Surviving the Candle Sale

Almost two weeks ago, Bath and Body Works had a big candle sale. For $9.95 for a 3 wick candle, that was a 60% discount (I did the math) and it was a pretty good deal. I had initially planned on doing the candle sale online or worst case scenario, go to the Bath and Body Works that's 20 minutes away from my house. That didn't work out. A guy friend wanted to go to the mall to pick out a gift for his dad at the mall, so off to the mall 45 minutes away.

When we got to the mall, it wasn't so much a sea of people but a sea of Bath and Body Works bags when we just entered the mall. But as I got closer to Bath and Body Works, the sea of those bags was even more concentrated. People with carrying 3 or 4 large bags of candles. I knew there was some sort of limit on how many candles you could get in one trip but I think that people were making multiple trips to the store to get around the limit. It was difficult enough alone getting into the store but even harder to move around when you are inside. The employees looked like they had a rock solid plan but were having issues trying to keep everything stocked. The biggest gripe was other customers. Most had to stand in one spot and smell every candle. Didn't matter if it was all the same scent, every candle had to be smelled. Are you looking for the strongest smelling one of the Evergreen candle? They are all equally strong smelling, just put one in your cart. Can't decide on which vanilla to get? Just pick one, this isn't neurosurgery or ending hunger in the US and move along. My biggest thing was I knew how many candles I was getting and the scents I wanted but I don't know why so many people didn't respond to an excuse me. A louder excuse me didn't seem to working but when a few other customers realized I was trying to either get through to get something they looked surprised and asked if I was standing there for very long. My response was it took you both 10 minutes and 4 loud excuse mes before you bothered to notice? This is why I like to avoid malls during Christmas and large crowds period. It's hard enough in normal circumstances for people to actually respond to an excuse me but sheesh.

I did like how the employees had a plan at the cash registers and the line to check out. They kept the line moving and kept the customers in line from acting foolish. There were a couple people that thried to get out of line to get a few more things and still had their place in line but there we so many employees that there dealing with the line before anyone even got to the register, it was impossible to do. Next candle day sale, I am doing it online.

Monyette Paris Coquette Tropique Review

Many months ago, I was poking around Luckyscent looking for a good bargain. For the past few years, my perfume budget hasn't been that great and full bottles are a rare treat. I wasn't too serious about finding anything that I could afford but when I stumbled on Monyette Paris Coquette Tropique for $10 and a box of tea, I figured for $10, what do I have to really lose?

For $10 I really didn't have high standards or hopes for this. I was hoping for something cheerful, nothing too serious. For crying out loud, I do have perfumes that are cheap, cheerful and smell good. Coquette Tropique missed the mark in a big way.

I get a huge blast of tuberose that lasts from start to finish. The list of notes say gardenia but gardenia in perfume is a construct of tuberose and something else. So the gardenia note is a lie. I don't know what I am exactly smelling after but it smells incredibly cheap and fake. The fruit and flowers smell like they are either rotting or artificial. Something about this whole thing just made my stomach roll and not in a good way. There is nothing tropical or flirty in this one. In a way, I was kind of hoping for the lines of Worth Courtesan.

The good thing at this point is that this was $10 and not the original $45. Forty-five dollars for an eighth of an ounce of oil. I am happy that I didn't sink that kind of cash into it. I know that I won't be wearing this again.

Chanel Coromandel EDP Review

I actually decided to get a decant of Coromandel off of E-bay. The seller shipped it out pretty quick and I got it pretty quick. I have been pretty wary of the Les Exclusifs line since they went from the EDT to the EDP formulation. Anyone familiar with Chanel knows that no matter which formulation of any of their scents are going to smell different.

Take no 5 for example. The parfum will smell different than the EDT and the EDT will smell different from the EDP. But they all smell like no 5 but certain things might be emphasized in one formulation but the next formulation, something else is emphasized.

After trying the EDP version of Cuir de Russie and not being to amused, I was a little reluctant to get a full bottle of Coromandel EDP without trying it out. I was pretty late to the party with Coromandel. When I tried Coromandel, my 5ml decant was half evaporated and STC and TPC were not and still not allowed to sell any decants of Chanel. So I had reservations about decants off of E-Bay for a long time due to the fact that I had a pretty good chance of getting something fake.

When I ordered my decant of Coromandel, the only available size that the seller had was 10ml. I was looking for more of a 3ml size. The EDP does smell like the EDT but with a few differences. I found the EDP to be more sheer but in a way, smoother than the EDT. I noticed that the patchouli was a little smoother and a little quieter. I noticed that there wasn't as much projection. I expected this kind of projection along the lines of a parfum. The lasting power is much shorter though. The EDT gave me 6 hours of wear but the EDP only gave me 4 hours.

I wouldn't mind a full bottle of this but I am still kicking myself for not getting a bottle of the EDT while the prices were still fairly reasonable. I do want to try the parfum version on this one and I am sure that it's glorious.

That Time of Year

Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone. I've never been the biggest fan of Thanksgiving. I think it's my distaste for football, eating so early and turkey. Yes, I am not a fan of turkey and I think it's one of those take it or leave it foods.

What annoyed me the most is an overflowing e-mail about the deals. The e-mail bombing started on Wednesday and didn't let up until this morning. I looked at a couple of them and didn't find the deals to be appealing. Bath and Body Works is the only one that is still bombing my e-mail account. The Bath and Body Works deals have been pretty good but I haven't bitten yet. I am waiting for their big candle sale on Saturday. A 3 wick candle for $8? Count me in and those normally cost $24.50 full price. Most of the time, Bath and Body Works has some kind of deals on their candles but more than half off is pretty good. I love a good deal but I am not in the market for a whole lot at the moment and I gotta be pretty selective at this point due to my cash flow being a little wonky. But can't be too selective with some relatives living out of state and have to keep shipping cutoff times in mind.

There aren't too many perfume blogs that I really read anymore. I used to read quite a few blogs but things changed. Some stopped blogging for various reasons, some don't post as often, or just don't fit into my reading habits anymore. The Non-Blonde Blog was one of the blogs that I would read but in the past couple years, it just fell through my reading cracks. A few weeks ago, I went to see what was posted and I didn't see too many posts. What shocked me is when someone on Now Smell This had said that there was a post that the author of The Non-Blonde, Gaia, had unexpectedly passed away. Then the Perfumed Posse reported another death in the perfume community. I've never followed video blogs but it's still sad to see this stuff happen.

E-Bay and Thanksgiving

We are two days away from Thanksgiving. My family and I are hosting and know that 3 people are probably going to be spending the night. For the past couple days, I have been doing a lot of picking up, organizing and some dusting. I am still going to do more in between shifts at work. I am dreading work though, knowing it will be a mad house.

But with Thanksgiving comes Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I still can't believe that some companies think that Black Friday starts on Thanksgiving evening. That just rankles me to no end. In my opinion, retail workers are not important or essential on a holiday. Forgot that extra dozen of eggs or not quite enough rolls isn't important. If your not a nurse, doctor, firefighter or police officer, retail employees are not a vital. I am wondering what deals that there are going to be. I'm not so interested in buying something, most of my Christmas shopping is done. I think that I am really just interested in what Bath and Body Works is going to have for sales. For the family that lives close by to me, I am pretty much done except for a few odds and ends. I haven't committed to anything yet.

It's been a fun few days with E-bay. My mother asked me to use my E-bay account to order her two collector's music boxes. She wanted a specific two Christmas music boxes and I managed to find them for a reasonable price. We get one still in the box with everything in it and the seller made sure that it was well packed. This one works perfectly. The second one came and the story isn't the same. When the box came, it looked like the box itself was falling apart and taped up by a two year old. The packaging looked old and battered and that was our first indication that something might be wrong. My mother opens the package and finds no adapters and a couple other things missing. But when she was making sure that the music box played music, it was off, the bells didn't work right and just seemed like it just wasn't working right. I contacted the seller and started a return. My mother had said that the music box doesn't work right and what exactly was wrong. And she did say a shame on you type of deal. Whoever the seller was got all snotty and attacked my mom a little bit and said that it "worked". So I am waiting on a return label and hope we get it soon to ship it back to the seller. If I don't find a return label, I am going to have to contact E-bay.

Tauer Les Annees 25 BIS Review

In mid-September, Andy Tauer did release a new review. At this moment, I can't remember the name of it and I do have a decant but haven't tested it out. But a couple weeks ago, Andy Tauer had a surprise release. He released a flanker of Les Annees 25 BIS. From his em-mail, the impression that I am getting is that he was surprised on how fast the original sold out. Granted, it was a limited edition with only 500 bottles made. I hoped that this will be more of a permanent part of his line up. I was lucky enough to get a 5ml mini directly from his website. I ordered within a half an hour of getting the e-mail, I was that eager to test this one out.

Since I haven't put this in a spray decant, this is from dabbing Les Annees 25 BIS. It is so much like the original Les Annees but yet it's a little louder but yet a little smoother than the original. It's kind of like what happened with L'Air du Desert Marocain and Au Coeur du Desert. Louder yet smoother at the same time.

Since I am working off a couple dabs from 3 days ago, I have to give this another go today and see what else that I can get from BIS. But from what I am remember that BIS is pretty much full bottle worthy and I hope it sticks around in the line up for a while.

Lipstick, Candles and Les Annes 25 BIS

It's been pretty interesting. I was eagerly awaiting some packages to arrive during my vacation. Since I am on vacation, I thought that my packages would be spaced out a little bit. Today, all my packages came today. BarkBox, Sephora and Les Annees 25 BIS, the only one that I am waiting on is my Old Navy package. I am trying to avoid the malls when it comes time to finish Christmas shopping. I hate crowds, the noise, children acting like plum fools and that irritating Christmas music. I am hoping within the next two or three weeks to fully be done.

When Sephora had those sampler sets of so many things, the lipsticks interested me the most. I have gotten sample packs in the past from Sephora but can't remember which ones exactly. That goes to show you how far I have strayed from Sephora. But the sample sets of lipsticks looked like a good variety but the sizes of those samples looked pretty decent. If you are going to part me from my hard earned cash, I expect some jumbo sized samples that I can wear for 2 or 3 weeks. Too many samples have been good for 1 or 2 measly wearings and can't help but think of the cash I could have spent elsewhere. But a couple of those lipsticks seem to be full sized. If the Urban Decay and Tarte are full sized or pretty close, I am happy. So I am set on make up right now and very curious on how the Kiehl's Ultimate Facial Cream is going to work and hey a 1 ounce jar was pretty reasonable but I hope that this will help with winter facial skin.

What surprised me the most is that the mini of Les Annees 25 BIS came in today and I expected it to arrive later in the week since I ordered it on Thursday. I am excited to try it and I hope that I do actually do a couple wearings to review. But I am teetering on the edge of ordering a decant of the Coromandel EDP off of E-bay but just not ready to pull the trigger just yet.

I was doing some cleaning and organizing last night and had to count how many candles that I had in my bedroom. The total count is 26 and Bath and Body Works is doing a special that ends tonight of buy 2 candles and get two free. Yes, I am sorely tempted but I think that I will just hold off on the whole candle bit right now. After counting how many candles I have at the moment and I am sure that the promo will come again, I need to burn some candles before I will buy more. I didn't realize that I had so many candles since I don't use them as often as I used to.

Les Annees 25 BIS

Only a couple months ago, Andy Tauer released L'Air des Alpes. I have finally gotten my decant of that after waiting pretty much a month for it but at least I got a decant to try. When I woke up yesterday and checked my e-mail, I saw that I had an e-mail from Tauer Perfumes. There is a surprise release called Les Annees 25 BIS.

In the e-mail, Andy Tauer stated that minis would be shipped to the US and I naturally snapped one up. I am wondering how different it is going to be from the original Les  Annees 25. I am still kicking myself for not getting a bottle of Les Annees 25 when I had the chance. I wonder if it is going to be like Au Coeur du Desert. Au Coeur des Desert is a smoother, quieter version of L'Air du Desert Marocain. A full bottles of Les Annees 25 BIS is being sold for $160 and I hope that this is not a limited edition.

Chanel no 22 Vintage Extrait Review

It's time for me to get moving on a review of some sort. What seems like forever and a day, I have been bitching about Chanel. The prices seem to have gotten out of hand. I understand inflation and cost of materials but really, I am sure that the glass and the perfume itself costs next to nothing but to charge an arm and a leg and make certain lines unaffordable to quite a few people. I keep hoping that Chanel will either make their exclusive line in smaller sizes or have maybe a travel set for a few of them and have them priced reasonably would be a good thing. I could get behind spending $75 or $85 for a travel spray of Coromandel but I don't see it happening anytime soon. I think Chanel should consider it. They have travel sets for most of their lines, so why not?

I was kind of bored with my current line up. Recently, I have been wearing the shit out of LAADM and a couple others. So I looked through some things and found a little dabber decant of vintage no 22 extrait. I do have a sealed vintage bottle of no 22 in extrait form but can't quite get to it now and haven't even busted the seal open on it. I dabbed some on yesterday and said that it smelled almost exactly the same as the vintage EDT. For those of use who have been floating around the perfume world a while, you know that the current EDT of any Chanel is going to smell different than something that is 10 to 15 (or more) years ago. One becomes aware that all concentrations of any Chanel offering is going to smell different. After a few minutes, I did notice that the vintage extrait is smoother and a little less powdery than the vintage EDT. But was surprised me the most is the musk in vintage no 22. I don't ever recall smelling any kind of musk in the vintage EDT but I am going to have wear the vintage EDT to see. The musk was nice and gave no 22 a very small growl, I'm not fully sure that it quite fits. The musk in the vintage no 5 gives that vintage a nice growl without falling apart or making no 5 slutty. The lasting power of Chanel no 22 vintage extrait was about 7 hours which I liked. I don't ever think that I will ever come across another bottle of vintage no 22 for a reasonable price again.

Sephora

I have said for a while that I do think that Ulta has been a better store than Sephora. There was a time where I never even knew Ulta existed, Then about 4 or 5 years ago, I knew that Ulta existed but thought that it was a beauty place that was for cheap make up. But things did change. Sephora used to carry my Skyn Iceland face wash and moisturizer but quit carrying the line. Then I switched to Amazon for my Skyn Iceland stuff but took a look at Ulta. Ulta did sell Skyn Iceland and Ulta started to knock Sephora off it's pedestal. When I figured out the Ulta Rewards, sales and coupons, Sephora was brought down. I hardly ever shop at Sephora.

Today was the first time in over 6 months that I have gotten anything from Sephora.Why? Sephora had a sale going on and a couple things that I had my eye on that Ulta didn't have. I spent $20 more than I should have but I am okay with that. I couldn't justify buying a bottle of perfume but was tempted to use the sale to snap up a bottle of Coco Mademoiselle but managed to say no and walk away from that. If I spent enough at Sephora and my coupon was a 15% or 20% off, I probably would have.

One of my biggest gripes about Sephora and Ulta is the Chanels. Ulta does not let one buy a bottle of Chanel online but Sephora does.Chanel and I have a little bit of a contentious relationship. I do own and enjoy many Chanel perfumes but never was enthused with sizing or prices. I do wish that the prices of any of the Chanels were a little lower and the sizing was a little better. I would like there to be 30ml sized bottles. But my biggest gripe will always be about the Les Exclusifs line, sizes and prices.

At the end of the day, I am pretty stoked about my Sephora purchases. I got myself two lipstick samplers and a mini of the Kiehl's Ultra face cream. It's late fall and we are going into winter and the Skyn Iceland Cloud cream won't cut it when the dry air really does hit. I am hoping that this stuff will work and if it does, it will be fabulous.

Holidays Starting Early

It wasn't even Halloween when retailers started putting out Christmas decorations. It seems like the Christmas season is starting earlier and earlier and we probably start seeing that stuff right after Easter.

What is bugging me the most is that I am seeing so many more promos, sales and many other things in my e-mail. I love a good deal as anyone else but I know that most of them are not very good deals. Even with the promos and sales, they are still out of my price range or the quality isn't there. I will admit to the fact that I have started my Christmas shopping early and started in the beginning of October.

I work in retail myself and I don't make huge amounts of money. I have bills like everyone else. A little bit here, a little bit there and that is if I have the breathing room. My gifts are nothing extravagant but I make sure they are nice gifts and something that someone might not buy for themselves. I also keep it to something that they can use. I have gotten plenty of gifts that I can't use or won't use. Nothing says you don't give much of a shit if you can't pay attention to what I like, dislike or where I shop the most. What's the point of getting me a Kohl's or a Bed, Bath and Beyond gift card that I will never use? I will say that I love getting gift cards as a gift and a couple of my friends prefer them as a gift. But I pay attention to what they like and where they shop the most.

Back and Forth

I am failing miserably at this whole not buying full bottle stuff. I haven't bought anything yet but seriously looking at the Chanel travel sets. I honestly shouldn't even be trying to look but yet committed to what is the best bang for my buck. Thus far, I can't decide if I want to go with Coco Mademoiselle or no 5. I am leaning to Coco Mademoiselle due to the fact that I do not have any of it in my collection and loads of no 5. I am spending way to much time on this trivial thing. But with being on the Chanel website so much, it's made me think about my perfume journey a little bit and how much I have probably spent. At this time, I am more interested in getting travel sets instead of full bottles. But still a little annoyed, it seems in this respect with Chanel, I seem to be getting more packaging instead of perfume for the price I am thinking of paying.

In year past, it didn't seem to matter too much on how much I have spent on any one bottle of perfume. It didn't matter so much if I smelled the perfume before I bought it, $130 for under an ounce of perfume, sold! A 50ml or anything for over $200, why not? But circumstances did change and that meant that dropping any kind of money on perfume had to be thought about and limited to a couple times a year. Then I had to think very carefully. It boiled down to how much I could afford after my bills were paid. It's been tough and I am hoping that by the end of the year, I can nab a bottle of Coromandel.

The No Buy Period

I have embarked on a no buy for perfume. I had started in September and since then it's been really tough. Andy Tauer has released a new perfume and when Luckyscent had a promo if you spent $100 and over, you entered a promo code to get a 5ml mini of it. You don't know how sorely I was tempted to get a bottle of Lonestar Memories to get that mini. If I remember right, on Andy Tauer's site, if you bought a full bottle, you could get a mini too. But some reality busted right through and it came in the form of needing two crowns on two teeth. Have I gotten those two crowns? Nope, still dealing with insurance stuff and also need a tooth pulled first.

When I am saying no buy, it doesn't mean that I don't get groceries or do anything, it means that I've really tightened my belt. I only allocate so much a week for groceries and allocate a whole lot less for going out and doing anything. But it seems like I have been attempting this no buy thing for too long. The last full bottle I had bought was Kiehl's Musk Blend in August. It was cheap enough without free shipping, a 20% coupon and a gift card. But all of those things made it cost me next to nothing. But it's still very had to change old habits, even my decant purchases have changed. I have really had to cut back on that. If there is a 15% or 20% coupon, I take a look at it and debate of it there is anything that I really want and if there is, I can't go above a 2ml decant. If I play my cards right and save my money, I might be able to get something around Christmas time.

Of TV Shows and Rewards

I am not the biggest TV show watcher, I have a select few that I watch. But sometimes I do have to call it quits on a TV show. The longer the show runs, the more potential of it going bad. I was really big into the Chicago series (Med, PD, and Fire) but now I have given up on them. Chicago Med hasn't been that great for the past two seasons, PD wasn't that great last season but Fire isn't worth watching anymore. I was a fan of Fire since day one but the beginning of season 8 was what made me give up on the whole series. I would have went with someone else dying and the story lines are stale at this point.So yes, I have got to find something new.

This past month, I have spent quite a bit of money at Ulta. Since September was my birthday month, I was able to score double points. Then there was a double points promo that was going on and scored a little more in the points department. I log onto Ulta to see how much I have accumulated so far and my jaw dropped. I had managed to accumulate 755 points and that equals out to $30 that I can take off my next purchase or save them and rack up more points and then get something else for myself. This is what I love about Ulta, is how the rewards system works. The most I have ever accumulated in previous years was about $15 or $20 and this is a record.

At this point, the past few days have been strange.Today and tomorrow, people are filming a movie. It is pretty cool to have that happen in my small town. But that means, I am boxed it at the moment. Can't exactly leave my street at the moment but that's okay, I don't have any place to be. I am currently poking around the Internet for the best price for the Amouage Lyric body butter. So far I am not having a whole lotta luck but found something strange. Walmart is now selling Amouage product from their online store. I had to take a look ar it and after taking a look, most of them are being sold through third party sellers. Some of the prices are pretty good but I am not willing to take that chance of it being fake. I would not have pegged Amouage allowing Walmart to sell their stuff.

La Maison de la Vanille Vanille noire du Mexique Review

I have been dithering on writing a review for far too long at this point. Now it's off to the races with a review.

Off and on for the fast couple weeks, I have been wearing La Maison de la Vanille's Vanille noire du Mexique. It's a goofy one to me. I get the basic layout of two different perfumes. I mean, really I do. I get Shalimar Ode a la Vanille (the Mexican one) and L'Artisan's Havana Vanille (or Vanille Absolutment or whatever they called it before the discontinued it). It has the basic Ode a la Vanille layout nut without the naughty bits but also had the thinker's parts of Havana Vanille. Havana Vanille was huge on the tobacco and the rum and Mexique doesn't have any of that but hints around at it.

Mexique is kind of a funky perfume because it plays off of two perfumes but yet, it's it's own perfume. I consistently get about 7 hours of wear out of this and make skin eats EDT's for breakfast. What I am really loving is the price tag of Mexique. For $60 and a 100ml, that's a really good bargain in the niche/hard to find. What makes me a little hesitant of purchasing a bottle is when I bought the sampler, the spray mechanisms caused for quite a bit of evaporation. That's what happens when spray mechanisms are put on by manufacturers. I hope that in the next couple months, I will take the plunge and just get a bottle. Since Shalimar Ode a la Vanille was a limited edition and Havana Vanille was discontinued, this fits the bill for me in terms of a vanilla.

Vacation is Over

Well, my vacation is over and I must go back to work.I didn't exactly do a whole lot. I set up doctor's appointments early in the week just to get them out of the way. There were things that I wasn't expecting but kind of was. I have to fight with my health insurance about the crowns that I need on two back teeth. For some reason, my health insurance considers dental crowns as cosmetic and not something necessary. So I must fight with them because I would rather keep those two teeth.

I thought I would be testing out a few perfumes on my vacation but that never happens. When I started my blog, I was reviewing just about everything under the sun but that's not happening now. It's come down to the fact that I have gotten pretty lazy. I want to blame it on the fact that most of what I have tried, I haven't liked. Every time I try a new perfume, I want the clouds to part and the angels to start singing but it rarely happens. There are too many new released for me to even try to keep up with and I have a huge pile of things to test out and review.

While I was on vacation, I was going through all of my reviewed and worn decants. Seeing what was evaporated, what I had multiples of. There were a couple of them that were totally evaporated and I threw those out. But noticed real quick that I had quited a few multiples that were of various stages of fullness. I had combined all of those multiples and was able to make some more space. Those decants of De Profundis and Sarrasins went right into the mostly full bell jars. The 8mls spread out over 3 decants of Noontide Petals, went into a bigger decant. Some of those multiples were not emptied enough to be combined. Some of you are probably doing some pearl clutching but I had to make some space and haven't had any mishaps with this.

CdG Monocle One Scent One: Hinoki

For a while, I have really liked the smell of incense and a little bit of a fan of woody scents. For the past two weeks, I have been on and off wearing Kyoto, Avignon and Incense Flash and remembered that I did have CdG Monocle One Hinoki to try out.

I wasn't exactly sure of what I was smelling at first. Something chemical like. It's been forever and a day since I have smelled turpentine and I think that that is what I might be smelling. Then I smell the cypress and cedar but I don't get a whole lot else except for hints of pine.

This one smells almost identical to Kyoto and with a lasting power to match. My skin eats EDT's for breakfast and I only get about 3 hours worth of wear. I find that Hinoki to be pretty harsh and not very wearable to me and definitely not worth the $120 price tag. Shit, I find that the incense series from CdG a little pricey for what they charge. If I am going to spend more than $50, I do want a little more than 3 hours of lasting power and something a little smoother than this. It's been a difficult couple weeks for me and I am not in the mood to deal with perfumes that charge tons of money for a full bottle but smell like a hundred other perfumes that I can get for $30. I'm tired of perfumes that charge an arm and a leg and smell like someone put a perfume together in 10 seconds and they end up smelling harsh or just a hot mess. It makes me wonder about the state of perfumery.

Viktoria Minya Hedonist Iris Review

Another birthday has come and gone and I keep going back and forth what I want to do for my birthday perfume. I keep debating on if I should get the new Andy Tauer release, as a blind buy or should I hop on over to Luckyscent and get Lonestar Memories and punch in the code to get a 5ml mini. I hope I can make a decision soon.

After getting my entire collection back where it should be, when I saw my full bottle of Hedonist, I remembered that I had a decant of one of the Hedonist flankers that I haven't tried, Hedonist Iris.

I was expecting something that would live up to the name. A decadent iris but decadent it was not. Hedonist Iris was a straight up floral with the main note like the iris of Chanel no 19 extrait. So much of the composition reminded me of the no 19 extrait but without the green and the bite. I got the barest hint of cedar but it didn't help much. Can you tell that I didn't really care for it and was disappointed?

For the price of a full bottle (I am happy that I just had a decant) and the looks of a full bottle, it's not worth it to me. If you are going to name something Hedonist, make it live up to it's name. The original Hedonist did.

New Releases

There was a time where I did pay attention to new releases. After a while, I only paid attention to only a few houses that were releasing something new. Amouage, Chanel, Andy Tauer and Serge Lutens were the ones that I did pay attention to. For a while, most of those houses have new releases every couple months and I couldn't keep up with all of the new releases. So many of the new releases have smelled like so many other perfumes that I have tried before or smelled on other people before. Except Andy Tauer.

Andy Tauer has been one of those perfumers that doesn't release a perfume every few months. Seems like every year and a half or maybe two, he does release something; so he takes his time with something. I have been eagerly awaiting his newest release and found out through his Facebook page that his newest creation is going to be released on September 15th. The funny thing is that it happens to be on my birthday and I am a huge Tauer fan. If it is full bottle worthy, I won't be able to sink money on a bottle but I am waiting for the moment that I can get my hands on a decant.

First World Perfume Problems

I have been going on and on about the whole cleaning out stuff and furniture but I do have two extra dressers and a nightstand. New dressers and a nightstand were needed, the ones that I had were small in so many ways. Since they were not that tall, it was easier for my dogs to go and knock things over. I had lost a few perfumes over that past few years with the dogs looking to see if there was anything interesting to swipe.

Now the guest bedroom is in chaos with so many of my clothes just piled up and there are other things all over the place. That means that I don't have access to at least 98% of my perfume collection. The only ones that I have access to already sit on my new dresser. A full bottle of vintage Jicky and Mitsouko, Kyoto, Noontide Petals and Chanel no 5 EDT. I am happy that I was able to swipe a mini of L'Air du Desert Morocain and all of my Andy Tauer samples and a decant of vintage BaV. Everything else is in cardboard boxes in a corner of the guest bedroom where I cannot get to it yet. So in a way, I am incredibly limited on what I really have available to me perfume wise. In a way it's hard because my perfume collection is there but right there, in s spot that I can't get to it. At least not yet. Today is not the day where I try to liberate my collection because I have something at least in the world of perfume but it's not going to be what I want. I want my bottle of Cuir de Russie, my decant of Coromandel, etc. I think that I will tackle this problem on Saturday and hopefully, I will have space for my Galileo thermometer collection too.

Fall

Here in the US, we are coming upon the unofficial end of summer. Summer doesn't technically end for another 3 weeks but kids are back in school and in many parts of the country, it's fair time. In a lot of ways, I do like going to my local county fair and will sometimes go to others. Seeing the animals, eating things that are not good for me. But every time I go to the fair, I keep thinking off what perfumes really work for fall. In Northeastern Ohio, fall is filled with county fairs, clambakes, cooler weather, changing of the leaves and eventually, changing of perfume to fit the season. I just can't help but wonder where the summer has gone. It seems like yesterday, the kids were just let out of school and making all this noise to dead quiet.

Quite a few of Andy Tauer's work do fit with fall but there are a few that really fit. I find that L'Air du Desert Marocain, Lonestar Memories and Au Coeur de Desert fit the best. I can say that Les Annees 25 and Noontide Petals fit pretty well too. Les Annees 25 was a limited edition and Noontide Petals has been discontinued. I am always saddened when a perfume is discontinued or I find out that a perfume that I fell in love with was a limited edition.

Guerlain has always been a little bit of a goofy house to me. Quite a few of their perfumes have been really sweet or more geared for spring and summer. I don't see that many that are geared for the changing into fall, except Mitsouko, especially in vintage form. Mitsouko has that muted amber thing going on that just seems to suit those cool fall nights.

Theorema is a fabulous fall fragrance. Sweet, candied oranges with an oriental feel. Not too heavy for fall and works in those fall days where it's not quite sweater weather but the longer sleeves that don't cover the whole arm. It's a pity that Fendi decided to discontinue this gem and I don't know why Fendi likes to discontinue things after 2 or 3 years.

Feminite du Bois is rounding up this little list. It doesn't really matter if you have the Serge Lutens or the Shiseido version because they both work very well in fall. Not too heavy but it's interesting because it's not a typical feminine perfume.

Samples, Samples and More Samples

I am still obsessed with some home based stuff. I am currently looking at corner shelving to put my perfume collection on since I am still working on my clothes situation. It's the getting rid of throwing stuff out and donating stuff that has been a huge challenge so far. It's amazing that how much stuff can be accumulated in such a short amount of time. But at this time, I am still looking at the Bath and Body Works wallflower refills. I am gearing up for having enough of them to last me a year before I need to stock up again. I am pretty picky on candles and room sprays. Most are either too strong or just smell strange. my favorites are the apple or lilac ones. The pumpkin apple or whatever they pair the apple with doesn't do it for me due to having just a very faint apple smell that's drowned out by the cinnamon, clove and other things that have been added.

Yesterday, I hopped on over to Andy Tauer's website to just bite the bullet and just order a mine of Les Annees 25. For some reason, when I went to check out, there was an issue. My order couldn't be completed and I was left scratching my head. I figured that I should check out Andy Tauer's blog to see if there might be any info and there was. Apparently, there is a problem with some kind of government agencies/post office that are starting to kick back sample packs and minis back to Andy Tauer. So right now, no more sample packs will be mailed to the US and I think a few other countries. I hope that this isn't permanent but it just might be. The funny thing about this is that Andy Tauer is still able to ship full bottles out to the US and that doesn't make any sense but when dealing with the post office/customs, nothing ever makes any kind of sense.

With that stuff said, I would rather order samples, minis and full bottles through Andy Tauer's website and not Luckyscent or anywhere else. I would rather the cash I am paying going directly to the perfumer and not some middleman.

Vintage Shalimar Extrait Review

I have finally cracked open a bottle of vintage Shalimar extrait and wore it. I don't wear Shalimar that often for some strange reason. For quite a while, I was prowling E-bay and was always on the hunt for reasonably priced bottles of vintage Mitsouko, Shalimar and Jicky. I was mainly looking for the teardrop bottles and if the price was reasonable, I got it. If the bottle was sealed, bonus. Somehow, I managed to score two unopened bottles of vintage Shalimar extrait and one of the bottles was from the 1950's and the other is probably from the 1960's. The one I am reviewing is from the '60's.

The first blast was a whole lot of citrus, something lemony. Since it is vintage, the citrus smells a little bit damaged. Then the vanilla and leather do come out. I've noticed that the vanilla and leather doesn't come as far out in the extrait like in the current EDP, which I am the most familiar with. Nor do I get an animalic growl, well maybe a faint trace of it. Maybe I am too used to the skank in vintage BaV, Keihl's Original Musk and MKK.

After wearing the extrait and then wearing the current EDP version, I had remembered why I don't wear the original Shalimar too much. I don't wear it much because I am not a huge fan of a large dose of citrus in an oriental perfume. I really do enjoy the Shalimar Ode a la Vanille. The Ode a la Vanille does bring the animal growl out and amps up the vanilla while toning down the citrus aspect. But at the end of the day, I wasn't moved by the vintage extrait of Shalimar and that is probably a little sad.

Home Fragrance

For quite a while, I have been working on getting rid of stuff and trying to organize stuff. It's a huge process and there are a few sections that I haven't even begun to sort out. I am trying to get rid of a bunch of stuff and it's difficult to do.

 But one of the things that I am working on is wanting to figure out my shelving situation. Some of the shelving is for my clothes and the other is for perfume. I was thinking some corner shelves for my perfume and then have regular ladder like shelves for my clothes. When I actually decided to get all of that, it will make organization much easier for me. But first the serious cleaning and painting must be done. I still can't decide if I want the carpet replaced or not.

My new obsession right now is the Bath and Body Works wallflower plug ins and the refills. Bath and Body Works used to be my go to place for body wash and lotions. But Bath and Body Works isn't a huge part of my life for anything fragrant. Things with Bath and Body Works did change. Eventually, prices had gone up quite a bit, some scents were "retired", some discontinued but the biggest thing was many of the new releases and some of the big store sellers had changed to the point of they didn't smell good. Too chemically smelling to smell good or too potent.

So now I have found two scents in the form of candles or the wallflower plug ins but they are seasonal. I have always loved lilac and in the spring the lilac blossom is my go to and in the fall it is the farm stand apple or what ever they decide from year to year the name for a straight up apple scent. Candles are a very goo thing to have when you live in a rural area and the power goes out on a regular basis. When the power goes out, I don't know if it will be an hour or 12 hours or more and I would rather have a bunch of candles just in case.

Andy Tauer Eau D'Epices Review

When Andy Tauer had his 3 15ml travel set, I decided one of them would be Eau D'Epices. For quite a while, I never really picked it up and tried it out for some reason. I'm not sure why, maybe when I did try it, I couldn't describe it and still can't really describe it.

I just can't find a way to review this in any real way. The typical Tauer base smacks me in the nose. Then come some spices and what smells like vetiver. I'm not exactly sure if it is vetiver but I smell something woody/grassy in there. What struck me the most on how similar it is to Orange Star. Eau D'Epices and Orange Star can be considered siblings.

Lasting power is about 6-7 hours on skin and has moderate projection. Looking at everything, I don't think that I will seek out a bottle. It's a good thing to though. Looks like this one is either discontinued or sold out. I am leaning towards discontinued since it hasn't been seen on Andy Tauer's website or Luckyscent in quite a while. But on the perfume blogoshere, it doesn't seem to get a whole lot of love.

One of Those Days

Finishing a bottle of perfume can be so satisfying, especially when you have a large collection. It's one less bottle to keep track of, a little more space that's probably going to be filled quickly. But there is something else that is the worst.

On Tuesday, I had lost a bottle of perfume while I was at work. Let me explain what happened. On Tuesday, my mother was rummaging in my room to  pick out something to wear for a concert on Wednsday. While she was in the process of emptying things out, she some how knocked over a bottle of Chanel no 5 in extrait form. A half an ounce bottle ended up to be totally empty. I come home from work and she mentioned what happened with the clothes but failed to say that she knocked over the bottle of no 5. I was livid. Chanel isn't exactly the cheapest perfume house on the planet. The extrait bottles from Chanel are dabber bottles and when the aren't sealed, one can't afford to have them knocked over and spilled. When I entered my bedroom, it smelled like perfume. At first, I couldn't figure out why and which perfume. Then I saw the empty, knocked over bottle. I couldn't help but think how could you not hear a bottle being knocked over? Can't you notice the smell of perfume? Can't you look to see where the smell is coming from? I had to ask why and there was the response was she thought she might have smelled something but didn't investigate. This is not how I wanted an empty bottle and I know it's a first world problem but I spent good money for no 5 extrait. I've spent good money on all of my perfume.

Angel by Thierry Mugler Review

I have been on vacation for 9 days and I am on my last day of vacation. So it's back to work and I am not looking forward to it. Even though I had stayed home, it was quite a bit of running around and all kinds of plans made and I couldn't quite blog. I had actually managed to go into my stash and try a new (at least to me) perfume. As it turned out, it was Angel by Thierry Mugler.

I don't know if I would call Angel a classic maybe iconic for something that's been around just shy of 30 years. I mainly wanted to see what the fuss was about. And I don't see what the fuss is about with Angel.

It seems to be the stripped down version of Coco Mademoiselle and Coromandel. I just couldn't get a whole lot out of Angel besides that but could see how Angel could be abhorrent when worn in large quantities. The bottle is cute but I wasn't left with any kind of definite impresstion of the perfume itself to really make it stand out.

Can't Think of Anything

Amazon Prime day has come and gone. Ever since I have been a Prime member, a week before Prime day, I am anticipating what kind of deals. Sometimes, I don't find anything that I'd like but the past couple years have been a little different. Last year, I had gotten my dad a Kindle and he has been loving it and has been watching a few of the Prime shows and doing other things. This year, I had bought him a Fire Stick for the TV and then he can watch Prime shows and movies on the TV.

But every time Prime day passes, it almost seems like a big letdown, kind of like Christmas. All this preparation, money spent and waiting for everything to come. After that, the anticipation is gone. But I am still making an effort to finish up my dad's birthday gift. I still have about 3 days to do it and I'd rather get it done sooner rather than later so I don't have it hanging over my head.

 For at least a couple years, I haven't done much in the way of perfume buying. I've cut back on the decants, E-Bay prowls and full bottle buying in general. I still dig buying perfume but priorities had to change. I've had to limit to when I could buy full bottles and decants. The decant part, I had to shift into STC and TPC 15% off or more sales and the full bottle buying to my birthday or tax time. Yesterday, I did break down and did buy a bottle of Kiehl's Original Musk Blend no 1. I had a $5 off coupon (from Ulta), free shipping over $35 and a $15 gift card that was burning a whole in my pocket. Original Musk Blend no 1 was cheap enough to buy without those things but with those things, the price became too good to refuse. Cost has become a huge factor in the full bottle buying. I can't exactly go buy tons of full bottles but I can do it once or twice a year if I am very mindful of the cost. But I am happy that I was able to get an inexpensive bottle of something.

What the What

I am sitting here and I am one big itch. This heat has brought on my eczema and rain has brought the mosquitoes. Something always itches and I am going through the calamine stuff like crazy. Since Amazon Prime Day has come and gone and the big part of my dad's gift has been bought, I took a look at Luckyscent. My dad is asking for another one of those hinoki scented soap bars and they are not in stock right now but I will keep looking.

I stumbled on the regular Roja then the Roja Dove stuff. There was always one of the Roja Dove offerings that I have been interested in was Diaghilev. I really wasn't super interested in ordering a perfume. When I saw the price tag of Diaghilev, I almost had a heart attack. The cost for a bottle was over a thousand dollars. Yep, a thousand dollars. I couldn't remember what any of the Roja and Roja Dove line had cost, but reading on Basenotes.net some one made the comparison from what a bottle of any of the Chanel extraits to the Roja and Roja Dove extraits and Chanel was more expensive price per milliliter than Roja Dove. I did a little bit of the math and the costs are pretty similar. But the difference with Chanel, there are different sizes to choose from with the extrait but with Roja Dove there is only once size.

I know that if I fell in love with any Roja Dove perfume, you would have to save pennies for quite a while before I order a bottle. But on the other hand I could buy a minimum of 3 other bottles of perfume that are on my list. But it just seems like arrogance to charge that much for a bottle of perfume and just the thought of charging over a thousand dollars for a perfume makes me raise an eyebrow.

Perfumes that Haunt

Mitsouko has turned 100 this year. It's amazing to have any perfume that makes it to be in current production 30 or 40 years but to make it to 100 years is phenomenal. I have been obsessed and worn Mitsouko on and off for 10 years but never exclusively. I never could figure out why I enjoyed/loved Mitsouko until I read from the original book, The Guide and tried Diorling. It's the balance of three notes.

But digging around those perfume boxes that I had to set in another room. Yes, 4 cardboard boxes full of my perfume collection. I can't get to all the boxes and we are still rearranging stuff and getting rid of stuff. I stumbled of part of my stash of vintage and current Mitsouko. I am still attempting to get that one monster bottle of vintage Mitsouko unstuck. It's a teardrop bottle of Mitsouko with the dolphin label. In the description from the seller on E-bay, she said that there was a chip on the bottom of the dabber and he/she managed to get the dabber unplugged once but never again. Unless I end up busting the bottle, I might say screw it and just but the dabber part and transfer the perfume to another glass container but haven't brought myself to that point.

The last time that I wore Mitsouko was this past Easter and I had used one of my vintage bottles. But I sniffed the current stuff and some of my vintage and realized that Mitsouko does have a haunting quality to it. Mitsouko is like an onion, to discover her secrets, you got to peel back the layers and it takes multiple wearings before you can begin to figure her out. But she never really leaves you alone. I think that I might have to start wearing her once a week and probably wear her tomorrow, heat be damned.

That Time of Year

I know that it is halfway through June and it's already started. Articles about Amazon Prime Day. I hate it when the news channels online start up on it almost a month before it even happens. Then a couple weeks later, the TV news channels start talking about it. After a while, I get sick of it.

I have been a fan of Amazon ever since the beginning. After a while, some of that changed. Amazon Prime was freaking awesome when it was launched and it was fairly cheap too. Then the price hikes for Prime started happening and then I wasn't exactly a fan. And I became a sporadic Prime user. When Prime would offer me a month free, I would take it and usually I used it around Thanksgiving and Christmas, when I needed it the most. Three months of Prime was okay for a while. I was the only one in my house that had an Amazon account and I was the only one using Prime, so having Prime wasn't really worth it. Then my mother got a Kindle and her own Amazon account and things changed and I added her to my Prime account and then Prime became worth it again. But if the price of Prime goes up again, I probably won't be renewing, in spite of all of the benefits.

Right now, Amazon Prime Day will be coming up some time soon in July and I am thinking that it will be sometime in the next two or three weeks. Right now, I have a little bit of money on my Amazon account and I am thinking of ordering a Fire Stick for the TV that we have and since we have Direct TV already I hope it isn't a bust. That is hoping that Prime Day has some special pricing for a Fire Stick.

Kiehl's Original Musj Blend no 1 Review

For some strange reason, I had a wicked craving to try something new but that something new had to be a musk perfume. I do have a liking for musk, even the laundry musk smell. Even laundry musk in a perfume can smell pretty sexy in a perfume depending on the other notes. L'Heure de Nuit smells sexy with the laundry musk to my nose. This time, I pulled out Kiehl's Original Musk Blend no 1 to test out.

The first couple minutes, I couldn't get much of anything when I first sprayed, just a vague floral element. Then it was a holy crap moment when I could really smell it. A slutty musk with flowers. I can't really pick out one single floral note, okay, a hint of rose. The floral aspect isn't huge but I think that the floral aspect is to keep the musk in line. To keep the musk from getting too out of line and not go down the full on skank in a bad way. The musk is definitely a player in Original Musk. The musk likes to flirt with the clean side of things and the dirty side of things but mostly in the dirty. I find the whole perfume to be pretty awesome. If you find that vintage BaV is too slutty and dense but like it in theory, Original Musk would probably be more of up your alley. The lasting power of this one is about 7 or 8 hours on skin. For an EDT, that is pretty awesome to my EDT eating skin. Projection is pretty mild and not in your face.

I did thourghly enjoy Kiehl's Original Musk no 1. Would I get a bottle? The answer is a resounding yes! I did look online and find that Original Musk no 1 is under $50 for a 1.7 ounce spray. In the world of perfume, that is pretty much free. I think that I will get this for my birthday in September.

Tauer L'Oudh Review

Yesterday, I decided to suck it up and just try something to review, even though I wanted to wear Ubar. I will admit that I have never smelled a perfume where oud. I was thinking of testing L'Oudh on Saturday while at work and I am happy that I didn't.

L'Oudh starts off really strange. It started off as this strange cat pee type of thing. That sticks around for a good 15 minutes. Then there is a shift to something rubbery. A cross between a Band-aid and asphalt and L'Oudh just kind of stayed there. I didn't get a whole lot of development after those things except what smells like a little pepper. The dry down was okay but there wasn't anything is L'Oudh that I enjoyed or even tolerated.

I might be the biggest Andy Tauer fangirl but this really stunk on my skin. Too much of this composition smelled like Zoologist Civet, which I wanted to like but just hated. So I guess that it's money saved for me.

Stuff

Throughout my perfume journey, I went and still do go through phases. First it was Chanel's Cuir de Russie, Mitsouko, Lyric, Deneuve and probably a few others.

I couldn't help but think is I obsessed over some of these perfumes, I saved up for some of these only to not wear them. That made me ask, "what the hell, genius, why aren't you wearing the hell out of this?' I have gotten into the funk of wearing the same old thing. Mostly wearing Tauer offerings. Now I am starting up on wearing no 5 exclusively for no good reason.

Some of this is because I don't carry a purse and full bottles of anything don't quite fit into. There really isn't any place to store anything safely and I am paranoid about my stuff getting stolen. Especially my wallet. Who wants to make a billion phone calls and wait for your cards to be replaced? And go to get their license replaced? So I just keep a credit card and my license in a pocket that zips. Since my fleece work jackets that work gives employees, the pockets are not that big, just big enough to hold my cellphone, my iPod and a decant of perfume. In theory, I can probably fit a full bottle in the pocket but I am not willing to test that theory.

Sometimes, it's the people I get to live with. The comments of it's gross, smells weird, smell like an old lady or has a cat piss vibe is what I get a lot. So figure, why wear it? Maybe I should start wearing some of these when I go to bed at night because I sleep with one of my dogs and the dog won't complain.

One Over the Other

Ever since I've started down this perfume journey, I've noticed a few things. I have always preferred one house over the other. Or I lose interest in a house at a certain point. Some perfume houses seem pretty prolific when releasing perfume, others, not so much. But I lose interest all the same.

Let's start with Chanel. I do have some Chanel offerings in my collection. No 19, no 5 and no 22, Cuir de Russie. For a while, it was pretty easy to get decants of any Chanel offering, all I had to do was bop on over to TPC or STC and get a decant. Then Chanel decided that they didn't want that stuff and probably said that not so hot legal stuff will happen if you don't stop selling Chanel decants. That kind of ended a good chunk of my Chanel thing. I live out in the boonies and don't have access to a mall too often let alone a Chanel boutique. I just can't justify blind buying and I have underwhelmed by recent releases nor am I amused with Chanel changing the formulation of the Les Exclusif line (EDP instead of EDT). So it was time for me to move on.

Serge Lutens was another house that I kind of was obsessed with for a while, especially in the beginning of exploring what perfume had to offer. After a while, I did get kind of bored with his work. It all started to smell the same and the new releases started to smell like they were just poorly constructed. What also got me is some of the pricing has gotten outrageous. Three hundred plus dollars for a bell jar. Not happening unless I somehow manage to win enough with a scratch off lotto ticket (which ain't gonna happen since I don't play).

Amouage got irritating to me. While I love a ton of the earlier stuff, I did lose interest after Honour. Then Amouage really departed from their roots. What I did try were things that I have already smelled a million times before with a lower price point. So I am not amused with an already expensive brand cheapening itself but keeping the prices.

The one house that still fascinates me is Tauer Perfumes. Andy Tauer has experimented quite a bit but stayed true to his roots. Andy Tauer has kept prices reasonable in terms of niche perfumery and makes the effort to give the best quality perfume he can. The works released have been consistently good even though I didn't get along with a couple perfumes. I know that Andy Tauer is coming out with a new perfume and I can't wait to give it a go.

Le labo Jasmin 17 Review

I don't exactly know what's up with Blogger and the formatting for the pic but it's going to have to do for this post because I am not fooling with it right now. Why am I not fooling around with it? I'm lazy right now. 

You know how for the longest time that the Serge Lutens bell jars were only sold in Paris, then Barney's New York? Well, Luckyscent is selling some of the bell jars. The thing is that I have never, ever been thrilled with the price of the bell jars. For $300, you get 2.5 ounces and no spray mechanism. Yes, I can decant the perfume but it's a little bit of a hassle. I find the price for a bell jar to be a little steep though. I can hop on over to Beauty Encounter or FragranceNet and get 2 1.7 ounce bottles of Amouage for the price and Amouage isn't cheap either. The reason why I am mentioning the bell jars is my love of Sarrasins. The deep purple color of the perfume is highly unusual but more importantly, Sarrasins is how I like my jasmine. Dark and dirty. A la Nuit was too loud, dense and green for my liking a not something I'd wear that often. I like jasmine but it's difficult to find a jasmine that I actually really like to actually go out and buy. I was lucky enough to find an 80% full bottle of Sarrasins on E-bay.

For quite a while, I have been ignoring the Le Labo line. I've tried Labdanum 18 and Aldehyde 44 and did like them but didn't find them exciting enough. Well, Aldehyde 44 did make me swoon a little bit because I was having a tough time with Chanel no 22. Labdanum 18 was a stripped down version of Shalimar with a cola like note. I have a decant of Jasmin 17 and hoped that wearing it would change my mind with the whole Le Labo line. It didn't.

Jasmin 17 started off with waxy citrus that strongly reminded me of Lemon Pledge wood polish. I couldn't think of anything but, what the hell. I couldn't smell the jasmine part for a good ass while. Then and hour in, I could smell the jasmine. The jasmine wasn't very prominent but the jasmine was pretty strange. It had a Jasmine Full kind of feel to it, a strange hard candy like vibe. No skank, let alone any kind of depth, just a hot mess on my skin. The lasting power is about 5 hours on my skin. Jasmin 17 will not be joining my collection due to price and how it smells on my skin.

At this point, I don't think that Le Labo is edgy. I think that they are offering stripped down versions of other perfumes, so I can't call them a perfume house with that price point and aestetic.

Tauer Perfumes and my Mom

 My mother has never been a huge perfume person but takes a passive road when it comes to perfume. She does comment once in a while about what I wear. When she said that Au Coeur du Desert smelled nice a few months back, I was thinking of getting her a full bottle for her birthday. Then I decided that it was a little bit of a stupid idea, I was the one that really wanted a full bottle. I jumped to Andy Tauer's website and ordered a sample of Au Coeur du Desert and LADDM for her for Mother's Day. Since my mother will be in California for Mother's Day, I gave her gift early. She loved the gift. When she tried LADDM and Au Coeur du Desert, she had told me that Tauer perfumes smell a whole lot better on me than her. Yes, she told me that Tauer Perfumes was my house. She has also tried Lonestar Memories and did like it but she didn't think that one suited her. She said she thinks it's because she prefers lighter perfumes like the crap that Dolche &Gabbana releases. The one thing that I am not looking forward to is the dogs begging to be fed at 5am nor getting my arm ripped out of it's socket when I take them on 8 walks a day. They don't like to listen to me when they are not on a leash. Well, they don't even like to listen to me when on a leash but I have better control of them when they are on the leash.

I do spend quite a bit of time on Now Smell This, especially reading the posts on what other people are wearing. Quite a few of us do wear Andy Tauer offerings on a regular basis on NST. But I see a lot of Une Rose Chypree, LADDM and one or two others quite frequently, there is one that doesn't seem to get talked about too often. That perfume is Une Rose Vermeille. URV either isn't as popular or others have it in their collection but forget about it. It took me a while to truly fall in love with URV. A lot of it was the raspberry note and some of it was the fact that URV has the lasting power of depleted plutonium. So I am wearing URV even though it's going to take a couple showers for it to finally dissapear.

Old Favorites

It's May and May Day has already passed. Now it is May 4th and it's Star Wars Day. But May 1st got me into Diorissimo and Diorissimo is not a perfume that I wear often. A younger me, 15 or 20 years ago would have probably worn this exclusively. Ever since I have fallen down the rabbit hole, heavy florals is not something that I reach for often. But for some reason, I was looking at Guerlain's annual Muget perfume release. I have never smelled any of the Muget releases. Reason being, it's always been out of my price range and I don't need to fall in love with something that I can't afford. I don't care if it is a 4.2 ounce bottle but if the price varies between a minimum of $400 to $600, that's out of range for most people when talking about a bottle of perfume. I think that I will stick to the more affordable and more available Diorissimo.

Since I don't have a realistic way to organize my perfume collection yet, I have been looking through my collection a little bit more. There are things that I kind of did forget that I actually did own. Mind blindness is to blame. Cuir de Russie is an old favorite and I have a huge bottle. Sycomore is another favorite that I don't reach for often. Sarrasins, Nahema, Mitsouko, are others that I sort of forgot I had but yet knew that I had. Now is the time to start wearing the crap out of them. I think that I have been so wrapped up in vintage BaV, L'Heure Bleue and Ubar that they fell off my radar. It doesn't help that I have a pretty large collection anyway that some perfumes were going to get lost in the shuffle. How many of you have done this?

Faberge Tigress Parfum Review

I have blogged in the past that I do love animalic perfumes. Vintage BaV, Rose de Nuit, Shalimar and MKK and wear them on a regular basis. I tried Faberge's Tigress Musk and loved it and had to try the original Tigress.

I have a 3 ml decant from TPC that came in the mail today and have a 1/4 ml of the parfum version, so I am working off of the parfum version. I was excited to try Tigress and hoping that it would be a whole lot like Tigress Musk. But it wasn't and in a lot of ways. It smelled dated, in a 1980's or before type of way. It's supposed to be animalic but I am not smelling it in the parfum version. What I seem to be smelling is a cheap version of Chanel Coco. I kept waiting for the skank to arrive but it never even happened. I will eventually try the EDC version to see if I can get the skank note. Chanel has taught me the finer points of every concentration smells a little different and I am hoping that is the case. If it isn't, Tigress is a vintage dud on my skin.

Trying to Finish Stuff

For years, I have been trying to finish off some full bottles. Last year, I managed to finish two full bottles and this year, I have finished one. I don't really have a goal of how many bottles to finish but I just want to really start on finishing some of my full bottles. There is going to be some success though. I managed to reach a box of perfume. When I took a look inside, I saw success just waiting to happen. I saw two Chanel extrait bottles that were mostly empty.

The extrait bottles that I have are not huge bottles and the extrait bottles never really are big ass bottles to begin with. I saw that one of the bottles of No 19 is two thirds empty and Cuir de Russie probably has only two or three wearings left. I love both perfumes and have back ups in one form or another. I have other extrait bottles of no 19 and I don't know how many bottles of EDT and EDP that I have but I am mostly set for a little while longer. Back when Cuir de Russie was released, Cuir de Russie was only sold in a 6.8 ounce bottle of the EDT. Cuir de Russie was my first perfume that made me fall down the rabbit hole.

Things have changed with the Les Exclusifs line at Chanel. They used to be $200 for a 6.8 ounce bottle but now up to $350. A 2.5 ounce bottle now sells for $200 and it used to be $130. How do I know? I took a look in my e-mail. It's amazing how the prices at Chanel have skyrocketed. I am a little dissapointed that I cannot find a way to test out Coromandel or no 22 in EDP form. I am also working on finishing bottles of Chanel no 5 in EDP and EDT form. I have so many Chanel bottles, I have to start working on finishing something, why not start with Chanel.

The extrait bottles might be small but every victory counts. Every victory means more space that I do have.

Perfume House Foolish

I am kind of excited right now. There are very few things in the perfume world that gets me excited. I used to get excited about any new release by Amouage, Chanel and Serge Lutens but it's not that way anymore.

The three houses that I mentioned have been cranking out offerings that I haven't smelled at one point or another already. So with Amouage, Chanel and Serge Lutens, I have lost interest in those perfume houses. Chanel was probably the first house that I really lost interest in. Chanel has the money and had the perfumers on staff to take the time to make a perfume worth it for me to actually drag my ass anywhere to smell it but they don't utilize that talent or money wisely. The recent releases from Chanel have been horrible smelling.

Chanel hasn't exactly been in my good graces for a while. I remember when Chanel decided to mess with the Les Exclusifs line, changing it from and EDT form to an EDP form. Uh Chanel, us perfume nuts know that your EDTs and EDPs smell different and what you did with Cuir de Russie wasn't that great. I've also noticed that your prices have been slowly creeping up and I would like to see the Les Exclusifs line to have a 1.7 ounce option.

The one perfume house that I am excited about is Andy Tauer. On Facebook, I found out that he is releasing a new perfume soon and if I remember right, he is not putting any rose in this one. Andy Tauer has released tons of work that's consistently good. There have been a few that I have not liked, I have enjoyed quite a bit of his work. I hope that this new one will be released soon and I will be able to give it a try.

Can't Focus

For the past couple weeks, I haven't been able to truly focus on much of anything. I've been dealing with budget issues. Slow periods at work have meant that I have not been working a whole lot. That means that I might be lucky to have $5 to spend frivolously. There has been a lot of worry about not having health insurance and finding some that I can afford. But things have marginally improved and I now have some kind of health insurance that I can afford. It's stressful when you have a preexisting medical condition that requires medication. Insurance companies either won't cover you or will charge more than you can afford. Obamacare does need work and I do like what Obama tried to do and make health insurance more accessible to me but for a while, it wasn't quite there. So now I have insurance and now I don't have to worry so much.

Yesterday, I finally committed to opening one of those vintage bottles of Shalimar extrait. I was testing it out yesterday and the jury is still out. I did get a whopping dose of Play-Doh/plastic thing. I wonder if the citrus was off. I am going to have to spend more time with it. I did manage to try Kiehl's Original Musk Blend. I remember enjoying it quite a bit but I need to smell it again to give a proper review.

But recently, I have been really wanting my perfumes that are pretty loaded with that skank note. Vintage BaV, vintage Miss Dior, Shalimar, MKK are the ones I have been craving the most. But since I am working a little more, perfume skank just isn't part of it. The skanky perfumes are more or less limited to the pre-shower or bedtime when I need to be at work. So with my collection being kind of limited right now, it seems like I am wearing Chanel no 19 in EDP form more and more often. Any connoisseur of Chanel knows that every concentration of their perfumes smell different. The EDT being the most astringent, the extrait being a green, buttery, carroty iris and the EDP being a soft, green rose. They all smell like no 19 but something different is emphasized in all three. But the EDP is my preferred concentration because I find the EDT too sharp and astringent and the extrait just doesn't seem to be quite my thing. At this point, I think that finishing a bottle or two of no 19 is in my future.

Sealed Vintage

I managed to liberate one of my boxes of perfume. The box I managed was a box full of dabber bottles. I still don't have shelf space yet but I did have to take a closer look to what I have in there. Most of those dabber bottles were extrait versions and a couple were my bell jars. Half of them were open and half of them were not. Two of them were the vintage Shalimar extrait and they were sealed.

No matter what the name of the perfume is, finding a sealed bottle can be difficult and finding it at a reasonable price is a rare thing. I do have a few sealed, vintage bottles of perfume and I always seem to wimp out on opening them. I worry about evaporation with dabber bottles, especially with vintage. I might have a substantial supply of vintage BaV and Mitsouko but I don't have a large supply of vintage Shalimar. Part of me is saying that life is short, start wearing it but the other part of me knows that vintage has a finite amount floating in the world and I should use the vintage sparingly.

Some of this rings true with discontinued finds. I have a few bottles of Theorema and Shalimar Ode a la Vanille that I want to wear with abandon but always seem to hesitate because I want to hoard.

Springtime and Rambling

Cleveland is getting into warmer weather and it's sticking around a little longer than a day or two. I don't think short sleeved shirts and shorts weather but we are starting to get into short sleeved shirt weather on a more consistent basis.Wearing shorts might be a late May/early June is possible. Last night, we had our spring peepers and the Great Horned Owls hooting. I was just starting to fall asleep, the puppy, Sydney, starts her baying/barking thing. Since she got all excited, our other dog did too. Jake and Sydney got all bent out of shape because the owls were hooting. Good thing that I had leashes on when I took them to pee. Yes, my dogs are insane.

I still haven't come onto a concrete solution to my perfume organization plan. Let's just say that 98% of my perfume collection is still in Amazon boxes and somehow got moved to a spot elsewhere that is difficult to get to. Right now, I have 8 full bottles and a few worn and reviewed decants. So I am a little limited on what I have.

The good thing about the weather being warmer, I can wear my lighter scents. Out of the bottles that I do have on my nightstand is a vintage bottle of no 19 EDP and the current version of the EDP version of no 19. Out of all of the concentrations of no 19, the EDP is my favorite. I love the green rose and iris of the EDP better than the extrait and the EDT. I also managed to snag my bottles of Zagorsk and Kyoto for spring/summer. I think that I might be able to finish more than two bottles this year if I just limit the bottles I have on my nightstand. One can only hope.

Smell Bent Bohemian Rhapsody Review

I will admit to the fact that I just adore the band, Queen. You just don't hear that kind of musicianship any more and Freddie Mercury was an absolute showman. Most of what comes out today is manufactured crap not worth listening to. But when I found out that there was a perfume called Bohemian Rhapsody, I had to get a decant of it to try.

There don't seem to be many reviews on Bohemian Rhapsody or a lot of talk on the perfume blogs. I did, in a way, to have high hopes for this one. When I first put Bohemian Rhapsody on, there was a huge blast of head shop patchouli. If patchouli is a very minor player in a perfume or just a whisper, I can enjoy it. This patchouli is the kind of patchouli that I do detest. It's loud and in your face. When patchouli is loud or dominant, it seems to be pretty crude. Then comes the incense and I do love incense. But the incense is pretty much drowned out by the patchouli. I do get a CdG Avignon vibe from Bohemian Rhapsody but at the end of the day, I get a cheap ripoff of Avignon. After a while, something just goes sour on me and I can't place what is going sour on me. Bohemian Rhapsody belongs in the '60's to my nose. I think that Freddie Mercury would have worn something a little more musky and something more refined than this.

The lasting power of this one is about 6 hours on my skin and sadly, this won't be in my collection. The funny thing at this point, my mother commented on Bohemian Rhapsody and now wants to try it and I will cough up the decant and if she really enjoys it, it will be a birthday present.

Cleaning and Rearranging Stuff

For the past few weeks, it's been an effort to clean and rearrange shit in my house. For every project that I complete, I realize how much shit I actually own.

Today was the day that I "had" to turn my attention to my dresser. The project of the day was placing my old dresser somewhere else and replacing it with another, bigger dresser. Other people in my household wanted to do that. And that meant that I had to pack up my entire perfume collection. When I was packing up my perfume, I didn't count how many bottles that I had but became more aware of the sheer number of back up bottles that I did have. When I was packing up, I was more concerned about the dabber bottles that were opened and making sure that they were didn't get tipped over in the box.

The dresser that I moved into my room is taller, has more drawers to it. In went a million shirts, shorts and jeans. Putting all of my full bottles on top of the dresser isn't practical because of the height but I was able to place all my candles and some of my Galileo thermometers on top of the dresser. This means that I have three boxes full of perfume bottles split up into two places and no clear solution to get them back into one spot yet. As this was going on, this was the perfect time to get rid of more clothes that I didn't need or was worn out.

But some interesting things did happen while this was going down. I did manage to finish a full bottle of vintage BaV. Yes, I actually finished a bottle of perfume and I was so excited to do that. But with the dresser switch, a bottle of vintage(ish) of Chanel no 19(EDP, 1.2 ounce) was found and I forgot that I had more no 19. For the better part of an hour, I was wondering when I had bought the bottle and how in the hell did it get behind the dresser. I think that it might have either gotten knocked behind the dresser or  just randomly fell back there. I thought I was actually starting to make headway into finishing bottles of perfume but it looks like I didn't make progress at all.

A few hours later, I did a rough count of all my full bottles. I counted 95ish but I am sure that number is wrong and much higher. I didn't count my minis because I don't view them as full bottles but did count all of my back up bottles. Ninety-Five full bottles is a little embarrassing but kind of funny and I didn't think that I was up to about that number. I knew my collection was big but not that big.

Faberge Tigress Musk Cologne Review

I've been sitting at my computer for the past few days trying to get my act together to write this post. I keep staring at the screen, trying to start and just not finding the right words. Then I end up on Facebook, playing Farmville 2 for hours on end.

At this point in the game, I am a little fearful of trying new perfumes. Especially vintage. It's always the same old song and dance right now. What if I love it and I find out that it's way out of budget? That bottle of Ubar was one out of the two full bottles that I can get this year. It's been a pretty rocky couple years and the good thing is that it is making me use what I already have.

But I have come to realize that I few decants that I haven't worn, let alone reviewed yet are evaporating I now is the time where I need to get a move on. I noticed that my Faberge Tigress Musk cologne was really starting to evaporate. So it came time to sample.

All I can say is wow, the clouds parted and the angels started singing for me. What I can best come up with is a sluttier, louder version of Rose de Nuit. Rose de Nuit is pretty slutty but Tigress Musk takes that to a whole new level. MKK and vintage BaV can't even touch it on the skank-meter, it's that skanky. I love skanky perfumes and Tigress Musk is no different. I do find some nods to Nahema but I don't see a whole lot of similarities but I think that Rose de Nuit got together with Nahema and this was the result. But after a while, I kept asking myself where the hell have I smelled this before? Then I think that my aunt might have worn this one before it was discontinued. I can't be sure. Tigress Musk is no skin scent, but it's not bombastic either, nor is it crass or rough around the edges. It's sleek like a cat and almost has a velvet feel if it were cloth. Lasting power for me is about 5 hours and that's pretty good for a cologne. I might have to keep a look out on E-bay to see if one pops up for a song. Yes, it is worth a try.

Spray Bottle Evaporation

Things are just goofy right now. I have been working on straightening up some finances. When I took a look at things, I realized that there were a few subscriptions that I really needed to be cancelled. The Harry and David Passport thing, the Sephora 2 day shipping and a few other things had to get cancelled. A couple of those things were charged monthly and a couple things were charged yearly. The things that I had to get rid of, I wasn't using them enough to warrant the money spent on them. The only subscriptions that I did keep was Amazon Prime and my BarkBox. My rough estimate is that I have save about $175 per year but I have to begin the second phase of reworking finances. Work has been really slow and slow means less money coming in and there are things that have to go.

In my streamlining flurry, my attention did turn to my perfume. Buying full bottles have pretty much came to a stop and decants have come to an almost complete standstill. Which is a good thing for me, it is allowing me to take a look at what I have and see what I can start using up before I can even begin to add anything more. This led to rearranging some of my bottles.

After doing a little bit of rearranging of perfume bottles, I got a bit of a surprise. A bottle of Amouage Epic for women and L'Air du Desert Marocain are both showing signs of evaporation. Yes, two of my spray bottles are showing signs of evaporation. The LADDM bottle always seemed a little bit sketchy but Epic was a bigger shock. Just under Epic's cap, there is some perfume and a couple signs that this might have been going on for maybe a month of two. I am thinking that maybe one of my dogs was doing a counter surfing thing and knocked the bottles of LADDM and Epic of the dresser and the spray mechanism got goofed up somehow and now there is evaporation. I've never had an issue with evaporation issues with my spray bottles and I do have issues with spray decant and dabber bottles evaporating. I guess I need to wear the snot out of LADDM and Epic and be grateful that I do have backup bottles.