Perfume Accidents

I don't know how many people that own dogs that like to counter surf or animals that let themselves on counters, dressers, or nightstand. And I don't know how everyone stores their perfume hoard. But I know that I own two dogs that love to counter surf and that I store my perfume on my dresser. But even with the best storage system and even with no animals, perfume accidents can happen.

People, like me, who have large perfume collections can relate to spilled perfume. Let's think about it for a minute. I have perfume minis, vintage splash bottles and perfume in extrait form and that means that these don't have a sprayer, leaving them more prone to being spilled. I'm not talking that a little extra goes on your hand when you are applying perfume. I am talking that either the whole bottle gets emptied or most of the perfume gets spilled. It's annoying when it happens when that happens.

Last night, I was applying Cuir de Russie in extrait form as my bedtime scent. I hadn't worn it in quite some time and wanted to dab it on, not spray it on. The bottle slipped out of my hand and most of it went into the carpet. My bottle of Cuir de Russie in extrait form was a third gone but quite a bit had soaked into the carpet. I did manage to save 4 ml at best and I am pretty bummed out even though I still have that massive bottle of EDT that I don't seem to wear that often. This is the third time in recent memory that this has happened. First, I knocked over a bottle of vintage Mitsouko, spilling a third of it and then my dogs knocked over a bottle of vintage Bal and I lost 80% of the bottle. I hate losing perfume due to spills and most of my spills seem to be the vintage version.

L'Artisan Fou d"Absinthe EDP Review

For the longest time, I have been mostly ignoring the whole L'Artisan line. The few that I did try early on I either didn't care for or I hated the fact that most of the line were EDT's. I'm not somebody who owns a lot of EDT's unless they are vintage. EDT's just don't last on my skin, I might get 2 or 3 hours worth of wear if I am lucky. The notable exception thus far has been Havana Vanille, which has sadly been discontinued. But every now and again I do buy sample sets from STC and there was an absinthe sampler set that had been sitting on my wish list for a while. While there was a pretty good sale, I had bought it. So last night and most of today, I have been wearing L'Artisan's Fou d'Absinthe.

While reading the history of absinthe, absinthe has gotten a really bad wrap and didn't deserve the ban that it did and it didn't deserve that long of a ban. Instead of blaming the people abusing alcohol, the temperance movement decided really go after the booze, especially absinthe. But nobody wants to hear a history lecture nor my views on booze.

While I was wearing this before bed, I was wondering where I had smelled this before. I did kind of remind me of Dior's Granville but Granville wasn't really hitting the mark. Then it hit me a two in the morning, it reminded me of the liquid Dial soap. The regular gold colored liquid Dial soap. I couldn't believe it, I really couldn't. But the more that I had wore it, the more that it became the Granville/Dial soap kind of thing. I definitely get the green and absolutely get the pine and fir basalm that gives that Granville feeling to my nose. I keep looking around and others are saying that it is a masculine perfume, I do have to disagree a little bit there. There is a sweetness in d'Absinthe that begs to differ. That sweetness keeps d'Absinthe from being a total masculine perfume. I just can't place the sweetness and what note is doing that but it is there. I would peg this as more of the masculine side of unisex. I find that this would be great for a summer scent but not exactly a winter scent unless I were by a roaring fire in a fireplace.

I am debating if this is worth the price of a full bottle for me since I have Granville on my list for a pine needle note that doesn't go into the Pine-Sol or car air freshener territory . But this is a definite large decant worthy perfume for me. Let's hope that L'Artisan keeps up with the making more things in EDP form because this lasted six hours on my skin.

Compliments and Perfume

I'm sitting at home looking outside and waiting for the snow to hit. Since I live in the snow belt in Ohio, we are expecting around 5 inches of snow. All the weather channels seem to be debating on when all this snow is truly going to hit. One says Thursday, another says Friday, and the last one says Saturday. So I don't really know at this point.

It's rare that I ever receive compliment of wearing perfume but I do get them once in a while. Let's think about it, perfume wearing seems to be the new smoking. It really must be due to the fact that you get many people from all walks of life and all ages that wear way too much perfume. It's beyond way too much perfume in ways because people seem to bathe in them and one of the keys to perfume is restraint. I do have some strong perfumes and some that are bombastic and even my lightest ones, I make every effort to apply lightly.

But I do receive compliments when wearing perfume. It always takes me by surprise when I do get a compliment on my perfume wearing because most people I know just tolerate it. Or if they do like something, they keep it to themselves and they don't even ask. They probably figure that a lot of my perfumes are very expensive and a large amount are expensive. When you consider the price of certain brands (Amouage, Xerjoff) and discontinued or vintage perfumes, it can get pricey fast. The perfumes that I receive the most compliments are with some of the stranger perfumes in my collection. Here is the list of the ones that garner me the most compliments.

1. Mitsouko seems to garner the most compliments with people who are in their late 50's and 60's and it doesn't matter if it is the current version or the vintage version. Mitsouko is one of the oddballs in my collection that seem to baffle a lot of people and it's kind of the gold standard of chypres.

2. Serge Lutens Feminite du Bois is probably my first niche purchase that I don't seem to wear often enough and when I wear it, men always ask what I am wearing. FdB smells wonderful but different enough to get yourself noticed.

3. Amouage Memoir for Women. This one definitely gets a lot of attention from both sexes and all ages. I don't know what attracts people to me when I wear it but I probably wear it so well that it does

4. Andy Tauer Une Rose Vermielle. Probably one of the most approachable Tauer's that does get a lot of love. It is part of the fruity floral theme and probably one of the best of the genre. UNR doesn't smell cheap and it doesn't smell horribly expensive.

5. Guerlain Shalimar. Shalimar is probably one of Guerlain's most approachable classics and it's the gold standard of orientals. It's slutty enough to keep me happy and it is safe enough to wear in public and not scare anyone away.

6. Amouage Epic. The spicy rose that sports some gaic wood and oud. I can never quite pin point why I love Epic so and the compliments that go with it. But the Turandot  reference intrigued me in the beginning to give this a try.