ZOMG Smells

The shop site (zomgsmellsshop) is compromised: please don't go there.

I'm working on getting just plain zomgsmells back up so you have a place for scent descriptions again, though it will not be taking orders.

I am clawing my way back to health, but I'm also moving. I'm trying to put together the few orders I still have and dearly want to send off, and then after the move I will consider if I can actually get the shop back up for real operation, and if anyone still wants me to.

This is what happened that temporarily broke me as a person, and why I curled into an awful, nonfunctional little ball:

My ex-fiance died in December 2021. That's the person I dropped everything and flew thousands of miles to take care of in 2020, leaving Helper Mom to run things for what was only supposed to be a few months. Before I had my own emergency. Before we knew Mom was sick too.

Mom has had a bad time living with the limitations of PAH, a catheter in her chest, and a medicine pump she had to wear 24/7 or die, and that was also very bad for my mental health, because she was questioning if she wanted to live like that and leaning hard toward no, and I love her. We're very close.

Ex-fiance was already an ex for good reasons, he broke important promises and then I got stuck unable to get home for a year, but his death still hit me very hard.

I've been a mess. I'm sorry. I'm not okay yet. Mom is much better thanks to new meds that mean she stopped needing the pump and moved to an inhaler; we have hope now. I've been crying at the drop of a hat for way too long. I'm trying to get better so I can handle important smell things again, because I do love it and I should be able to rebuild, right? It shouldn't be this hard, right? But I just... fell to pieces.

Flashes of normal me keep coming through, mostly in dark humor. "Stupid near-death emergency" as a great scent name, because that crap has happened to a lot of people. I'm not special there.

I am ashamed of being so very broken, but I'm working to get better.

I'm sorry it has affected you. I have hope again, and my family is still alive, and that's big.

You don't know how much I really do think you're all amazing people and appreciate that you exist.

--Ariel

Dear everyone: I'm going to be processing a lot of refunds in the next few days to catch up with requests. I'm sorry it's taken me so long. I'm still not able to make scents and ship them out yet, so refunds are the thing to do unless you tell me otherwise for yours.

Here's the story: Although I recovered well from my own surgery, Helper Mom came to take care of me and promptly ended up in the ER and then hospital herself with what turned out to be PAH (pulmonary arterial hypertension). It's a heart and lung disease basically caused by stiff lungs, and it's incurable, though treatable (painfully). It's been a long road getting her to a hopefully-survivable point, and she can't help out with scents anymore. Please send good thoughts; she's mixed and packed a LOT over the years, so if you've been around awhile she probably touched your orders with love and care.

I kept thinking when this started happening IN JANUARY that we'd get her fixed up and everything would be ok and she could go home, but it took months and months of being stuck in GA where we ended up with a specialist doctor, with mom weak and needing constant care from me, before she was cleared to go home to HI and dad taking over for help. Then I went back to FL, because the family health thing I was helping with that was supposed to be temporary.. has not been fixed either, further interrupting my life and ZOMG Smells. I'm trying to get THAT to a sustainable point so I can go pack up ZOMG in HI myself and work, then ship it to where I will be... or to someone I trust who can run it temporarily. I've been talking to someone about that.

Anyway. I'm sorry for all the trouble to you. I feel terrible, but that doesn't help you. Refunds do, and since I can't mix and ship again yet.. that's what I'm doing. Thanks, all of you, for your courtesy and patience and general awesomeness over the years. You're such wonderful people, I can't even. It's an honor to have touched your lives in a positive smelly way. I hope I'll be able to again one day soon.

Ariel

Dear ZOMG friends: About a month ago, I had to go to the hospital for emergency major surgery due to a Victorian-era-level situation of "yank that crazy organ out and put it in a jar for posterity." I've been really out of it and recovering for a couple of weeks now, and things are going very well. I will be fine. I don't really know what level of detail is appropriate here, so I'm just going to tell you some stuff because 1. you deserve to know why I stopped answering and have to catch up, and 2. it might help one of you one day, because what happened to me was weird.

So. I had a fibroid uterus. In essence, it grew some wacky stuff in it-- one of which weighed four pounds-- and got bigger and bigger until it was trying to cage-match one of my kidneys by choking it out via blocking the ureter, which is both a hilarious word and a distressingly necessary tube that leads from your kidney to your bladder.

I thought I had food poisoning. In actual fact, my system had gone septic because of the kidney thing. I tried to go to urgent care, they pointed out that my nailbeds were blue, and made me go to the hospital... where I stayed for nearly two weeks. So, uh. If you think you have food poisoning that doesn't get better after three days, please go to the doctor, and please listen to them if they say you need to go to the hospital. You probably do.

Helper Mom-- valiant and wonderful soul that she is-- stopped working on your orders and flew out in a hurry to be with me. I'm trying to teach Helper Dad how to mix perfume over the phone, but I have been pretty useless until the last couple of days. I'm getting better. I will be totally fine again, just short an organ. It will take awhile, though.

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience to everyone whose orders didn't make it out before Mom came to take care of me. They WILL get fulfilled, but at a delay. As always when I get delayed, there will be some form of compensation in extra, new, or rare squees.

I humbly ask that you bear with me while I work this out.

ZOMG update: a lot of packages have been sent out, and more will go out this coming week. I'm still out of town dealing with family health (and now it turns out I have hypertension myself, whee), but AWESOME MOM is working with me via Facetime to fufill orders and learning to make soap.

It turns out I've been missing messages by not getting notifications that I have them-- GAH. I'm hunting them all down and apologizing individually, but if you were affected, I am sincerely sorry. It's been a ride lately, but I promise not to disappear with your stuff.

Once we get caught up and I can re-allocate mompower (or even get to go home and help again), we'll be moving fulfillment to the very reliable Ajevie.com and things will be much smoother for you, because Angi is great at this. What this means is that Zomg will make batches of scents and soaps and send them over to Ajevie to let people order from that site, so selection will be limited at first, but much faster coming to you.

I appreciate you all so much. You are a group of courteous, patient, and lovely people, and I am glad I've met you all. In reading through orders, I discover the nicest comments about the scents you like best, and I love them all. You truly make my days. Thank you, Ariel

EDITED to add: the [email protected] email and domain are having trouble because I missed seeing the renewal notification email, too, in all the life fuss I've been having. It WILL be fixed soon too. Embarrassing as heck. Not nearly as bad as it looks, though.

NO FOOLIN': What's this? New stuff? Not exactly! It's OLD stuff-- but it's COOL, RARE old stuff, from April 1sts of old, and I'll let it stick around all April.

Captain of Industry Eating a Seagull. Camping in Marmalade. Dr. Zomg's Barbaric Splendour. Empty Airship Hangar. Lady Stabbington-Hackworth. Modesty Cod. Ren T**s. Sir Fightypants. Welcome back.

NO FOOLIN 2019 - ZOMG Smells What's this? No foolin', it's time to bring back some of the sillier stuff. Welcome back to many mixed-up mashups from yesteryear! Thanks, April spirit.

Dr. Zomg's Ninepenny Neroli & Basil Balm (neroli, sweet basil EO, white musk) is now shipping out as samples with my older orders, along with Dr. Zomg's All-Natural Lovely Lavender Load Lifter (elemi, palmarosa, fine French lavender, maille lavender, patchouli, every one an essential oil). Basically, if you don't have your order in hand yet, you'll be getting them in your extras. I'll pop 'em up on the site soon and hopefully we'll start seeing reviews so you lovely people can judge if they are concoctions that would go well with YOUR day!

I picked Ninepenny as my adjective because it's synonymous with cheap, and this blend is meant to offer a potential alternative to a rather expensive scent with similar ingredients, so I felt like it worked well and had a fun flow. I was really tempted by completely inappropriate alliterative adjectives that few folk would rush to put on their skin-- like naive, Neanderthal, and nihilistic-- but good sense (wistfully) prevailed.

Someone in New York just told me that her favorite scent is a current, popular thing from London with neroli and basil, but it's expensive and sells out. I looked it up and found that white musk is involved as well. Sounds like I ought to play with that trio and offer something where you're not paying out the nose for a brand name on common ingredients...

Update time! The wine scents are going well, I continue to get caught up, and in entirely unrelated news, last night/early this morning I had a brand new life experience: an earthquake while I was in the bathroom. No harm done but the hanging light swinging, but it certainly was startling.Thanks, Hawaii?

Hi, humans. I am sick in bed watching the Matrix on my phone. I have not forgotten you, but I have been disgustingly ill for about a week now-- probably thanks to something I touched when I went to go see How To Train Your Dragon 3 with my family, because my mom got it too. My brain and energy are coming back, so I had to update you. The new Teslas are absolutely still a thing, I just wanted to get all my outstanding orders sent before posting them. And then I got sick before I was done, but SO many things are sitting half-made or better, just waiting to be finished. Wine scents are also still a thing, but they require more fine-tuning-- oaked, fruity reds are going well, but a clean, fresh white is not yet quite where I want it, though notes of apple, pear and grapefruit would like to tell you hello. A recipe for roti canai and coconut chicken curry dipping sauce might also say hello tomorrow, although that is not why you come here. You might like my cooking too if you like my smells, though.

That Feeling When you accidentally click outside the active area of a long post and FB doesn't save it... ;_;

UPDATE TIME: I am still working on some older orders, and putting in extra goodies as always. My helper's been unavailable and I'm slow alone-- the Ariel is much better at creation than production. Woe.

COOKIES for the Mars Rover: an eloquent fan requested a re-release of this one in honor of Opportunity's long service (NASA announced Oppy's 15-year anniversary on my birthday, Jan 24!), and to keep the hope alive that one day, Oppy may wake to service again. I sniffled a little and said yes, of course.