Binge Watching and Reading

Slowly but surely, I have started my whole binge watching of Vienna Blood and I have started to read the Leiberman letters series. I haven't been much in the mood for reading or binge watching anything. But I did force myself to get started on reading the first book of the Leiberman papers series. After getting through the first book, I did realize that this series is not for someone on a diet. The descriptions on food an coffee will make one not diet. I did enjoy the first book but I think that I am going to have to read it again. I am not used to every chapter being from a different character's point of view and I think that there is a ton that I missed.

After the new year, there isn't much happening on television. This is a dreary time of year. There isn't a new season of anything going on right now. The Sunday after Super Bowl Sunday was the season finale of All Creatures Great and Small and there hasn't been much on to keep my interest since then. PBS will premire the newest season of Call the Midwife on the 30th. So until that time, I will have to get moving on binge watching Vienna Blood, which is based off of the Leiberman papers.

 

But let's talk some bottle porn. I'm at a point where I don't care too much about the packaging of a perfume any more, I am more interested in the perfume itself. But when my bottle of the original Lolita Lempicka tipped over and I lost most of the contents, I decided to get a ne bottle. The old style bottle was and is darling and I am wondering on why a bottle change was needed. Was it because Lolita Lempicka went cruelty free and that is why there was a need to rename the original perfume to Mon Premire and change the bottle with it. I found the original bottle of Lolita Lempicka is be a stripped down, easier to wear version of L'Heure Bleu but still a really good perfume that wasn't a morgage payment.

 One can obviously tell the difference between the bottles and I do prefer the old style bottle compared to the new bottle. The base of the new bottle is so tiny to the point of too tiny. The older bottle might not have been as stable as it could have been but it I found that the older bottle was a little easier for me to wield when I would apply the perfume. With this new bottle, there are too many inconsistenties to be held comfortably in my hand. Now I am terrified that if I drop this bottle, this bottle is all over the place with bottle thickness and with the bottom being so tiny, it will just be easier to break. The new version of the juice seems to be a little more sheer than what I remember. I can't exactly be mad though, I spent around $30 for a 50ml but in this economy, if I am going to shell out 2 hours worth of work, I do expect something a little bit more. That is how my approach to perfume buying is when I am in the market for a full bottle. With the cost of food and everything else, I have to be a little more cautious.

Right now, I am not in the market for full bottles.My latest sin is when Luckyscent sent me an email for 10% off everything in the store and free shipping over the weekend. I splurged on a travel spray of Gris Charnel and the Parfums Nicholai discovery set. If the Gris Charnel extrait version ever came out in travel spray form, I would probably get that.

Spring and Upcoming Stuff

Spring is supposed to be on it's way. What is funny, the past few days, we were in the low 60's and on Saturday, we hit the low 70's. What bummed me out on Saturday was that I had to work until 8pm and I couldn't enjoy the weather. But here I am on St. Patrick's Day with temps in the 30's but do get to enjoy some 70 degree weather on Wednesday. In ways, I really hate this time of year. I never know what the weather is going to be. We might have a day or two of warm weather and then it's a week of cold and crappy weather.

Since the weather is pretty odd, I have taken to having only 4 or 5 full bottles on my nightstand. Partly to see what I can do with finishing full bottles. The only full bottle that is 100ml is Amouage Lyric. The rest are 30ml or 50ml. But I do have a couple travel sprays and a fist full of dabber samples that I want to use up. Yes, I am still on the using things up challange.

I made a pact with myself is that I am not getting anymore full bottles of anything until I finish at least 5 bottles of perfume. I say this after I decided to order a full bottle of the original Lolita Lempicka perfume. The price was a little too good for a 1 ounce bottle. I have a smidgen left of my 50ml bottle. Three years ago, my bottle of Lolita Lempicka had tipped over and I lost most of the perfume and I didn't realize it right away. Some of the reason was that when there was a monster cleaning going on in my bedroom, my aunt was helping me for some reason and she was just carelessly throwing my perfume into a storage tub. I didn't catch that part right away but when I did, I had to bring her up short. Every perfume nerd has quite a few perfumes that cost major money and I had to tell her that I wasn't game for losing bottles of perfume that kind of ran to be $200 and above. In a way, I was happy that the original Lolita Lempicka didn't cost me a lot when I first bought it and it's still inexpensive.

Since finances are still a sore spot, I had to sit down and look at some things. I have Mother's Day and two birthdays coming up in May. With my TBI and ADHD, I do have issues with execuative function. I might have a few weeks to plan gifts, I can't wait until the last minute. If I wait until the last moment, I won't really have the financial means and I run the risk of whatever I get to not arrive in time. My mother's birthday is a week and a half after Mother's Day and my friend's birthday is 3 days before my mother's. This friend and I have a boundry of gifts that will be exchanged are to be no more than $15 to $20. I mostly have my Mother's Day gift ready but have to get going on thinking on her birthday. Worst comes to worst, I have $300 worth of Ulta points that I can use and gwt her a Dolce and Gabanna travel spray set. But I still have the time to come up with ideas. Or wait until Sephora has their spring sale and save 15%.
 

Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 62 Perfume Mist Review

 For the longest time, I didn't pay much attention to the Sol de Janeiro line up. It seemed like their line up was a little too expensive for what it seemed to be. And maybe a little too common. For a while, Sol de Janeiro had this whole Bath and Body Works vibe but a shade more expensive. But then I got a travel body wash and lotion sometime last year and did enjoy them. So a few days ago, Ulta offered a 5 points per every dollar spent on Sol de Janeiro products. I did bite on the travel kit of the Cheirosa 62. It came with minis of the body wash, Bum Bum cream and a body spray. With that order, I did spring for the travel spray of the perfume since summer is on the way.

So yesterday, I decided to give the Cheirosa 62 body spray a go. While I did enjoy the body wash and lotion, I haden't tried the body sprays or the perfume proper, I will eventually get to that travel spray, I wanted to bust out the body spray and give that a go. Some times with matching bath and body stuff, the perfume itself can smell pretty different than the body wash and lotion. I noticed that with my Chanel no 5 products and a little bit with  the Amouage body products but I didn't get that with Cheirosa 62. While I didn't layer the body spray with the bath stuff, the body spray smells exactly like the body wash and lotion. I wanted to get a little better impression if I just used the body spray on it's own to see what I thought.

The look and feel of the bottle reminds me of all the bottles of the Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon that I went through when I was in high school and the first couple years of college. I am not going to discuss what happened to Bath and Body Works in the past 20 years because it's not the Bath and Body Works that I remember. Too many reformulations, discontinuations and bottle changes and not to mention price.

I did get a little bit of a nutty, foodie type of smell with maybe some hints of flowers. But I got a little bit of a Worth Courtesan vibe to it too but fruit isn't listed in the notes. But what really got to me is that how the Cheirosa 62 faded pretty quick on my skin. I had only gotten about three to four hours of wear before I had to reapply. I wanted to see what kind of development would happen and there was none, it was just linear to my nose. But Cheirosa 62 was sweet but not horribly so. I honestly think that the body spray isn't to be used on it's own but with the lotion and body wash. All I know right now is that the body spray of Cheirosa 62 is not something that I am going to seek out. Eventually, I will get to the EDP version and see what the reading for that one is. So I am probably going to stick with the lotion and body wash.

Rogue Perfumery Flos Mortis Review

 A couple weeks ago, I had a dentist appointment and the news wasn't good. I am losing pretty much the rest of my back teeth. As far back as I can remember, I have always had dental anxiety. But 10 to 15 years ago, I did start to have some serious trouble with my teeth. The whole teeth were starting to break apart and did have quite a few of my back teeth pulled. What my neurologist failed to mention is how a good chunk of seizure medications cause dry mouth and dry mouth can do quite a number on your teeth. If things like this are talked about well before dental issues arise, I think I might have been able to save teeth. So now I have an appointment on April 2nd for getting those teeth pulled.

For the past week, I have been wearing the living snot out of my decant of Rogue Perfumery's Flos Mortis. Since my love for tuberose is really recent, I have been slowly giving tuberose dominant perfumes either another try or just trying them. So it's Flos Mortis right now. I have a couple other tuberose dominant scents to try out but let's do this one at a time.

I had to give a laugh at the translated name of Flos Mortis. The translated name is flower of death. Unlike De Profundis, which sounds and smells like something sad, Flos Mortis doesn't smell sad. It's a lush, loud tuberose without smelling crude. The indoles are in the tuberose but the indoles don't beat you over the head. Flos Mortis is slutty, just like vintage Bal a Versailles. Vintage Bal a Versailles has no real dominant note that stands out besides the musks and the dominant not in Flos Mortis is tuberose. I do get a little bit of jasmine and leather in this get up but I mostly smell the sluttiest tuberose that I have smelled so far. But I enjoyed my rollerball sample of Flos Mortis to the point of almost using up the whole sample and skipping to Luckyscent to snag a bottle. Spraying Flos Mortis might give me a little bit of a different reading but the rollerball gave me a solid reading. I enjoyed how long this lasted on my skin. The lasting power was at least 6 to 7 hours. The 30ml bottle that I ordered is a little more expensive than the 30ml bottle of Number One Intense but anything under $100 for niche is a bargain.

 

Theodoros Kalotinis Jasmine of Athens Review

You know that tuberose dominant perfumes used to be something that dispised until recently. But the funny thing is that I always had a love for jasmine dominant perfumes. In the past few months, I have been buying cheap bottles of perfume and samples from Luckyscent but it's more the sample buying than anything else. And poking around Luckyscent, late at night, I stumbled across Jasmine of Athens and figured that I was going to give this a go.

I was hoping for a jasmine bomb type of perfume, kind of like A la Nuit. Jasmine of Athens is decidedly not a jasmine bomb. I only got a shit ton of jasmine in probably 5 minutes and then it turned into some kind of generic vanilla perfume with a handful of bananas thrown in. The jasmine tries to peak out but all I am getting is vanilla. In all honesty, I was mentally spitting out all kinds of profanity. With niche, I do expect something a little bit more. Jasmine of Athens was lacking on so many levels. No jasmine bomb, too much vanilla and it didn't need bananas thrown into the mix. For $55, I expected something a little better. If I want something vanilla, I would slap on some Vanilla Flash. But with a banana, I think that anything with banana isn't my vibe. So I think that I will stick to the tried and true A la Nuit and Sarrasins for my jasmine needs right now.

For a while, I was doing just fine by not getting more bottles of perfume and refraining from full bottle blind buys but this was a stupid move. The only two things that were remotley good was I didn't spend boatloads of money on this one and one of my friends fell in love with this one, so I gave it to her.
 

The Only Time I Feel Like a Millionaire

 It's that time of year again. The time of year where you either owe or get a refund. It's tax season and I just filed my taxes. For me, it's the only time where I feel like a millionaire because I get a refund. Since I don't have dependants, my refunds are small. This year's tax refund is a little bigger.

On one shoulder, I have a voice saying that I should get one of the many perfumes that I haven't bought yet but really want and the other shoulder, I have the sensible voice saying that I can't do that. With a larger cellphone bill and I am making sure that this year is the year that I follow through with bankrupcy. I scoured the Ohio missing money website and saw that I did have something and it is a fairly big amount. With the tax refund and that "missing money", I would have enough to pay a lawyer for the bankrupcy and have enough left over to pay for my larger cellphone bill and not have to worry so much. Plus, I am on the using up decants and sample challange. So I don't exactly want to go adding more full bottles or decants to my collection.

One of the bottles of perfume that I really want is a larger bottle of no 5 parfum and the other is a current version of no 19 edt or maybe the parfum version of Coco. There are some niche bottles that I would like but I am drawing a blank on which one would I like the most. Maybe I will go with an Andy Tauer offering but the perfume buying is going to be much farther down the road.

Rogue Perfumery Chypre Siam EDT Review

 Not too long ago, I did buy a discovery set from Luckyscent. It seems like more and more niche perfume houses are offering discovery sets. Discovery sets didn't seem to be as common back when I fell down the rabbit hole. Mainstream perfumes did have some of those mini perfume sets but the ones I mainly saw was from Calvin Klien or whoever made the Curve line up. So it was the low end perfume houses that offered those. But since more and more niche brands are offering discovery sets, I have been more of on the hunt for those. Discovery sets are a little more cost effective than a full bottle blind buy.

So I did decide to bite and get a discovery set of Rogue Perfumery. The price was right for how many of the Rogue Perfumery offerings. I was impressed with the packaging. The very outer part was almost like a jewelry box and when I opened the box, all the perfumes were in a velvet bag with a card that listed all of the perfumes in the bag along with the the notes. What took me by surprise was that the samples were 1.5ml and instead of spray samples, they are rollerballs. Most discovery sets that I have gotten were either dabbers or spray decants so this was new territory for me.

The first one that I pulled out was Chypre Siam. I did get a little bit of lime but then the mossiness from the oakmoss hit. And the oakmoss component is huge in this one. One would think that with a more realistic oakmoss smell, it would be a vintage Mitsouko. But the longer that this was on my skin, I was wondering and asking on where have I smelled this before. Then it came to me. It was like vintage Mitsouko and vintage Obsession got together and Chypre Siam was the end result. Once I made the association, I couldn't smell much else, even after two seperate wearings. With a rollerball application, the projection is probably not as strong as a spray. But with this being an edt formulation, I got a solid 7 hours out of Chypre Siam.

Would I ever get a bottle? I don't know, the Rogue Perfumery prices are reasonable (in terms of niche) when I go to Luckyscent. But I am going to see how the rest of the discovery set plays out. But I am really interested in the rest of the set due the fact that this is a perfume house that thinks more outside the box.