Last night, my favorite vendor of perfume oils, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, released a bevy of limited edition autumn/Halloween-themed scents. I’m finding it very difficult to keep my mouse finger still and not snap up the entire collection, despite the dire state of my expenses and the fact that I already have more BPAL oils than I can possibly use before they go rancid.

I’m moderate in so many things - why do I go crazy for little bottles of smellies?

The economics of my BPAL habit…

To understand my quandary a little more in detail, it’s important to understand BPAL’s business model: they have around 300 catalog scents. At any time, you can order either a bottle of a catalog scent ($15 for 5mL), or a sample, called an imp ($3.50). The real business, however, is not in the general catalog (GC) scents; it’s the limited editions (LE). These come out for a limited amount of time, are a little more expensive (the Halloween ones are $17.50/bottle) and are not available in sample sizes. You have to buy an entire bottle unsniffed, which is risky business. I have only once done this, and it was a mistake. I was, however, able to recoup my money: if you buy unsniffed and dislike the fragrance, you can usually resell it for 90-100% of your cost.

One way out of this must-buy-bottle-unsniffed conundrum is to participate in decant circles, where one person buys a bottle and distributes samples to everyone who participates. There are a few going on right now for $3.50-$3.75 per sample. I’m looking at least 8-10 things I want samples of (autumn always was my favorite season), so that would be an outlay of $30-$40. I’d then have to hope I got the decants - and had a chance to test them - before the scents came down on November 15th, so if I liked a particular one I could order a bottle.

Keep in mind that all of these oils only have a shelf life of about a year.

You can see that the real problem with having expensive perfume oils as a spending trigger is that, even purchasing in small amounts, the goal is ultimately to purchase in larger amounts. The resale-ability of the perfumes leads one to believe, perhaps too strongly, that you are buying as an investment, when honestly, most of these items have limited shelf lives.

… and the psychology.

Your time to make a decision is limited, too, and there’s a real fear of “missing out.” What if that one LE is your PERFECT SCENT? You might find out too late, and spend the rest of your life haunting the sale threads, endlessly typing “ISO Dia de Los Muertos 2007!” Even decant circles fill up fast; unless you have decanting supplies (pipettes, 1/32 oz vials, etc), if you miss out, you’re at the mercy of whoever deigns to start one next.

There’s some groupthink involved here, too. Just because BPAL is not mainstream (yet), doesn’t mean that the consumer culture is not alive. There are lots of people who insist that “bottles are best” and right now on the BPAL forums many people are throwing down the money for 12-20 bottles at once. (I am so not kidding). When everyone else HAS to have the entire Pumpkin Patch collection ($80 for five bottles) or the entire Haunted House collection ($120), or all of the scents at once, you end up feeling somehow deficient if you aren’t spending as well. You will be the poor, lonely, buck-toothed girl, dabbing on your tired ol’ bottle of Hellcat, while all the popular girls are sporting Samhainophobia 2007.

… and this analogy probably best explains why BPAL is such a spending trigger for me. On most occasions, I am not a very girly girl. I never wear makeup and I probably shop for clothes 3-4 times a year. But I love smelling nice. It’s such a sensual pleasure. BPAL also offers scents I can’t get in mainstream perfumes - I like smelling like buttered rum, honey mead, and almonds, for example- and I definitely identify with the kind of person who buys these perfumes. I want to be eccentric and fun and geeky and yet pretty. I dream of finding a perfume that is the perfect eau de Lise.

Once again I am buying not five milliliters of perfume, but dreams. I have nothing but good things to say about the quality of BPAL’s product, and so I guess this wouldn’t be so bad, except in the way that is supersedes my ultimate goal: financial freedom, and the freedom to not have to work for a living for the rest of my life.

I haven’t ordered any Halloween scents yet. I’m not sure if I will. I’m thinking it over before jumping in this time.

What are your own spending triggers?

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