Sunday, December 30, 2012

Recap

Many blogs are doing recaps on what has been released, what are the best releases of the year, etc. I have only smelled one 2012 release (Amouage Interlude for women). This past year has been marked with trying to get back up bottles of Chanel no. 5 and no. 19 in edp form. What did not help is that this summer was marked with extreme heat and the only thing I could tolerate was Chanel no. 19. So I wasn't as motivated to try anything "new". For me, new doesn't always mean that it wasn't released in the past two years, it can be called new to me.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Amazon and Amouage

I hope that everyone that reads my blog, has had a nice holiday. It's always around either my birthday or around Christmas that I seriously look at a full bottle of Amouage. But it's always the same song and dance, I have narrowed it down to two of the Amouages but can only get 1. It's the debate between Gold and Lyric. What is bringing it on is that there is a $100 credit sitting in my Amazon account and the seller Lady Ruth seems to be running a discount on a lot of the Amouages. I'm seeing anywhere between $30 to $50 cheaper.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Remembering When

For some reason, while I'm debating wearing Tommy Girl, a random thought passed through my mind. It was the whole "remember when spending $40 or $50 on a perfume was considered extravagant?". I remember the days when spending any more than $40 or $50 on a perfume was what I considered extravagant and a little stupid. I probably thought that way due to the fact that I wasn't really interested in perfume, didn't have a lot of money to spend on it, and too busy with school to really learn and smell new things.

Fast forward a few years, after I dropped out of college, I was slightly obsessed with reading about the Romanovs and was reading every book I could get my hands on. After receiving a gift of Coco Mademoiselle, I signed up for Chanel newsletters. One of those newsletters announced to me that there was a perfume that was inspired by Russian nobles fleeing the Russian Revolution. Cuir de Russie was the one that had me fall down the rabbit hole. Today, after many decants and full bottles later, $50 or $60 for a full bottle of perfume sounds like a bargain. It sounds like a bargain to me because I have spent $100 or more on most of my (full bottle) collection and a small handful was over $200.

I kind of miss those days when spending any more than $60 was a little.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Mitsouko Vintage EDT Review

For the past week (off and on), I've been wearing the vintage version of Mitsouko in EDT form. Many bloggers talk about the vintage versions of many classics being much better than the current formulations of classics. This probably is true to a degree but I'm new to testing vintage versions of anything. Deneuve is a long discontinued perfume, so there is no modern formulation that I can compare it to.

I've had somewhat of a difficult time with the vintage version of Mitsouko. Even though (by reading blogs) that vintage versions of anything can smell like nail polish remover in the beginning, I didn't exactly get that. Upon first application, I had thought it was the 'unscented' lotion that was the problem. It was not my lotion that was the issue, it was the vintage version's age that was talking. As time slowly dragged on, I started to get the Mitsouko that I was familiar with. But I did have to refresh my memory of the current version EDT form of Mitsouko to understand the vintage version a little better. There is a little more depth in the vintage EDT of Mitsouko than in the current version in the EDT. The vintage EDT of Mitsouko does last a somewhat longer in the vintage version than the current version. At the end of the wearing, I do prefer the current EDP version than any other version at this point.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Discovering Old Favorites and Chanel Bel Respiro Review

Over the past summer and most of the fall, I have neglected some old favorites. Summer was very, very hot and humid and the only perfume that I loved that seemed to work was Chanel no. 19. When I heard that there was a good chance that Chanel no. 5 would be reformulated and the EDP was a limited edition, I became hyper focused on that. Then, I fell in love with Mitsouko after two years (?) of trying to understand her.

In that time, I neglected Cuir de Russie. I had forgotten how plush and how good Cuir de Russie was. Holy cow, does Deneuve in parfum form smell wonderful. I am thinking of wearing Sycomore due to the fact that I have not worn it in over a year and can't remember what that smells like.

I've been lolly gagging on writing a perfume review especially one that I've worn off and on for the past couple months. I got a 5ml decant of this late spring or early summer and worn it a few times without reviewing. I think that it took me so long to review is because I didn't know what to make of it. At first, I got pencil shavings that takes me back to grade school pencil sharpeners. The type of pencil sharpener that was mounted to a table and had to be hand cranked. I don't know if they still have those type of pencil sharpeners or any type of pencil sharpeners. After a couple minutes, the herbs come out to play but still the pencil shavings are dominant. After 15 minutes, Bel Respiro becomes a generic masculine. There are many masculines out there and many of them are inexpensive. It's sad to say that after an interesting start, it falls into the category of generic masculine. What I did notice, is for an EDT, the staying power is really poor. This is sad because more often than not, Chanel EDT's last on my skin.

Monday, December 10, 2012

I'm Sitting Here

I'm sitting at a computer and rolling my eyes. When a dog starts nosing around and decides to pounce on something they shouldn't, it usually ends badly. One of my dogs managed to eat a whole bag of jelly beans and knocks over half of my collection of perfume. By the saving grace of the perfume gods, I was lucky and none of the bottles broke. Let's just leave it at the fact that she is not feeling so hot afterward. So far, I think that I got off light because the last time that happened was about 3 months ago and she ate a 3 pound bag of M&M's.

Every day, what can be the best part of my day can be the most the most difficult. Picking out which perfume can be tough. A part of me wonders why I cannot be faithful to 3 or 4 perfumes at the most. Perfume can be fun though because there is quite a bit out there. Every perfumer has a different interpretation of certain notes. But some days, it can be the fist bottle or decant that I grab or it take me a couple hours to even attempt to decide. What can make things difficult is picking something that is office friendly. I just can't waltz in to work wearing MKK because it is over the top skank or Sarrasins because it has the whole hooker vibe to it. So much of what I wear to work is main stream and classic scents.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Insanity

Ever since I became an aunt three years ago, I started to dread this time of year. Reason being is that both of my nephews were born in November and before I know it, it's Christmas and I must get even more gifts. I used to be able to get away with getting only one gift for each nephew and now it has to be two. This year, I have been somewhat forced to drag out my Christmas shopping. Instead of just going to the mall two or three days ahead of Christmas, I did part of it after Thanksgiving, and I will be able to finish it up in a couple of weeks.

Instead of getting a butt load of decants this month, it turned to be getting massive amounts of Christmas presents and chocolate. I never really know if I have forgotten anyone or I have that one impossible person to shop for. What can be great about the mass amounts of Harry and David chocolate covered Bing cherries that I ordered, is that half the time, I don't even gift those.

Now, that my sinus infection is mostly gone and now I can finally breathe. With now having the ability to breathe, I can begin to wear my beloved Amouages and many other of my perfumes. It really does suck when one has some kind of head cold or sinus infection.