Viktoria Minya Hedonist Iris Review

Another birthday has come and gone and I keep going back and forth what I want to do for my birthday perfume. I keep debating on if I should get the new Andy Tauer release, as a blind buy or should I hop on over to Luckyscent and get Lonestar Memories and punch in the code to get a 5ml mini. I hope I can make a decision soon.

After getting my entire collection back where it should be, when I saw my full bottle of Hedonist, I remembered that I had a decant of one of the Hedonist flankers that I haven't tried, Hedonist Iris.

I was expecting something that would live up to the name. A decadent iris but decadent it was not. Hedonist Iris was a straight up floral with the main note like the iris of Chanel no 19 extrait. So much of the composition reminded me of the no 19 extrait but without the green and the bite. I got the barest hint of cedar but it didn't help much. Can you tell that I didn't really care for it and was disappointed?

For the price of a full bottle (I am happy that I just had a decant) and the looks of a full bottle, it's not worth it to me. If you are going to name something Hedonist, make it live up to it's name. The original Hedonist did.

New Releases

There was a time where I did pay attention to new releases. After a while, I only paid attention to only a few houses that were releasing something new. Amouage, Chanel, Andy Tauer and Serge Lutens were the ones that I did pay attention to. For a while, most of those houses have new releases every couple months and I couldn't keep up with all of the new releases. So many of the new releases have smelled like so many other perfumes that I have tried before or smelled on other people before. Except Andy Tauer.

Andy Tauer has been one of those perfumers that doesn't release a perfume every few months. Seems like every year and a half or maybe two, he does release something; so he takes his time with something. I have been eagerly awaiting his newest release and found out through his Facebook page that his newest creation is going to be released on September 15th. The funny thing is that it happens to be on my birthday and I am a huge Tauer fan. If it is full bottle worthy, I won't be able to sink money on a bottle but I am waiting for the moment that I can get my hands on a decant.

First World Perfume Problems

I have been going on and on about the whole cleaning out stuff and furniture but I do have two extra dressers and a nightstand. New dressers and a nightstand were needed, the ones that I had were small in so many ways. Since they were not that tall, it was easier for my dogs to go and knock things over. I had lost a few perfumes over that past few years with the dogs looking to see if there was anything interesting to swipe.

Now the guest bedroom is in chaos with so many of my clothes just piled up and there are other things all over the place. That means that I don't have access to at least 98% of my perfume collection. The only ones that I have access to already sit on my new dresser. A full bottle of vintage Jicky and Mitsouko, Kyoto, Noontide Petals and Chanel no 5 EDT. I am happy that I was able to swipe a mini of L'Air du Desert Morocain and all of my Andy Tauer samples and a decant of vintage BaV. Everything else is in cardboard boxes in a corner of the guest bedroom where I cannot get to it yet. So in a way, I am incredibly limited on what I really have available to me perfume wise. In a way it's hard because my perfume collection is there but right there, in s spot that I can't get to it. At least not yet. Today is not the day where I try to liberate my collection because I have something at least in the world of perfume but it's not going to be what I want. I want my bottle of Cuir de Russie, my decant of Coromandel, etc. I think that I will tackle this problem on Saturday and hopefully, I will have space for my Galileo thermometer collection too.

Fall

Here in the US, we are coming upon the unofficial end of summer. Summer doesn't technically end for another 3 weeks but kids are back in school and in many parts of the country, it's fair time. In a lot of ways, I do like going to my local county fair and will sometimes go to others. Seeing the animals, eating things that are not good for me. But every time I go to the fair, I keep thinking off what perfumes really work for fall. In Northeastern Ohio, fall is filled with county fairs, clambakes, cooler weather, changing of the leaves and eventually, changing of perfume to fit the season. I just can't help but wonder where the summer has gone. It seems like yesterday, the kids were just let out of school and making all this noise to dead quiet.

Quite a few of Andy Tauer's work do fit with fall but there are a few that really fit. I find that L'Air du Desert Marocain, Lonestar Memories and Au Coeur de Desert fit the best. I can say that Les Annees 25 and Noontide Petals fit pretty well too. Les Annees 25 was a limited edition and Noontide Petals has been discontinued. I am always saddened when a perfume is discontinued or I find out that a perfume that I fell in love with was a limited edition.

Guerlain has always been a little bit of a goofy house to me. Quite a few of their perfumes have been really sweet or more geared for spring and summer. I don't see that many that are geared for the changing into fall, except Mitsouko, especially in vintage form. Mitsouko has that muted amber thing going on that just seems to suit those cool fall nights.

Theorema is a fabulous fall fragrance. Sweet, candied oranges with an oriental feel. Not too heavy for fall and works in those fall days where it's not quite sweater weather but the longer sleeves that don't cover the whole arm. It's a pity that Fendi decided to discontinue this gem and I don't know why Fendi likes to discontinue things after 2 or 3 years.

Feminite du Bois is rounding up this little list. It doesn't really matter if you have the Serge Lutens or the Shiseido version because they both work very well in fall. Not too heavy but it's interesting because it's not a typical feminine perfume.

Samples, Samples and More Samples

I am still obsessed with some home based stuff. I am currently looking at corner shelving to put my perfume collection on since I am still working on my clothes situation. It's the getting rid of throwing stuff out and donating stuff that has been a huge challenge so far. It's amazing that how much stuff can be accumulated in such a short amount of time. But at this time, I am still looking at the Bath and Body Works wallflower refills. I am gearing up for having enough of them to last me a year before I need to stock up again. I am pretty picky on candles and room sprays. Most are either too strong or just smell strange. my favorites are the apple or lilac ones. The pumpkin apple or whatever they pair the apple with doesn't do it for me due to having just a very faint apple smell that's drowned out by the cinnamon, clove and other things that have been added.

Yesterday, I hopped on over to Andy Tauer's website to just bite the bullet and just order a mine of Les Annees 25. For some reason, when I went to check out, there was an issue. My order couldn't be completed and I was left scratching my head. I figured that I should check out Andy Tauer's blog to see if there might be any info and there was. Apparently, there is a problem with some kind of government agencies/post office that are starting to kick back sample packs and minis back to Andy Tauer. So right now, no more sample packs will be mailed to the US and I think a few other countries. I hope that this isn't permanent but it just might be. The funny thing about this is that Andy Tauer is still able to ship full bottles out to the US and that doesn't make any sense but when dealing with the post office/customs, nothing ever makes any kind of sense.

With that stuff said, I would rather order samples, minis and full bottles through Andy Tauer's website and not Luckyscent or anywhere else. I would rather the cash I am paying going directly to the perfumer and not some middleman.

Vintage Shalimar Extrait Review

I have finally cracked open a bottle of vintage Shalimar extrait and wore it. I don't wear Shalimar that often for some strange reason. For quite a while, I was prowling E-bay and was always on the hunt for reasonably priced bottles of vintage Mitsouko, Shalimar and Jicky. I was mainly looking for the teardrop bottles and if the price was reasonable, I got it. If the bottle was sealed, bonus. Somehow, I managed to score two unopened bottles of vintage Shalimar extrait and one of the bottles was from the 1950's and the other is probably from the 1960's. The one I am reviewing is from the '60's.

The first blast was a whole lot of citrus, something lemony. Since it is vintage, the citrus smells a little bit damaged. Then the vanilla and leather do come out. I've noticed that the vanilla and leather doesn't come as far out in the extrait like in the current EDP, which I am the most familiar with. Nor do I get an animalic growl, well maybe a faint trace of it. Maybe I am too used to the skank in vintage BaV, Keihl's Original Musk and MKK.

After wearing the extrait and then wearing the current EDP version, I had remembered why I don't wear the original Shalimar too much. I don't wear it much because I am not a huge fan of a large dose of citrus in an oriental perfume. I really do enjoy the Shalimar Ode a la Vanille. The Ode a la Vanille does bring the animal growl out and amps up the vanilla while toning down the citrus aspect. But at the end of the day, I wasn't moved by the vintage extrait of Shalimar and that is probably a little sad.

Home Fragrance

For quite a while, I have been working on getting rid of stuff and trying to organize stuff. It's a huge process and there are a few sections that I haven't even begun to sort out. I am trying to get rid of a bunch of stuff and it's difficult to do.

 But one of the things that I am working on is wanting to figure out my shelving situation. Some of the shelving is for my clothes and the other is for perfume. I was thinking some corner shelves for my perfume and then have regular ladder like shelves for my clothes. When I actually decided to get all of that, it will make organization much easier for me. But first the serious cleaning and painting must be done. I still can't decide if I want the carpet replaced or not.

My new obsession right now is the Bath and Body Works wallflower plug ins and the refills. Bath and Body Works used to be my go to place for body wash and lotions. But Bath and Body Works isn't a huge part of my life for anything fragrant. Things with Bath and Body Works did change. Eventually, prices had gone up quite a bit, some scents were "retired", some discontinued but the biggest thing was many of the new releases and some of the big store sellers had changed to the point of they didn't smell good. Too chemically smelling to smell good or too potent.

So now I have found two scents in the form of candles or the wallflower plug ins but they are seasonal. I have always loved lilac and in the spring the lilac blossom is my go to and in the fall it is the farm stand apple or what ever they decide from year to year the name for a straight up apple scent. Candles are a very goo thing to have when you live in a rural area and the power goes out on a regular basis. When the power goes out, I don't know if it will be an hour or 12 hours or more and I would rather have a bunch of candles just in case.