Hempz Lotion

 It's rare that I deviate from unscented lotions. With my perfume collection as it is, I don't want my lotion to be scented. I do have scented lotions from Chanel and Amouage but those are not my day to day kind of lotion. I usually use the Cereve lotion but I was running out of that but found a small bottle of the Hempz Age Defying Peptides and Caffine lotion. So in that went to what is left of the Cereve bottle. I like to eek out everything that I can with soaps and lotion.

The first time that I went to use the lotion, I was a little puzzled. I have never tried any of the Hempz products and didn't think that there would be a smell. But there is a smell and I was thrown off by it. The age defying lotion has a musky kind of smell. The smell reminded me of MKK's last hurrah before it leaves my skin for good or the base of Tigress Musk. I will admit that I had to laugh though. Are lotion companies trying to make their suppoesedly unscented things smell more like perfume without being perfume? I have had some lotions that did smell good but the smell faded after about 10 minutes and then I could put on perfume. But the smell to this one just does not fade, there is a lingering musk note. It's a little on the dirty side. I can see myself pairing this with MKK, Tigress Musk or vintage BaV. I am not so sure if it would work so well with Shalimar but will work with any kind of not so clean musk note.

Part of me wants to purchase this again but another part doesn't. I am working on trying to use things up and not buy so much stuff. I still have a ton of Drunk Elephant lotions and soaps that I want to use up and a couple Amouage lotions that I want to use as well. I more of want to have more space in general and a little more money in my bank account at the end of the day.

My Chanel no 5 Journey

 It's a well known fact that I do love Chanel no 5. The first bottle that I had purchased was the extrait version around 10 or 12 years ago and promptly drained or my mother nicked it. Then I got a 50ml bottle of the EDP that is about two thirds empty.

Before I got serious about perfume, there was a time that I tried the no 5 hand lotion at a department store and I promptly hated it. I don't recall exactly why I hated it but I honestly think that the lotion might have been improperly stored and had gone rancid or I was trying the wrong no 5. But when I had bought my first extrait bottle, it was $95 for a quarter ounce bottle. But the first version on no 5 that I really understood was Eau Premiere when I tried it at a department store and bought a bottle. But when I arrived home, I realized that I had bought the Sensual Elixer, which has been discontinued for years. But I ordered a bottle of Eau Premiere a couple days later.

So fast forward at least a decade and how many bottles of perfume later, I have tons of Chanel no 5. The only no 5 that isn't in my stable is the L'Eau version because it has no resemblance to any other version of no 5. But when I finished that bottle of no 5 edt, I kind of took a little bit of a break but opened a brand new bottle of the edt and almost physically recoiled. Chanel has messed with the edt version. I knew that the edp version was messed with and kind of liked it. But after wearing my first bottle of no 5 edp, I am pretty annoyed with Chanel at this point. Because no 5 isn't something that I exactly recognize anymore. No 5 has been reformulated. Reformulations do happen but not to this extreme. I can't comment about the extrait being reformulated because I don't have any older bottles to compare it to. But the luminous nature of the edt isn't there and the sharpness of the edp isn't there. So it looks like I am going to be sticking to Eau Premiere for a very long time. 

I will admit that I would love to have another bottle of the extrait version of no 5 but the prices of Chanel have gotten to the point of being ridiculous. To the point of I can't exactly justify buying any of Chanel perfumes. Out of all of the no 5 offerings, Ulta doesn't carry the extrait version of no 5 and I have almost enough points that I would get a quarter ounce bottle. But things haven't worked out that way at Ulta.

Moving More Things Around and Chergui

Today is the first day of my first vacation of the year. It just so happens that it is Mothers Day in the US. As the years have gone on, my mother hasn't wanted to make a big deal out of Mothers Day. Probably because her birthday is always a week or a week and a half away, depending on when Mothers Day is. It might have served a purpose when my sister and I were younger. But since my sister and I are adults and my sister is in California with her 4 kids, getting together takes a whole lot of work.

So today was spent moving even more bedroom furniture. It was mainly to get that tall dresser into my bedroom since my bedroom was freshly painted a few days ago. Just have to get that other dresser into my bedroom so I can really put my back together. This would mean that I could have things better organized. What I really want is to have more options of perfume because I don't have enough space. What is currently on the tall dresser is a TV, so there is no real space there to put anything else. I probably could but it would probably get lost. I would like to get some candles moved back into my room because I had a designated spot for a lit candle. My new nightstand has been designated to a lamp and the few bottles of perfume I managed to get to.

While I was replacing the old nightstand with the old one, I found my bottle of Chergui. For the longest time, I couldn't figure out where it went to. Chergui was one of my first Serge Lutens offerings that I did buy. The bottle I have, doesn't have the new label design. I had initially planned on Ubar today but since I have found Chergui, I am wearing that today. Chergui is probably one of the easiest Serge Lutens offerings to understand or like outside Un Bois Vanille. Un Bois Vanille is still on my to buy list but I cannot go out to buy any full bottles. I would be pretty happy if Ulta started selling some of the Serge Lutens line. The reason I wish that would happen is that I have $130 in Ulta rewards points and it would make a Serge Lutens purchase viable. I wouldn't be asking for the bell jars, that wouldn't be quite Ulta's vibe. The bell jars would be more of Sephora's vibe because Sephora is pretty expensive in general.

I am hoping that since the zoo is free on Monday (tomorrow) that we actually get a chance to go. Maybe the art museum would be a good pick for this week. I am hoping that we can do something besides sit around or home improvement projects.
 

Guerlain Mitsouko

 The good thing about not having my whole perfume collection totally at hand is that it is forcing me to try and use what I have. Even though I did manage to grab a couple more bottles, my selection is limited. And by a 200 full bottle strong collection, having around around 12 bottles to choose from is a little more difficult to do. I am always worrying about what if I have a craving for Amouge Epic or Coromandel? That means I will have to muscle my way through that craving.

Every Friday, Now Smell This has a community project where one wears something that corresponds to whatever theme there is for that day. This past Friday, the theme was chypre. And since the only chypre that I had from the 12 bottles that I have, it was Mitsouko, what seems to be the queen of all chypre perfumes that's still in production. Mitsouko was pretty well represented on Friday. In some ways, Mitsouko was a little lame because so many wore it but it was all I had in terms of a chypre that day. Plus, it was a very long time since I had worn Mitsouko. I had forgotten how strong Mitsouko could be and the lasting power is phenomenal. Since I was wearing the current EDP, I would not recommend wearing it outside of the low 70's in temps or it gets unbearable.

When I was pretty new to serious perfume smelling and collecting, I found Mitsouko early on. I didn't fall head over heels with it right away but really enjoyed it for some reason. After a while I mostly figured out why. It's not like most modern perfumes. Most modern perfumes release anything that makes them smell good are in the first 15 minutes. Mitsouko releases it's beauty slowly. It took me a while on why I liked Mitsouko so much and eventually fell in love was Mitsouko's balanced nature. I was taken surprise by how peach was presented in Mitsouko. I am used to sickly sweet peach in so many of those cheap perfumes that I did wear in the past.

Then I tried vintage Mitsouko in all of it's oakmoss glory. I heard people waxing poetical about the vintage version, I wanted to try it on one hand but didn't on the other. Around this time, it was my first attempt at trying to curb reckless spending. When I did try it and fell in love, it led me down a rabbit hole called E-Bay. I was buying as many reasonably priced bottles as I could. By the time I was finished with getting vintage bottles of Mitsouko, I moved away from Mitsouko and went on to Shalimar. I do think that I will have to pull out and wear Mitsouko more often.