Decants Everywhere

Friday night and Saturday morning were dedicated to straightening up and organizing. Cleaning out my purse, doing a couple loads of laundry and a few odds and ends like that. The battle of the candles has been raging on between my mother and I. She either hates of dislikes most of the candle scents that I have got. I have been trying to find ways to use my candles to where she is not going to complain.

When I was cleaning and organizing, I had decants everywhere. In my purse, in my wallet/wristlette thing and in the fleece jacket that I use at work. I am not a huge makeup person and the makeup that's in my purse is basically a lip balm, mascara and one lipstick. You would be amazed on how put together one looks with just mascara and lipstick. But having decants the way I do, it kind of puts me at ease. If something were to suddenly happen to my perfume collection, I would have at least something. Might not be all of what I want but it would be something. I usually have one maybe two 15ml decants in my purse, a couple 1.5ml Tauer offerings in my wallet and usually one 5ml of whatever in that fleece work jacket. It usually varies on the weather and what I am in the mood for but a decant of vintage BaV is always there and more and more frequently no 22 is there. I view it as I have to have something full of skank, something a little more mainstream and maybe something either loud or strange. So I have most of my bases covered.

Chanel Jersy EDT Review

After Portia's post on the Perfume Posse yesterday, I hunted down my itty bitty decant to try out. When I found the decant, it was almost gone, so wearing and reviewing it is at the moment. I probably could get another wearing out of it but I'd rather not.

Jersey is full of lavender with hints of clean musk. The first split second I thought it was Chanel tries to imitate Guerlain's Jicky. I do have a liking for Jicky but I am realizing more and more that a lavender dominant perfume is not my thing. Jersey has the connotations of laundry soaps and softener and home fresheners. But somewhere after 10 minutes, there is something about it that makes me feel under the weather. It could be that lavender has been overused in so many home products, to the point of sickening. There were moments where I thought this would work and I could like it but it became a nope, this isn't happening. This had a chance of being something that I might like but Jersey is too simple and familiar. I noticed that it lasts on my skin at least 7 hours. That is one thing Chanel has done rather well, make an EDT last on my skin for much longer than two hours.

My biggest beefs with Chanel at this point, is that Chanel is becoming a too expensive and is starting to price themselves out of the market. I have not been thrilled with their reformulations nor the changing the Les Exclusifs line from EDT to EDP. I know that they did a number on Cuir de Russie when they switched over to the EDP concentration. I haven't been fond of recent releases either because it either smells cheap or it smells like something that I already haven't smelled a thousand other times before in other perfumes.

Let's just say that a bottle won't be purchased and my bank account is incredibly happy over that fact.

Viktoria Minya Hedonist Cassis Review

It seems in a lot of ways, things are starting to get back to normal but there is a new normal. Stores are starting to open back up along with restaurants. But the new normal in those places is social distancing, retail establishments limiting how many can be in a store at a single time and a few other things. But all in all, I am pretty happy to see things open up. I don't care if I have to wear a mask in a store or do a little extra social distancing, things are returning to more of a normal state. I am hoping at this point that shipping returns to more of a normal state (looking specifically at Old Navy and Gap in terms of shipping).

Yesterday, a friend and I were out and about for a little while yesterday. We ate at Panera for lunch and stopped at Bath and Body Works for some foaming hand soap. I had only the intention of just getting the hand soap but walked out with the soap and two single wick candles. I keep trying to use the candles I have before I get anymore but I keep failing at it.

Last night, I tested Hedonist Cassis and I am spending a little more time with it this morning. I find it to be more of a springtime scent and a little unusual. I wasn't expecting a blast of grapefruit but I got a blast of grapefruit in the beginning. The first couple seconds, I wasn't sure if I liked it but turns out I do. When a perfume has citrus listed in the notes, it's kind of a vague, generic type of citrus note, not a specific one. Then I get a cut grass smell, which is nice but didn't quite move me but I enjoyed the cedar aspect of it. What tickled me the most and wish it lasted longer was the grapefruit. If the grapefruit lasted longer, I probably would have put this on full bottle worthy but since it didn't my decant will do just fine.

Chanel No 5 Bath and Body Stuff

I decided to give the Chanel no 5 bath and body products a go on Friday. For quite a few years, Ii have been hesitant to give them a go. Years before I was a perfume fiend, I had put on a tester of no 5 hand lotion. It was Christmas time and I was shopping and didn't have any hand lotion in my purse. I thought at the time that maybe the tester might have gone rancid.

The bar soap did it's job with cleaning and the lotion did the moisturizing but I wasn't happy. I was so excited to try this things but felt let down. My first indicator was the bar soap itself didn't really smell like no 5. It smelled like a generic perfumey soap but I decided to carry on and hope that the body lotion would be better. The body lotion didn't smell rancid but didn't smell a whole lot like no 5 and I wondered if that Chanel expected me to spray on some no 5 as well. The body lotion and soap are strong enough on their own that spraying or dabbing perfume really is overkill. I wasn't very impressed with the smell. It smelled reformulated, just like the mini travel EDP set that I had gotten in January. At this point, I am thinking that Chanel no 5 really is too far gone to have a permanent place in my collection. I haven't tried the current version of the EDT or extrait but after smelling the current version of the EDP and using the body products and owning a little bit of the current EDP, I have lost way too much faith in Chanel. I didn't get these from a store I never heard of but the lotion came from Sephora when they had their sale and the body soap came from the Chanel website.

Viktoria Minya Hedonist Travel Set

I had forgotton that I had done a review of Viktoria Minya's Hedonist Iris. I had worn it today and do think that it's a cross between no 19 Poudre and Infusion d'Iris. It's not exactly not my cup of tea. It just smells like a few other cheaper perfumes. It's nice enough but it's not going to get a ton of wear from me. The last Hedonist that I haven't tried was the cassis one. I have dabbers of the absolu Hedonists and will give those a shot to see how those fair on skin. I don't think spending $200 for a blind buy is a great idea. Well, it's not a great idea anymore, well, it never was.

Saturday, my travel set from Viktoria Minya arrived from Luckyscent. I had fully expected it to arrive Monday but I was tickled that it came yesterday. While the pictures were fabulous, the 15ml vials were even more gorgeous in person. I couldn't stop gazing at them. The crystals made the whole thing awesome. I will admit that I have never been much of a fan of the whole crystal/bead thing is perfume bottles. Most of the time, that means that there is less room inside the bottles for actual perfume. Pretty packaging may catch my attention but like any good perfume nut, I am more interested in the perfume itself. It's nice to display a pretty perfume bottle but what good is a pretty perfume bottle if the perfume sucks? It is nice to have some pretty bottles, or bottle swag but the perfume has to be really good to have a spot in rotation.

I like the concepts of travel sets. When there are weekend getaways or trips that involve flying, travel sets make things easier. Just pop that large decant into a purse and you are good to go. I have never traveled with decants from TPC or STC, I don't exactly know how decants from them would go with TSA, so I feel a little safer with actual travel sets and samples from the perfumers themselves.

Anastasia Beverly Hills Liquid Lipstick Review

It's not often that I wear lipstick or lip gloss but somehow I have accumulated quite a bit. Most of what I accumulated was from a drawing from the Perfume Posse. With some uneven lip issues because I am missing some back teeth, finding colors that don't accentuate that can be a little more difficult. I don't find the uneven lips to be very noticeable but darker colors and some reds make it more noticeable.

I haven't a whole lot of experience with liquid lipstick and I decided to give Anastasia Beverly Hills a try. The color that I tried was Crush. I found that it went on a little too thick on me and really needed to blot the excess off my lips and took a deeper look. I found that the lipstick seemed to be on the dry and sticky side. Sticky can be a little hard to deal with on my lips but the dry part I was not amused. I didn't like how it dried out my lips and a lip balm is necessary to keep from getting dry lips. I noticed without a lip balm, the color settled into every fine line in my lips, making me look older. Mostly, I am thinking that the color itself and not using lip balm made me look older and that's not a good sign. One good thing is that it stays put for a whole day. I guess at the end of the day, this will have to be a miss because of the color itself and the dry factor.

The Continuing Saga of Spring

I don't know if spring is coming or going. Yes, the trees and bushes are starting to wake up but flowers on the other hand is another matter. The primroses are blooming just fine and will continue to do so, we are finishing up with the daffodils and not seeing a whole lot of anything else blooming. No irises, no lilac bushes are blooming. It just seems to be a whole lot of nothing. We might get one day that's warm and sunny but so many of the days are cold, gray and rainy. I don't really think spring is here and Covid-19 isn't making things any easier. Still can't go anywhere or do anything.

At this point, I am happy that my Viktora Minya travel set shipped yesterday after me gripping on Now Smell This about things not shipping. It should arrive by Thursday or Friday and I can't wait to check it out. My Harry and David packages should arrive by the end of the week. One of those packages contain a Mother's Day gift. I am still waiting on my Sephora packages to ship*. I had made my Sephora order on the 23rd of last month and I have only gotten an email on how things are delayed due to Covid-19, sanitation at Sephora warehouses and the Sephora sale. I know a lot of this is first world problems but after what, about 2 months, nobody can have a better system in place by now? I'm hoping that the last of my packages are shipping soon, before I know it, my mother's birthday will be here and I don't really want to go the lame ass route of just a gift card and a happy birthday card.

*One of my Sephora packages has shipped at the time of blogging. Just wish both of them shipped today.