap, print postage, and bag up the envelopes, and they go to the post office on Monday.

I won't spoil the extras, since I know how much fun it is to open a package and find stuff you didn't expect, but thanks to a bunch of eBay shopping I was able to really rock the extras this time! (This is why I ask you for your GC wishlists...) For people who were in the Gaiman circle, I was able to portion out the prototype decants elisem sent to me so that I got five sniffies out of each decant, which means everyone has at least three or four (and sometimes more) prototype sniffies with at least enough oil in them for two or three skin tests.

In-US people who were in both the Gaiman and Metamorphosis circles, and who paid shipping for both, have had PayPal partial refunds issued for one of the two. Outside-US people, I will refund you when I figure out how much the actual shipping costs are. (I won't count the freebies in the shipping costs; those are my treat.)

Finally, I thought people might enjoy seeing the process, so I took some pics while I was decanting yesterday. (I didn't wind up doing any pics today during the divvying-up portion, alas.)

( A tour of the process of decanting sixty-nine bottles' worth of BPAL )

Both the Neil Gaiman and Metamorphosis orders shipped from the Lab today! You can track them along with me, although the tracking data probably won't be updated until tomorrow.

Based on previous ship times, they'll probably arrive here on Saturday, which will give me Saturday and Sunday to decant and then have them out on Monday. If they don't arrive until Monday, they'll probably go out on Wednesday.

Didn't get a chance to place the order last night, so I placed it just now. It's order #25363 with the Lab. Now we wait!

You can still sign up for any of the scents that have available slots in them. (I ordered everything, even the ones with only a single signup, because Sarah and I decided we wanted to be completists. I don't know why I keep pretending I'm going to be a hardass about that, sigh.)

I did a bit of counting up on my fingers and decided I could change around the parameters for when I ordered a bottle/when I added a bottle: I've changed it to be 2 signups per bottle being enough to order the bottle, rather than 3 signups. Since a few of the scents have proven fairly popular, I've also changed the "total number of bottles I will order" from 3 bottles per scent or 60 bottles total, to just plain 60 bottles total. (So, if we get a bunch more signups who all also want The Cat or The Potter's Field, I won't tell people those scents are full, I'll just add more bottles of them.)

The following scents still don't have enough signups to be ordered at all:

THE OTHER MISS SPINK
...a distorted version of Miss Spink’s “real” perfume: sticky sweet, cobwebby, and grotesque.

BANANA PEEL IN A GRAVEYARD
A banana peel discarded among tombstones and crypts.

The following scents have somebody on the waitlist but don't have enough signups for a second/third bottle:

THE CAT
Sleek, black, dark, and clever: benzoin, honey, cedar, and dark musk.

THE CONVOCATION
A macabre mélange of swanky men’s colognes.

Still planning to order this Sunday, August 3. Past that point, I'll continue to take signups for slots in the bottles I ordered, but I won't add more bottles.

If you want to add a "ride-along" (order other bottles or other imps that are not part of this decant circle), please get those to me ASAP! I'll need to know what you want in order to invoice. (I'm planning to start invoicing when those last two scents clear the signup line, or if they don't, by Thursday or so.)

The Neil Gaiman scents won in the "what should I decant next" poll, but there are a lot of them -- 66, to be precise, if you don't take into account things that have been discontinued but that are still up on BPAL's website. (There are a few that are out-of-stock but not discontinued.)

I was also participating in a decant circle for these when the forums went down, so I've tried most of the ones I was interested in, but I'm happy to decant them for the sake of everyone else!

I juggled a bit and worked out a grouping that results in three even collections of 22 scents each that does not split up sub-groups. I figure I'll do one every 3-4 weeks, depending on Lab turnaround time, with pauses if the Lab releases another update in between.

This group: Anansi Boys, Coraline, Graveyard Book

This circle will operate under standard policies, with the following variables:

COST: $4.50 per decant, $3 US shipping, actual cost + $1 for international [first class padded envelope: assume 2 oz for up to 10 imps and 3oz for more than 10 imps]
MINIMUM TO ORDER A BOTTLE: 2/6 slots filled
ADD BOTTLE AT: Second person on the waitlist will trigger another bottle
BOTTLE LIMIT: 60 bottles total, across all scents
ORDER WILL BE PLACED: August 3
HALF BOTTLES/FULL BOTTLES/RIDE-ALONGS: Yes; add $1 in-US and $1 plus an additional 1 oz of shipping weight for every bottle or 10 imps for international.

Note: since I've pretty reliably been getting at least 6 decants out of a bottle, I'm going to experiment with signing up 6 people per bottle for this round. We'll see how that works out!

To sign up: comment here with the scents you want, one name per line, preferably in the same order they appear in the post. You must give me an email address for me to send the PayPal invoice to -- if you don't want to leave the address publicly, you can PM me, or use the screened email address post. If you have a wishlist of GC scents, give me a link to that, too.

Here's an easy template to copy/paste:
Name/Username: PayPal email address: US or international shipping: Link to wishlist: Please sign me up for:

( Scents and signup )