Slowly Growing on Me

I have been taking the time to shop my collection instead of looking at E-bay so much. A few days ago, I was in a rush and did just reach into my decant bag and sprayed Amouage Jubilation 25. When I first tried Jubilation in the beginning of my perfume journey, I honestly didn't care for it. At the time, I always tried to find the good in every perfume and sometimes couldn't but didn't want to trash the perfume. Right now, that seems to be changing a little bit with Jubilation and it's somewhat of a good thing but my wallet is quaking in it's boots. But I think that it will never be a full blown love. L'Heure Bleue wasn't full blown love at first but I did fall in love with the powder bomb. Another that is growing on me is the EDT version of no 19. But we shall see if it will ever be true love when I try the vintage version.

I really am loving the shopping my collection because it is forcing me to start using up my collection before I add more. I always love a good bargain and adding to my collection but that incident with Mitsouko, it really becomes an issue when things get knocked over and spilled. In the next two months I am hoping to get at least one bottle of Chanel no 5 used up and probably one bottle of the current formulation of Mitsouko since I do have a lot of back ups of those. Maybe I just might finish up one of my bottles of Theorema even though it's discontinued and probably shouldn't.

Vintage Bal a Versailles EDT Review

Sometimes there are perfumes with many variations like parfum. EDP, EDT and so on. Sometimes
they smell exactly the same or they can smell completely different. Chanel no 5 is one of those that can smell exactly the same or very different depending on the concentration. But the Chanel no 5 structure is there and you can smell the variation in the concentration.

Vintage Bal a Versailles is one of those perfumes as well. I have tried the parfum, PDT and now the EDT. At first, I thought that I would not like it maybe even hate it. I am not really a fan of the vintage parfum because of the emphasis on the patchouli and not the flowers and skank that I love in the PdT version. But it turns out that I love it. The EDT still has the skank and flower dominance but it's much softer than the PdT. Softer as in not as strong or as loud as the PdT. Some perfumes, even vintage can have a bigger heft than Bal a Versailles in EDT form. The vintage EDT of Bal a Versailles does last quite a while but not like the PdT. It's not a bad thing though, sometimes I want that huge projection and sometimes I don't. Hopefully, I will get my hands of the EDC version and try that because I hear that it is the skankiest version out there.

*Decant from Surrender to Chance.

The List/Guidelines

 I ought to start getting a move on with reviewing Noontide Petals but things just creapt up on me. I don't exactly know when I created my own personal rules for perfume but I think that it sort of evolved.

1. Never go buying vintage anything without smelling the current version of any perfume. Without knowing what the current version of Mitsouko smells like, how would you know how the vintage smells like. And you don't always know if the previous owner had drained the original scent and put something else in there.

2. Always buy back ups of the perfumes you love. Reformulations happen all the time and it's not always for the better. Or it's the horror of horrors, it's been discontinued. This is when E-Bay can become your enemy but it's going to contradict me when I get to my next thing.

3. E-Bay can be your best friend or it can be your worst enemy. I've been trolling E-Bay off and on since 2013 and this comes with getting perfume off this. I'm not one of those who does that bidding thing. If bidding is your thing, some perfumes when they are discontinued or vintage the price may be low but always seems to skyrocket just before the auction ends. But I love the buy it now option because in a way, I am saved from some of that paying what would be a mortgage payment. But what goes on with the buy it now, you do have to be careful because some people are putting half used or quarter full vintages and discontinued scents for $100 or more. But never turn your nose up because you can find a bargain once in a while.

5. Surrender to Chance and The Perfumed Court can be your ultimate best friend when sampling or your comparing vintage to the modern version of something or want to sample a niche perfume that you can only get a full bottle of at Amazon. Yeah, you gotta pay for those but it can be worth it. Hey, it saved me a lot of money. It has made me make up my mind when I was going back and forth between two perfumes.

6. Luckyscent maybe the place to go when beginning the perfume journey but it's not the whole picture. I can find my Amouages at other places and not pay full price. Luckyscent may give you codes for free shipping when you spend $75 and the maybe once a year 20% around tax time.

7. A lot of the time, Beauty Encounter and FragranceNet have the better deals for the Serge Lutens export line and Amouage. Truthfully, I prefer Beauty Encounter because the discounts seem to be better and much more frequent. Hey, where else could I have found Fendi Theorema for a decent price and unused besides Beauty Encounter?

8. Wear what you want, where you want, when you want to. What good is having bottles of perfume if they are just decorating the dresser? It's just not good because eventually the perfume will either evaporate or just go bad. Some perfumes (Clinique Happy for example) do have a short shelf life and go bad very quickly and I found out the hard way about that.

9. Visit perfume blogs like Now Smell This, Perfume Posse and many others. That's were you can find all kinds of perfume news and periodically there are perfume swaps. The things (perfumes) that you have been dying to get rid of and see if someone has something you are dying to try.

St. Patricks Day and Green

Saint Patrick's Day is coming up. That means that it's the time of corned beef, cabbage, carrots, potatoes and wearing green. Wearing green clothing is optional for me but wearing a green perfume isn't no matter what I am craving.It doesn't matter if I want Worth's Courtesan or Shalimar but a green perfume. I'm not talking the color green with perfume but the smell of green.

After reading lists of green perfumes from Perfume Shrine, I realized that I either don't own a full bottle of a lot of green perfumes or even have a decant. But I'm not running out and getting more green perfumes right this second. I have some that kind of push the whole green aspect though. I find that Mitsouko and Diorling do push the green aspect a little bit because they are not the overtly green type of perfume. Givenchy III is definitely green along with Deneuve and Chanel no 19. No 19 in it's various concentrations has various degrees of green. The current EDT is probably the sharpest green but my vintage EDP is even sharper than that. But the choice remains on which one do I pick out.

Of Taxes and Refunds and Bal a Versailles

Spring is slowly but surly getting here since we are having a minor heat wave in Cleveland. Everyone that I have talked to has just filed their taxes and now are waiting on some kind of refund. Some are yapping on how much they are getting back and how they plan to spend the money. I think it's pretty rude to brag about that. I have no problem with people just saying that they just did their taxes but bragging about refunds and what they will spend it on is just plain rude to me for some reason. I have just filed mine today and now have to wait on the government to accept my return.

I have always complained about not being able to find vintage Bal a Versailles PdT for a reasonable
price, when I actually could find it on E-bay. But the past couple weeks have been where I have found bottles for a decent price. But I am comparing the two partial bottles that I managed to get off of E-bay.Both of them definitely smell like Bal a Versailles PdT. But I am thinking that the half full bottle is of a much earlier date than my three quarters full bottle. The darker Bal a Versailles takes a couple minutes before it smells like it should but it seems to be a little heavier on the patchouli and what seems to be the little more recent bottle but both smell divine and I don't regret them at all. What is funny that I have spend a little more on the half full one. But vintage seems to command a higher price tag then most current formulations of the same scent.

Accidents in Perfume Land

The past couple of days have been rough. I had a sick dog that spent the night in the emergency vets office and some family drama but now I have had a perfume accident. I had procured a second teardrop bottle of Mitsouko and I had knocked it over trying to get at my jewelry box. Granted, the bottle was half full when I had bought it but now, I have lost a third of that precious perfume. Vintage Mitsouko is kind of hard to find and I am usually going for the ones in the teardrop bottle. Normally when I do find those teardrop Mitsouko bottles, they seem to be on the pricey side. Now my room and part of the hallway smells like vintage Mitsouko. So I guess that tomorrow's scent of the day will be vintage Mitsouko. I'm thinking that I shouldn't be having dabber bottles period but if it were a mini of Lolita Lempicka or my no 19 in parfum form, I think I would be less upset because they are easier and cheaper to replace. Yeah, I'm a little upset and PO'ed at myself even though my nightgown and part of my bedroom carpet is drenched in the rose/oakmoss combination and smells good.

My old TV stand that I was thinking of redoing to house my perfume will just have to be just cleaned out and wiped down or just get some IKEA shelving to deal with this. But I need to decide soon.