A Harsh Mistress

Come recently, I've been rearranging my perfume collection. Pulling things that I don't wear too often to the front and things that I have been wearing quite a bit to the back. It's the whole forgetting about which bottles I have and why I bought them. So it's the whole trying to use up what I already have. Forgot that I had a bell jar of Sarrasins and De Profundis and I remembered the joy I felt to finally have a bell jars of two scents that I loved. And yet I still kind of hoard them. Then I started to wonder why.

Perfume is a harsh mistress when it comes to collecting. I haven't counted how many bottles of perfume that I have but I have a lot. Every time I gaze at my collection, I ask, "Do you really know how much you've spent on full bottles alone?" Truth is, I don't and I don't think I really want to know the answer to that question. I figure that I have probably spent almost a year's wages or a little more than that over the span of 10 years. Vintage finds, high and low end offerings, some discounted, some not and with the vintage finds; I might have spent more than what I should have on a few bottles. Back up bottles played a roll too, the fear of anything being discontinued is real. And yet, I want to add more to my collection.

I've had many collections and I have found that perfume has been the most demanding and expensive to date. Books, makeup, nail polish have been fairly cheap compared to perfume. Amouage, Serge Lutens bell jars don't come cheap and I don't really have the means to snap up bottles left and right anymore. So the perfume buying has slowed down and I don't even buy so many decants anymore. I still love perfume but I really need to start using some full bottles up and add only 1 or 2 more bottles to my collection.

Zoologist Civet EDP Review

On Now Smell This, there has been talk on the SOTD posts about the house Zoologist. After hearing quite a bit about it, I had bought 2 decants when STC was having their 3ml Thursdays. It was tough to figure out which ones to pick out. I am a perfumista that loves a good skank note. MKK, vintage BaV, Shalimar and my favorites so far with vintage BaV being my favorite (15 bottles would attest to that love).

Last night and most of the morning, I was wearing Civet. I was hoping for something in the lines of smooth and a little easy going. Civet isn't either of those things. I get something huge and pepper like. I have no fear of sillage but the sillage is not something to de desired in Civet. While I have said that there is something pepper like, I am not talking about green peppers, I am talking black pepper mixed with something else, what smells like strong, burnt coffee. Both of them together, don't smell good. So I waited the beginning hoping something would change. Something did change, the civet started peaking out never really came out on skin. Yes, when the civet came out, Civet just fell apart on me. Civet was just a hot mess on me and I have to say that I really don't like Civet and I had to shower to get it off me. I couldn't wait for the dry down to see if anything got any better. A full bottle will never be in my collection and I did have some hopes that it would.

Ubar Bath Products?

Recently, I have been wearing the crap out of my Amouage body products. It's winter and the Amouage body butters fit the bill for my dry skin. It moisturizes my skin without causing breakouts. Jubilation 25 and Dia I have in hand lotion form but don't see a whole lot of wear. Dia lotion and soap seems to be best suited for spring and Jubilation 25 gets aggravating. But there is something on my mind.

Ever since I have fallen in love with Ubar, I am not seeing any matching bath products. Yes, I am pining for a bottle and hoping that I will get a bottle sometime soon. You see, Ubar has been around for a while and hasn't had the benefit of having the body butter nor soap. Even Gold has matching soaps and body lotions and that has been around since the '80's. Is Ubar's formula not making it possible? Or is Ubar not the biggest seller to warrant one? I want to know.

Tax Things and Birthdays

We seem to be into tax season, well the very beginnings of it anyway. No, I haven't filed mine yet but I know that I will be getting a refund. There are a million ways on how I can use that money and I shouldn't be using it on perfume. But I will be.

My mother has always had a marginal interest in perfume. But she has always gone for the Dolce Gabbana stuff or something from Estee Lauder. She used to like Chanel mo 5 but she said that something changed in it and it doesn't smell the same. I gave her a dab of vintage extrait and that is when I knew what the issue was. Chanel had taken out the nitro-musk and that is why she didn't care for it. That is when she had taken the two vintage extraits and gave me her current version of extrait that I had gotten her one year. But this is a little different. In August of last year, she had fallen in love with Amouage Honour for women and at Christmas time, I had gotten her the bar soap and the matching body butter. So I think that for her birthday, I will be getting her a bottle of Honour. So using part of that tax refund is going to that.

But I am still looking at something for myself. The short list is Amouage Ubar, Guerlain SDV and Tauer's Andees 25. The problem is that I can't make up my mind on which one. It's funny, I can easily make up my mind about many things but when it comes to perfume, I can't make up my mind, either which one should I wear for the day or which is my next bottle purchase. I hope I can commit sometime soon.

Indult Tihota Review

The past couple weeks, I have been doing quite a bit of window shopping and debating. After the initial panic of not having a backup bottle of Noontide Petals (still gunning for another backup bottle though), I have been considering getting one of Andy Tauer's candles to try out. But while I was poking around his site and Luckyscent, it seems that I have discovered another discontinuation. It comes in the form of Eau D'Epices. I don't see it on his website nor Luckyscent. Eau D'Epices was something that I picked out when I was putting together that 15ml travel set. I don't wear it much and definitely haven't reviewed it. The few times that I have worn it. I found it strange and a little difficult to wear. It's always sad when a perfume gets discontinued and Tauer perfumes don't get discontinued often. Eau D'Epices probably wasn't a big seller from the get go and got the axe.

I am going through a phase of not being able to pick anything out of my full bottle collection to wear. Everything seemed to annoy me or should I say, excite me. I had figured that I probably really needed to pull something new out and wear it. I came away with Indult Tihota.

I'm not the biggest fan of vanilla but do love a few of them. My vanillas do have to be the inedible kind, not the cupcake kind. I am not a fan of smelling edible. Tihota has always been on of those vanillas that I had to test out but the price of a decant had always bugged me a little but when a 15% or 20% off from either STC or TPC came in, I grabbed a decant. And it's a good thing to, the price of a full bottle kind of scares me and I can spring for a full bottle on a whim.

Tihota starts out as straight up vanilla extract and a very alcoholly one at that. I'm not talking a nice alcohol type smell like I get in, I don't know, Frapin 1270 but straight up cheap vodka. Tihota in the earliest stage was almost a scrubber for me. When the alcohol faded, I got a cross between creme brulee and vanilla ice cream. With that, I got a little annoyed and relieved. Relieved in the sense that I didn't spring for a full bottle with out trying it, annoyed in the way of it smelled the way it did. Tihota tried to save itself by making it lean to the inedible. It's the frosted yellow cupcake that has been sitting out for the better part of 4 days and is now fairly stale. Or that bowl of vanilla ice cream that's now melted and pretty much room temperature. I want my vanilla to be burnt like Guerlain's SDV. I was just not amused and really not impressed with something that seems to have almost cult like status in terms of vanilla perfumes. Tihota is pretty tenacious with 10 hours on my skin. I doubt that I will be buying Tihota any time soon.

Being Sick and Perfume

Ever since Wednesday, I've had some strange head/chest cold thing going on. It's not fully in my chest and not quite a head cold but somewhere in between. Along with that, my asthma is acting up. So the past couple days, I've been binge watching Chicago Fire. So far, I am on season three. Since my cold thing is breaking up and the asthma getting out of line, I've been limited to what I can wear. My collection is full of heavy hitters and some powder bombs. I have found a tiny handful that work for colds. I want to wear something but can't wear something that's just going to aggravate the asthma and make me feel worse.

1. Jicky- is great for the beginning of a cold. Something but not too much. I find Jicky to be one that you have to dump at least a quarter of a bottle on before it's too much. I don't have extrait so I can't comment.

2. Noontide Petals- I'm still not exactly happy that this one has been discontinued but work when things are starting to break up a little bit. Still gentle enough to not annoy the asthma.

3. Sarrasins- When your cold is really starting to break up and want to wear something a little more out there. I just dabbed some on even though I wish that the bell jars would have a spray mechanism.

Tomorrow, I am going to give vintage BaV a go and see how it works while plotting my next full bottle purchase. I am looking at the full bottle list and trying to decide on which one is going to be my next to be added to my stable. I keep coming back to Liu and SDV as the ones that I want to get. The drawback to me is the price. I keep asking myself on which one do I love more. I find that paying $280 for a shade over 4 ounces is a little more cost effective than say paying $260 for 2.5 ounces. This debate is raging in my head for years and can't make up my mind at this point. I hope that I can make up my mind soon.

Of Discontinued Things

The past couple days, it seems like I have gotten into some pretty big discussions of Now Smell This. On Sunday, on the Lazy Day weekend thread, I was discussing Call the Midwife with others who also enjoy Call the Midwife. I was happy to know that there were a few people that did agree with me on the past two seasons were not that great. Too many cast changes, the Chummy story line isn't really finished up and a few other things. But the one yesterday sent me into a little bit of a panic.

Ever since Andy Tauer came out with Noontide Petals back in 2013, I have really enjoyed wearing it but I still never wore it a lot until the past couple weeks. When I had started poking around Andy Tauer's site when I had noticed something. I had known that the travel set was not being sold. I figured that it might have been a supply issue or something that was offered only once a year. I noticed that Noontide Petals wasn't being sold on Andy Tauer's website. Initially, I thought that it must have been sold out. When another poster on NST was talking about the travel set, I made a mention of contacting Tauer Perfumes and that I couldn't find Noontide Petals being sold on Tauer perfumes. Someone did ask about the travel set and Mr. Tauer had said that the travel sets were discontinued due to it being cost prohibitive. Another poster said that she found out April of last year, that Noontide Petals was discontinued. I can't exactly remember how they found out but it was by accident. I found a legit bottle on Amazon after asking the people on NST if the seller was legit. I didn't go to Luckyscent because I wasn't exactly willing to pay full price and did have a credit on my Amazon account. So now I have a back up bottle of Noontide Petals.

I always seem a little sad when perfumes that I really enjoy, get discontinued. But it's far worse if I test something, love it and find that it was discontinued years ago. Noontide Petals probably wasn't a huge seller in the long term to justify keeping it in the line up.