"Used Cosmetics Samples" - More Perfume Mailing Mither And My Makeupalley Karmic Comeuppance

Perfume lovers the world over like to spread the love. They do this on the swap scene of Makeupalley, the various split sites like Google Scent Splits, as well as spontaneously sending so-called "care packages" of perfume to fellow fumeheads in need, of which I have also been a lucky recipient.

Unfortunately, the postal services pretty much anywhere you care to name take a dim view of mailing perfume. I had a pop at the US Post Office once following an encounter with a very draconian counter clerk in Venice, LA - see the US POST OFFICE DIGRESSION about half way down this post. And fragrance is still prohibited by dangerous goods regulations here in the UK, though that looks set to change for consumers in July of this year according to an article last November in the trade magazine "Post and Parcel":

"Royal Mail customers will be able to post items like aerosols, nail varnishes, perfumes and aftershaves to UK addresses from next year, after a review of rules banning such items from the postal network."

VENICE POST OFFICE - NICE FRESCOS, SHAME ABOUT THE SPANISH INQUISITION

The rules regarding international outbound parcels were revised earlier this month, and sadly the position has not eased on shipping perfume to friends across the pond, though it's good news for those of us who had been champing at the bit to send lithium batteries on a bit of a hike.

"Aerosols will continue to be prohibited from international parcels, as will nail varnish, perfumes and aftershaves, but when lithium batteries are contained within an electronic device, the revised rules will allow them to be sent internationally."

So it looks as though, for the foreseeable future, it's business as usual when it comes to posting perfume outside the EU, namely getting creative with the content descriptions on the customs form. The tried and tested favourite of Makeupalley swappers who are bold enough to flout the rules in this way is: "used cosmetics samples", though the prize for the all-time most audacious descriptor has to go to The MOTH, Bloody Frida's husband, for writing "knitted hat" on a consignment of perfume bound for me. Included in the parcel were admittedly a couple of skeins of sock wool, but even so, "knitted hat" was spectacularly stretching the point. (The whole charming story is reported here.)

Yes, I have been sneaking packages of perfume past international customs officials with the weasel words "cosmetic samples" for some five years now. I guess "perfume" could very loosely be construed as a subset of "cosmetics", certainly of beauty products. However, "the beauty" of saying "cosmetics" rather than "beauty" is that it sounds reassuringly solid, and not likely to slosh around in transit, like a cleansing lotion or shampoo - or God forbid, an alcohol-based product like perfume. The addition of "used" merely serves to gross out the officials - and with any luck put them off their spot check duties with disagreeable visions of half-used cacky cakes of shimmer shadow, claggy mascaras and smeary stubs of lipstick.

And then some time last year, I entered into a swap more as a "coerced act of kindness" than because of any interest in the items the swapper had on offer, quite the reverse. The swapper in question - as I later learnt - has acquired a bit of a reputation for cajoling her fellow Makeupalley members into doing deals they would not otherwise have entertained. In this case she wanted 15-20ml of Creed Love in Black in return for anything I could pick out from her list of mostly make up items and drugstore fragrances. At one point she said I could have EVERYTHING on her list, which actually filled me with alarm.

"I have longed for this fragrance for so long...I am seldom able to go out...I do enjoy wearing good fragrances at home because it lifts my mood...if you would swap, consider it your good deed for the day.... actually for this fragrance, it would be your good deed for the year."

So in the face of such a compelling appeal to my better nature, of course I caved in to her plea, and we settled on the Creed in return for a Sue Devitt blusher. It was in a colour (Malay Reef) which may or may not have suited me, not ever having come across the brand in the UK. It was hard to judge the shade in Google images, but it looked on the dark side to me, the sort of shade that Christina Aguilera might even consider ill-advised. Not to worry, I thought. I am going to consider this as a good deed for an unspecified timeframe! (A year did sound rather a long time to me. What about all those charity bags that come through my door with annoying frequency, all vying for my attention? Am I to ignore them, pleading a prior Creed good deed last March?)

But anyway, I sent off my end of the swap, duly labelled as "used cosmetic samples", even though it was in fact a single large atomiser of Love in Black (with a smaller one as an extra). After a couple of weeks and a few bizarre crossed wires with the swapper, the details of which I shan't trouble you with, I received my package containing the blusher. And - finally - I also received my customs-snook-cocking comeuppance. For the blusher had been swiped already ie it was "a used cosmetic", if not a sample as such. And that had not been made clear in the exchanges between me and the swapper. The plastic metal-effect case was also scratched, but some people might not have been too bothered by that.

So the central item was a bit of a disapointment to be honest, and the RAOK (Random Act of Kindness) extras that had been put in with it were a bit offbeat - costume jewellery of a type I wouldn't wear, and a lipstick from Lola Cosmetics called VICE in a shade to match - but in fairness people can't be expected to know my taste.

But meanwhile....meanwhile.....there was the wrapping to admire, for this was hands down the most elaborately and exquisitely wrapped swap parcel I have ever received. Gauze and ribbon and petals and miscellaneous haberdashery fripperies and I don't know what. I couldn't help but be impressed. I felt as girlishly thrilled as my four year old self in a tutu. All my misgivings about the evenness of the swap or the wheedling manner in which the deal had been struck fell away, as I plunged my hands gleefully into the sea of petals. And even now I still chuckle about the day I actually received used cosmetics that weren't even labelled as such...

Have you had any less than stellar - or merely downright peculiar - swaps? Do share! Can you beat my all-time most bizarre extra item, a face mask fashioned from sheeps' placentas? For your sakes, I do hope not.




Photo of Venice Post Office from venicebeachliving.com, photo of Christina Aguilera from lovelyish.com, other photos my own. NB I have since tried the blusher, but even on arrival it was obvious that it had been previously used.

Another Unsung Hero Of The Swap Scene - Bubble Wrap

Seasoned perfume swappers think nothing of shipping perfume many thousands of miles to fellow fumeheads standing by to give them a loving home - or to parcel them up and send them on their way again if they don't appeal... I have written several posts about issues with leaky or otherwise tricky atomisers, and it is self-evident that when choosing receptacles in which to send a swap item, only the most airtight and well-behaved vials need apply. Assuming the container is sound, the next step is to seal it securely with electrical insulation tape, as detailed in my previous "unsung hero" post. There is the screw thread part, the bit where the top fits onto the base, and even the hole in the atomiser mechanism to consider. The conscientious swapper may swathe the decant so comprehensively in tape that it looks like a mummy - or a cowboy - as noted in my post on "bias cut" tape designs.

But there are several more stages to go in the making up of a leakproof parcel. For example, I often place the taped atomisers into polythene bags before swaddling them generously in bubble wrap and placing them in a Jiffy bag, which is itself a padded envelope lined with bubble wrap - whence the US term for these of "bubble mailer".

This "double bubble" approach is perhaps the most common way in which perfumistas wrap their swap items, though some swappers - with standards of presentation as high as those of safety - will go on to wrap the bubble wrapped package in coloured tissue or other styles of gift paper. This has the additional benefit of putting intrusive customs officials off the scent, as it were - on the basis that only the most hardhearted and "Jobsworthy" amongst them are going to rip off such obvious and pristine gift trappings on the offchance that the package may contain a concealed weapon or one of the myriad of other hazardous goods on their hit list.

In my experience though, bubble wrap remains the packaging material of choice, and perfumistas who engage in regular swapping will get through a ton of the stuff in the course of a typical year. Oh okay, maybe not a ton, because admittedly it doesn't weigh very much, but a goodly amount in volume terms, certainly. And what is really handy is that bubble wrap is something you never need to buy - regular top up supplies just miraculously appear pretty much every time you buy an item by mail order.

The best "harvest" of fresh bubble wrap is yielded by larger or heavier items such as electronic goods, though some of these may also come ensconced in rigid polystyrene, which is no good to us fumeheads. That said, their close relative, the polystyrene chip, is a good substitute for bubble wrap, though the chips have an annoying habit of either sticking to your hands because of their static charge, or conversely skittering all over the work surface and/or floor.

And even within the category of bubble wrap proper, there is a qualitative hierarchy, indeed one of the reasons why this post is somewhat delayed is because I was tracking down one or two remaining species, with a view to photographing them.

The award for the most useless type must go to large gauge bubble wrap, which increases the volume of the wrapped item by a factor of 500, and makes it damn near impossible to insert the swap package into an envelope, whether a bubble mailer or not.

The "standard" and most useful type of bubble wrap has smaller blisters that are no more than 3mm in height when fully inflated (I just measured a classic piece, so you can take this figure as pretty accurate). It comes in large sheets that may be cut to size. Ideally, it will not already have any Sellotape on it, for sure as eggs are eggs, once you start tugging that darn tape off, the bubble wrap will distort and tear into wretchedly ragged shapes that are frankly not socially acceptable on the swap scene, even allowing for people's tolerance of a recycled material.

As well as the useless bits you accidentally rip in this way, the average perfume swap package you set about plundering for its bubble wrap will typically come with some small rolled up bits of the stuff enclosing individual atomisers. These should be systematically sniffed before reuse, as they may be impregnated with the smell of the scent in question, and have to be discarded.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Rolls-Royce of bubble wrap formats is the READY-MADE POCKET. If my memory serves me, I recently sent Alnysie's prize draw samples in one of these, and after those colourful mood-enhancing gauze drawstring bags to which I made reference in a recent post, preformed bubble wrap pockets are about as sexy as it gets in the swapper's world.

Well, I say that...I have recently started to notice another new packaging material on the block - or on the roll, rather: it is a distant cousin of the polystyrene chip (and block), but is instead a thin, pliable sheet of polystyrene - opaque, and more or less as durable as bubble wrap at a guess, although it lacks any overt cushioning elements. And recently I received a swap package that was also housed in a preformed pocket of this material. Teecake was the recipient of this specimen when I sent her her giveaway samples, though not before I had photographed my hand modelling it as a glove. : - )

So....question time!

Do you have a favourite style/gauge of bubble wrap?

Have you ever found a use for the large gauge stuff, or does it lurk unnervingly behind the door of a cupboard, occupying a disproportionate amount of space?

When it comes to polystyrene, are you a fan of this new sheeting material, and do you also attract the chips as a magnet gathers iron filings?

Are there perhaps even more aspirational types of protective packaging material out there which I have yet to discover?





Photo of Concealed Weapons School sign from Wikimedia Commons, other photos my own