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.