Ralph Lauren Romance Parfum Review

Thanksgiving and Black Friday has come and gone and I am exhausted still. I had an elderly relative that was none to steady on her feet that was constantly up and down and having everyone be a gopher for her. The constant needing someone to get her something and kept the whole family up. I don't know what it is with the elderly, always interfering, constant following and always wanting something to eat and drink. We packed up this elderly person and did take her home today and it's blogging time and time to relax.

I noticed that my email boxed wasn't filled up with Black Friday deals on Friday. In years past, retailers would overload my inbox but I think with the pandemic, they are spreading their deals out more over the weekend. But I noticed that they haven't been very good. I keep hoping that Ulta will have a points multiplier and some better deals on Monday. Maybe Amazon will have some good deals on Monday so I can finish my Christmas shopping and be done with it. I've already spent enough at Bath and Body Works for some stocking stuffers and as always, some candles.

Yesterday, I tried out Ralph Lauren's Romance in parfum form. I got this when Sephora was having their holiday sale and I figured that a travel spray wasn't going to break the bank and if I don't like it, I could give it to my mother. I haven't smelled the original Romance in forever and Romance in parfum form intrigued me. Parfum is usually pretty expensive and when I find parfum for cheap, I have the tendency to pounce on it. I've been wearing tons of no 5 and Coco Mademoiselle recently and I wanted something a little different.

Since it's been so long since I have smelled Romance, I have no memory of it. Romance is definitely a floral perfume and for the longest while, I couldn't place what Romance reminded me of. Eventually, it came to me. Romance was in so many ways like Chamade. Chamade has an oily type of hyacinth that Romance doesn't have. But Romance does have a little bit of an oily feel to it. What keeps Romance from being a total Chamade rip off is that there is a noticeable blackcurrant note that I do rather enjoy. Then I was reminded of Pleasures for women. Yes, it smells like Pleasures and Chamade combined with maybe a little of Au Coeur en Mai. I found that projection and lasting power were alright and I am alright with that. Not everything has to be fabulous. I find Romance parfum to be pretty good and worth having the travel spray at least
 

Clinique Hint of Citrus Review

 It looks like I won't have a snooping relative coming over and spending a few days with me. This snooping relative is the one that loves to open other people's mail, especially to find out how much cash they have. They decided that they were going to stay home since there are no televisions in bedrooms and Fox News has been blocked. Televisions don't belong in bedrooms in my opinion. 

On the other hand, I made a somewhat decent Sephora run and don't really have any desire to purchase anything from Sephora anytime soon. Most of the time, I only really shop at Sephora when they have their November and April sales. I find that most of their stuff is somewhat more than I am willing to spend.

I haven't paid much attention to Clinique line outside of Happy. But I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to the Happy lineup in years. I love the original Happy and Happy Heart but for so many years, I either wasn't interested in perfume or was getting other perfumes. In the years that I wasn't into perfume, outside of passing moments, the money wasn't there. The whole broke ass college student thing. I was more worried about tuition and books than buying that bottle of perfume. And when I dropped out of college, it was the whole low level retail thing and the cash wasn't there. And slowly, what little perfume I had, dwindled down to nothing.

But when I saw the little Happy mini set at Ulta, I pounced. I mainly wanted to try Hint of Citrus and the price was right for me, I figured that if Hint of Citrus sucked, I had the others to enjoy at least. I find that Hint of Citrus really isn't really what I would call a flanker. Hint of Citrus flirts with the idea but never goes into the flanker territory. I mainly smell grapefruit and some floral hints but nothing ties Hint of Citrus to the Happy line and I spent a few hours trying to find the relationship. But got nothing of the sort and thought that this could have been a Theorema dupe of sorts. I will admit the bottle was cute and did kind of like the grapefruit note but I am not really a fan of Hint of Citrus. I don't dislike it or hate it, I am just not impressed with it

Since I am not really a fan of this, I will have to say that outside of the mini set, it looks like Hint of Citrus was discontinued years ago. I don't think that Clinique was ever in the habit of discontinuing any Happy flankers but there might have been a few. This sample mini set might be a testing the waters bit to see if Hint of Citrus would be possible either as part of the Happy line up all year long or just a seasonal thing, just like Wrappings is a seasonal thing.

Her by Burberry Review

 The holiday Sephora sale has started already but I have to wait until the 9th before it begins for me. Simply because I am a VIB member but I can afford to wait. I don't want a whole bunch but a couple things are Christmas gifts. Sephora isn't a place that I shop too often. For most of my makeup and to a lesser extent, perfume, that honor is pretty much reserved for Ulta.

About a month ago, I got a little gift set thing of Her by Burberry and now I have gotten around to testing it out. I do love travel sprays and those little gift sets that have a lotion and travel spray. The one I got had the travel spray and a hand lotion and was inexpensive enough. I have been interested enough to start exploring the Burberry offerings. I wasn't too impressed with Brit and I figured that I shouldn't judge a house by trying just one of their perfumes.

For the first couple minutes of Her, I thought it smelled alright and might like it. Nope, I don't like it at all and it's to the point of hating it. I am definitely not a fan of overripe/rotting fruit note and Her has that in spades. Amouage Lyric flirts with overripe but never goes in that direction but Rochas Femme and Jubilation 25 do. Jubilation 25 is something I don't reach for often and I don't wear Rochas Femme and I have a decant of that one. Anything fruity is a crap shoot, I either love it or I hate it and Her by Burberry is a hate. I have a mini of Her Blossom and will give that a try eventually but if it's another no go, then Burberry is just not for me.

I've noticed that when I first started blogging about perfume, I always tried to like everything and find something good to say, even if I didn't quite like it. Around 10 years in, I am not afraid to say that I don't like something or just plain old hate it and I am pretty much going to say it outright. Being a perfume nut for so long and testing so much, I know what I like and don't like. I'm not afraid to say that I still love Clinique Happy or Estee Lauder Pleasures even though they were my high school defaults. I don't quite look down on things that are cheap but sometimes do. Now I must wash the Her by Burberry off and put on something that I love to pieces.

Clearing Out the Old

I spent a little bit of time on Sunday going through and getting rid of my make up and finished the job today. You have no idea on how much I threw out. It was tons of eye shadows and lots of scary looking lip gloss. I am in a serious de-cluttering mode. I just want to either use things up or just throw them out.

When I was going through everything, I didn't quite realize how many Kat von D eye shadow palettes that I had. What in the world was I thinking? Getting those palettes full of shimmer and phenomenally strong colors. Medium or dark purple? I don't have wicked mad makeup skills to work with anything outside of neutrals that are pretty close to my skin tone. I'm pretty basic with eye shadow and the two palettes that I use are the original Urban Decay Naked palettes., especially the mini palettes.

Yes, I threw out a bunch of lip gloss too. Just like all of the eye shadow that I threw out, the lip glosses were pretty ancient as well. Like 7 years old or older and were really looking sketchy. And I realized that lip gloss isn't my thing anymore but lipstick. But what has amazed me was the amount of lipstick that I have bought in the past 6 months and I hung on to those. I am seriously going to have to start wearing lipstick again.

Since I have seemed to have doubled down on the de-cluttering, I've doubled down on trying to use up one bottle of Chanel no 5 edt and one bottle of no 5 edp.  My collection of no 5 is truly horrifying and just want to slim that down a little bit. But I seem to be talking out my butt a little bit when I am waiting for the Sephora sale to start in a little over a week. My mother asked me to add a lipstick that she wants to my back and I have a cheap brush set and another travel spray added to my cart. But I want to start using up my make up. Now if I could really quit getting so many candles, I'd be in better shape.