Wednesday, March 23, 2016

No Motivation and La Fille de Berlin

I absolutely have not motivation to even delve into my unreviewed pile of decants. The last one I was trying out was La Fille de Berlin. But I think that I am going to give it a go anyway.

La Fille de Berlin is a huge rose. But the rose is not this sweet delicate thing like I would get in La Majeste la Rose and that one was a little more on the jammy side. It's not on the dirty side like Voleur de Roses, nor the spicy Amouage Epic Woman. It is an assertive rose and a little bit on the jammy side. It's not massively aggressive but it does border on it though. After the initial blast of nothing but an assertive rose, I do get some animalic undertones but I wouldn't go calling it animalic, La Fille just flirts with it for a few minutes. The rose still stays as a dominant rose perfume with hints of musk. What surprised me is that my decant actually gave me some staying power. More often than not, decants of any Serge Lutens offerings don't make it past four hours but this lasts of my skin for 7 hours. The Serge Lutens spray bottles that I do own, when I spray from them, I get 10 hours of lasting power. My verdict is that I would either go for a full bottle or a very large decant, I haven't quite decided on which list it would go on, color of the juice not withstanding.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Spring Like

In Cleveland, we are getting a blast of spring like weather. It's more than warm enough outside and I have the windows open. Hey, I've got to let the stale winter air out of the house somehow and doing some kind of spring cleaning around my wacky work schedule. Some of the crocuses that I have are blooming but I am really waiting for is the hyacinth and lilac bushes to start blooming.

But thongs have changed. Hoodies and sweaters have given way to short sleeved shirts. I wouldn't say that it is tank top weather, it's not even close. Short sleeve t-shirts feel very strange right now after going through months or wearing long sleeves. Even three quarter legnth sleeves feel strange.But looking around and seeing if Gap and a couple other places to see if there might be something that would perk up my wardrobe. But it looks like there is not. It must be because of the fact that we are between seasons.

This time of year is more of a transition period from winter to spring. So perfume choices are goofy and I am looking at my collection to see what exactly would fit. I've been wearing a lot of Theorema, vintage Bal and no 19. Sometimes I would add Jicky into the lineup but not quite often enough. I do wear my Amouages no matter what the weather but I'm careful with them in heat. The tiniest little bit usually does it but I am not in the mood to apply an Amouge today

Monday, March 7, 2016

Balmain Ivoire Vintage EDT

I am a person that does like green perfumes or chypre perfumes. I really do just by looking at my perfume collection. Multiple bottles of vintage Mitsouko, current and vintage bottles of Chanel no 19, tons of minis of Deneuve. But I'm not talking about those perfumes today. I'm talking about vintage Balmain Ivoire in EDT form.

When I was reading The Guide, Balmain Ivoire was in there and I kept forgetting to get a decant. Then I did get the decant but have been too lazy to try it out but now, I have finally tried it.  It seems like when Ivoire was released, it was the time where perfume was becoming for of an every day luxury instead of a special occasion type of deal. Let's think of it, when I reviewed a vintage bottle of Miss Dior, the box still had a price sticker of $6.50 so that bottle was probably from the mid to late '50's where the average paycheck was probably around $100 a week.

At first, I couldn't exactly figure I what I was smelling. Because it smelled like so many different green perfumes that I own that I couldn't figure it out. It smelled most like Givenchy III from start to finish. But the odd thing is that the huge rose note is really similar to Chanel no 19 in EDP form. What I first smelled was very green aldehydes that is reminiscent of Deneuve, then the rose note like no 19 in EDP form. But after that, it really was Givenchy III after/under the whole deal. This is when I love vintage EDC or EDT, I can get a great longetivity out of it. Ivoire lasted about 6 hours on me. Since I have no 19, Deneuve and Mitsouko, I probably will hold off on looking for a bottle for a little bit.