More First World Problems

 It looks like Chanel has raised their prices, again. I know this is a first world problem but it seems like three or four months ago, they jacked up their prices. The regular lineup (no 5, no 19, Coco etc) is at least $10 more but the Les Exclusifs line is a different matter.

Chanel's Les Exclusif line started out as 6.8 ounces of the EDT for only $200. Twelve years ago, that was a bargain but that has changed. But lots has changed with the Les Exclusifs line. Now they offer a 2.5 ounce size, the line has expanded, EDT to EDP changes and some have a parfum version. In those twelve years, the prices have gone up. Back in March of2021, I had bought the Coromandel EDP and the cost was $200 for a 2.5 ounce bottle. Then in December of that year I had bought the parfum version of Coromandel for $240. The price of Coromandel parfum will set you back $305 for a half an ounce. The EDP of Coromandel will cost you $325 for a 2.5 ounce bottle and a 6.8 ounce bottle runs at $500. And that means that I won't be getting any of the Les Exclusifs line any time soon or any Chanel perfume for quite a while. I do wonder if Chanel wants to compete with Amouage in price. Amouage has always been expensive from the get go but the quality has always been there. The quality of Chanel can't compete with Amouage.

I do own quite a bit of both Chanel and Amouage and there are ways I can get bottles of Amouage for less. I can get an Amouage offering for less on Fragrancenet or Beautyencounter but Chanel keeps a vice like grip on who can and who cannot sell their stuff. But I think that Chanel has gotten greedy and at this point, I won't be getting anymore Chanel perfumes.

By Killian Good Girl Gone Bad Review

 Last year, my friend got me a Sephora gift card for Christmas and I wondered on what I was going to get with the gift card he got me. There is nothing that is inexpensive at Sephora and due to that, I don't really shop at Sephora. After poking around the Sephora website, I found a By Killian sample set and with the gift card and $10 reward that I had, I had only paid something like $10 for it. So it's been sitting around for a while and now have gotten around to trying it. I've never paid much attention to the By Killian line up because I can't afford to fall in love with another expensive perfume brand. Off and on, I've wanted to try Good Girl Gone Bad.

When I first put Good Girl Gone Bad, I was quickly hit with the D&G Light Blue vibe. I couldn't help but be pissed. It's bad enough that I smell Light Blue as it is. My mother adores Light Blue and tons of people at work wear it as well. I despise Light Blue and things similar to it, there is something about it that rubs me the wrong way. After about an hour, Good Girl Gone Bad had changed. The Light Blue vibe was still there but it had turned to Feminite du Bois. At that point I was like, what in the actual fuck? I do love Feminite du Bois and own a couple bottles but this was crazy and not really in a good way to my nose. I'm not going for a Feminite du Bois knock off and if I wanted to layer both Light Blue and Feminite du Bois, I would do that. I'm guessing the Light Blue is the Good Girl part and Feminite du Bois is the Gone Bad. Maybe I have been huffing to much MKK or Bal a Versailles but I am getting nothing that would be remotely sexy. Maybe sexy has been sanitized a little too much but this isn't doing it for me. So I am going to give God Girl Gone Bad a pass.

Coty Sand and Sable Review

No more than a month back, Tom and someone else over at Perfume Posse was talking about Coty's Sand and Sable. Coty is probably the most prolific perfume house out there. It seems like every celebrity who wants to make a perfume goes pretty much through Coty. Even when they aren't doing a celebrity scent, they will release perfumes like Sand and Sable.

Coty must take Estee Lauder's advice of perfume should be an everyday luxury to an extreme. Just about every Coty perfume that I have ever seen has been dirt cheap and Sand and Sable is not exception.

When Tom mentioned that he got his bottle for next to nothing, I bopped over to Fragrancenet and Sand and Sable cost next to nothing for a little over a third of an ounce. The price point amazed me and I figured, how bad can it really be? I already had a Lolita Lempicka travel spray in my cart. So I got them and waited for them to show up on my doorstep. Did you know that Fragrancenet now has some kind of rewards program going on? I did know about it last year when they launched it but promptly forgot about it. I hardly shop at Fragrancenet anymore and never really shopped there to begin with. I have gotten more mileage with the rewards system at Ulta and even Sephora. If Luckyscent offered a rewards program and years ago, I might have started to shop there more consistently.

I wasn't expecting too much out of Sand and Sable. By the notes, it sounded like it was going to be a big white floral vibe going on. Truth be told, it isn't as big as I thought it would be. I do see gardenia listed as a note but a serious perfume snob is going to know that there is isn't any real gardenia in perfume just like there isn't any real lilac in En Passant. But there it is, something that kind of smells like gardenia but I am mostly smelling tuberose and this tuberose isn't cloying like Fracas  Tuberose can be a tough note to love because it can be suffocating. This tuberose smelled beachy and there was a sunscreen note to this one. I did smell a little bit of jasmine in there along with a hint of musk. For a cologne, the longevity was pretty good and I don't think that it was a heavy or dense perfume. It would be heavy and dense if I over applied Sand and Sable. The bottle that Sand and Sable comes in is incredibly plain and if I was vaguely looking at the perfume counter at CVS or any drugstore, I wouldn't have looked twice at it or picked up on it at all. I think that the third of an ounce that I do have is more than enough for me.
 

I've Changed My Mind...Sort Of

Earlier this year, I have made some resolutions. The first one was not to buy anymore candles. I failed pretty early on but I got back on the band wagon. I haven't really been using my candles so much but when the weather gets warmer, I will start using them. My candles have been a bone of contention at my house and the only time I can have them lit is if I have a window open. Since we are in the ugliest part of winter, it's not a wise idea to have windows open. So I have to wait until the temps warm up and will stay warm before I can have a candle continually lit.

My second resolution was to limit myself to buying only two full bottles of perfume this year. Those bottles could not be back up bottles of anything. While I do love the extrait version of Gris Charnel, I don't think that I really want a full bottle of that this year. I know that the Eau de Hongrie is still in the cards but due to some more serious financial constraints that are popping up, I might not be able to get any perfume until maybe October of this year or maybe next year.. But that let's me work on seeing what I can do with finishing up some bottles of perfume and using up some decants. I do have quite a few that I haven't tried and really need to start wearing those and get on a regular schedule when it comes to writing reviews. But frivolous purchases are on the back burner for a long time right now. And that means anything that sounds like it might be considered "fun" is going to have to wait if it costs more that $25. I honestly thought that things were turning around with the finances but I was wrong. Trips are out of the question and the ghost hunt that I was thinking about is pretty much postponed until a later date.

Today was pretty interesting. The decision was made to replace my old bed frame with a new one. This new bed frame is going to take a little getting used to. My old bed frame sat fairly low to the ground and this new one is pretty high up. While my dad and I were putting this thing together, I couldn't help but think is how much more vacuuming that wasn't getting done with the old bed frame. I was thinking of vacuuming after my new bed was set up but by then, I wasn't so willing to do it. Since I don't have to work tomorrow, I can get it done then. Today was the first Sunday that my mother didn't have any football (not soccer) to watch and she was a little depressed over that and tonight was the season 4 finale of All Creatures Great and Small. Now there isn't anything too interesting to watch on TV until Call the Midwife begins on St Patrick's Day.
 

Valentine's Day

 It's Valentine's Day here and for those who follow the Catholic faith, it's Ash Wednesday. I work in a bakery and had to deal with the overload of paczi yesterday. If I didn't work at a bakery, I wouldn't have had a clue about Fat Tuesday or Ash Wednesday. But the paczi that we sell at my store is an overrated jelly doughnut. You would probably have a better paczi if you went to an old school Polish bakery.

I'm not following Valentine's Day either. I might be off but I am not with anyone, so I have nobody to celebrate it with. I am waiting for tomorrow because I want the half priced Valentine's candy. But we shall see if I really want to be out and about tomorrow. Probably not though.

I'm pretty sure that many people have bought their significant others jewelry, candy, flowers and perfume. I was thinking about that I think would be great perfumes for a Valentine's gift. Then I got to thinking about a list of solid choices for Valentine's perfumes, even though I am bathed in the traumatically discontinued Fendi Theorema. The people at Fendi were total morons for getting rid of Theorema.

I have to start off with Lyric. Since the Valentine's colors are red, pink and white, the bottle fits with the general color theme. Since roses seem to be the most gifted flower on this day, the spicy rose of Lyric fits the day. Lyric is one of my most loved perfumes and probably the first Amouge that I fell head over heels in love with and then Epic was my second. Yeah, Amouage is expensive and probably the most expensive brand on this list but you only live once.

The original Shalimar is going to have to be my 2nd choice in all of it's vanilla goodness. Shalinar isn't a straight up vanilla thing, there are more moving parts. There is the citrus aspect of it and whatever else is in there to make Shalimar a little on the slutty side. I haven't tried too many of the Shalimar flankers outside the Ode a la Vanilles. Shalimar is pretty affordable but the Ode a la Vanilles from around 2010/12 and crazy expensive if you can find them.

My third choice would have to be the tried and true and probably my lamest pick on the list is Chanel no 5 in extrait form or the edt form. You could possibly get away with the edp version but the extrait and edt are the first two versions of no 5 that came out. I would ignore all the other no 5 flankers for Valentine's Day. Coco said that she wanted no 5 to smell like a woman and not a flower. In the '20's, that was revolutionary in terms of perfume but that would be a whole different post. With no 5, outside of the aldehydes, no other note sticks out but no 5 wants you to move in a little closer.

I was thinking of putting Mitsouko on the list but outside of perfume nuts, who really would seek out Mitsouko? She is a little too strange and maybe a little too harsh for a lot of people. I am thinking it's a little too strange. I am leaving out vintage Bal a Versailles due to the fact that it's vintage and can be a little on the pricey side. Plus I don't think that most can deal with the outright slut in vintage Bal a Versailles.

Not Exactly Amused

I have blogged about having my Afterpay account frozen and wanting to pay it off before I thawed it out? I decided to pay the rest of the stupid thing off a week early and thawed it out. Because I was stupid and needed to make a payment arrangement to make sure it was paid off, Afterpay has reduced my limit to $100. I fully expected them to reduce that $1,400 limit to maybe $200 at worst and maybe $400 at most. Between those two numbers, it was a usable amount  and very workable amount. I just wasn't expecting something that severe. Afterpay's reasoning was to "encourage responsible spending" but after reading tons of posts on Reddit, Afterpay seems to be on everyone's shit list. People who have never paid late or made excessive purchases are getting denied for orders or their limits reduced. Some are only getting a limit of $50 and that isn't a usable limit at all. I am going to use the $100 that I have and maybe use that for gift cards and then get the things that I will need. Maybe by March or April, May at the very latest, I might have a $300 limit. So perfume purchases have been pushed back and probably way back. I am okay with that though. With having Afterpay paid off and the rest of my cellphone bill will be paid next week, I can rework my budget and I am a little more relaxed at this point. Paying $75 every two weeks was starting to kill my bank account. But it looks like Afterpay might not be doing all that great if orders are being denied or limits being slashed to something unusable along with taking away the no upfront payment feature.

Tax season has started in the US and I got my W-2 in the mail a few days ago. I could have filed it yesterday or today but I am being a little lazy about it right now. I don't want to file it right now, even though I am going to receive a small refund. The extra funds would be beneficial to me but I have to wait until what others decide what is about to happen with the cellphone business that we have going on. Are they getting their own plan or wanting to stay on my plan and just upgrade their phones? And this is another first world problem. I had let someone know that if she wants an iPhone, she either pays for the entire thing upfront or she goes and gets her own plan, my budget doesn't support an iPhone. What I would really love to do is upgrade my phone, pay the activation fee and just bank the rest of the money.

I am trying not to go out and get back ups of anything this year and mostly succeeding at this point. I would love to get a backup bottle of Chanel no 5 in extrait form. Even though Sephora has it and will have a spring sale around April, I must remind myself that I have tons of no 5 already and I don't need more of it. I want to finish up another bottle or two of no 5 and must finish the extrait bottle that I already have before I can consider getting another extrait bottle. This is a year were I am more motivated to make some changes to my life. To have a better relationship with money, to use up more things (like candles and perfume) and actually go out and do more. By trying not to buy stuff, means that I can save some money to actually go out and do things. At the end of the day, I just want to enjoy life a little more. I am tired of being invited to go out and do something but have to turn down the invitation due to money. I would like to live a little bit more and live a little better.