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.

Retail Therapy and Lyric

 Ever since Luckyscent had that free shipping sale on no matter how much you spent, I did have a little bit of a bender. Instead of using up more samples, I just ended up adding more to my stash. Then I preceded to hop on over to Fragrancenet and ended up with a bottle of the edt version of Narciso Rodriguez for her and a mini of Obsession. I made the mistake of browsing Fragrancenet again and saw that there was a 50ml bottle of Amouage Lyric for around $120. As much as I love Lyric, I didn't bite. With three 100ml bottles and the travel spray set, I couldn't quite justify that, even with Afterpay. I had to remind myself that I ordered a Rogue Perfumery discovery set, a MAC lipstick and a lipliner and had to order my sister's birthday gift. And I have to keep in mind that I my cellphone bill is higher and it's slow at work. I might be filing my taxes and getting a tax refund but that still does not justify another bottle of Lyric or any more full bottles of anything right now. I need to take a break.

It is always tough to remind myself that I shouldn't be going and spending money on fun things with no regard for tomorrow or three months from now. The only thing is that I haven't been adding to my candle collection. But even though I am not adding to my candle collection, I am not using up any candles either. But I am hoping that if I burn one candle for an hour or two a day, I can start to get moving on my collection. But I am going to stick to my days off. When the weather gets warmer and I can have my windows open, I can burn them for longer.

But back to the Narciso Rodriguez for her. I found that the perfume has grown on my and I now have a liking for it. A one ounce bottle for a shade under $40? Sold! What is really catching my eye is that the bottle is black and I mean solid black to where I cannot see how much perfume is actually in the bottle. I have tons of vintage Bal a Versailles that are completly white and have no real way to tell how much perfume is actually in there. Weighing the bottle in my hands does not tell me a whole lot.

Now we have to circle back to Lyric. I have no idea on why I am not wearing Lyric too much. For the longest while, I was wearing Lyric at least once or twice a week but just stopped. Maybe it's because I am trying to show other perfumes that I own at least some affection? Or maybe I just needed a break from wearing Lyric. But I do think that I might start wearing Lyric for the hell of it on Sunday.