Vintage Shalimar Extrait Review

I have finally cracked open a bottle of vintage Shalimar extrait and wore it. I don't wear Shalimar that often for some strange reason. For quite a while, I was prowling E-bay and was always on the hunt for reasonably priced bottles of vintage Mitsouko, Shalimar and Jicky. I was mainly looking for the teardrop bottles and if the price was reasonable, I got it. If the bottle was sealed, bonus. Somehow, I managed to score two unopened bottles of vintage Shalimar extrait and one of the bottles was from the 1950's and the other is probably from the 1960's. The one I am reviewing is from the '60's.

The first blast was a whole lot of citrus, something lemony. Since it is vintage, the citrus smells a little bit damaged. Then the vanilla and leather do come out. I've noticed that the vanilla and leather doesn't come as far out in the extrait like in the current EDP, which I am the most familiar with. Nor do I get an animalic growl, well maybe a faint trace of it. Maybe I am too used to the skank in vintage BaV, Keihl's Original Musk and MKK.

After wearing the extrait and then wearing the current EDP version, I had remembered why I don't wear the original Shalimar too much. I don't wear it much because I am not a huge fan of a large dose of citrus in an oriental perfume. I really do enjoy the Shalimar Ode a la Vanille. The Ode a la Vanille does bring the animal growl out and amps up the vanilla while toning down the citrus aspect. But at the end of the day, I wasn't moved by the vintage extrait of Shalimar and that is probably a little sad.

Home Fragrance

For quite a while, I have been working on getting rid of stuff and trying to organize stuff. It's a huge process and there are a few sections that I haven't even begun to sort out. I am trying to get rid of a bunch of stuff and it's difficult to do.

 But one of the things that I am working on is wanting to figure out my shelving situation. Some of the shelving is for my clothes and the other is for perfume. I was thinking some corner shelves for my perfume and then have regular ladder like shelves for my clothes. When I actually decided to get all of that, it will make organization much easier for me. But first the serious cleaning and painting must be done. I still can't decide if I want the carpet replaced or not.

My new obsession right now is the Bath and Body Works wallflower plug ins and the refills. Bath and Body Works used to be my go to place for body wash and lotions. But Bath and Body Works isn't a huge part of my life for anything fragrant. Things with Bath and Body Works did change. Eventually, prices had gone up quite a bit, some scents were "retired", some discontinued but the biggest thing was many of the new releases and some of the big store sellers had changed to the point of they didn't smell good. Too chemically smelling to smell good or too potent.

So now I have found two scents in the form of candles or the wallflower plug ins but they are seasonal. I have always loved lilac and in the spring the lilac blossom is my go to and in the fall it is the farm stand apple or what ever they decide from year to year the name for a straight up apple scent. Candles are a very goo thing to have when you live in a rural area and the power goes out on a regular basis. When the power goes out, I don't know if it will be an hour or 12 hours or more and I would rather have a bunch of candles just in case.

Andy Tauer Eau D'Epices Review

When Andy Tauer had his 3 15ml travel set, I decided one of them would be Eau D'Epices. For quite a while, I never really picked it up and tried it out for some reason. I'm not sure why, maybe when I did try it, I couldn't describe it and still can't really describe it.

I just can't find a way to review this in any real way. The typical Tauer base smacks me in the nose. Then come some spices and what smells like vetiver. I'm not exactly sure if it is vetiver but I smell something woody/grassy in there. What struck me the most on how similar it is to Orange Star. Eau D'Epices and Orange Star can be considered siblings.

Lasting power is about 6-7 hours on skin and has moderate projection. Looking at everything, I don't think that I will seek out a bottle. It's a good thing to though. Looks like this one is either discontinued or sold out. I am leaning towards discontinued since it hasn't been seen on Andy Tauer's website or Luckyscent in quite a while. But on the perfume blogoshere, it doesn't seem to get a whole lot of love.

One of Those Days

Finishing a bottle of perfume can be so satisfying, especially when you have a large collection. It's one less bottle to keep track of, a little more space that's probably going to be filled quickly. But there is something else that is the worst.

On Tuesday, I had lost a bottle of perfume while I was at work. Let me explain what happened. On Tuesday, my mother was rummaging in my room to  pick out something to wear for a concert on Wednsday. While she was in the process of emptying things out, she some how knocked over a bottle of Chanel no 5 in extrait form. A half an ounce bottle ended up to be totally empty. I come home from work and she mentioned what happened with the clothes but failed to say that she knocked over the bottle of no 5. I was livid. Chanel isn't exactly the cheapest perfume house on the planet. The extrait bottles from Chanel are dabber bottles and when the aren't sealed, one can't afford to have them knocked over and spilled. When I entered my bedroom, it smelled like perfume. At first, I couldn't figure out why and which perfume. Then I saw the empty, knocked over bottle. I couldn't help but think how could you not hear a bottle being knocked over? Can't you notice the smell of perfume? Can't you look to see where the smell is coming from? I had to ask why and there was the response was she thought she might have smelled something but didn't investigate. This is not how I wanted an empty bottle and I know it's a first world problem but I spent good money for no 5 extrait. I've spent good money on all of my perfume.

Angel by Thierry Mugler Review

I have been on vacation for 9 days and I am on my last day of vacation. So it's back to work and I am not looking forward to it. Even though I had stayed home, it was quite a bit of running around and all kinds of plans made and I couldn't quite blog. I had actually managed to go into my stash and try a new (at least to me) perfume. As it turned out, it was Angel by Thierry Mugler.

I don't know if I would call Angel a classic maybe iconic for something that's been around just shy of 30 years. I mainly wanted to see what the fuss was about. And I don't see what the fuss is about with Angel.

It seems to be the stripped down version of Coco Mademoiselle and Coromandel. I just couldn't get a whole lot out of Angel besides that but could see how Angel could be abhorrent when worn in large quantities. The bottle is cute but I wasn't left with any kind of definite impresstion of the perfume itself to really make it stand out.

Can't Think of Anything

Amazon Prime day has come and gone. Ever since I have been a Prime member, a week before Prime day, I am anticipating what kind of deals. Sometimes, I don't find anything that I'd like but the past couple years have been a little different. Last year, I had gotten my dad a Kindle and he has been loving it and has been watching a few of the Prime shows and doing other things. This year, I had bought him a Fire Stick for the TV and then he can watch Prime shows and movies on the TV.

But every time Prime day passes, it almost seems like a big letdown, kind of like Christmas. All this preparation, money spent and waiting for everything to come. After that, the anticipation is gone. But I am still making an effort to finish up my dad's birthday gift. I still have about 3 days to do it and I'd rather get it done sooner rather than later so I don't have it hanging over my head.

 For at least a couple years, I haven't done much in the way of perfume buying. I've cut back on the decants, E-Bay prowls and full bottle buying in general. I still dig buying perfume but priorities had to change. I've had to limit to when I could buy full bottles and decants. The decant part, I had to shift into STC and TPC 15% off or more sales and the full bottle buying to my birthday or tax time. Yesterday, I did break down and did buy a bottle of Kiehl's Original Musk Blend no 1. I had a $5 off coupon (from Ulta), free shipping over $35 and a $15 gift card that was burning a whole in my pocket. Original Musk Blend no 1 was cheap enough to buy without those things but with those things, the price became too good to refuse. Cost has become a huge factor in the full bottle buying. I can't exactly go buy tons of full bottles but I can do it once or twice a year if I am very mindful of the cost. But I am happy that I was able to get an inexpensive bottle of something.

What the What

I am sitting here and I am one big itch. This heat has brought on my eczema and rain has brought the mosquitoes. Something always itches and I am going through the calamine stuff like crazy. Since Amazon Prime Day has come and gone and the big part of my dad's gift has been bought, I took a look at Luckyscent. My dad is asking for another one of those hinoki scented soap bars and they are not in stock right now but I will keep looking.

I stumbled on the regular Roja then the Roja Dove stuff. There was always one of the Roja Dove offerings that I have been interested in was Diaghilev. I really wasn't super interested in ordering a perfume. When I saw the price tag of Diaghilev, I almost had a heart attack. The cost for a bottle was over a thousand dollars. Yep, a thousand dollars. I couldn't remember what any of the Roja and Roja Dove line had cost, but reading on Basenotes.net some one made the comparison from what a bottle of any of the Chanel extraits to the Roja and Roja Dove extraits and Chanel was more expensive price per milliliter than Roja Dove. I did a little bit of the math and the costs are pretty similar. But the difference with Chanel, there are different sizes to choose from with the extrait but with Roja Dove there is only once size.

I know that if I fell in love with any Roja Dove perfume, you would have to save pennies for quite a while before I order a bottle. But on the other hand I could buy a minimum of 3 other bottles of perfume that are on my list. But it just seems like arrogance to charge that much for a bottle of perfume and just the thought of charging over a thousand dollars for a perfume makes me raise an eyebrow.