Post Christmas and Estee Lauder

Christmas day has come and gone and now we are heading into the new year. For Christmas day, I just decided to wear Lyric. There were a number of ways that I could have gone with perfume. I could have gone with my backup choice of Feminite du Bois or I could have gone on to wear Shalimar as well but Lyric seemed to appeal to me more.

The last perfume that I was gifted was way before I was really into perfume was Ralph Lauren Pure Turquoise. I still have the perfume and I do remember not really liking it all that much and it was my sister who gave me that and she said it smelled good. So I am going to have to dig that one out and give it another go. I think that I was wearing a different Ralph Lauren perfume called Gorgeous or something like that. But this Christmas, I was gifted a Estee Lauder Pleasures gift set. One of my friends had sent me the tracking link and I did see that it was the hand lotion and a 1 ounce bottle of Pleasures. I do still love Pleasures after all these years and have been wearing it off and on since it was released. But my sister sent me a tracking link to what she got me for Christmas. It was a set of Estee Lauder Pleasures. It was the hand cream and a 1 ounce bottle of the perfume. Now I just wait until it arrives tomorrow. Then I have to wait until I get off work tomorrow to open the package.

The one thing that is kind of funny with bottles of Pleasures. Around two or three years ago, a 5 ounce bottle of Pleasures was available for sale and apparently it was so popular that it would sell out as soon as it hit the Estee Lauder website but I haven't seen it since. I am thinking that while it might have been incredibly popular, it either might have been too costly to make or people not spending the money like they used to to warrant consistent production. Now if they made the intense version in a smaller size and a smidgen more affordable, I would get a bottle.

While Bath and Body Works is having their semi annual sale, I am not biting. One, I want to work on paying off the Christmas present shopping, two, I am just not all that interested. I have enough candles and I am not interested in buying more of the same old thing. There are so many Winter, Frozen Lake and Pink Lavender and Espresso candles can own. I should have gotten more plain old Lavender candles when Bath and Body Works was having their Candle Day sale. I noticed that after Candle Day, I just wasn't so interested in Bath and Body Works. I made one purchase after Candle Day, it was too redeem my reward. So my breaking up with Bath and Body Works is going a little easier than I thought. Let's see if I can keep that momentum going.
 

All Sorts of Things

I kept flirting with the idea of doing a post (if I hadn't already), of what I would like to see in parfum form. Not seeing Chanel no 5 parfum in stock online got me to think on that a little bit. You very rarely see parfum version of anything anymore. You might see extrait de parfum once in a while with niche but nothing else. Amouage did have the parfum version of some of their line but but that was mostly done away with and they now have the Exceptional Extrait line up. Intense version of any perfume is pretty meaningless to me. I want the ritual of a splash bottle of parfum version.

The two perfumes that I would like to see done in parfum form would be Estee Lauder Pleasures or Clinique Happy. Pleasures does come in an intense version and I haven't smelled that yet. I don't want to go back into the habit of blind buying again since I have pulled myself out of that recently. Estee Lauder and Clinique have the means to do something like this but they don't. Maybe something in the original formula doesn't translate well or they think something might not be good enough for even just a holiday run. I don't know which one I would get first if that happened because I am sure that they would be more reasonably priced that what Chanel would sell and maybe a little bit of a bigger bottle.

It looks like Andy Tauer did release another limited edition after he released Nexin. This one that he just released, was sold out when I got to the website. I wasn't looking to get a bottle, I was interested in the price, the concentration and how big the bottle was. I did notice a price increase on Andy Tauer offerings but I did notice a price hike on other perfume line ups. The price hikes on groceries is a little rough but seeing bigger price hikes on everything else sucks. I have enough perfume perfume to last a few lifetimes but I still want to try new things.

One TV show that I have watched ever since the beginning is Call the Midwife on PBS and the 15th season will drop sometime in 2026. I just found out that season 15 will be the last season and we will be getting a prequel. I am sad that Call the Midwife is ending but I did notice that the quality of the show has gone down in the past few seasons. Too many new characters were introduced and left fairly quickly with little to no explanation. I did noticed in the past season or two is that there have been a couple episodes that were very nitty gritty like in the first three seasons. I think that that should have been my first inkling that there really might not be a whole lot of time nor life for Call the Midwife. I did notice the past season when one of the main characters that has been there since the beginning was absent for a couple episodes, and she was in every episode before. So after Call the Midwife is finished, it will be mostly Grandchester and All Creatures Great and Small of my TV watching.

Little Bit of a Relief

I got a little bit of financial relief today. The short term disability that I wasn't so sure that I would get has come through. I got two weeks worth of that money. It still might be less than what I am used to but I have some kind of breathing room. Not a whole lot of breathing room but I feel a little bit better than I have been in the past few days. So that means that I can plan things a little bit better.

Thanksgiving was pretty quiet at my house. I somehow found a fresh turkey that was under 10 pounds. Turns out that the smaller the turkey, the bonier it is. For once, I got to watch the dog show on Thanksgiving day and a decent chunk of the parade before I got bored with that. I really enjoyed the fact that I didn't have to go anywhere and making Thanksgiving dinner wasn't the big pain in the ass that it usually is.

It's going to be a long 5 more days before I return to work. After being off a little over 3 weeks, I get to go back on Friday. I honestly can't afford to sit at home anymore and I am getting a little on the bored side of things. I didn't get to finish any candles nor did I get to polish my nails like I thought that I would be able to. The only thing that I did binge watch was the Hobbit trilogy, I couldn't even focus on reading a book.

Since we are in the holiday shopping season, I honestly will not be partaking in the whole Black Friday to Cyber Monday nonsense. One, I am not flush with money and two, most of my Christmas shopping is done already. All I have to do is shop for my 2 eldest nephews but I am probably going to get them an Xbox gift card and call it a day or maybe an inexpensive video game. Video games are expensive and I don't ever recall video games being this expensive. But the sale that I am most waiting for is the Bath and Body Works Candle Day sale that's happening the weekend of December 6th. I will have a little more money for that but I still want to take it easy with that sale. I still have tons of candles already. I know that I shouldn't get more and probably should give this Candle Day a pass. If the price is more than $10.50, I will. The gift card that I have is $30 but I might embellish that with an extra $10 but everything boils down to price and how bad do I really want this.

I will admit to the fact that I used some of my Ulta rewards points to make a fairly large purchase. I did create a stockpile of stocking stuffers and one or two emergency gifts if I need them. But the big ticket item was the Estee Lauder Pleasures gift set that Ulta had on sale. How was I going to refuse a 1.7 ounce and a 3.4 ounce giftset for $80? I couldn't refuse that type of deal and it came with all of these gift with purchase type of thing. I am thinking of using another chunk of my rewards to load up on MAC lipsticks since they are on sale. But I really should hold off on that for at least a couple weeks.
 

Pleasures Body Lotion and Amouage Honour Bath and Body Stuff

 While I was on vacation a couple weeks ago, I kept meaning to post something but never seemed to come up with anything. If I did think of something, I forgot, then time really got away from me and now we are at the end of the month. And I don't really talk too much about perfumed bath stuff. I managed in the past couple weeks to start using Estee Lauder Pleasures body lotion and Amouage Honour soap and body butter.

I don't really get into bath soaps and lotions too much any more. In high school and when I went to college, I loved body washes and lotions. When I fell in love with something at Bath and Body Works, I had to have the matching body wash, lotion and mist. Back in the late 90's and early 00's, Bath and Body Works was cheap and cheap was my budget. 

Since my perfume collection has grown, my bath collection didn't. Most of my perfumes don't have bath and body lines, so regular soap and unscented lotion will have to do. Chanel, Clinique, Estee Lauder and Amouage are the only ones that have a full bath and body line. Truth be told, that suits me just fine. I don't really need tons of bath stuff since I am trying to use things up and get rid of things.

When I was testing the Pleasures body lotion, I wasn't expecting to be impressed with it. Until I was impressed with the body lotion. I was expecting it to be either not moisturizing enough or too heavy. I was also expecting it to be either overwhelming with perfume or bear no resemblance to Pleasures. It was the right amount of perfume and moisturizing enough without being too heavy. I have dry skin with really scaly elbows and my elbows need all the help they can get. When you spend almost sixty dollars on a lotion, my expectations are a little higher than what I would spend at a grocery store for some lotion.

It took me forever to finally open and use the Amouage Honour woman bath stuff but I finally did. I can never make up my mind on if I like or love Honour woman. Honour woman can be equal points of love and annoyance for me. Honour woman was the last Amouage that I really paid attention to. I didn't pay too much attention to Beloved. I think that was when Amouage was really starting to release tons of things at once and it got to be too much for me.

Amouage packaging has always been on the decadent side but Amouage is a house that knows that if someone is going to spend the money, the details of everything matter. When I opened the bar soap, it was the engravings on the soap that really wowed me, just that little detail amazed me. Yes, the little decorations will wash away but it is still awesome. The bar soap didn't really lather up too well but I have the same issue with my Epic bar soap. The body butter was mostly decadent but in terms of moisturizing properties, it wasn't moisturizing enough for me. It definitely smelled like Honour but I found the smell to be a little too dense.

What I have noticed is that it is harder and harder to find Amouage bath and body stuff. I am having a harder and harder time trying to find Epic, Lyric and Memoir in bath and body stuff. I think even Amouage might be having problems too getting  supplies in to make these things. I am running pretty low on Lyric and Memoir bath and body things. I'm hoping that I can start replenishing my stock soon enough.

Estee Lauder and Dogs

On Wednesday, we put in an application for a lab puppy to adopt. Found out on Saturday that we didn't get the puppy. The reason is that we didn't have a fenced in yard. We live in a rural area and there are tons of places where have a visible fenced yard. In a rural area, visible fenced yards are not the most feasible thing and invisible fenced yards are more of an option. Every rescue that we have tried thus far want fenced yards (no visible). What is also driving me batty as well is the amount of cash rescues want. Around $500 for a puppy, $400 for an adult and $200 for a senior. I don't ever recall rescue places wanting major money to adopt a dog and a massive application process. If people are willing to shell out at least $200 or more to adopt a dog, why such an application process? So my family and I are going to go the breeder route again. We would have loved to adopt a dog but all the hoops that need to be jumped through isn't for us.

I tried really hard to refrain from buying new bottles of perfume and did fail at it. I was poking around the internet to see if Estee Lauder had some bath stuff that went along with Pleasures. The only thing that I could find was a body lotion. I sprung for the body lotion and a 1.7 ounce bottle of Pleasures along with it. The Estee Lauder website gave me 15% for creating an account and I was sold. I'm not the type that really wants to pay full price if I don't need to. I might have gotten another 5 ounce bottle but apparently that size sells out quickly. 

I have always adored Pleasures for women. Pleasures for women was probably my first big perfume love. Yes, I wore Clinique Happy and Cucumber Melon but I loved Pleasures more. Back in the later  90's, when Pleasures came out, I was in high school and working a part time minimum wage job. I couldn't afford Pleasures on a regular basis. When I could afford a bottle, I went with the largest sized bottle that I could get and didn't wear it a lot. Most of the time, I wore either Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon and Happy. Clinique Happy wasn't purchased as often as Cucumber Melon because a $5 an hour job didn't get you very far so I have to be cautious with my bottles of Pleasures and to a lesser degree of Happy.
 

Perfume Minis

 I am having a real hankering of going back to basics. Recently, I have been wearing tons of Estee Lauder Pleasures and Clinique Happy. Now I am starting to get a hankering for the original Vera Wang for her perfume. It's cheap enough on BeautyEncounter and Fragrancenet and I am flirting on if I should get a bottle but at this point, I am going to have to wait and see if I can finish a bottle or two of perfume before I go adding more shit. I am trying not to add anything more and it's not an easy thing to do. But I do wish that Sheer Veil wasn't discontinued and not a million Princess flankers.

Going back to basics in perfume isn't too bad. Maybe I don't want anything too demanding in terms of perfume. The pandemic has left me exhausted and with the stress related to grief, demanding perfumes are not what I want. I want perfumes that are a little more comforting and right now some of them are blasts from the pasts.

This is something that I really don't see very often anymore. There was a point in time where I would get myself perfume gift sets. I am talking probably late 90's early 2000's. I might not have had tons of cash then but when I would buy perfume, I would save every spare penny I could and get the gift set. I wanted the most bang for my buck. In those gift sets was a bottle of perfume and either the body lotion or soap but there would always be a little perfume mini in there. I always did enjoy the perfume minis. They were fun, cute and easily displayed. Problem with those is that most of the time is that they were dabbers and not sprays. So I couldn't really put them in my purse or book bag. At that time, travel sprays were not much of a thing. I would like to see minis make a comeback and preferably in spray form. Those 4ml spray minis were great because a regular travel sprayer can be a little too big and bulky. Sometimes just too much in general. Let's hope that the perfume gods will listen and bring back more perfume minis.

Made it Through

I made it through another snow storm and didn't lose electricity. I am happy about that. Yesterday was not the greatest day. The roads were a mess and I still had to go to work. Many places in my area were closed for the day but not where I worked. Funny thing is that I received a phone call from my manager stating that there were a bunch of call offs for my department and there wasn't enough work for me to do in my department. I had the choice of either taking the day off or going into work and working in another department. It's been many years since I had to work in a different department and I was not willing to deal with another departments drama so I took the day off. In all the years that I have worked for my current company, I don't ever recall getting a phone call like that. So this was just a random day off and I shall take it. I used the day to get on top of a couple things and try and set myself ahead of a couple things. My bank account can take the hit. I didn't realize that I had leftover vacation from last year until I looked at my last paycheck and might have a residual amount left.

Valentine's day is just around the corner and I am really started to be bombarded with emails about when the last day of shipping is or extra points per dollar in rewards. I am not looking for anymore perfume at the moment. Well, I'm always looking for new perfume but I am trying not to buy anymore perfume except for when Sephora has their spring sale in April. I am trying not to add much of anything to my collection but trying to use things up. It's the whole idea of companies trying to make you think that you have to buys gifts or just buy stuff for whatever holiday that has gotten pretty annoying. I am just trying not to buy as much in general this year and it's difficult to change the bad habit of buying things because it was a good deal. Or because I was bored, anxious or just had a little extra money. I am just trying to get myself in a little better financial state.

Slowly but surely, I am whittling down my candle collection. Even though it's slow going, every candle that I finish, it's a little more space that I have. I'm not adding candles or perfume at the moment, I just want less clutter at this point. By using things up or just throwing out what I don't use creates space.

With all of the cold weather and the back to back winter storms and the cold, I want spring to arrive. I really want to bust out the Estee Lauder Pleasures and Clinique Happy. I have worn both recently but they don't quite fit with winter. I had forgotten how much I love both of them. Pleasures is more of a spring perfume and Happy is more of a summer type of perfume. Truth be told, I was over the moon when Ulta had a special going for Estee Lauder products and I nabbed that 5 ounce bottle. I haven't seen the 5 ounce bottle on Ulta since early last year. It's still available on the Estee Lauder website but sells out often. I do wish that the body lotion was available at Ulta or just more available in general. I have been craving the EDP version of no 19 as well but to a lesser extent. I want sunny, warm days again. The days when I I can go outside without a coat on, wear short sleeves, the days were I can start breaking out the spring/summer candles. I have a couple candles that I am sick of looking at and I just want to use them to just get rid of them. There is no reason on why I need 10 lilac candles, no reason why I need that rosewater ivy or strawberry pound cake. I only have 1 of those two and why not just use them when spring comes and just be done with it.
 

Body Products and Vacation

 I have 3 full days of vacation left or 3 and a half, if I want to nit pick. Haven't really done a whole hell of a lot except hang around and do some minor cleaning and organizing. Slowly but surely, I am finishing off that Vanilla Bean Noel candle and hope that it will be finished off by tomorrow. The only sunny and warm day was Sunday and it's been cold, wet and full of rain, so there isn't much of a point of going out and doing a damned thing.

Last night, I had put on some of the Clinique Wrappings body lotion to see if I could warm up to Wrappings a little more. Turned out to be a "meh" type of thing. Sometimes, the body products can be completely different than the perfume or exactly the same. The lotion was more of a milder version of Wrappings. My skin was decently moisturized but my hands, especially my nails, didn't feel all that moisturized. So Wrappings is still a no go for me.

I finally busted out the Chanel Coco Mademoiselle body products today and enjoyed every damn minute of my shower. The lotion is what I expected since I have tried the no 5 body lotion. What I did really enjoy is the body wash and how it lathered up and didn't dry out my skin too much. I do think that the shower gel or body wash is far superior to the bar soap in terms of lather and just getting clean. I do think that the Mademoiselle bath and body products are better than the no 5 bath and body products by the simple fact that there are too many iterations of no 5 to really make the no 5 bath and body products great.

With Mother's Day coming up, my email has been really bombarded with all kinds of emails reminding my of Mother's Day. I have both a Mother's Day gift taken care of and a birthday gift just about taken care of. But Ulta in all of it's infinite wisdom, decided to let me know that they had Estee Lauder Pleasures on sale in all sizes. I was eventually going to get the family sized bottle but the eventually seemed to be today. Since perfume budget for the year has really been blown, I am okay with not getting anything for the rest of the year  in terms of perfume.

Blast from the Past

It's incredibly rare at this point for me to get a full bottle of anything. You have no idea how excited I was to order that travel set of Chanel no 5 in January and then a couple weeks ago, Coco Mademoiselle and now Estee Lauder Pleasures. Just afford those three in the past three months is amazing. Were they niche? No but getting solely niche isn't that important to me anymore. But to imagine to get this blast from the past. The original Estee Lauder Pleasures.

When I was in high school, Estee Lauder Pleasures came out, well a year before I hit high school. I fell in love at first sniff. When I got my first job in high school, there wasn't such a thing as online shopping, all the money I made went into a savings account that I couldn't access without a parental signature. Most of the time, this was out of my price range, so I waited for birthdays and Christmas to get a bottle or two. Most of the time, I wore Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon because it was cheap and I a little more access to a store.

For a few years, or quite a few, I wasn't in the habit of wearing perfume. I used up what I had and never really bothered to replace anything. Then Cuir de Russie came along and perfume wearing was back. But I still didn't get a bottle of Pleasures until about a week ago. It's dirt cheap at this point since it's been out since 1995 and has spawned a few flankers. I have never tried any of the flankers and have had no desire to.

I had debated for probably a minute on what size bottle to get, just a minute. The 3.4 ounce bottle would be overkill for me a 1.7 ounce probably would have been too much. Then I saw a 5 ounce bottle. If Pleasures was my only perfume, a 5 ounce bottle would have been great, so the one ounce bottle was the perfect size since I don't want large sizes of anything anymore. Pleasures smells basically just like I remembered, a dewy floral thing. Maybe a little or a lot louder than I remember (will probably wear soon to find out) and the dry down seems to be marginally different than I remember. But it's still the same from what I remember.

Simply Pretty

Before falling down the rabbit hole of perfume, I never gave perfume much thought. I did wear perfume but I was quite a bit like many people, casual perfume user. I didn't seek out new things, didn't explore notes, nothing. I was into simply pretty. For years, I was a user of Estee Lauder Pleasures and Clinique Happy. If I wore other perfumes, they were of the straight up floral type.

Then came that e-mail from Chanel and getting that massive bottle of Cuir de Russie. I found Cuir de Russie to be pretty likeable but still wasn't sure of it, it wasn't what I was used to smelling, especially on me. Then I started to love it and seek out the perfumes that were not the simply pretty. I started seeking out the unusual, the animalic and the straight up weird. And I had found plenty of those and then started branching out into looking for vintages. When you starting seeking stuff out and trying new things, it gets expensive and fast. Now I am at the point of I have enough right now and I am trying to finish some full bottles perfume and decants. Let's see how long this lasts.

Now back to the simply pretty. Pretty and nice is just that, pretty and nice. But after a while, the pretty and nice failed to move me. I think it was the fact that I wasn't this person that was a teenager or someone in my early 20's anymore and did want the things that were a little more mature and maybe those that are a little more funky. Simply pretty and nice is more for the person who doesn't really love perfume, it's for the ones that are wearing perfume for the sake of wearing perfume. I do have a couple of perfumes in my collection that are pretty (Un Coeur en Mai for example), I find myself not reaching for them too often to seek out a lot of the simply pretty.