Running out of Space and Long Winter

Let's just say that it has been a really long winter and I can't wait for it to be over. I miss wearing short sleeved shirts and not having scaly skin on my face. Every winter, I find myself doing more laundry due to my perfume habits. Let's face it, after 3 or 4 wearings, various perfumes do tend to clash and annoy. It's kind of rare that I wear any perfume for more than two days in a row. But I have made some progress with using what I have, decant wise but not with full bottles. I have started to go through my worn and reviewed bag and throwing out mostly evaporated (after I use that last little bit) and the smaller decants. But right now, I am trying to find something better for my dry skin and nails.

But since I go through spurts of getting back ups and vintage, I am seriously running out of space on my dresser. I'm not kidding, it's starting to overflow with vintage and not only vintage but back ups and periodically something new. But I do have an idea for this. I am about to take an old but small TV stand and clean it our and fix it up for my perfume storage. I just can't take this almost no space on my dresser. It's competing for space with my Galileo thermometer collection.

On a better note, that vintage bottle of Mitsouko arrived two days ago. I am wary of dabber bottles of perfume on E-bay. Because I don't know if the seller has dumped out the original perfume and maybe filled it with something else. Just like my vintage teardrop bottle of Jicky, the pictures on E-day made the perfume look like water but I did ask before I bought it. And with a bottle this huge, I didn't want to spend a nice chunk of change on just a bottle

Stuff, Stuff and More Stuff

It's rare that I get any kind of compliments on my perfume wearing. But then again, my perfume collection contains a lot of "weird" perfumes that to a lot of people are too odd to smell good. So it is an event when I am complimented on my perfume and asked what am I wearing. A couple days ago, I was wearing vintage Mitsouko and was asked about it because it smelled good. It's funny how my vintages are the ones that people compliment me on. Current no 5 or Theorema? Nope, no compliments but vintage Mitsouko and vintage Bal a Versailles do. It kind of makes me wonder if people are a little tired of the fruity floral or patchouli mixes. But these wimpy things went out of style a long time ago.

But I've noticed that I really must stay off of E-bay and ignore Beauty Encounter's emails of 20% off. Due to the fact that I can't stop looking for vintage perfumes. But sometimes, ordering things can be annoying. I found a half used bottle of vintage Mitsouko on the 14th and it's now the 23rd and it hasn't arrived at my doorstep as of yet. Looking at the tracking number, it's been at the Kent, WA USPS facility since the 18th and hasn't moved since. But the almost full vintage Jicky that was ordered on the 19th, is going to land on my doorstep today. I am about to contact the seller for the Mitsouko and ask or contact USPS and ask what is the deal. Because when I pay good money for something, I kind of do expect decent service and whatever I bought in a reasonable amount of time. It's rare that something like this happens to me. But if I could just make up my mind on that sealed vintage no 5 and a large bottle of Havana Vanille, life would be great.

Lolita Lempicka for Her EDP Review

Since yesterday was Valentine's Day, I was looking for something fun and a little foody to wear to work yesterday. My eyes were going back and forth between L'Heure Bleue and the original Lolita Lempicka perfume. I chose Lolita Lempicka because it was more fun and a little more foody that L'Heure Bleue. People have said that it's a more toned down version on Angel but I never have consciously smelled Angel, so I wouldn't know but I can make the association between L'Heure Bleue and Lolita Lempicka.

I had initially drained a mini of Lolita Lempicka and did like it but couldn't quite smell a whole hell of a lot because the mini didn't spray to give a reading. Enter Beauty Encounter and the perpetual sales allowed me to get a spray bottle for dirt cheap. Not like it was expensive before but the pricing on Beauty Encounter was better than Fragrance Net that day. Lolita Lempicka is more edible smelling than L'Heure Bleue and smells a little more like it's price point but I do find the LL is a little more wearable than L'Heure Bleue. It's hard to find a situation to be wearing L'Heure Bleue due to the huge powder note but LL is a little more on the universal side of wear. I really do love Lolita Lempicka because it is different but not drastically so. Because it's sweeter and not as powdery.

But I do have to talk about the bottle though. I have always had spray perfumes where you had to take off the cap to spray but I was thrown for a loop with this one. The bottle, as in the picture, is in the shape of an apple and the stem is the spray part and I'm not used to a perfume where I don't have to pull off a cap to spray. I remember in reading the Guide, one of the authors had said that one of the Lolita Lempicka offerings bottle looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie and this one looks like it would be out of Tim Burton's Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and not out of his Sleepy Hollow or Sweeney Todd. I do think that the bottle is cool.

The Collection

Picking out what perfume I want to wear on any given day is a little tricky. Let's think about it, in the past four or five years, I have amassed a huge decant collection and a growing full bottle collection. And that leaves me with too many choices on some days and other days it's not big enough and that seems to lead to more minis, decants and bottles. I partly blame my love of window shopping on the internet.

But since I spend a couple days a week getting up at about 3 a.m. now, I kind of need to have a decant or two in my wristlette that doubles as a purse. On those days, I figure that I might want something different than the day before but do finding that I actually did want what I wore yesterday. I had kind of figured that when I am about to head out the door a little after 4, I'm not coherent enough to really think about perfume. But having that decant or two really does help with the whole production if I end up running late.

But I have started to go through my collection of perfume and started to wear those neglected bottles and wonder why I am relying on just no 5 and Shalimar. Part of the reason is that I have back ups of those out the wazoo and kind of need to start draining those bottle. I found that point of where you can have one too many bottles of the same perfume and when that happens, I need to get going on finishing a bottle. I think that it will be quite an event just to finish just one bottle but I need to get to get the show on the road with this.

This and That

I have no idea on what has happened to my nose over the past 3 or 4 days but all I know is that my sense of smell seems to be off. Could it be all the drywall dust that has clogged up my sinuses or could it be that I am flirting with a cold? I have no idea because the only perfumes that I can smell with some kind of ease is my Amouages. The rest of my collection I can only smell bits and pieces and it's not funny. So right now, it's the louder the perfume, the better I can smell it.

I did find out that in October, I will be traveling to the Dallas area for a wedding and I am already making plans on what perfumes to take with me. Should I stick with Jicky, a more polite skank and no 5? Or should I just wait it out? I am a little disappointed that I am traveling to Dallas a little to late for me to pick up Aldehyde 44 even though the closest thing that I have to it is no 22. But oh well, I have a few months to figure it out.

What constitutes a big trip to me is when it does involve a day or two in the car or a plane ride. The last time that I was on a plane was a little over 5 years ago and it took months and months of careful planning. But at this point, I'm leaning to flying down to Texas in the name of it would be a little cheaper and I am not spending two days in the car with someone who is elderly. But at this point, I pretty much know where my tax refund is going and it means that until November, I won't be getting anything new in terms of perfume other than the rare decant because it's not like I am going down to see family in Virginia and I could afford to get a couple bottles and some decants.

Wish Lists or To Buy Lists

Yesterday it struck me that my whole perfume wish or to buy list is mostly for backups right now. But my backups are for those pesky discontinued or vintage perfumes. I'm still kicking myself for not getting a bottle of Le Labo Aldehyde 44 when I could but my fun money was used up. But who knew that it would be discontinued and Chanel no 22 smells similar but not quite.

Since I am going through my collection and wearing things that I haven't worn in forever, it seems like that list has really grown. Wanting an extra bottle of Havana Vanille, Amouage Memior and my millionth bottle of Theorema and Shalimar are on the list. But I noticed when running my list, no 5 and Mitsouko are not on there. I'm thinking that because I am not so enamored with Mitsouko as I once was, I figured that I had enough or when I bought a full tear drop bottle with real oakmoss, it was time to stop. No. 5 just seems like when you have just about every concentration and maybe a back up or two of one, it's time to stop.

In a way, the whole back up bottle and having an already kind of large collection is counter productive. Let's think about it, I have probably more perfume than I will use in a lifetime and yet I keep acquiring more. I'm beginning to think that I need to finish one or two bottles in my collection before I go out and getting more.