BDK Tubereuse Imperiale Review

Since I went wild with Gris Charnel, I decided to test out another BDK perfume. Luckyscent was having a 10% off and free shipping on everything in their store, I made a jump for the Tubereuse Imperiale travel spray, even though I probably shouldn't have done it. It's not all that often that Luckyscent has a sale. I try not to regret things and I am trying to not spend money all wily nilly here, I have things that I need to pay for and I just have to spend less in general. But I figure for a grand total of $43 (tax included) for a 10ml travel spray, what did I have to lose?

It was my parents' 43rd wedding anniversary today and they decided that I was to tag along for dinner. I was thinking about wearing Tigress Musk but that wasn't exactly suited to the occasion but I wanted something a little different from my normal stuff. And after that 18 hour power outage from Friday night to Saturday afternoon, I was a little sick of CdG Kyoto.

This tuberose is a strange one. It doesn't smell like a fully mature tuberose bloom, more of a young bloom. It's like when a rose bud is just starting to open and give off it's scent. I did notice that it has a marginal green type of smell but also has a little bit of a metholated type of smell, like I smelled in Tuberose Criminalle. But there was something in the whole set up that reminded me of something else that I owned and I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly which one. All through dinner it was bothering me. Then it came to me, the supporting notes gave a distinct the form of the original Chanel Coco. As much as I do like Coco, it does have that 80's vibe to this. But if Coco were to be updated, I would like it to go more of Tubereuse Imperiale without altering it to the point of not recognizing it.

The tuberose does fade into the background but not fully into the background. The spices do come out to play a little bit more and since I am in the dry down, I am smelling a little bit of vanilla, it's not a whopping dose but it's in there. I applied this at 3 this afternoon and it's a little after 11 and it's slowly starting to fade. Personally, I would and will stick to the 10ml travel spray because I can't really justify a full bottle of this, even if I do like it a fair bit.
 

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.

Getting Back to the Basics

Since I have made the decision to declare bankruptcy and working on scrapping together the money for stuff related to that, I am starting to get back to some basics. I mean really starting to get back to basics.

These past couple weeks have been really hard. Bath and Body Works had a BOGO candle sale and 2 of those 40% off everything in the store sales. I only participated in the first one and that was it and I did get a little bit and that little bit was no more than $25. I had to draw the line somewhere and what I want to start doing is start using up my candle collection. This spring and summer, I really want to make a dent in my collection. Spring is on the way and with working 3 days a week, I believe that I can make a decent dent in my 84 count candle collection. What is working in my favor is that even though there is that Bridgerton collection, I did get the Diamond of the Season single wick candle. If I am not to impressed with that candle, I don't think that I would be too impressed with the others. By September, I want to get down to under 60 candles. I figure with the the temps creeping up and the notion of being able to leave windows open, I can have 2 candles going at a time. If I have 2 candles going on at once, it's probably going to have to be the single wick ones only.

The only thing from Ulta that I am probably going to be buying are the Tula hair, skin, nail and gut health gummy vitamins. I have to remember that I am trying to save money to get rolling on the bankrupcy but I also have to really watch myself during the whole process. I don't want to get the stink eye from anyone and not have it go through. I want to able to explain everything that I can, even though the lawyer said that a trustee is really making sure that I am not hiding assets or money and that I really am broke.

Even though I am on a full bottle no buy type of deal I did partake in the Luckyscent sale but I had only gotten myself a travel spray of the BDK Tuberose Imperial and a rollerball of Clinique Happy in Paradise. Those are birthday gifts so those can be explained, I think that any gift giving that I do, has to be a modest amount. I am almost tempted to hang on to the Happy one even though I have so much of the original Happy as it is.

But where I have really gotten back to basics is with my perfume collection. I've started to really go back to wearing my Chanel perfumes and to a lesser extent, some of my Amouage perfumes. I've been wearing a whole lot more of no 5 and some Coco Mademoiselle. On days off, I have been wearing tons of either Lyric or Epic. But I am trying to see what full bottles I can use up as well. I think that it would be a pretty wise idea to see what perfumes that I can use up and make my collection a little smaller and a little more manageable. So I think that I should start to focus more on 2 or 3 perfumes and see what I can do with finishing some more bottles. But I think I am going to go with the smaller bottles first. I think that I ought to start using up my decants as well.

I do kind of hate having to watch the spending because I am overhauling my life due to money. I got depressed, buy this and you will feel better. I got bored or there was a good sale on something and I would buy something. It's the frivolous spending that gets me and that has to change. I have had to put up some boundaries with the people that I live with. Just because I work at a grocery store, I can't keep buying groceries for family members and not get the money upfront. The excuse of "it just popped into my head and we do need this" can't fly anymore. It's the little expenses that keep happening is wasteful and the wasteful spending just can't happen right now. But I want to see what I can do with the smaller changes right now.
 

Bath and Body Works Bridgerton Collection

 Does anyone remember when Urban Decay did a release of Game of Thrones makeup? I do. The only thing that I was interested in was the lipstick part of that line up. There were a couple shades of lipstick that I really wanted but everything with that lineup was sold out at Sephora but I managed to nab the last White Walker lipstick. Sadly, I wasn't able to score more of the lipsticks from that line. In the past 5 years, it seems like makeup companies are hopping on the whole whatever is hot at the moment and let's do a collaboration type of thing.

I don't ever recall Bath and Body Works doing something like this. Granted, I started getting back into Bath and Body Works in 2019 and their Candle Day was going on. I would have thought that they would have tried some of that a little earlier. Say when Downton Abbey was going on or maybe Lord of the Rings or even Star Wars. It looks like the first foray into this whole thing is Bridgerton. When I went to Bath and Body Works on Sunday, there wasn't any kind of hint of this lineup at my store. I have heard that other stores having some of the collection. I think that they were focusing on the 40% off promo that they had going on. Yes, I did partake in the sale but only bought 1 candle. I hardly ever set foot in a Bath and Body Works brick and mortar store and I was a little disappointed that there wasn't even 1 candle of the Bridgerton line for me to smell. Diamond of the Season was already online and being sold. When I came home on Sunday, I realized that I had a free reward that I wanted to use. So I used that reward today to at least try the Diamond of the Season single wick candle. Even though I did the but 2 for $24, I didn't get the Diamond candle for free. Probably because the candle without the deal is almost $20 per candle.

But the biggest shock for me with the whole Bridgerton lineup is the price. Bath and Body Works candles are expensive enough as it is but in a lot of ways, this is pretty telling. If Bath and Body Works is going to keep doing collaborations, it's going to be pretty pricey, even for one thing. A 3 wick will run you a little over $30 and I refuse to pay anything over $14 for a single candle. With how many Bath and Body Works candles get released in a season, some of the pricing for a little extra decoration on the label is a little out there. I am already down and out financially and using up my gift card stash for gifts or to replace things that I use on the regular.

The Hard Decision

Today, I had to make a very hard decision to declare bankruptcy. I am meeting with a lawyer to discuss the next few steps tomorrow morning. 

This step was probably a year in the making but for a good year, I pretty much stuck my head in the stand but with some things being as they are, I can't afford to put off this next step any longer. My mental health has really been struggling these past few months. I've been agonizing over this decision for a couple months. I can't take the constant phone calls and all kinds of threats anymore. I am still trying to make this a better year for myself and it's still questionable at this point. This means that I am probably won't be buying much of anything outside of bare bones basics for at least 4 months. Any full bottle purchases are on hold.

I have always struggled with autism and mental health and one of my biggest downfalls is overspending and executive functioning. Most of the time, I can only think a week ahead of time, two if I am lucky. If something is a month away and I need to save $200, it never happens. Ulta or Bath and Body Works is having a fabulous sale, I'm spending money. I will spend money on things that I don't need but yet don't have the money for the things that I need, like paying my cellphone bill or groceries. I am trying to make some changes now but for the next few months, there will be more drastic changes but I don't know what they will be. Quite frankly, at this point, I'm scared. The only things I own that people might be interested in would be my candles, perfume and maybe some jewelry. Okay, the only thing people might be interested in is the jewelry but I don't have much of that. I don't have anything in terms of assets but the fact remains is that filing bankruptcy scares the shit out of me. I am wondering on what I will be able to do and not do during the whole process.

I still intend to blog about perfume and many things but I might not be blogging a whole lot. Or my blog might take a different direction.

 

Shalimar

 Today seemed to be a day where many people, myself included, wore Shalimar. This is due to the fact that on Now Smell This, the Friday community project is to wear something vanilla in perfume. It looks like a few were starting out the week with Shalimar. But I did get into some thinking about Shalimar.

It seems like in the past year, Guerlain has released flanker after flanker of Shalimar. There were a couple times that I did have the means to get a bottle but something else demanded my financial attention. So the last time I managed to try and really like a Shalimar flanker is when the Ode a la Vanilles came out. At that time, I had managed to get my grubby hands on the Mexican version and not the Madagascar version. So off and on throughout the years, I have looked around to see if I could get a sighting of the Madagascar but whenever I did see a bottle, it was major money. For some reason the Mexican version seems to be the easier to procure one and it might be that more people might have liked the Madagascar one. I know that I appreciated the Madagascar one more. I found it to be richer, a little more smokey and just enjoyed it more. It's not to say that the Mexican version isn't great, it is but I prefer what I prefer. And I am kicking myself for discovering the Parfum Initial version of Shalimar long after it was discontinued.

But I am not exactly thrilled with all the limited edition flankers. It seems like if I manage to get one and either really like it or love it, it's gone before I can get a backup bottle. Then I scout E-Bay and see that it's more than a car payment and the bottle might be half empty. Paying upwards of $150 for a half used bottle of anything isn't happening, those days are long gone. This means that I must make a better effort to enjoy what I have and start using up what I have. But that is easier said than done.

Bath and Body Works Lavender Iris Review

Way back when, I was a huge Bath and Body Works fan girl. This is back when minimum wage was only $4.95 an hour. And this is when I was 14 and was starting out in the working world. So 18 hours a week at $4.95 per hour isn't a whole lot of cash today but at 14, it was a lot of money. Granted, even then, I knew that I couldn't buy a whole lot. So Bath and Body Works was my go to in terms of anything perfume for the most part. For $25, I could get matching soap, lotion and body spray and this was in the mid to late 90's and that was a bargain. Now Bath and Body Works has gotten pretty pricey and maybe a little too big for it's britches. The quality has gradually gone down and the prices has gone up. Eventually, I had to start paying for college and my expenses had gone up. When that happened, I didn't have the extra cash for Bath and Body Works and I eventually forgot about Bath and Body Works and perfume in general.

Candles did reignite my Bath and Body Works interest and have started to explore the bath stuff again. I became fixated on the aromatherapy line and saw the Lavender Iris line up and had to try it. I haven't broken into the body wash and lotion yet but decided to give the essential oil stuff a go.

This essential oil mist is sold as a multi purpose type of thing. You can spray it on clothes, bedding and on skin and I decided to wear it as perfume. I will say that the biggest note from start to finish was lavender and it was especially huge in the beginning. I kept waiting and waiting for the iris to show up and the faintest whisper of iris did show up. The iris that I am used to is what is in Infusion d'Iris, no 19 and Iris Silver Mist. No 19 and Iris Silver Mist is a carroty, root like type of iris and Infusion d'Iris is more of the higher class type of iris. There was a review somewhere that said that Lavender Iris was like Prada's Infusion d'Iris and truth be told, I am not smelling any resemblance to it. I almost got a Jicky type of vibe to Lavender Iris. I know that it is something from Bath and Body Works is not exactly high end stuff but for the price point and brand, I kind of do expect something a little better put together. This is pretty much a glorified room spray trying to masquerade as a perfume. Until they bring back Milk and Honey, Gardenia Lily or Night Blooming Jasmine, I will stick to the candles.