Some of the waiting is over

I was accepted to the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium, in Category I (professional performance and recording of a piano piece) and Category IV (Balinese gamelan performance and composition). Yay! It should be a lot of fun, and Oregon summers are gorgeous.

I got my swap of The Apothecary. A BPAL review post will be coming later.

BPAL Update

While waiting for my next lab order to arrive, I engaged in some swapping.

Alas, I had to give up Euterpe. It smells lovely, a musky floral, for the first 30-45 minutes. Then, it smells absolutely exactly like my godmother, who passed away seven years ago. Wearing it at work was like having her standing over my shoulder all day. I like remembering my godmother, but this was really creepy.

ladybird97 sent me Delirium, along with sniffies of Jack and Dublin.
I wasn't sure about Delirium (rose, apple, and lemon), because it's way too common to get overwhelmed by cloying rose perfume on the T or when out shopping. But Delirium is nothing like that. On me, it's like fresh roses, still attached to the bush, out in the garden on a clear spring morning. I love it, and it's inspired me to try more rose-based scents.
Jack is the first BPAL scent that I've actively hated and the first one I've washed off right away. Its main note is pumpkin. But on me it's not the pumpkin of pie or bread. It's raw pumpkin, all vegetable-y. I could just barely detect something nice and spicy underneath, but the raw sticky pumpkin drowned it out.
Dublin, however, was a complete success. It's like being in the woods on a clear day after the rain. It's what I wanted Hamadryad to smell like. I have an imp coming in my lab order, and I can't wait to be able to wear it out and about.

I swapped for The Apothecary on the sinandsalvation community. I'm not sure what to think of it yet - I need to test it further. It's green and sharp, with an undercurrent of warmth and sweetness. I'm still not sure whether the overall effect is pleasantly herbal or too astringent and medicinal.