End of an Era...Sort of

One of my new year's resolutions was to finish things and not add anything more. So far, it's some mixed results. The fact that I have added 3 full bottles to my collection and haven't finished a bottle of anything is the bad part. But I haven't added any body products and in fact used some of them up.

I have finished another Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 62 hand cream, 2 Gold Bond hand creams and 2 foaming hand washes from Bath and Body Works. But the most notable thing that I have finished is the Amouage Lyric body butter and I am a little sad about that because it is a bit like an end of an era because finding Amouage bath and body stuff is as rare as slug's teeth at the moment. So there is nothing to replace it with. I just can't find the matching bath stuff for the older Amouage offerings. If I can, it's a little too pricey for me. So the era of Amouage body stuff is pretty much over since I do like the concept of matching bath and body stuff that matches any given perfume. But I am still salty about my aunt knocking over my Memoir body cream and very little of it could be saved and I am still looking for my bottle of Memoir. I know I have it somewhere but I just can't find it.

I think that I am a little sad that I used up the last of the Lyric body butter was because Lyric was one of my first niche perfumes that I fell head over heels in live with and when I saved up enough money for a bottle, my love deepened because I could quit buying large decants only to drain them pretty quickly. I am still in love with Lyric but I do have to admit that even though I have one of my full bottles sitting on my nightstand, it doesn't get as much wear as it used to. I do have a backup bottle and a travel spray set when Amouage still had their travel sprays. I think a year or two ago, they pretty much did away with those as well. But I will admit that I do see less and less Amouage being sold in the way of discount sights like Fragrancenet. I do wonder if Amouage is doing what Chanel did way back when is putting an end to their perfumes being sold just about anywhere. I will keep hoping that the body products will make a comeback.

Rogue Perfume Champs Lumaires Review

 

Rouge Perfumes is my latest perfume house discovery. I have been slowly working my way through my discovery set. I was really starting to get bored with constantly wearing the same 2 or 3 perfumes and needed a break. And since I adore Flos Mortis, I figured that I would give Champs Lumaires a go.

Champs Lumaires is another tuberose heavy perfume. I had initially thought that Champs Lumaires would be a lighter version of Flos Mortis. The tuberose is the only thing that both have in common. Flos Mortis is a raunchy tuberose, Champs Lumaires is a more polite tuberose. But I did notice something a little on the goofy side though. There was a banana chew type note. I wonder if it is the coconut that is giving that kind of vibe or something else. The banana vibe smells artificial and I am going to have to give this another go at a later date.

In other news, partially out of boredom and the other part of curiosity is I was looking at the Chanel website. I wanted to know if Chanel had their no 5 extrait/parfum bottles back in stock. The only version of the parfum version was the grand extrait version. Then I hit the chat button. When asked, I was just told that they do have the grand extrait version for sale and to sign up for the newsletter. My not so hot retort was that not all of us can spend what probably be 2 or 3 months of a mortgage payment or rent on a bottle of perfume. I was looking for just a quarter ounce of the extrait for gifts. I know I am signed up for the newsletter but I am not into the Chance line up and I have enough makeup at the moment. So I am still hoarding what is left of my extrait.

Clinique Happy Bath and Body Stuff

It can be a difficult thing to find matching body products for perfume. Most of my niche perfumes don't have matching body products or they were discontinued (looking at you, Amouage).Unless something is a huge seller or the body products would be cheap to make and sell really well, none too many make matching bath and body products any more.

I know that Chanel focuses bath and body products on the no 5. Bath and Body Works has always done matching bath and body stuff since day one. I have only been able to find Estee Lauder Pleasures in lotion but no soap. But this leads me to Clinique Happy. A couple years ago, Ulta had stocking stuffers or the beauty stuff you could hang on your tree. So naturally, I snapped a couple of those up. How could I refuse a 5ml travel spray and 2 ounces of lotion?

Turns out that the 2 ounce lotion is some kind of funky lotion. I have had and tried the Amouage body butters and for a body butter, there was a firmer texter and it took a while to work into skin. This funky lotion is called a gelato and who knows why, maybe Clinique thought the term body butter was over used or wanted to draw some people in. I am just not so enthused with something just sits on my skin and takes forever to absorb.

I did eventually get the body wash and lotion. I find that the lotion doesn't quite moisturize enough. I find that the texture is nice but with my dry skin, I want my lotions to be a little more substantial, even in summer.

But the body product that really liked was the body wash. It cleans all the gross that has been accumulated. I love how much lather there is with the body wash and how it takes all the grime without fully stripping my skin.

I will admit that the Happy body care doesn't quite smell like the perfume but few body products smell like their perfume that they are supposed to go with. But I am mostly okay with that. With the way that Happy seems to deteriorate, I think I will mostly stick with the Happy products.

 

Sick and Stuff

So I have been sick since last Thursday and I am looking at going to my local walk in first thing. This is starting to look like a case of bronchitis but we shall see. All I know is that I haven't been able to sleep for the past two nights. It seems like as soon as I drift off, I have another asthma attack and then it's a nebulizer treatment. I probably should have gone yesterday or today. So I haven't been able to wear anything scented outside a little bit of the Cheirosa 62 lotion. So that means that any serious perfume wearing is going to have to wait.

It was a sad Monday for me. I had to do some cancellations. Two of the three subscriptions that I had, I had to cancel. I have no regrets about canceling Walmart Plus. For what I was paying, it wasn't worth the price. It was either half of what I ordered would be out of stock or my groceries would never arrive. The order would be delayed with no way knowing when anything would come and it seemed like every time you turned around, I had ordered groceries. So was wasn't too upset over that. The one that had to be cancelled was Barkbox. I had Barkbox for at least 12 years and my dogs always lit up when it came. So it's probably going to be around Thanksgiving or Christmas when I can probably get Barkbox again. People say that my dogs won't notice but I think they do when they have had something come for them every month. Today was the last Barkbox box that came. So I am saddened that I had to cancel Barkbox. The grand total might be a shade under $50 but I would have liked to hang on to Barkbox. But there are a few things that have to wait right now.

What I am waiting for is when Sephora will have their spring sale event. I am not holding my breath for the pure parfum version of no 5 to come back into stock. I set aside $25 in a Sephora gift card for a cheap bronzer and find something for my mother to round out her mother's day gift. I already have her birthday gift but I like to do a little grab bag for mother's day. Mother's day is always a week or week and a half before her birthday so it's a pick wisely on what to give her and when.

Chanel no 19 EDT

I am a tad disappointed in myself. I made the mistake of going back to browse the Chanel website. It was to just window shop and check if Chanel had their parfum version of no 5 back in stock. No such luck right now and I still find that strange. I am not sure why Chanel would go and discontinue the parfum version of the perfume version that put Chanel on the map. So the only pure parfum that Chanel is selling right now is from the Les Exclusifs line or the Grand Extrait. How many people honestly have a few grand sitting around to spend a bottle of perfume if you want the family sized bottle of no 5 parfum? I sure as hell don't. I am lucky at this point if I can get one bottle of nicer perfume once a year than, I don't know, Cheirosa 62 or Happy.

So I caved and got a bottle of no 19 edt. I do have a fair bit of the edp and just about out of the vintage-ish edt. I was kicking around the idea of getting a bottle of the edt for a while but never did get around to ordering a bottle. I did play this off as I won this in a raffle to avoid the stink eye at home. Any package that I get gets some kind of comment. I can't use the rewards excuse right now. I used up all of the use it or lose it points around Christmas or by the 1st of the year. So I am still trying to watch the frivolous spending and with the bottle of no 19; I am more on the losing side of this. The only good thing is that I haven't spent a penny of the savings account, worked on the Afterpay balance a little bit more and haven't bought anything from Bath and Body Works. So in some respects, I am doing ok but want to get a move on with the actual saving and getting Afterpay paid off and keeping it paid off. One day and one step at a time is all I can do right now. Let's hope that I can make a little more progress as time moves along.

What I am really waiting for is for my dogs' Barkbox to arrive. Normally I get a notification when it has shipped and a tracking number but I am not seeing any of that. When I check the website, it just says it was shipped but with no tracking info. If nothing shows up in the next couple days, I will reach out.

 

Trying to be Smart

 

The past few days have been pretty interesting for me. The federal tax refund did get deposited into my bank account and I did deposit that check. I did want to go on a major spending spree but didn't. I decided to be a little more responsible and open a savings account and put some money in there.

I was looking to see if I could pay for both that crown my tooth desperately needs and get that plane ticket to California. Turns out that what the dentist sent in to my health insurance was the before x-ray instead of a post root canal x-ray. So we are going to see if that will work for getting insurance to cover that crown. I was fully prepared to pay that $600 and just be done with it. But I still stuck that $600 into that savings account, just in case. When I tried to see what kind of flights were available and how much it was to go to California. My dad said to hold off on that. I would rather have it done and over with since the closer to spring break, the greater the risk of prices going up and maybe way up but of course, nobody really wants to listen. So I have set myself ahead with some other things in terms of money and see what bill is coming up and take care of it.

You want to know something wild? For the longest time, Sephora did not carry any MAC lipsticks or makeup in general. There is the very real possibility that I never much paid attention to a whole lot outside of Too Faced or Urban Decay for a very long time. But when I discovered MAC lipstick and foundations from YouTube, I started to pay attention to other brands of makeup. For the longest time, I knew that ULTA was the only store close by that sold MAC stuff in store and online. So I was getting MAC stuff from Ulta. So now Sephora has MAC and since Sephora is having or has a makeup point multiplier going on, I got one of those mini lipsticks, which will be great for my trip to California. The most I am packing, makeup wise is a lipstick, lip balm and mascara. I know that it will be probably hot and can't justify a full face of makeup for the trip. I still haven't made a decision on which perfume(s) I am going to take but it is probably that bottle of no 19 edp that has just about next to nothing in it and maybe a travel spray. But who knows.

FOMO and BOGO with Some no 5

 

Most of us have dealt with buy one get one free or the whole fear of missing out. And I am sure we have all fallen victim of those things depending on what foods you like to eat, drinks you like and get some, even though you have plenty of those things. But hobbies can be worse in terms of that.

My latest with the fear of missing g out and buy one get one free is the travel sprays of Clinique Happy. I impulsively partook in that sale and added some hair, skin and nails vitamins to ease my mind a little bit. I could have gotten one travel spray and a mini MAC lipstick but wasn't so wowed with the mini lipstick. Ulta does have the buy one get one sales on a regular basis but usually for things that I don't and probably wouldn't use on a regular basis. So it is back on the wagon, even though Bath and Body Works is having a candle sale.

A few days ago, I decided to wear no 5 body products and put a heavy dose of the edp on top of it. I have done this in the past but this time, I really paid attention to it. When I did, I was dumbfounded because all of the body products (bar soap and body lotion) and three healthy sprays was maybe pushing it but I didn't have to work that day so it didn't much matter. The body products amplified the musk and the musk part reminded me of the Bal a Versailles musk. That kind of musk that is only really found in vintage perfumes. The musk also reminded me of vintage no 5. So I wasn't expecting all of that.

I did get a little good news today. My federal tax refund is heading my way. I had gotten my tax refund from the state last week. The bad thing is that I have to use all of that on getting that crown that my health insurance refuses to pay for since it is considered "cosmetic". The too the is behind an eye tooth and is visible, especially when I smile. If this was a front tooth, I probably would have been able to get insurance to pay for a crown. Insurance (even Medicaid, which I have) is pretty funny on what it will cover and what it won't cover. Most of the time, the dental insurance is a joke.But with the tax refund and unclaimed funds check, I can get the crown and plane ticket to California and be okay but still work on saving more money for my California trip.