Leap Day

It's Leap Day and I'm impatiently waiting for spring. This time of year I am really sick of winter. Sick of the wearing of coats, long sleeve shirts, hoodies and getting pretty sick of wearing heavy perfumes. This is the time of year where what I would normally wear during spring and summer. Chanel no 19, Deneuve, Chamade, Patou Joy are what I seem to be reaching for more often. But I am still wearing vintage Bal quite a bit. I just can't wait to have spring arrive so I can start wearing short sleeves again and quit using so much moisturizer.

At this stage I keep poking around Gap and Old Navy checking to see what they have for spring and if I am seeing anything, it's not really my style or it isn't in my size. But I am one of those people that is in between a size with shirts and it can be difficult to find anything that I like. I've never been one to go into loud colors or patterns, I just look goofy in large and loud patterns. And they seem to make me look bigger than I already am.

Miss Dior Vintage EDC Review

For some odd reason, I have a few bottles of vintage Miss Dior waiting to be worn and reviewed. Now is the perfect time to be reviewing it. On one bottle I scored a pretty awesome deal for the version of Miss Dior. Got the vintage version of Miss Dior EDC and vintage Diorissimo along with it. Both in box and sealed. On both of the hounds tooth boxes, there is no bar code and the price tag says $6.50. That is how vintage my bottles are. They were made back in the day where perfume was a very expensive luxury and most didn't buy perfume let alone wear it. So the lucky few that were not millionaires, had only one bottle of perfume and wore it sparingly. I think that after WWII, when this was released, $6.50 on a bottle of perfume took a healthy chunk out of what most make in a week. Now, times have changed and perfume has become more affordable.

Now, onto Miss Dior. In the beginning of my perfume journey, I did have a bit of a hard time with chypres. I couldn't really understand them, let alone enjoy them but I was intrigued by them. Then Deneuve and Diorling came along and then I understood. It was the chypre structure that I really loved and learned to really love oakmoss. The beginning of Miss Dior is a little tough and I am thinking that it's because of the aldehydes are either too harsh for Miss Dior or they are starting to go off. Then the galbanum and jasmine come in with the oakmoss comes through. I smell the other notes but can't pick out what they are. What did surprise me is that there is a animalic note that hits right about 15 minutes into wearing. I do love a skank note in perfume but not quite sure if this example is something I like. A few more wearings will tell. I really liked that this was a vintage version of an EDC because I get at least 5 hours of wear on skin. With any modern EDC, I am lucky if I get an hour or two of wear. I do think that I might get another bottle of vintage to make sure I am stocked up a little bit.

Out Sick

I just love being sick with a head cold. Can't breathe, can't taste anything, and definitely can't smell a damned thing. Well, I can only catch whiffs of things once in a great while but it's still not fun. I don't exactly have a perfume I wear that I wear only when I am sick. But I'm definitely not trying anything new when sick nor am I wearing my expensive stuff.

But being sick and not being able to smell can have advantages. No smelling of the Bath and Body Works garbage that I smell on teen girls nor the Axe stuff on guys. But it means that I can't really smell my own perfume. I do have some perfumes that I wear quite often when I do have a head cold. I do wear Lolita Lempicka or Jicky when I get sick. Jicky because it's somewhat inexpensive and I don't exactly have to worry about over applying. Lolita Lempicka, I am a little more mindful because it is stronger but not so mindful because it's practically free in my books. So I'm hoping that this cold can clear up soon because I would like to get the show on the road with getting some perfume reviews done.

The Very Early Morning Perfume Shuffle

There are times that I have to be certain places really early in the morning. I'm not talking about 7 in the morning but that is pushing it. I'm talking the 5 in the morning stuff. That means for me that I must be upright, out of bed, conscious and coherent is debatable. It makes perfume choosing pretty hard for me. But I did come up with a solution.

The evening before, I most likely have an idea of what I would like. I do go through phases of wearing the same handful of perfumes and if it is a perfume hat I have dubbed either not work safe or too good to wear to work, I will look to see if I have something in a similar vein. Vintage Bal is not something that I find very work safe. Let's thing about it, there is a whole lot of skank in vintage Bal that would conjure up some not so pleasant things for some. But I find that Shalimar, vintage or not, is a great alternative to vintage Bal. I get enough skank to make me happy and nobody I work with seems to detect the skank in Shalimar. So yes, Shalimar is a safe alternative to vintage Bal. Mitsouko, L'Heure Bleue and most Chanel offerings are safe bets. Cuir de Russie can be questionable half the time and I don't think that it's a very early morning kind of perfume. I think that half of the time, either a decant of vintage Chanel no 5 is in my wristlet or a bottle is in my cardigan pocket.

Since I don't carry a purse to work, a wristlet doubles as a wallet and whatever else I might carry (mascara, lipstick) because I might have made plans after work and I can either refresh what I put on that morning or apply whatever else that I did take with me. But I always carry at least two decants in there because I am always waiting to the last minute to pick something to wear to work. But if I already have two decants in there, I can't exactly go too wrong. But I mostly seem to stick to the classics at work and when they wear off, I am free to apply something else. But two decants already chosen and in my wallet makes things a lot easier when not really conscious and coherent.