The Eclipse and Amouage Dia

 In spite of working Monday, I did manage to catch the eclipse. Working retail, I wasn't so sure that I would be allowed to see any of it. The store manager had said as long as we didn't have customers in the department or on the phone, we could watch the eclipse. Everyone expected the store to be a ghost town until quarter to 4. It was nice enough but I sure as shit didn't appreciate the idiots in the housing development setting off fireworks during it. Fireworks can be fun but even with the sun being fully covered, it wasn't dark enough for it. Maybe someone wanted to attempt some kind of cool pictures but the whole concept was pretty stupid (setting off fireworks). There was so much talk about this eclipse over the past year, I think that it wasn't really worth the hype.

Usually as a rule, I don't wear any Amouage offerings at work but Monday was a little bit of an exception. I had a wicked craving for it. I remember in my early days of perfume collecting, I wore the living daylights out of Dia. Now, not so much. While I still love the first 10 minutes and it's massive aldehyde blast, there is something that really starts to bother me after about 3 or 4 hours and for the life of me, I can't pinpoint where or why it bothers me. I would still like to give Dia 40 a go. 

But I have noticed that STC and TPC haven't been adding a whole lot to their stock or even replenishing things like they have in years past. I wonder if  inflation or shipping issues is to blame. That is probably part of it. I have to keep in mind that Amouage is a pretty expensive brand. STC hasn't had a sale in a long time, the last one was probably shortly before the pandemic and TPC had one at New Year's I think. But I haven't been buying decants all that often. Now is not the time to be seeking out decants anyway.

More Amouage Exceptional Extraits

 Yesterday, I received an email from Amouage with news of some Exceptional Extraits being released. In some ways, I was hoping that it wasn't Memoir or Lyric. Reason being is that I love Memoir and Lyric is probably my favorite from Amouage. The Exceptional Extraits are things that I really can't afford but this line up is Amouage on steroids. By looking at the pictures of the email, I didn't really think that they would were not releasing Lyric or Memoir yet. The bottle colors didn't match the pictures. If an unexpected $500 to $600 were to drop into my lap, I would still get Epic 53. I was thinking that it was going to be either the women's version of either Jubilation or maybe Dia.

I was partially right and it was the women's version of Dia, called Dia 40. The men's offering was Jubilation 40. In some ways, I was hoping that it would be the women's Jubilation. It took me a long time to understand Jubilation 25 and even longer to fall in love with Jubilation.

I don't think that Amouage has really run out of ideas but I do think that the people at Amouage are trying to garner some more interest. Most of the common folk, like me, are probably not what Amouage has in mind. Us common people, who do not have tons of discretionary spending, might get one bottle a decade. Every business wants to make money but most people are not into perfume and to spend $300 and up on a bottle of perfume doesn't cross the mind of most people. Amouage can set the prices to whatever they want, as their right.

But I still want to get a sample of Dia 40 to try out. Just like I want to get that sample set of the Exceptional Extraits. Maybe next year, after I recovered from Christmas.

Amouage Dia Bath Products Review

Ever since I have tried the Lyric shower gel and body butter, I've been thinking about trying out Dia's bath stuff. But this time, I have the guest soap bars and the body lotion. I was wondering if the body lotion was going to be moisturizing enough and would the hand soap drying.

The guest soap did have somewhat of a nice lather but after using it once, it maybe isn't a soap to be used in the shower or bath. I'm going to use it anyway in the shower or bath. But this bar of soap isn't drying out my skin, which is a good thing when your skin is sandpaper dry. That is when I used the body lotion, hoping that it would be like the body butter.

The body lotion is different than the body butter. The body lotion is a little richer and a little more long lasting than your drugstore offerings of body lotion but I was thinking that this is from Amouage and Lyric set the bar to what I expected out of the bath stuff. But while the body lotion did it's job, I was a tad disappointed because I wanted a little more moisture for another hour or two (the body butter lasted at least 5 hours on me. But it did soften up my elbows and knees.

What is great about what I have tried with Amouage and their body products is that they haven't caused a reaction. I'm not itchy, don't have hives and they do stay put. The perfumed part of the whole bargain of Dia is not as huge as it would be in Lyric, so I can squirt a little bit of Dia along with the body products. I'm not sure I would exactly get these bath products of Dia again though.

Starting New

It's not winter to me until I see snow on the ground and winter has hit Cleveland. But I have noticed that I'm not one that indulges in nail polish or matching bath and body products often. When you work in food service, nail polish on fingers is a no go but I do polish my toe nails from time to time. But now is the time of year where I do my toes quite often. I think now is the time to start back up with doing my toe nails again.

I have tried many brands of nail polish but have found that OPI seems to be the best of the bunch. The quality, even though it seems to have gone down a little bit, is great. I have about 3 or 4 days of wear before there is chipping. I'm sure if I had my fake nails again, the lasting power would be at least two weeks. What gets me about OPI is that it seems like every week there is some sort of new collection of colors out. And there comes a certain point to where I have to say no. The Russian and German collection are enough for me. It seems like they have so many cute, clever or funny names for nail polishes and not enough colors in the world to match them with.

But body products are even harder for me to buy, let alone use. Before I had a million bottles of perfume, I had maybe one or two full bottles of actual perfume but was big into Bath and Body Works. Now, I have to think about if I really love a perfume to see if there are any matching body products. Dia and Lyric are the only two perfumes that I own that have the matching bath and body products. And I haven't used them yet. It just seems like a huge commitment to start using bath and body products because somehow I have to actually finish the whole shower gel and lotion in a month or two and I am pretty fickle when it comes to perfume. It is hard for me to really want to wear a perfume for more than a day or two at a time but layering a perfume with matching body products is probably overkill.

Those That Don't Get Enough Love

Since I have been reading perfume blogs and reviews it hit me that there are a few perfumes in my collection that really don't get a whole lot of love. It is kind of funny though how we bloggers can keep raving about 3 perfumes from any given house and kind of ignore the rest of that perfume house's offerings.

One of those perfumes is Amouage's Dia for women. Dia is marketed as a lighter version of Amouage's Gold for women. I think Dia should be viewed as a perfume in it's own right. There are many things that make Gold and Dia similar but there is a world of difference between the two. Dia is effervescent especially in the beginning with the aldehydes then dries down to the jasmine/rose soap but still has a butt load of aldehydes. The aldehydes in Gold are more of on the oily side for me and dries down to flowers and civet. Gold and Dia are basically the same perfume and I love both enough to own a full bottle, but Dia really doesn't seem to get a whole lot of attention because it is "Gold Light" or "Diet Gold". I find myself in a lot of situations where Gold would be too much but Dia would fit the bill.

Amouage's Memoir for woman is another one that I think that doesn't get a whole lot of love while Lyric, Jubilation, Ubar, and Epic do get a lot of love. I did swoon over Lyric and do wear it often but I keep going back to Memoir and wonder why I am not wearing it as often as Lyric. It does seem for some odd reason that Lyric does get ignored. Maybe because it is on the sweet, almost gourmand like for a perfume. It could be that Memoir is one of those perfumes that is a modern chypre that not to many seem to be interested in or casual users of perfume don't care to decipher.

Cannot Wear

There are situations for perfume fanatics that we dread. One is going without perfume and the other is people who hate certain perfumes and it's really not a great idea to wear it. It could be a certain brand of perfumes, one or two certain perfumes or they plain don't like perfume.

A couple days ago, I found myself in such a situation where one person doesn't like anything "perfumey" and another doesn't like much of anything from Guerlain and hates Chanel. This did leave me in somewhat of a rock and a hard place because most of my collection is Guerlain, Chanel and "perfumey". I somewhat did want to keep the peace but I wasn't that motivated. Selfish of me, yes, but when you have some family that will try to control everything, I'm not exactly willing to bend. I ended up wearing a half a squirt of Amouage Dia. I figured by the time I would be around the people who pretty much eliminated just about all of my perfume collection, they would only be able to smell Dia if they were super close or pressing their noses to my wrists. And that half a squirt of Dia being worn for about 6 hours, I could barely smell it.

When Back Ups Attack.

Right now, I am sitting and gazing at my latest full bottle purchase while a family member is rolling their eyes at me. And it's Amouage Dia and the huge bottle. As much as I love Gold, I love Dia more and wear it more often, Last year was mostly marked by getting back up bottles or back up decants. This year is probably back to my 'normal' habit of trying new things. But still, I am gazing at my latest perfume purchase, blogging, thinking of all the back up bottles and decants that I already have and now onto trying new things.

The semi inadvertent Amouage full bottle bender has brought some more multiples into my house.I used to have 1 sample of Reflection, Memoir, and Interlude and now that's been doubled. But I did somewhat manage to score a sample of Interlude Man. Well, the multiples can be used for Valentine's Day and a birthday to stick on the cards or lose somewhere in the shuffle.

Amouage Gold EDP Review

Quite a while back, I had drained a small spray decant of Amouage Gold Cristal (EDT) for women and then preceded to drain a small sample of Amouage Gold in EDP form.After a while, I did forget about Amouage Gold and then couldn't remember why it was on my full bottle buy list. Then I managed to find a 3ml manufacturer's sample on Surrender to Chance (those Amouage carded sample goes really fast). Then my memory was refreshed on why it is on my full bottle list.

Amouage Gold for women is almost identical to Dia for women but I can tell the difference between the two. Gold does not have the astringent like blast of aldehydes that Dia has. I find that Gold does have a little more heft than Dia but ultimately, Gold is the same scent as Dia. The dry down is like a very expensive jasmine/rose soap. Like all of Amouage perfumes, Gold lasts forever on skin.

What I don't get is that Gold is described as being for evening wear and Dia is for daytime wear. I find that I can wear Gold during daylight hours. Even though Gold is on my buy list, it has moved down a bit because I already own Dia but still want a full bottle.

Changing of the Seasons

Fall is probably my favorite seasons. It's cooling off, people are starting to use their fireplaces, leaves are turning, and anything pumpkin or apple is big. Apple cider, pumpkin pie, apple crisp. But fall can be a little odd. Because unlike winter, where it stays cold, I get two days straight of it being 85 degrees out then it's 55 degrees for two or three days and everything else in between.

This is also the time of year that it is harder for me to decide on what perfume to wear. Especially on days I have to work. One of my little rules is that I don't wear anything in my not worn and reviewed pile. I don't always know if something is a scrubber or smells like I have just been bedded by some random guy and didn't bother to take a shower before work. Today of all days, I cannot decide if I should wear the current formulation of Mitsouko in EDP form or Amouage Dia. At first, Mitsouko wasn't a great love but she creeps up on you. Dia is one of those perfumes that are very 'perfumey' but I love, no, adore the really expensive rose/jasmine soap dry down. But I am leaning more to Mitsouko because I am in more of the 'I am not interested in what you think, I need a decision out of you now. Not in 5 minutes.' type of mode.

Carven Ma Griffe EDP Review

I first came across Ma Griffe when I was reading the book White Oleander and had been meaning to try it ever since. I don't know what kept me from getting my hands on a decant but I wore it for the first time yesterday. I find Ma Griffe to be similar to Amouage's Dia for her but a very pale version of Dia. They aldehydes in Ma Griffe are on the astringent side like Dia but that is were the similarity pretty much ends. Ma Griffe is a perfume that was created shortly after WWII, so it's an old school perfume. I find that old school perfumes do have a perfumey smell unlike today's perfumes that don't smell perfumey. I was disappointed with Ma Griffe because after the tops notes wear off, and they were off quickly, I barely couldn't smell it on my skin. Then, I sprayed on clothes and could barely smell it for 3 hours. Normally, EDP's last on my skin for at least 6 hours. I doubt that I will get another decant let alone a bottle. I did want to love Ma Griffe but the lack of staying power really dissapointed me.

Amouage Gold Cristal for Women

I was poking around the Perfumed Court looking to see what the price for a decant of Amouage's Gold for women. I didn't come across it but did come across what was Amouage Cristal for women in EDT. I do have a small sample of Amouage Gold for women from Luckyscent and had to bring it out to compare with the decant of Gold Cristal. I find that there is no difference between the two. Gold is similar to Amouage's Dia, but Gold is heavier. I get the same astringent like note from Gold like I do Dia. I actually find it to be pleasant in both. But I find that Gold seems to be a marriage between Dia and Ubar. It's not quite the big floral monster like Ubar but Gold is not a skin scent either. I love Amouage's Gold and find it to be very bottle worthy and would be a welcome addition to my collection.

Amouge Dia review

I have been wearing Amouage's Dia for the past few days and decided to review it. Needless to say, I am blown away by this scent. I'm having trouble finding the words to describe it adequately. There is a fizzines element going on with the aldehydes that I love to no end. The silage is not overbearing and wears close to the skin. Dia meant for an early spring scent. Just when it starts to get warmer when you start going into spring but not a summer scent when the temperature is hitting 80 degrees or more.