Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille Body Spray

 I don't know if this was a regional thing, but back in the day, there was a company that sold knock offs of popular perfumes. This isn't a new thing but I mostly saw these knock offs at my local drug store/cheap groceries place. This place was the type of grocery store chain that was the only place in town that accepted food stamps or if you made too much money for food stamps, you went there to shop for groceries. In their health and beauty area, they had this spot where the perfumes were. These bottles were those aerosol bottles that always said on the bottle that they smelled like Clinique Happy or CK Obsession and down the line. I remember that the aerosol sprayed something pretty damn close to Happy that I did buy a bottle. Let's just say that I have always lived at least a half an hour or 45 minutes from an outlet mall or a proper mall. I remember at that time, I was down to my last dregs of Clinique Happy, had $15 in fun money for at least a week and a half. This was back when I was in high school and this was in the '90's. My parents were not going to take me to the mall to buy a bottle of perfume and were not going to buy it for me. Their view was if I wanted that perfume so badly, I had to save up for it and have someone else take me. Clinique Happy was pretty much my go to perfume in high school. I got bored with the Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon pretty quickly but liked to wear it once in a while. That was the last time I bought any kind of perfume that came is aerosol form until maybe sometime last year.

I think that it was sometime last year that I had bought a 6.8 ounce bottle of Tom Ford's Tobacco Vanille body spray. My rational at the time is that I probably wasn't going to own a full bottle of the EDP any time soon. I wasn't exactly willing to buy a Tom Ford offering for an Amouage price. So my options were the travel spray or the body spray. For $80 I could get 150ml, I couldn't exactly refuse that price. I had initially placed it on my dresser and it somehow got moved. So it languished for a year before I pulled it out. From all my previous notions about aerosol cans, I figured that it would be fine. Turns out that I was dead wrong.

When I first tested out this version, I got a whopping dose of Play-Doh and nothing else. I figured that it was because it had never been sprayed before and it pretty much sat around for a little over a year before I tried it. The second time I had gotten that big dose of Play-Doh and that smell that one gets when you spay an aerosol can. Both notes never went away and was left wondering on why did I spend that $80. Then some hints of Tobacco Vanille started to come and then disappeared quickly. The whole thing was a waste of time and money. I am probably going to have to either pitch it or sell it. What's the point of this whole thing when I am not getting what I actually wanted. I wanted a little more of the Tobacco Vanille and not the Play-doh aerosol combo thing. I could have don't without the latter two. At this point in the game, I am not afraid of saying that something sucks and as far as I know, no perfume company reads my blog.

Fall is Slowly Coming

In Ohio, we are getting into the tail end of August. My local school system started school on Thursday. It's funny how early kids go back to school now. When I went to school, our school year started a few days before Labor Day. When most of my classmates were in 4H, it would have been wiser to start school after Labor Day. Most of the 4H kids were at school on Monday and Tuesday but were at the local fair the rest of the week. So the first week of school was pretty much a waste of time when I went to school.

With fall on it's way, that means it's time for everything that is either pumpkin or apple. I honestly prefer apple over pumpkin and this whole pumpkin spice craze has gotten out of hand. There is something about the taste and smell of pumpkin spice that makes me gag.

The Honeycrisp Apple candles from Bath and Body Works hasn't come out yet and in some ways I am happy and in other ways I am sad. I am currently on a strict no buy in terms of candles. I am not buying anymore candles until Candle Day in December. So until next fall, I will not be buying any Honeycrisp Apple candles until then or I get a Bath and Body Works gift card for my birthday. At the end of the day, not getting anymore candles until Candle Day will be good for me. It will allow me to use up some of what I have and I have five or six Honeycrisp Apple candles, so my stock is fine.

Since fall is on the way, it's time for me to pull out LADDM and Vanilla Flash. I haven't worn my stash of Andy Tauer's work too much. One, I couldn't get to it and two, out of sight and out of mind. But I found both Vanilla Flash and LADDM and put them front and center. But since fall is on it's way, I do have to pull out more of my transition scents.

Since I have pulled out Vanilla Flash and have worn it, I got to thinking about Tom Ford's Tobacco Vanille. Truth be told, I find Tobacco Vanille to be stupid expensive for what it is. For the price of a full bottle of Tobacco Vanille, I can think of many other nicer perfumes for the same price. A travel spray of Tobacco Vanille is around $75 and that is about 10ml of perfume. Vanilla Flash is the same price for 30ml of perfume and I find that Vanilla Flash is a nicer perfume. One could say that it's Andy Tauer does Tobacco Vanille but I find that Vanilla Flash is better made and has that Tauer base that I love so much.
 

End of Vacation and Neela Vermeire Pichola Review

I am finishing up the last day of my vacation and I don't want to go back to work. Who really wants to go back to work after vacation? Sydney is doing better but we still need to take her to the vet on Friday to see if we keep her on antibiotics, add a new one or keep her on what she is now. When the appointment was made, I had to call my manager to see if I could switch days with someone. I work retail and finding someone to switch shifts is akin to finding a unicorn. The only person that might have been able to do it, wasn't able to. I was asked if there was any way that I could work, even a short shift. Things were worked out and my folks had said that they didn't really want me to miss work and to just go to work. This is just a vacation that really sucks. I wasn't able to burn a candle and the only thing that I did that was fun was the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame on Tuesday before Sydney got sick.

 Earlier this year, I was poking around Luckyscent and was looking at their sale stuff. The only reason why I was doing that was because they had sent me an e-mail about the sale stuff. It's a rarity that I order from Luckyscent anymore. No funds, things are a little too expensive (I'm looking at you, Diaghilev) and my collection is big enough as it is without adding more. I am still on my travel spray kick. Now imagine my luck to find the travel spray of Pichola. Twenty milliliters for $96 is pretty much a steal in niche perfume. For the price, I wasn't going to complain.

The first time I wore Pichola, I could have sworn that this was Serge Lutens' A la Nuit. That kind of clean jasmine with boatloads of greens that kept the jasmine from going full on skank. Then I got something akin to tangerine. I do have a difficult relationship when it comes to citrus in perfume. I either love it or I get queasy and with Pichola, I am not queasy but not full on loving it. I kind of like the citrus in this. Besides the jasmine, I am getting a pretty hefty dose of tuberose and my love for tuberose is pretty new. There was always something about tuberose that seemed to be a little too much for me for the longest time. So I think with trying and loving Nassomatto Nuda and then Narcotic V, I think that I was able to understand tuberose and fall in love with tuberose. I'm not getting a whole lot else in terms of notes that I can discern but Pichola has a sunny, tropical vibe to it and it's in a good way. Pichola isn't for teen girls or young women, she is for a woman who has grown up. The grown up woman that knows what she wants and knows how to get it.

I applied Pichola at noon and it's a little after 11pm and I am in probably the extreme dry down. I am not sure that I will get a full bottle but I love it enough to keep a travel spray on hand. I just might fall in love with Pichola to get a bottle, eventually.

This Vacation Sucks

I don't exactly know what happened to this vacation but it sucks.It's been a combination of things that has made it suck.

Didn't do a whole lot Sunday or Monday. That dresser should have been moved into my room by now but it's been a little too hot to really be moving furniture. Tuesday was the day that I went to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. I haven't been there since I was a sophomore in high school and that was over 20 years ago. Truth be told, I remember that the Rock Hall seemed to have more stuff and more interesting stuff when I went over 20 years ago. I personally think that when they made the gift shop a little bigger and added a little food court, they made the thing much smaller. I know that they are in the process of making it bigger but it is such a tiny museum that costs big bucks for admission. So it's going to be quite a while before I visit again.

But yesterday was a freaking adventure though. My eldest Lab (pictured), Sydney, spent most of the night not feeling good and spitting up. So that meant that my dad and I spent a good chunk of Wednesday afternoon at the vet. With a partially wooded lot, she could have eaten anything in the yard. We have bird feeders, chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels and whatever else lives in the back yard. The vet was asking a lot of questions to see what could be ruled out. Diabetes and some kind of obstruction was ruled out. After x-rays and blood work, it turns out Sydney has only 1 kidney and it's a kidney infection. The vet is just waiting for some cultures to see what other antibiotics need to be added but she has been started on one to start to get it under control or just to not make it worse. Sometime Monday we will take her to the vet and I hope that she will be a bit better. I don't want her to be alone in case something happens. We are trying to have her drink as many fluids as we can and have her on a bland diet. With tons of fluid intake means she has to go out ever hour or two so someone has to stay with her to make sure she is drinking and going to the bathroom.

Since it has been so hot and with the house being closed up, I haven't been able to burn any candles so far. With some thunderstorms coming this way, it looks like I will probably be starting a candle and this is the candle I picked out on either last Friday or Saturday. With thunderstorms, who knows if I am going to lose electricity.