Gift Sets and the Sephora Sale

 

So the Sephora fall sale is about to wrap up and I have made my final selections and placed my order. I had made a point to set aside $30 in the form of a gift card but I did end up going over that. By about $20. I had gotten that lipstick and lip pencil set, a hand lotion and lip balm set and one of those mini lip things. The lipstick/pencil thing is for me and the other two are stocking stuffers or emergency gifts. I am a smidge disappointed that I didn't stick to my $30 gift card but the bright side is that I didn't go wild, even though I wanted to. I am trying to get my Afterpay balance to go down to zero and my 2 credit cards to go down to zero as well. Along with paying things off, I want to save some money and take some kind of trip next year. So I am struggling a little bit in the financial area and Christmas is going to be here before we know it.

Since Christmas is around the corner, many places are rolling out the whole gift set thing. Well, starting to. I decided to take a peek at what Ulta was starting to bring in. The only gift set that has gotten me a little bit excited was the Estee Lauder Pleasures gift set. But I am holding off on getting any kind of gift set right now. I want to see what kind of Chanel gift sets that Ulta will be getting for Christmas or if there will be more travel spray offerings.But that is something for later.

What is kind of on my radar is the Bath and Body Works Candle Day sale that is coming up. I am not fully sure that I will be participating in it. I kind of do but kind of don't. I don't have the opportunity like I used to with being able to use any of my candles and that means that I really haven't been able to use up any of my candles. I might just get one or two candles and call it a day. But who knows, I am just trying to get through November.

Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 62

There was a time that I was absolutely obsessed with the Cheirosa 62 line up. I went through a couple one ounce bottles of the body spray and proceeded to get a large body spray along with the matching soap and lotion.

It's cheap and cheerful but I won't go calling it sexy by no stretch of the imagination. But like I said, I stocked up on it. What I have doesn't even begin to touch the unhealthy amount of no 5 or vintage Bal a Versailles. But something did happen though that I am not sure how to take.

While the soap and lotion remain fabulous, the body mist has now come to the point where it doesn't stay fabulous. Somewhere in the middle, there seems to be a Play-dough vibe that starts to come out. I have had this same problem with the Bath and Body Works body sprays as well where something seems to go wrong. It's gotten to the point where I have a couple one ounce body mists sitting around that might not be used all that often. I might keep buying the Cheirosa 62 body products but leave the body spray out of it. But I think at this point, body sprays don't sit right on me so I better just not get body sprays.
 

Found It and Cuir de Russie

 

A few hours after I wrote about my missing no 22 bottle and my bottle of L'Heure Bleue, I found my bottle of no 22 edt. It was in a place where I don't normally place any perfume. I have no idea on why I set it there and what I was doing. I am still missing the L'Heure Bleue though.

Since we are well into fall and winter is right around the corner, I pulled out my family sized bottle of Cuir de Russie. I used to have the extrait but there was a bottle incident and the bottle was knocked over and lost most of it. At least my bedroom smelled good for a while.

So Cuir de Russie was my first serious perfume that made me fall down the rabbit hole. I don't know what possessed me to open that email all those years ago that Chanel sent me about the Les Exclusifs line and this was at least 18 years ago. I don't even know how or why I was signed up for Chanel emails. At that time, I liked perfume but I wasn't a perfume nerd then. 

Back then, the Les Exclusifs line was sold in 200ml bottles for around $200. They were only in the edt formulation. Eventually, there was a 2.5 ounce bottle and then there was the conversation to the edp formulation. I remember trying the edp version and hating it but I can't exactly remember why. I only remember it being on the harsh side. So I still have a really good amount left and I figured that I should start wearing it. At this point, I should be spending more time with my other Chanel offerings besides no 5.

In other news, I picked up watching the show Granchester. I did start binge watching it a few weeks ago but had to stop. I got really riled about the vicar and his no good love interest. That sub plot carried on for far too long and I think that should have been wrapped up in 3 or 4 episodes but it had to last almost 4 seasons. Now I am on the 2nd vicar and I am going to see what is his annoying sub plot.

Missing Bottles

So I just started the Outlander series (the books, not the show). I know that is not very interesting but I decided that I wanted to get started on my list of what I want to read for the winter. I am hoping that I will be able to get the Granchester series but that will be down the road. I am a few pages in Outlander and I am seeing all of these references to L'Heure Bleue and we to look for my bottle.

So I go to hunt down my bottle of LBH and I am not finding it. I found my vintage bottle of LBH (cologne bottle) but not the more current EDP. Every time I think I might have found the bottle, it's another bottle of Mitsouko. Let's just say that I still haven't found it, I have always known where my bottle of L'Heure de Nuit is but I can't find L'Heure Bleue and I think some of the reason is that it is something that I haven't pulled out often enough to wear. So it's MIA. 

Another one of my perfumes that is MIA is Chanel no 22 edt. While I have always known where my parfum version of no 22 is, for the life of me, I can't find my edt bottle and don't get me started on my travel spray of Eau Premiere (still can't find it). I might not have worn no 22 in a while, I still would like to know where it is.

Let's face it, I do have lots of back ups for many of my perfumes. I have tons of no 5 in various concentrations, I have many bottles of vintage Bal a Versailles, all kinds of Mitsouko and I should be able to find one bottle of LHB or one bottle of no 22. It just irks me to not being able to find those things. I did a cursory online search for a bottle of LBH, I wasn't able to find anything at the discounters but found some bottles from the Guerlain website. I am not talking about the new LBH that has the blue bottle, I am looking for the L'Heure Bleue proper, the one that came out in 1912. So unless or until Ulta sells LBH proper and I can use points for it, a new bottle is going to have to wait. And I know that no 22 will never be sold at Ulta.
 

Ulta, the New Sephora?

 Don't know what is up with Blogger and my Kindle but it is not letting me upload pictures for some reason. But I am not in the mood to try and fix it right now but some strange things are happening.

In late September, I had one of the anchor teeth for my bottom partial break apart. The soonest that I would have been able to be seen to get it fixed would have been October 13th but it was recommended that I call every day to see if there was a cancellation. I was able to get in a few days before the 13th. My dentist was able to fix it up but the tooth would need a crown. I just got a letter from my health insurance saying that my claim was denied. So that means that I am going to have to fight my health insurance to get that crown paid for. I wish that I didn't have to fight so much just to get basic care and dental care to not be treated as a cosmetic thing/luxury.

We are coming up on the Sephora fall sale. I do have $30ish saved for it and not exactly willing to spend more. I already have enough Chanel no 5 and Coco Mademoiselle and I have some major Ulta rewards saved up. So the Ulta points are going to be spent but I am not going to do that now.

But Ulta sent me this whole gift guide thing in the mail and I was looking at the sample bags. You know the ones, the ones stuffed with minis and all of that. When I looked at one of them, I saw that there was a sample of Infusion d'Iris. For the longest time, the only the only Prada perfume that Ulta has sold was Paradox and whatever the most popular men's offering for Prada. So I never really looked often enough at the Prada offerings at Ulta. I have mostly gotten my Infusion d'Iris from Sephora or Fragrance net. So this got me to asking the question. Is Ulta becoming the new Sephora?

Sephora has always focused on the higher end or high end stuff. Ulta has always been focused to the drug store stuff or medium priced stuff. In the some time around 2008 or 2009, I wasn't so into Sephora. It was just to expensive and it took me forever to warm up to Ulta. I honestly think that Ulta is probably trying to step it up, at least a little bit.

For the Sephora sale, it's a choice of getting a lipstick or two or another travel spray of Infusion d'iris. Or I could poke around to see what kind of inexpensive gift sets that are available. I am sure that Sephora will come out with more gift sets before the sale happens.

Well, That was a Bust

A few days ago, I turned 44. It seemed like it was just not a good birthday no matter how you wanted to hash it. Family pretty much forgot it was my birthday and seemed to gone on their merry way with whatever they had planned and it seemed to be kind of late in the day before anyone actually remembered. The older I get, the less I want to go out to eat or just out in general. People started to get pushy when I said no on going out to eat. It was a big mess and nothing happens. So it was a bust.

But here is where the second bust was, I was poking around Luckyscent and looking at the sales. I had noticed that Number One Intense was on sale. Even though it was a one ounce bottle for $70, it was better than $115. I put it in my shopping cart but I see that it is now sold out and should have just got it when I had the chance, even though I already have two bottles. Maybe I will get the chance next year or when Christmas rolls around.

I did try to snag a bottle of Worth Courtesan on fragrance net and that didn't pan out either. You know what I did snag? A one ounce bottle of Narciso Rodriguez for her in the black bottle. It just seems like I am striking out on a few things right  now. I just wants some things to start going right.

End of Vacation/Summer and Sundowner Review

 

So, my vacation is just about over. I reason I say it is just about over is that I have to go back to work tomorrow and I am not looking forward to it. Did I make any progress with binge watching Grantchester? Nope but played a fair bit of Halo Campaign Evolved. I did go to that Rob Zombie concert on Wednesday. Four bands in a single concert was a little too much. Orgy was absolute garbage, The Hu's instruments was drowning out the singing and Mongolian throat singing is pretty deep sounding, Rob Zombie was just too much for me. Marilyn Manson became a big thing when I was in middle school and never got around to listening to him, I was starting to get into the Smashing Pumpkins then. But holy shit, was Marilyn Manson good. He was the one that really impressed me. I would go and see Marilyn Manson in concert again but not when there are 3 other bands performing.

There were some minor mentions on the Perfume Posse about L'Heure Bleu and did see what the bottle looked like. I had initially thought that Guerlain had just did something with the bottle, but this is pretty much a whole new perfume and I thought that there would be more of the traditional Guerlain offerings at Ulta. You know, something Like Apres L'Ondee, or maybe Mitsouko but nope, just this strange version of the original L'Heure Bleu. L'Heure de Nuit was a homage to the original and you could smell it. I had almost wasted my Ulta rewards points on a 1 ounce bottle but didn't. It was 2 in the morning and that is when I lose a lot of things, like restraint and reading compression. But somehow managed to not go through with it. I would like to get some kind of sample first before I commit. So I backed out of that purchase.

I didn't drag anything that I haven't worn in forever out nor did I go wearing Cheirosa 62 or Infusion d'iris. The most notable thing was that I wore was Andy Tauer Sundowner. I do think Sundowner is not really a great name for a perfume, it conjures up the memories of my grandmother sundowning when the dementia was quickly becoming apparent to the world. But I did spend time wearing at least 1 new thing and now reviewing it.

Sundowner is definitely a Tauer offering. I noticed that the Tauer base seemed to be a little bigger than I remember but it has been a long time since I have worn any kind of Tauer offering often enough. The notes that really stuck out was the cinnamon and the chocolate. I will admit that I am not so sure that I like cinnamon as a dominant note in perfume but I have never liked chocolate as a perfume note. I want to eat my chocolate and not wear it. It is I just can't make heads or tails of this one right now and will probably have to give this another go before a proper review can be done.