The Wait Begins

Since we are now in February and this month is off to a little bit of a strange start. Late last week, I received a letter reminding me that I needed to get dog licenses for both my dogs. If I didn't get them or order them by January 31st, I would have to pay $30 per dog but get them by the 31st, it's $15 per dog. I didn't forget about getting the license bit, just forgot about the whole cost thing. By the time I got home from work, I couldn't run back out and get them. So I ordered them online, had to pay an extra $2 because I was paying by debit card.

I did file my taxes last week, even though I said that I would hold off. I just said screw it and let's just do it. So the wait now begins to get my refund. There are some things that I want to get ahead on and hopefully get that crown on my tooth, especially before I go to California. Thus far, my state refund should be in my account by the 17th. So that is a little over a week away. Something did pop up that I had to put on my federal taxes and even though the IRS did accept my return, there has been no word on if it was "approved" yet. Maybe I will find out in the next few days about what is going on through there website. So there is nothing that I can really do in the meantime except wait. I am still holding off on depositing that large check but thinking of doing a 30 day CD, mainly so I don't lose the check and maybe earn a little interest on it.

You know that whole not buying anymore perfume and candles? Yeah, I failed on both accounts. Amazon decided to drop the price of the Lolita Lempicka Le Parfum and I snapped up a bottle. A residual bit of a gift card brought down the price a little more. Well, all it did was pay for the tax but still. Yesterday, Bath and Body Works had a candle, hand soap and body spray for $20. It was an offer that I couldn't refuse. I got the Japanese Cherry Blossom body spray to give to my coworker for her birthday, the Sweet Lavender hand soap for a Mother's Day gift and if I think that the Lavender Bergamot might be a good smelling candle, but if it sucks, it becomes an emergency gift. I failed again in the past hour as I spent a shade over $35 on samples from Luckyscent. Any perfume nut can tell you that vintage and niche perfume doesn't come cheap. I am hoping that I can stay on the no buy in terms of no perfume and candle buying thing.

I have had a little bit of success though. I managed to finish another Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 62 lotion and I am about to finish up the travel sized body wash. I also finished a face wash balm and a face cream. I am pretty close to finishing a couple foaming hand soaps. I think I have to count my wins where I can. And let's hope I can keep using things up.

Of L'Occitane and Travels

Looks like I am finally going to be able to go to California this year to visit my sister and nephews. I finally bit the bullet and went to the unclaimed funds website for Ohio and will be getting my paws on that old savings account that HSBC account. At the time, HSBC had the best interest rate for savings accounts but trying to access the website and getting at the money was pretty much impossible. It is enough so I can get that crown for my tooth, and pay for a plane ticket with a little bit left over. My tax refund and whatever I can save from my paycheck should cover the rest. It is still going to be tough trying not to spend money on stupid stuff.

But I do know that since I am going to be traveling, I am going to need some travel sized toiletries. I have the body wash aspect taken care of since I have plenty of Lush mini bottles. I am not so sure that the lotions would get through security because they are in tubs. There just seems to be tons of work into planning a trip. This will be the third time in my life that I have had to travel by plane. I think I will figure that out closer to my trip but really make sure that anything I might need to order, arrives beforehand.

Outside of making sure I am okay with having enough of my medication, I am wondering on which perfume(s) I want to take with me. I don't want really want to travel with full bottles of perfume, nor do I want to travel with decants. So I am probably going to be traveling with purse sprays. The current ones that I have picked out are BDK Gris Charnel, Infusion d'iris and Clinique Happy. My travel spray of no 5 or Coco Mademoiselle Intense are up for debate. But on to L'Occitane.

A few months ago, I had bought some L'Occitane hand lotions. I do have a liking for small tubes of hand cream. I think they are great for small purses but I especially like to stick them in the fleece coat that I wear to work. Since I work in food service, I wash my hands quite often and that means dried out hands. Since my mother has a strong liking for L'Occitane, I figure I would get a couple tubes to try out. I got the almond one and the lavender one. Since this week's work perfume is Infusion d'iris, I figured that the lavender would play nice. The Sephora lavender plays nice with Infusion d'iris, I gave both a shot. I quickly found out that Infusion d'iris does not play quite so nice with the L'Occitane lavender. Then a night that I was too lazy to reapply perfume, I decided to try the hand lotion by itself. Turns out that I am not a huge fan of the L'Occitane lavender hand lotion for some reason. I just didn't jive with it and I love the Lush Sleepy lotion. I will admit that the L'Occitane lotion absorbs fairly quickly and sticks around for a little while longer but it is must not for me and will give this to my mother.

 

Sol de Janeiro Lotion and Body Wash

The winter storm that was supposed to be bad turned out to be a little more of a joke here in Northeastern Ohio. I was expecting it to be a little more on the horrible side but didn't seem all that bad. I honestly think it was over hyped or it stayed more to the south. What is funny is that the place that I worked closed at 4pm. In all the years I have worked there, there has never been a spontaneous early closing due to weather. Early closings or just not being open on a holiday are planned beforehand. I was a little bummed though, I had my candles all ready to go, my grocery shopping was done and I have a few books to read and a couple movies to watch in case we lost electricity.

 I finally made it through a four day stretch of Cheirosa 62. I was using the matching body products along with it. And there was a small victory to go along with it. I finished a small jar of the Bum Bum cream but have 2 large pots of lotion that I have to get through. But progress is progress when it comes to finishing things. I remember really enjoying the lotion during the summer but didn't use the body wash until this week.

Let's say that I was underwhelmed with the body wash. I found it to be thin, very runny and didn't leave a very clean feeling. What really got me was that there was little to no smell in the body wash. I have used body washes from Bath and Body Works, Chanel and Amouage and all of the body wash have left a scent behind but I didn't notice a smell afterwards. When I applied the lotion, I got the Cheirosa 62 smell that I am familiar with. While I did enjoy how easily the bum bum cream went on and how fast it absorbed, I was not a fan on how dry my skin still seems to  feel, especially since it is winter. When it is summer, I am fine with my skin feeling a little on the dry side. I am, in a way, happy that I only have the travel size of the body wash. But I noticed that even with the Bum Bum cream, the Cheirosa 62 smell doesn't seem to stick around very long. So I am thinking that maybe that Sol de Janeiro isn't quite for me. But I do have to see what the shampoo and conditioner brings before I make a final judgement.

Winter Storms

I am going on day 4 out of 5 of wearing Cheirosa 62 and looking for a break. And that break will arrive tomorrow. When I clock out at 7pm, I will be off for the next few days and that can't come soon enough.

The reason it can't come soon enough is that later tonight a nasty winter storm is headed my way. It's been a strange winter this year. It's been a lot of small winter storms and it's a bigger winter storm headed my way. So I am doing whatever cleaning up I can do before work and make an effort to finish up after I get home from work. But probably the most important thing is that I make sure everything is charged, especially my phone. I do need to get an extra gallon of milk and maybe a couple snacks. I have more than enough caffeinated drinks to get me through and food but I do have a hankering for some snacks.

What I worry about is the loss of electricity. Even though we have a generator, the generator is gas powered and I have to fill up a gas can or two to make sure that when we dig ourselves out, we will really be alright. I have my candles picked out, just in case. I don't have a lot of candles picked out but I want to have just enough but had a harder time picking out perfume for the next few days.

My choices are Narciso Rodriguez for her, Lyric and my stand by is no 5. I am still debating if I want the edt version or the edp version. Both smell like no 5but they are different. There are tons of others in my collection but this were the ones that won out. I very well could go with Eau Premiere as well. I don't exactly want to give myself too many options so I do not get overwhelmed with choices. I remember when there was another storm and loss electricity and I wore Mitsouko for the duration and I don't want a repeat performance of being that kind of irritated.

Headspace Rose Review

 

I don't know if anyone remembers (but I do) that a few months ago, Portia from Perfume Posse did a giveaway for Headspace's newest perfume called Rose. Well, I won the giveaway and I hardly win anything. For what seemed like the longest time, I waited and waited for the bottle to arrive at my doorstep and it finally arrived. And it took me even longer to actually wear it and review it.

I don't think I ever heard much about Headspace but then again, it's hard to keep up with all the niche brands and releases. So this is my first foray into Headspace.

I certainly didn't expect to be sent a 100ml bottle of perfume. I would have been happy with a 30ml bottle or travel spray. The bottle feels substantial like the Amouage 100ml bottles but even the 50ml Amouage bottles feel heavy. I am not exactly liking the round shape of the bottle even though I do like plain bottles and labels. Round bottles don't quite fit my ascetic even though I like the bell jars from Serge Lutens. Maybe the cap isn't my style. Maybe I am not a fan of the industrial look of it. But that's not the most important thing, I want to know now it smells, so I gave it a go last night.

The first thing to hit my nose is either a black currant or cassis not. I kind of do like a black currant but haven't tried too many, so I can't exactly know now much I like it. Them I get the whopping dose of rose and geranium. There is something about that combination that isn't doing it for me. It smells dated to my nose and this is someone who will wear Mitsouko an many of its iterations. I am thinking that the rose geranium combination reminds me of an old school lotion that women who came of age on the 60's or 70's and that was the style back then. So there is something that is working for me.

I am a little disappointed that this was a no go for me. Normally I do like roses in my perfume. I am hoping that maybe I could pass this along to someone who does lime it.

Getting Sick of Some Shit

Have you worn a handful of perfumes so much that you have gotten sick of them? I am currently going through that right now.

I own tons of perfume and I have probably more than two that are work safe but have been way to lazy to look for them. So I have been wearing a shit ton of Infusion d'Iris and Cheirosa 62 on days that I have to work and have started to get sick of them. So at this time, I added Chanel no 19 edt to the mix. It is a vintage ish travel spray with not a whole lot left in the bottle. When I finish that bottle, I can work on the vintage ish no 19 edp bottle. So I am still trying to finish samples and bottles and mostly failing.

I am a retail worker that works part time due to disability. So I work 3 days a week. What has gotten me pretty annoyed right now is one of my co-workers. Apparently, they didn't get paid for a vacation that they took last year and didn't notice. How can one not notice that stuff until higher ups caught it. They were probably given a choice of either adding that vacation pay to a paycheck or take another vacation, so that coworker took an extra week. And so I end up working extra shifts and while I want the extra money, I am not thrilled with working more days but shorter shifts. It might help with my California trip nut would have liked a little more of a heads up.

But earlier tonight, I was wasting time on Luckyscent and was thinking of another bottle of Number One Intense. I saw that a one ounce bottle jumped from $80 something to $115. So it was around a $30 price hike. But I wasn't poking around too much and it was a good thing that I looked at the pricing before I did anything in terms of buying. The whole fact that everything has gone up in price. I bought the same amount of groceries that I normally do for the week has gone up by at least $20. So it is imperative that I show some serious restraint in terms of buying anything fun.

Organizing and Can't Find Shit

Don't you hate it when you can't find something? You have a hankering for something specific in your collection but just can't find the sample or bottle of it? Right now, I am going through that. My hankering is foe Amouage Memoir and I am searching for my one ounce bottle of Narciso Rodriguez edt. I know that I just got a five ounce bottle of the edp but I want the edt right now.

This is my problem right now. I am having trouble finding some bottles of perfume that I have a craving for and just can't find right now. So far, I have organized 2 boxes of perfume. I threw away decants of things that either have completely evaporated or just about. A few bottles are going to be donated to a women's shelter. What I have for donations is a healthy amount of Bath and Body Works stuff. So those two boxes became one and a quarter full boxes. But haven't found my bottle of Memoir yet. So for today, I have ended my search for my bottle Memoir. Maybe tomorrow afternoon I will get a move on with the rest of my collection. I know damn well that I haven't thrown away my bottle of Memoir. But Memoir and Narciso Rodriguez for her edt are not the only things that are missing that I can't easily find. I seem to be missing that travel spray of Eau Premiere. I have the two refills but missing the spray mechanism that still has some juice. But I am asking myself is that why I am looking for two black bottles of perfume? It's just so oddly specific to be.

At this point, I am kind of amazed with the little I have done is how much no 5 I currently have just by going through those two boxes. I am not fully sure on why I have so many bottles of Chanel no 5 but all I know is that I better get serious about wearing no 5 to free up some space. That extra space can be just extra space and not automatically filled with a new perfume.