Of Power Outages

This past week, has been nothing but thunderstorms, heat and intermittant loss of power. In my neck of the woods, it means no running water, no flushing toilets, and don't you dare open the fridge type of deals. Before I started wearing perfume, I didn't care too much. Now, it kind of matters in a way.The smell of body odor and perfume covering it up or the smell of stale perfume can be horrible, even if you don't leave the house.

Every time, there is a storm system that looks like it will pass through my area, it's the same routine, get every bucket that I own, fill it with water, just in case. I never know how long my power is going to go out, it could be 24 hours or 3 days. I always chose my perfumes very carefully. I figure if the power goes out and I have to go out in public, I am not going to smell of BO and stale perfume. So it's a quick bath. Usually, I tend to chose Mitsouko, Chanel no. 5 or no.22.

If Something Where to Happen...

I adore online shopping for a lot of reasons but sometimes I do hate it. Having 3 Labrador Retrievers that eat twice a day, I go through a lot of dog food and a quality dog food can be expensive. My local pet store has raised their prices and at a recommendation of a vet, ordered their dog food online. It turns out that the dog food I got was recalled. I send the dog food back, and get an email saying that they are refunding my credit card, minus shipping. The refund has yet to show up on my credit card. Why is it that companies are quick to take your money but really slow on refunding it when you return something? I'm guessing that it was the weekend and I will give them a couple days and see if it shows up.

Bookstores are hard to come by when you live in a rural area. And rural libraries are not the greatest either. Rural bookstores and libraries are prone to carry whatever is on the bestseller list (aka whatever is really popular at the moment). The only bookstore that is halfway decent is an independant bookstore a half an hour away. I do love indepandant bookstores in small towns. Often, they are in the middle of town, in these small, century buildings. A few days ago, I was attending a free concert and took advantage of being able to walk around the square and remembered the bookstore. When we had a Borders that was 20 minutes away, it wasn't unusual for me to just drop $100 or more on books, this was a treat to me to wander around and actually get a book. I often don't limit myself to how many books or how much I can spend on books but with limited space and selection, I managed to walk out with only one book. And I had forgotten how it's highway robbery with hardcover books.

A couple friends of mine asked me that because they are marginally interested and mostly disgusted by my "perfume habit". If one likes collecting teapots and other little nick knacks and the other loves collecting old postcards, I will collect perfume. I've been asked that if something were to happen, what perfume(s) would I take. At first, I was a little confused because that could be a loaded question. If the house where on fire, if I remembered to grab my purse, it would be whatever decants and/or full bottles that are in there. If I have to move over seas and had to downsized, I'd take Mitsouko, Deneuve, Chanel no. 22 and Amouage Dia. The airline companies limit your liquids to 3 ounces and some of my favorites are 3.4 ounces. If I had to move 50 miles away, I'd probably take as many bottles as I could.

Trashy and Cheap, Versace Signature Review

Rooting through the medium sized box of perfumes that I've somewhat outgrown, I came across Versace Signature, and I was amazed when I spritzed it on me. I was amazed that I spent around $40 for something so trashy smelling. It smelled of cheap fruit and rotting flowers to my nose. Sometimes cheap and trashy in perfume can smell quite good and well made but this is something that smells like someone took a bad air freshener and combined it with fruit. This might smell good to someone who has never smelled anything besides Bath and Body Works or Victoria's Secret. Versace Signature seems to last forever and has an airy quality to it. But I am still wondering on why I bought it in the first place.

Trashy and cheap can be great when well done but not when it smells like this. Can a $200 bottle of perfume smell cheap and or trashy? Yes, but if you have the means to put quality ingredients in perfume by all means, do. Sometimes I wish that perfume companies would take the time to create a perfume and release one perfume every couple years instead of every 6 months.

Frederic Malle's En Passant Review

Did you have one of those times where you want to try something in your unsniffed and unreviewed pile that you hoped where it wouldn't be all that hard to figure out? I was there a couple days ago and I did grab En Passant.

En Passant has been floating around in perfume land since 2000 and I've been a perfume nut since 2007/2008. I am wondering on how En Passant kept falling off my radar. I think that I was wrapped up in smelling other things.

En Passant starts with a huge blast of lilac. I have to do a double take in the beginning because En Passant is very much like the lilac room spray that I had gotten at Bath and Body Works. But the lilac is not as harsh as the lilac room spray. After about 10 to 15 minutes later, the lilac calms down but the lilac is dominant from start to finish. There is a wheat note that I do smell an hour afterwards, I kind of like the wheat bit because it off sets the lilac a little bit and seems to give the whole perfume some kind of anchor. I did notice that En Passant does have a watery element but I think that it keeps the lilac from being overwhelming and the wheat from being yeasty. If you have ever smelled fresh baked bread with too much yeast or bread that spent too much time rising, it gets a really yeasty unappetizing sort of smell to it. I like En Passant very much but I would probably only be wearing my decant in the spring time so right now a full bottle is out.

Infusion d'Iris? Sexy?

It can always be fun to eavesdrop a little bit when there is a mention of a perfume that is mentioned. I had recently overheard to girls, probably no older than 22 or 23 yapping about how sexy Prada's Infusion d'Iris was. As soon as I was able to get home, I pulled out my full bottle of it and took a big sniff. Then wondered where they got the sexy part. I would call Bal a Versailles sexy or sensual or Mitsouko sexy but not Infusion d'Iris. I find Infusion d'Iris to be more like an ice sculpture. This is something that I mainly wear to work. It's the type of perfume that doesn't really project, and smells pretty. But I wouldn't say that it smells sexy. As much as I like Infusion d'Iris, it just kind of sits on my skin with little or no development. That is keeping me from loving it and wearing it more often.

I believe that these girls had said that Infusion d'Iris is sexy is because we are now in the age of fruity florals, aquatics, Bath and Body Works, and Victoria's Secret offerings and this is probably the most sophisticated scent that they have ever smelled. Thus far this is probably going to be the best thing that they will smell in the next few years, unless they fall in the rabbit hole. Or unless the mainstream perfume lines come out with something phenomenal.

Those That Don't Get Enough Love

Since I have been reading perfume blogs and reviews it hit me that there are a few perfumes in my collection that really don't get a whole lot of love. It is kind of funny though how we bloggers can keep raving about 3 perfumes from any given house and kind of ignore the rest of that perfume house's offerings.

One of those perfumes is Amouage's Dia for women. Dia is marketed as a lighter version of Amouage's Gold for women. I think Dia should be viewed as a perfume in it's own right. There are many things that make Gold and Dia similar but there is a world of difference between the two. Dia is effervescent especially in the beginning with the aldehydes then dries down to the jasmine/rose soap but still has a butt load of aldehydes. The aldehydes in Gold are more of on the oily side for me and dries down to flowers and civet. Gold and Dia are basically the same perfume and I love both enough to own a full bottle, but Dia really doesn't seem to get a whole lot of attention because it is "Gold Light" or "Diet Gold". I find myself in a lot of situations where Gold would be too much but Dia would fit the bill.

Amouage's Memoir for woman is another one that I think that doesn't get a whole lot of love while Lyric, Jubilation, Ubar, and Epic do get a lot of love. I did swoon over Lyric and do wear it often but I keep going back to Memoir and wonder why I am not wearing it as often as Lyric. It does seem for some odd reason that Lyric does get ignored. Maybe because it is on the sweet, almost gourmand like for a perfume. It could be that Memoir is one of those perfumes that is a modern chypre that not to many seem to be interested in or casual users of perfume don't care to decipher.

Nasomatto Nuda Review

I do have a tendency to love jasmine dominant perfumes. The more indolic, the better. Patou's Joy is a rose/jasmine dominant mix and not a true jasmine dominant.  I really liked A La Nuit and Jasmine Full, I swooned over Sarrasins and now I am really swooning over Nasomatto Nuda.

I've always debated on getting a full bottle of A La Nuit but always either decided against it or it got pushed to the side because something else captured my attention. But after the Perfume Posse's Guide of Jasmine perfumes, I was looking at a couple jasmine scents on Luckyscent. That is when I discovered that Nuda was being discontinued. Even though I never smelled Nuda before, I had gotten a bottle. Nothing like the finding out something is being discontinued to make me either buy or contemplate a stocking up. Even if it wasn't love right away, there would be a chance it could grow on me.

Nuda is very creamy and is a little strange for me. At first, Nuda is a loud jasmine that races off towards being with just plain indolic or very indolic but never crosses the line. I can't help but say, well aren't you going to be indolic or not? Nuda does mellow to where it isn't very loud but still loves to border on that edge of either sensual or just plain slut. I don't know if I like that or not. Either way, I am happy that I did manage to snag a bottle of Nuda before it was discontinued.