E-Bay and Thanksgiving

We are two days away from Thanksgiving. My family and I are hosting and know that 3 people are probably going to be spending the night. For the past couple days, I have been doing a lot of picking up, organizing and some dusting. I am still going to do more in between shifts at work. I am dreading work though, knowing it will be a mad house.

But with Thanksgiving comes Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I still can't believe that some companies think that Black Friday starts on Thanksgiving evening. That just rankles me to no end. In my opinion, retail workers are not important or essential on a holiday. Forgot that extra dozen of eggs or not quite enough rolls isn't important. If your not a nurse, doctor, firefighter or police officer, retail employees are not a vital. I am wondering what deals that there are going to be. I'm not so interested in buying something, most of my Christmas shopping is done. I think that I am really just interested in what Bath and Body Works is going to have for sales. For the family that lives close by to me, I am pretty much done except for a few odds and ends. I haven't committed to anything yet.

It's been a fun few days with E-bay. My mother asked me to use my E-bay account to order her two collector's music boxes. She wanted a specific two Christmas music boxes and I managed to find them for a reasonable price. We get one still in the box with everything in it and the seller made sure that it was well packed. This one works perfectly. The second one came and the story isn't the same. When the box came, it looked like the box itself was falling apart and taped up by a two year old. The packaging looked old and battered and that was our first indication that something might be wrong. My mother opens the package and finds no adapters and a couple other things missing. But when she was making sure that the music box played music, it was off, the bells didn't work right and just seemed like it just wasn't working right. I contacted the seller and started a return. My mother had said that the music box doesn't work right and what exactly was wrong. And she did say a shame on you type of deal. Whoever the seller was got all snotty and attacked my mom a little bit and said that it "worked". So I am waiting on a return label and hope we get it soon to ship it back to the seller. If I don't find a return label, I am going to have to contact E-bay.

Bell Jars and Exclusive

I am not the type that is usually swayed by the look of a bottle of perfume but I do have my moments and many more moments of grouching about exclusivity of some perfumes. Ever since Chanel has come out with the Les Exclusifs line, there has been a little bit on unavailability but not much those come recently. When Les Exclusifs came out, it was only online at the Chanel site or the Chanel boutiques. But some of that has changed. How I can get them has not changed but the sizes have. I think that the prices of those bottles have made me do a double take and made me think twice about a bottle. But Chanel never has been one to have fancy bottles so there is nothing eye catching in that respect.

But Serge Lutens offerings have been a whole different matter. For the longest time, the US hasn't been privy to being able to get a bottle of the non-export line without going to Paris. Now the bell jars are being sold at Barney's and their stock seems to be dwindling but the bell jars are being sold on the Serge Lutens website to US customers. After I found a three quarters full bottle of De Profundis on E-bay for $165, I had a couple thoughts and was a little disappointed. I still love De Profundis, Iris Silver Mist and Sarrasins but it seemed to be the bottle itself that was the source of the disappointment. I don't know why I had thought that the bell jar would be larger for a 2.5 ounce bottle. I honestly think that I was seduced by the exclusivity of the bell jars and was comparing the size to my Chanel no 22 bottle and my Mitsouko EDP bottle. I couldn't help but think about spending $300 and over for a bell jar that a sprayer doesn't come with it and that I can get a 3.4 ounce Amouage for the same price. I think that it is spending time on E-bay and getting lucky. But I don't know what exactly I was thinking about the bell jar except that I might have over hyped it in my mind. I don't regret getting De Profundis and still want Iris Silver Mist and Sarrasins but it might be a while before I do.

Running out of Space and Long Winter

Let's just say that it has been a really long winter and I can't wait for it to be over. I miss wearing short sleeved shirts and not having scaly skin on my face. Every winter, I find myself doing more laundry due to my perfume habits. Let's face it, after 3 or 4 wearings, various perfumes do tend to clash and annoy. It's kind of rare that I wear any perfume for more than two days in a row. But I have made some progress with using what I have, decant wise but not with full bottles. I have started to go through my worn and reviewed bag and throwing out mostly evaporated (after I use that last little bit) and the smaller decants. But right now, I am trying to find something better for my dry skin and nails.

But since I go through spurts of getting back ups and vintage, I am seriously running out of space on my dresser. I'm not kidding, it's starting to overflow with vintage and not only vintage but back ups and periodically something new. But I do have an idea for this. I am about to take an old but small TV stand and clean it our and fix it up for my perfume storage. I just can't take this almost no space on my dresser. It's competing for space with my Galileo thermometer collection.

On a better note, that vintage bottle of Mitsouko arrived two days ago. I am wary of dabber bottles of perfume on E-bay. Because I don't know if the seller has dumped out the original perfume and maybe filled it with something else. Just like my vintage teardrop bottle of Jicky, the pictures on E-day made the perfume look like water but I did ask before I bought it. And with a bottle this huge, I didn't want to spend a nice chunk of change on just a bottle

Stuff, Stuff and More Stuff

It's rare that I get any kind of compliments on my perfume wearing. But then again, my perfume collection contains a lot of "weird" perfumes that to a lot of people are too odd to smell good. So it is an event when I am complimented on my perfume and asked what am I wearing. A couple days ago, I was wearing vintage Mitsouko and was asked about it because it smelled good. It's funny how my vintages are the ones that people compliment me on. Current no 5 or Theorema? Nope, no compliments but vintage Mitsouko and vintage Bal a Versailles do. It kind of makes me wonder if people are a little tired of the fruity floral or patchouli mixes. But these wimpy things went out of style a long time ago.

But I've noticed that I really must stay off of E-bay and ignore Beauty Encounter's emails of 20% off. Due to the fact that I can't stop looking for vintage perfumes. But sometimes, ordering things can be annoying. I found a half used bottle of vintage Mitsouko on the 14th and it's now the 23rd and it hasn't arrived at my doorstep as of yet. Looking at the tracking number, it's been at the Kent, WA USPS facility since the 18th and hasn't moved since. But the almost full vintage Jicky that was ordered on the 19th, is going to land on my doorstep today. I am about to contact the seller for the Mitsouko and ask or contact USPS and ask what is the deal. Because when I pay good money for something, I kind of do expect decent service and whatever I bought in a reasonable amount of time. It's rare that something like this happens to me. But if I could just make up my mind on that sealed vintage no 5 and a large bottle of Havana Vanille, life would be great.

The Casual Buyer

Lately, I have found myself haunting Ebay a whole lot more in my search for a vintage bottle of Mitsouko and came to the question of being a 'casual buyer' on Ebay. The type of buyer that might poke around Ebay for a few days, might buy a couple of things and then disappear for a while. Yes, I am that kind of buyer when it comes to Ebay. But I spend more time looking than actual buying but I might come across that vintage bottle of Mitsouko for $40. You just never know with Ebay. Ebay has come in handy due to the fact that there are no Goodwill stores or Salvation Army that are close by or not in the seedy parts.

From time to time, I really do look for that vintage bottle of Mitsouko or Deneuve and always shake my head at the price tag for a partially used bottle. But I've always had some pretty good luck when looking for and getting full and partial bottles of vintage Shalimar. I may not exactly be able to afford the ones dating to the '60's or earlier but there is quite a bit of vintage Shalimar out there that people want to get rid of.

Yes, I Have Enough but...

The conversation of having enough perfume has come up for the 50 millionth time in my household today. It is always when I am either searching Ebay, ordering from Surrender to Chance or Ebay that this conversation happens. The logical part of me says yes, I have more than I could ever use in a lifetime. Illogical says no.

If I had just a bottle of Mitsouko, Lyric and no 5 and stuck to those, things would be fine. Fine as in there wouldn't be so many cardboard boxes lying around. We do ship a lot of things to my sister, so they come in handy. I think that it has to do with slowly but surely trying to get my hands on vintage perfumes. Mitsouko has always been an example of a hard to love for me. It did take me a while to fall in love with the current version of Mitsouko and it was hard for me to love the vintage version. Now I know why it was hard for me, even though I was fascinated by her. It was the peach note that tripped up my beginner's nose but it was the chypre structure that I loved. But it is impossible to find a really old bottle of Mitsouko that isn't a fortune. But no 5 on the other hand, is pretty easy to find and for some reasonable prices. I had to get 2 bottles of the cologne to compare. The first bottle that I had gotten, the edges are rounded making it look a lot more square. I'm thinking that this one wasn't kept in a cool place or just plain didn't hold up because toward the end, it smelled like no 5 but mostly of
nail polish remover. The other bottle smelled better after 20 minutes of the nail polish note.

After poking around Ebay, I found myself a vintage no 5 in extract form that was a decent price. I'm sorry if I'm not exactly willing to spend $100 or more for a half used 1 ounce bottle of extract. Yes, I am cheap when it comes to something used.  One of the offerings was scary though. It was mostly full but the color was pale for a vintage and it was noted that there was some kind of sediment at the bottom but when you shook it up, you couldn't see it. I saw the picture after shaking it and the juice looked cloudy. That make me wary to get it.

Wow,

I will have to admit that I have fallen in love with Chanel no. 22 and figured after piddling around and trying to decide if a decant was sufficient enough, I ordered a bottle. What I didn't know is that if you order through the Chanel website, tax is charged now. Shopping online is where I mostly do get most of my perfume, books, half of my clothes and a few other things. Mainly due to not paying out the wazoo for tax. This must be a new thing for Chanel.

About 10 days ago, I had tracked down a bottle of Worth Courtesan and had bought a bottle on Ebay. I had gotten a confirmation that it had shipped, but over the past couple days, I have noticed that the shipping label has stated that the electronic shipping info has been received and that was on the sixth. I am wondering what happened because it is now the 12th. Every time that things have been shipped to my house by USPS, I've had tracking numbers that didn't take this long to update. I'm starting to get a little annoyed right now. I'm giving it until tomorrow and then I am going to do something about it.

Ebay

After flirting with idea of Ebay for years, I've finally signed up for an account. Ebay has always scared me because I have always been afraid of being scammed. And sometimes the cost of things. What finally made me take that plunge was trying to track down a few bottles of vintage perfumes and maybe find a couple that are not sold full bottle wise in the US.

Thus far, I've made only one purchase (Worth Courtesan) and waiting for it to arrive. I have a large decant of Courtesan and a full bottle of Courtesan was fairly inexpensive so most of this is hanging on how good my experience is going to be. I hope that it is good and I am going to get the real thing because I am eyeballing some vintage no. 19, no. 22, Deneuve and Mitsouko.