Miserable Failure

Well, my New Year's resolutions ended in a miserable failure. My resolution was kind of large. I made a vow not to buy anymore full bottles of anything (even vintage partials) until I finished a full bottle or two of what I have. And what did I do? Make the mistake of going on to E-bay and finding a sealed full bottle of vintage Bal and some vintage Miss Dior. So I made it about mid month to really blow my resolution of no buy. But in a way, I didn't fully blow my resolution. I have been wearing more of Chanel no 5 either in EDP or EDT.

Since my skin is so dry and winter makes it especially dry, I can get away with wearing 3 perfumes over the coarse of a single day. I can wear Shalimar in the morning, Jicky in the afternoon and Chanel no 5 for a bed time scent. But slowly, I am making a little progress and somewhat sticking to my commitment to finish a couple bottles. But in a way, it can be tough going. I'm pretty fickle when it comes to picking out a perfume to wear. It seems like I want to wear just about everything but not enough skin and if I wore everything in my collection I would probably smell horrible. But I'm not really wearing a lot of Amouage. I'm not wearing Amouage for a couple reasons, besides that they are pretty expensive. I view it as that to drain some of my bottles, being able to wear 3 perfumes a day right now, helps me out. And Amouage lasts all day and night and that doesn't really help with my goal of finishing off some of my collection. I still love my Amouge perfumes that I own but they kind of do hinder my collection. I think that once a week, I will wear my Amouage perfumes.

Serge Lutens Un Bois Vanille

It's really cold here in Cleveland and wanted to try something new. So I dug around my unworn decant bag in search of a heavy hitter or something that might warm me up a little bit. It was either L'Artisan Vanilla or Serge Lutens Un Bois Vanille. I went with Un Bois Vanille because Un Bois Vanille would most likely last longer and be a little more heavy hitting.

This Serge Lutens offering is definitely a vanilla perfume. But it's not one of those vanilla perfumes that leaves you smelling like a cupcake. It's more of the inedible type of vanilla. While is smells more akin to Guerlain's Spirueuse Double Vanille but there are differences. While Un Bois Vanille does have more of that burnt vanilla smell, like SDV, it's not as severe. What keeps Un Bois Vanilla from outright copying SDV is the coconut. The coconut isn't the sunscreen lotion type of coconut but the actual coconut itself. Coconut lends a creamy texture to Un Bois Vanille. While I can smell and notice the coconut, the coconut is not overwhelming to my nose. Un Bois Vanille isn't as loud as some of the Serge Lutens offerings, it is on the softer side. I really do like Un Bois Vanille and find it at very least large decant worthy, if not bottle worthy. I will have to wear my decant a couple more times to see if it is full bottle worthy for me. If SDV is out of any one's price range, Un Bois Vanille would most likely do the trick because it's close enough to SDV and bottles on Beauty Encounter and maybe Fragrance Net (haven't looked) are reasonably priced for Un Bois Vanille.

After Sorting it Out

I'm trying to stick to my New Year's resolution of trying not to buy any more perfume and wear what I do have. Some bits and pieces are a little easier than others. Since I don't have any fun money yet this month, guess what? Not buying anything new, bottle or decant, is pretty easy. And right now, there isn't much that I really want perfume wise yet. Amouage Beloved is on the list of most coveted but have to save up for.

So, I am going through my decant bag of already worn and reviewed and had to throw out some evaporated decants and half used decants that I know that I won't use again. It was a great feeling to get rid of some of this stuff. But I am still debating on which two bottles of perfume I should finish off to create more space. Thus far, a bottle of Chanel no 5 has stayed on this list because of the fact that I have 4 bottles of the current formulation. But it's either the EDT or EDP version that I am thinking of using but I am leaning to the EDT. Or I might go with seeing what I can do with finishing off the parfum version of Cuir de Russie or wearing that one 1 ounce bottle of vintage Bal in the EDC version. Part of all of this is the running out of space and not finding shelving that I like and what I like, I'm not exactly willing to spend a million dollars.

After dithering on what to wear to finish off full bottles, I did notice something. I wasn't really going after perfumes that are either vintage or discontinued. But I am also considering Amouage Epic or Dia in the running for bottles to finish up since I have back ups of both perfumes. The only one seems to be 1 bottle of vintage Bal because it seems like I have a million bottles of it and I can use the EDC a little more lavishly. Probably because the vintage Bal in EDC form is easier to find than the PdT (my preferred version)  and much cheaper than the PdT. I am predominantly going after the perfumes that are easiest to find and not horribly expensive. Amouage offerings are really easy to find online but expensive but Chanel no 5 is easy to find online and in stores and reasonably priced. Theorema is getting up there in price on Beauty Encounter and on E-Bay it's out there. I'm just happy to have as many back ups as I have of it.

Lavin My Sin EDP Review

Since I have decided to get moving this year on reviewing perfume, I am going to do just that today. I took Lavin My Sin EDP to review.

I've never been one to shy way from perfumes that have that animalic vibe going on. Not when I have a decant to test out. But sometimes I do. There is a perfume out there that I am shying away from and I will not name it quite yet.

But on first smell, I can tell that I am wearing something vintage. Classic perfumes (no 5, no 22, Mitsouko, Shalimar for example) even in their modern or current formulation do smell from a specific time period or the smell like they have been around for a while. For quite a while, My Sin smelled like something I already owned and couldn't place my finger on it. Then I could, My Sin smelled almost like Chanel no 5 and sometimes it did smell a little closer to Chanel no 22. I have both no 5 and no 22 in vintage form but My Sin smells closer to the vintage no 5 than no 22. The powder in My Sin make it pretty close to no 22. But the aldehydes are the main culprit for the similarity.

By looking up the notes of My Sin and no 5, the notes are pretty similar. While the vintage no 5 has nitro musks that give it a sultry vibe, My Sin falls upon civet. The civet of My Sin give My Sin that animalic growl not the sultry vibe. My Sin is not one of those that plays around, she more or less knows what she wants and is a little less demur in going about it. My Sin is not going to deny her sensuality where no 5 mostly hides it.

I'm not sure if I would go seeking out a vintage bottle of this but My Sin might grow on me or not. Now when I have no 22 and no 5 in my collection.

Another Year

It's the new year and all. I'm hoping that this year is going to be a little different. Well, it is going to be different in a few ways. I'm starting to fix up my teeth at the dental school. So that means that I have to cut way back on perfume. Do I know how far back? No, all I know is that I have to cut back on the decants and bottle, vintages or new. I'm typing this as I am looking at the first perfume decant purchase to arrive of the year. Let's going to say that this is going to be a tough year. I'm thinking that it will be super tough in the beginning.

So this resolution thing is not what I had exactly in mind and I don't normally make them. That makes it harder to stick to a resolution. What is probably going to happen is that I am going to set up some sort of perfume allowance. I'm wondering if it should be the kind of allowance of $15 or $20 a month and get Surrender to Chance gift cards. I think that I will do that and let that build up. Then when a sale hits, I can rest easy knowing that I've been good. I'm also hoping that this will get me going on that bag of untested decants and I will be forced to actually blog about perfume than just generally blogging about it. That's why I started to do this whole blog but I have gotten away from that and need to get back into the habit of reviewing perfume.

I do think that this might be the year of nail polish for me. Nail polish is cheap compared to perfume, so I'm thinking that nail polish should get thrown onto the blog as well. I'm not exactly sure yet but changes are grudgingly being made.