That Was Strange and Thanksgiving

You know a few posts ago that I mentioned that something happened to my bottle of Arabie? I am not sure about what fully happened but my bottle of Arabie has been saved. I think that something might have leaked a little bit and ended up only on the cap. I was looking for something else and pulled Arabie out for a second try and that was how I found out that that was the case and really made sure that the perfume itself wasn't ruined and it wasn't. What makes me happy is that I don't have to scour the internet for a reasonably priced bottle or just throwing out the bottle and just be without a bottle of Arabie.

Since we are coming up on Thanksgiving here in the US and I am already trying to decide on which perfume I want to wear for Thanksgiving. I don't even know if I am going to someone else's place or it is to be a quiet Thanksgiving at home. My choices are Theorema, Feminite du Bois or Lyric. The first two are mostly for if I am going to someone else's house and Lyric is more of if I am going to spend the day at home. It seems like extended family members go gaga when I wear Theorema but are disappointed that Theorema has been discontinued. I don't like the fact that Theorema was discontinued either and happy that I was able to get some back up bottles when I did before it became hard to find and stupid expensive when you can find a bottle.

 

Dragging Stuff Out

My goal was to seriously start working on finishing samples and full bottles of perfume and I have failed miserably. I thought that if I kept a very limited amount of perfume out, I would have a chance. The only things that I have finished was that very small decant of Joy extrait, vintage Jicky extrait decant, A vintage no 5 extrait bottle and did drain a 1 ounce bottle of the Cheirosa 62 body spray. It seems like I accumulated more stuff in terms of perfume. But I haven't finished anything else. I keep trying and failing which leads to this post's title.

I just had to pull out one of those storage containers just to find a bottle of Mitsouko and vintage Bal a Versailles. With Mitsouko, it didn't matter if it was the newer EDP version or the vintage, I just wanted a bottle of Mitsouko, in all of her glory out. To a lesser extent, I did want a little bit of vintage Bal a Versailles out as well. 

When I first tried vintage Bal a Versailles, I immediately understood it and loved it and for a while, I would wear just about nothing else but that was fairly early on in my perfume journey, back when I didn't know the difference between my ass and a whole in the ground. I had no real knowledge of what a skank note was nor what an aldehyde was, let alone the perfume groups. I did discover Mitsouko early on as well.

I remembered that I did like Mitsouko a lot and couldn't quite figure out why I did. It took me a few wearings of Mitsouko, Diorling and reading about perfume families to figure out why. I loved the balance of a more traditional chypre. Then I discovered the vintage Mitsouko and then I knew what oakmoss really smelled like. At that point, I spent way too much money and time on Ebay trying to find the best bang for my buck in terms of vintage Mitsouko. I was specifically looking for the old teardrop bottles that were mostly filled and especially if the bottle itself was sealed. Then my financial woes were just beginning and perfume buying became harder to justify. Buying perfume is still hard to justify at this point. But I still want more perfume but need to start wearing what I have. I think that I did get a little bored with the line up on my nightstand

 

All Kinds of Stuff

It is that time of year where Sephora is having their fall sale. The bargain with myself is that I would spend less than $20 if I decided to partake. Not buying anything would have been preferred but I couldn't spend a whole lot. I know that Ulta is trying to lure people away from the Sephora sale by offering an ok coupon and just about every day there is a different point multiplier. For the point multiplier, I am not seeing anything worthwhile thus far. I probably will not buy anything from ULTA for a while. The only things that I got at the Sephora sale is a puff for the Nars setting powder that I have and a travel sized bottle of the Cheirosa 62 conditioner. Spent under $20 and I am okay with that. Everyone still seems to be out of the Chanel no 5 parfum and right now, I think it is still a good thing. If ULTA ever gets the parfum version of no 5 before the end of the year, I will redeem my ULTA rewards points for that. 

But come recently, I haven't really been game about going to Ulta, Bath and Body Works or Sephora. Even just to window shop. I am thinking it's the fact that I have two nephews that are having birthdays in the next 5 weeks and the Christmas shopping season is just about here. Most years, I am almost two thirds done this time of year and I am almost a quarter of the way done. What my game plan is that for Christmas the two littles will have to share a gift and the two older ones will have to share a gift. Since I am still working on squaring away my Afterpay and Klarna balance, gifts will have to be smaller and I probably have to do more combining gifts. What I have taken to doing right now is if I have some extra cash, I am going to turn that into Amazon gift cards and set them aside so when I do the Christmas shopping for my nephews, I don't have to wait around for paychecks so much, I can just get it done. I think I will get my dad a cookbook called The Victorian Way but I drawing a blank when it comes to my mother. I do have time but not quite as much as I think I do.

On the video game front, I have almost finished Quake II. I haven't made any kind of judgement on if I still love the game like I used to. Maybe when I finish the game I can make an actual judgement. But I found out a few days ago that there is going to be a new Halo game called Campaign Evolved. Apparently, it is the original Halo with updated graphics and three extra levels before the original game. Part of me is very much wants to get it but part of me doesn't. The question I am asking myself is if I want to spend $60 for three extra levels and updated graphics. Part of me does want to get the game for those three extra levels. But the new Halo game won't be released until some time next year. Now if I can get the original Return to Castle Wolfenstein for the Xbox s/x series I would be happy. 
 

Seriously? Of Serge Lutens Arabie, Laundry and Storage Gone Wrong

I didn't have a ton of clothes that needed to be washed but needed to wash 3 sets of sheets. I got a little lazy and hadn't washed those 2 sets of sheets that I have bought in the past 5 or 6 weeks. Yes, I was sleeping on sheets that were starting to get a little gross. I don't know what possessed me to wash 2 sets of sheets at 9pm last night but washed those 2 sets but I did. So this morning, I stripped my bed and threw that set of sheets in the wash and started it. So I now have fresh, clean sheets on my bed.

I am not a big fan of washing any kind of bedding. You can wash a fair bit of clothes in one load of laundry but only 1 set of sheets in a single load of laundry. But I don't think I am a big fan of doing laundry. It's the time it takes and the amount of steps for just 1 load of laundry. As it stands right now, I don't have to wash any kind of bedding for a while.

This morning, I had a hankering for Serge Lutens Arabie. Portia from Perfume Posse did make a mention of it in her recent post and I promptly forgot about it until this morning. So I pulled it out of one of my bins and something went horribly wrong. At first, I noticed that the spray mechanism smelled like it smelled like A la Nuit. Then I unscrewed the spray mechanism and smelled no resemblance to the Arabie that I know. So something must have leaked into the bottle to make it smell all sorts of wrong. So that means that I am going to have to check my massive collection to see if I have a backup bottle of Arabie. 

I have already done a half assed search about the price of a new bottle. I wasn't aware or didn't pay attention that Arabie is now only in a bell jar form. I check my old stand by of Fragrance Net and didn't see a bottle and should have bought a bottle of it when they did have it. I did find a brand new bottle of it on Amazon but if I don't have a backup bottle of Arabie, I am going to have to bite the bullet and get a bottle. I don't have the $300 some dollars lying around and it is hard to find a spray bottle.

The reason why Arabie is is important to my collection is because it is one of the first niche perfumes that I purchased many years ago. Even though I didn't really "get" it at the time. I can only hope that I don't have to get another bottle. 
 

Life with Dogs and Other Things

Life continues to be a little strange around my house. The mother situation isn't resolved yet and so many things seem to be up in the air in that respect. Dementia and severe mental illness don't mix. I get that my dad would like her home but if she won't take her medication when she is home, she can't stay. He wants her to stay at home but I don't think it is possible anymore. I honestly think that if she is "too high functioning" for memory care and assisted living would be a nightmare, there has to be a group home that could help her. I think that she does need to be somewhere where she can get the help she needs and aides that won't let her push people around. I made a mention that if she is in and out of the hospital and has now amped up her antics that land her in the hospital, she cannot safely stay at home any longer, it's time for professionals.

Since I live in a more rural area, there is more of an abundance of wildlife. The dogs that I have always had did chase squirrels and rabbits. Our black Lab did manage to get a very little baby bunny that wasn't even remotely ready to leave the nest. The thing was probably only a week old. But that was when she was 7 months old and she never caught one again after she was told no. She will still chase the squirrels and bunnies but doesn't catch them. Our chocolate Lab is different. It seems in the past couple months, things have ramped up. Instead of just chasing the rabbits and squirrels, she has now has been able to be some chipmunks and the young squirrels and somehow, they die and she isn't biting down or anything. I think that she is giving them heart attacks. I am currently looking into a trainer for her. I know that some of this is prey drive and it is natural behavior but it has to stop. I would rather her not get sick or hurt because she might tangle with things that are bigger and meaner. I don't care so much if she chases rabbits or squirrels, I would rather her not kill them.

Onto some better stuff. I finally got an approval to get a build up and a crown for the tooth that I recently had a root canal done. It was initially denied because Medicaid said it wasn't medically needed. I appealed that decision and they had one of their dentists look at everything and said that it was necessary, especially if I am getting partials. So they figured that it would be cheaper to pay for the crown than pay for all these adjustments or having to redo the whole partial bit due to more tooth loss. I am happy over that. What is making me happy is that since I have the go ahead to learn how to drive, I went and took the test to get my temps and passed the test. There are some questions on that test that are really tough. So now it is to find some driving lessons to get my license. That would mean that I would be able to maybe get a full time job with health benefits and make a little more money.
 

Quake II Remaster and Getting Back into Gaming

 

Since I have pretty much broken up with Bath and Body Works and seriously curbed perfume buying and frivolous buying, it means a little more time on my hands. With my mother being out of the house yet again and I seem to be working less, I needed to fill up my time a little bit more. And that means that I can get back into playing video games.

When I was in my later teens and early 20's, I played tons of video games.When I was younger, the latest and greatest gaming console was the Super Nintendo. The games that we played was Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros and the Mario Kart game. I know that we had Star Fox but I never warmed to that game and never played with that one too much. But at that time, video game playing was very limited due to my parents. But at the time, I was still in grade school.

When we got our first PC when I was in high school, it seemed like video games seriously took off, especially the first person shooter games. At the time, Doom and the Quake series were the hot games to play. At the time, I never played Doom but was a huge Quake player. There were times in high school that I would stay up and play Quake until 2:30 in the morning and then get up at 5:30 to catch the bus. But after high school, I did play less video games because of college and less time. College left me with a whole lot less money for video games. So I dropped out of gaming for the most part. I did get the original Xbox when I dropped out of college. Even then, I was a person who played in spurts. The two games I played most often was the first Halo and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. But then again, life got in the way and I didn't play video games. But now, I have some more free time to play video games and that leaves me to Quake II.

So back in the day, Quake II seemed to be the biggest game for a while. When I found out that Quake II was being remastered and released, I held off on getting it but eventually I did get it. I started playing it this past week to see what it was all about. I wanted to see that they changed and what remained the same. The basic premise and general lay out has remained the same. What surprised me the most are the Strogg. The Strogg never chased me before when I would be getting more ammunition due to getting low nor did they jump up or down either. The attacks of the Strogg are different in general too.The Strogg seem to take a little longer to kill and they don't seem to be in the same spots like I remember. I remember being able to trigger more Strogg infighting and I am not really able to do that. Being able to trigger Strogg infighting was a great way to take down some Strogg when you were really low on ammo. So they probably did change the layout of the where the Strogg actually are in this one. I am currently on the Big Gun level and I do not remember ever being a tank on this level. It feels like the vibe is just off with this remaster. I just can't explain on how it feels off but it does.

I did have to look for the Dopefish in Quake II and I was a little disappointed with the remastered version. The picture is the original Dopefish in Quake II and the other is what the Dopefish fish pretty much looks like in the remastered version, even though the second picture is from Quake I. I will admit that I do like to look for Easter eggs in video games.

Let's just say that I am not a huge fan of the remaster right now. For right now, I am committed to finishing the game, especially since I am at the Big Gun level. I will see if I really start to.enjoy it when I get to the Research Lab level.

Serge Lutens Feminite du Bois

A few moons ago, I did blog about that Headspace Rose giveaway that I won. It was either last week or the week before, I was going through some of my emails and I did remember and started to worried that I might have missed the package. So I did email Portia asking about it and what do you know, the next day, I get an email saying that it was shipped through DHL. DHL is not a common shipping company in the States and the few times that I had to contend with them, my opinion isn't that great. They seem to take forever to deliver anything. The longest that I had to wait for an item is 2 and a half weeks.

So on Sunday, I was finally able to see the new Downton Abbey movie. It is supposed to be the grand finale but with how the end was portrayed, I don't think it is the last time we heard of Downton Abbey. I am thinking that they might revive it to take place during WWII with the younger generation. But I do want this to be the end of Downton Abbey.

On the day that I saw Downton Abbey, I had a huge hankering for Feminite du Bois. I could have gone with more period appropriate Patou Joy or no 5 or no 22. But I wasn't thinking of those things. But let's move on to Feminite du Bois.

I hate gotten my first bottle of Feminite du Bois when I was new to perfume and Luckyscent still sold some of the Serge Lutens line. It was one of those blind buys that worked out pretty well. I love the dusty, woody fruit combination and at the time, it was something that I had never smelled before. In many ways, it seems like the house of Serge Lutens is niche for beginners and most budding perfume nuts start there when expanding their tastes. There are some offerings that are out there I the Serge Lutens line up. But I quit paying attention to Serge Lutens after the Berlin offering, or was it De Profundis? I think at that time I had moved on and was testing out new things. Maybe because you couldn't readily get your hands on a bell jar either due to the price tag whe  they were at Barney's or one needed to have someone go to Paris and bring it back for you. I was lucky enough to get a bell jar of De Profundis or Sarrasins off on EBay and slightly used.

Miss Dior Original and Other Stuff

 

It's been a strange couple weeks for me. My mother spent a week with her friend when I was on vacation and has been in the hospital for a week and half and mucked up quite a few things.

As it stands, I have broken up with Bath and Body Works and candles. In regards to Bath and Body Works, they have gotten too expensive and the quality has gone down. I pretty much have stopped burning candles for a few reasons. I do still like burning candles but it has led to too many arguments with others in my household cans killed a lot of the love that I had for making the house I live in good. Even my liking has diminished at this point. It has gotten to the point of seriously just selling off at least 90% of my candle collection. I am none to wealthy and I would rather try to make some of that money back instead of donating or throwing it out.

It just seems like my love for smelling good and making my general area has been diminished. It's everything is too strong or smells strange. So the joy of a lot of things has been taken out and I am having a hard time with that. Reading doesn't hold my attention like it used to and I kind of blame the internet for that. So I am trying to get back into video games at least.

But I was rummaging around my extensive perfume collection, trying to find what I haven't worn in a while and found my vintage bottles of the original Miss Dior. One is a splash bottle of the edt and the other is a spray bottle of the edc. I was starting to flip out a little bit when I unscrewed the cap of the edt. It smelled like straight up alcohol and nothing else. So I wasn't so interested in wearing that since I was about to go and visit my mother and I put on some of the edc. The edc hasn't gone off and maybe it is because it is a spray bottle and when I bought it, and that means it will be less likely to be tampered with. But when I came home, I put a q-tip in and the q tip sit out for a couple minutes, hoping that the perfume hadn't gone bad. And the good news is that the perfume hasn't gone bad, it just needs a few minutes.

I don't have a bottle of the original Miss Dior and I am kicking myself for not getting a bottle when times were better. There are a few perfumes that I am kicking myself for not getting a bottle when I had the chance. I did have a close shave with L'Heure de Nuit though, even though I haven't opened the bottle yet. I just love looking at the bee bottle with the blue juice in it.

Lotion Season

In the northern hemisphere, we all know winter is on it's way. Even though fall has just started and all, the preparation for winter is going to be starting up soon enough.

Even though it is fall, it's cooler out and the days are shorter. And that means my whole skin care routine is changing as well. It's not just for the skin on my face that is starting to need the extra help in fall, it's the skin all over that is needing the extra help in general.

Outside of groceries, I have been working on stocking up on lotion. It doesn't matter if it is hand lotion or body lotion, I am stocking up on it. I haven't been motivated to spend money on the Chanel lotions or tracking down any kind of Amouage body products. I kind of need groceries a little more than Amouage or Chanel lotions. Lush is a little more of an okay thing since they do have smaller sizes at a more reasonable cost but that isn't something I would get very often. I am looking at maybe getting more of the Sleepy line up.

What I have stocked up on is the Cerave lotions because even in summer, my skin is dry and winter is even worse. I did get a couple L'Occitane hand lotions for work and to keep in my pocket while I am at work. But I go for the lotions that won't interfere with my perfume collection too much.
 

A la Nuit Revisited

 There was a time where I was new to the world of perfume collecting. Most of what I had smelled and bought was mostly from either the drug store or Bath and Body Works. For most of my life, I never paid a whole lot of attention to perfume. Growing up, the adults in my life didn't wear perfume on a daily basis. If they ever did wear perfume, it mostly bypassed me because I never paid too much attention to it.

Chanel's Cuir de Russie changed all of that. I am not sure how or why I got an email from Chanel about the Les Exclusifs line but with Cuir de Russie it was off to the races. 

It seems like just about every perfumista's journey with niche starts with exploring the house of Serge Lutens. Feminite du Bois was my first Serge Lutens and then I branched out a little more. A la Nuit was probably the second one I got. I must not have been paying attention to it or my nose was goofy. Or the latter option is that I wasn't all that great at picking out individual notes about perfume.

People had said that A la Nuit was loaded with indoles but at the time, I wasn't so good picking that stuff out. All I got was some kind of sweet floral that might have smelled marginally poopy. While I was trying to find something else, I found a decant of A la Nuit. Of course I had to give this another go.

I hadn't worn A la Nuit in years and wasn't expecting a whole lot. I still got the jasmine and now I am finally getting all the indoles that people were talking about. A la Nuit is a lovely perfume that I probably wouldn't reach for as much but still lovely. I do prefer Rose de Nuit or Sarrasins for my skank needs in terms of Serge Lutens.

I am still not happy that so many Serge Lutens perfumes are out of reach. Out of reach due to price and I am not the biggest fan of the bell jars. My take is well over $300 for a 2.5 ounce bottle isn't much of a deal.

Vacation Recap

I ought to be reviewing the latest Tauer release but really shouldn't be. It might have arrived on Saturday but today was the first time wearing it and I think I need to spend a little more time with it before I can give an honest review. Since I go back tomorrow, might as well give a recap.

 You know how I said that I was cracking down on expenses? I am not sure about the two sets of bed sheets. When I was going through my bedding, I realized that my winter sheets are pretty much shot and I had only one set of sheets for my bed. I had initially set off to only order one set of bed sheets. In theory, you have one or two sets of bed sheets and be fine. But that flannel sheet set with dogs on it was too cute and the price was good and I don't know what possessed me to get a set of bed sheets in the color black. But I have a set of black bed sheets now. It seemed like I was accumulating quilts and throws since last year and bed sheets never entered the chat to remind me. So when I get a spare minute, I will run those things through the wash and see how it goes. Sooner or later, I will get a set of there's in green but I need pillows a little more. So I am going to have to use up the last of my Amazon gift card to round out the new bedding.

So since I have been looking at more things to be cut and used up, I did manage to accomplish some of that. I did manage to combine two Bath and Body Winter hand soaps. What was the point of having two half full hand soaps of the same smell. I was so close to being able to do that with a Leather and Brandy one but not quite. I think by the end of the week, it will be another hand soap that will be used up. I did manage to finish a half a candle, one full candle and start a new one. So I am proud of myself to do at least that much. Especially since I wasn't able to finish any decants, full bottles or minis while I was on vacation. At the end of the day, trying not to spend money of frivolous things every week is hard. I did make some changes and culled a few things earlier this year but with some freed up money brings a different temptation. That $50-$60 every month from not having so many subscriptions makes a part of me want to spend it on the fun stuff when I really shouldn't. So I want to do is shop my collection a little bit more and see what else I can use up.

What was disappointing was the fact that I wasn't able to do much of anything for my vacation. I wanted to see the new Downtown Abbey movie but plans for that never materialized. I think I should have said to friends and family is that my vacation time is precious and I am not about to waste that on the maybes or bailing at last minute. I think that I should have taken an Uber to the theater and just saw the movie by myself. I am hoping my last vacation of the year will be a bit better bit that is the week after Thanksgiving.

We Have to Break Up

 

No, I am not quitting blogging nor am I quitting perfume. I have to break up with Bath and Body Works. Bath and Body Works has changed too much for me and it's probably past time to do it.

My most recent purchase from Bath and Body Works was the Cucumber Melon line up. You know, the body wash, the lotion and the body spray. The lotion and body wash are a Christmas gift to someone who loves bath stuff and loves Bath and Body Works. So they had a sale of $5.95 body care items, I got the Cucumber Memo body spray for old times sake. And this is where I have to break up with Bath and Body Works.

Back in the day, I happily wore Cucumber Melon in high school by the gallon. Back in the mid to late '90's, it was all I could consistently afford. But when I went off to college, I couldn't afford perfume and didn't wear it for years. Even when I dropped out, I couldn't really afford perfume. It wasn't until Chanel's Cuir de Russie did I get back into perfume and haven't looked back since.

But back to Cucumber Melon and Bath and Body Works. The body spray bottle must have been updated some time in the past 10 or 15 years. It seems like they are trying to update their image by packaging. The packaging doesn't quite fit the whole vibe in store or out of it. I think when I gave a different Bath and Body Works body spray or two ago, I did get a distinct Play Dough element to it. I didn't notice a Play Dough note in Cucumber Melon when I first sprayed it on. When I first sprayed the whole song lyric of "hello, darkness, my old friend." ran through my mins for some reason. Then a nano second later, that damned Play Dough note came out and then I noped out of the whole thing. 

Even the candles are getting to be a little boring. I am tired of vanilla heavy candles or anything pumpkin. It is rare that I like food based smells that are not actually food and the Honeycrisp Apple or the Fresh Brewed Coffee are the two exceptions to that. I am not a fan on how the packaging changes from year for the same damn smell. Or I might find something really good and then never see it again. So after I redeem my last two rewards, I thing I am going to break up with Bath and Body Works. I think I have really grown up and moved on.

Financial Considerations

 

When there was a blip on my radar about the current tariffs in terms of perfume a post or two ago, I did think about there was no Chanel no 5 to be had. At least in the extrait form. So I am thinking that the edp, edt and Eau Premiere are still cheap enough for many companies to get but the extrait version of anything in terms of Chanel might not be worth the expense. The thing is that I have enough Chanel no 5 in every other formulation except the extrait. But the price of so many perfumes have gone up, and some horrifically so, I figured I might as well start setting some goals for myself.

With the whole BNPL thing, I have decided that in the next 6 weeks, I want to have Afterpay, Klarma and Zip paid off. My Sezzle account is paid off and Zip has only 1 payment left on it. My Klarna balance is less than $60 but Afterpay is sitting at a shade over $400. But the other part of my goal is to start saving some money and create a budget that is a little more strict. Does this mean that I won't go out and have some fun? I will still go out to eat and have fun but I have to be little more discerning about that.

It was my birthday earlier this week and usually I do get myself a bottle of perfume. For some reason, I haven't been quite up to getting a new bottle. With the tariffs and all driving the prices up, some of the stuff are simply out of my budget. But I will truly see in the next few weeks on if I want something new or just hold off in that department.

But cleaning up my finances has made me cancel my Doordash subscription and I decided not to get the Sephora same day delivery subscription. I remembered that on my birthday the same day subscription was going to be changed on my birthday and I made the point to cancel it beforehand. I did forget that I did sign up for the Door dash free trial and was charged $9.99 for it. I cancelled as soon as the charge went through. I still will "enjoy" the subscription for a month but that means I will probably use it once or twice if a hankering for Burger King or McDonald's hits but don't want to go out and get it.

Hiram Green Tryst Review

I am not sure what has been up with me come lately. It's either I am testing something or I am wearing the same old thing. But this time, it is a new to me brand and that is Hiram Green. Earlier this year, I had gotten the Hiram Green discovery set from Luckyscent. Luckyscent was probably running some kind of promo and Luckyscent isn't one to do too many promotions like a percentage off or free shipping on anything and everything. 

But Tryst is the first one up. First blast was something citrus and I have a very difficult time with citrus. But there was a big alcohol type blast for some reason because Hiram Green is supposed to be a natural perfume. While the citrus went way into the background, the orange blossom and honey came front and center and stayed there. I do love a slutty perfume but this is the kind d of slutty that I didn't care for at all. I don't know if it was the honey, orange blossom or the two being together but it smelled like I urinated in my pants and couldn't be bothered to change. Even though my sample is a spray sample and this is an edp, I found that the longetivity was lacking. I expected at least 8 hours but only had about 4 or 5 hours but in this case, it was a good thing. With the way things are going with inflation, I would have expected a little more. But I am not a fan of Tryst and I will not be getting a bottle any time soon.
 

Thoughts, L'Air du Desert Marocain Noir and Upcoming Vacation

When I hopped onto Now Smell This, I did see the post of a new Andy Tauer offering. It seems like Andy Tauer has gone crazy with all of these new releases. When Luckyscent was offering some kind of deal on some samples of the reimagined Rose Flash and Vanilla Flash, I jumped on that. But last night, I don't recall seeing the new Andy Tauer L'Air du Desert Marocain Noir but I was looking to get a bottle of the Rose de Kandahar perfume.

For the longest time, I did want a bottle of the Rose de Kandahar and finances never quite worked out to shell out a little over $200. Imagine my surprise that.is $300 and the price for just about every Andy Tauer offering has gotten stupid expensive. Someone mentioned that it was the tariffs that caused it. Yes, the prices of everything has gone up, tariffs or no tariffs. But I wasn't expecting the prices to be that high for a beauty product. But back the the Noir, I did order a sample to test out, even though I haven't been wearing a whole lot of new things.

So I am coming up on my third vacation of the year. The only real plan that I have is seeing the final Downton Abbey movie. Towards the end of the TV series, it was pretty worn. There are so may story lines that can be recycled before people lose interest. The first movie was good, the second one was okay but I think after the first movie, it really should have been put to bed.

What I am looking forward to is being able to test new things if I want or wear old favorites. I am hoping to finish the candle that I have going in the next week and I hope to start another.
 

Juliette Has a Gun Not a Perfume Superdose Review

Today was Cleveland's start to football season. The only reason that I know this is that my mother is a huge Cleveland Browns fan and football is a huge thing in Ohio. I can care less about football and most sports in general. The only sport that I will have any interest in is hockey. For around $30 to $40, I can go to Cleveland and watch a Monsters game. Well, hockey can be pretty entertaining. But I have to wait a little bit before I go to a game.

Off and on, I have been looking at the whole Juliette Has a Gun line up. The ones that I have always been intrigued by was Not a Perfume. It's supposed to be a one note perfume and tons of people seem to go gaga for this one. I couldn't understand how people could go for a one note perfume. Then a thought hit me. They don't really want to wear perfume but they kind of do. And that perfume has to be as simple as possible but smells like you are wearing perfume. But the perfume itself has to be faint. But I tried out Superdose.

Fragrance net had a mini travel spray for a song and I figured that it wasn't going to break me if I didn't care for it too much. I can keep it for reference or I could love it later on down the road. When I first applied Superdose, I initially thought it was Light Blue and I was not amused. I hate Light Blue and can't understand how people love Light Blue. After 5 minutes, it smelled really familiar to something I already have. I kept trying to remember which perfume it reminded me of. Then it came to me. Super dose reminded me of Channel Sycomore. Now, I only have the edt of Sycomore and haven't worn it in forever and I am going to have to rectify that in the next week or two. But Superdose has the Escentric Molecules type of vibe to it. It smells very artificial and incredibly not something I would call a perfume.

There is no development in this perfume. It's linear like CKOne and I can be hot or cold on linear perfumes but most of the time, I am cold on that. With perfume, I want development on skin. I am not a fan of Superdose. I just am not getting the whole point of this. If I want linear, I will wear CKOne since CKOne has more personality to it. Superdose has no personality.

Narciso Rodriguez Pure Musc Review

 

So I did make it to the county fair yesterday. I did have a good time but I did pay for it this morning. Ever since my gallbladder surgery last year, I cannot have a lot of fried food. I had a milkshake, one corndog and a small serving of fries. I was hoping to find deep fried pickles but couldn't find them for some reason. I found some taco trucks and a Chinese food truck at the fair but wasn't interested. I did not go to the fair for Chinese food or tacos, I wanted deep fried junk food and to see the 4H animals.

For the past week, I have been poking around Fragrance net to find some pretty good deals on travel sprays. But for a while, I was looking at blind buying a bottle of Narciso Rodriguez Pure Musc and realized that I have a little mini running around to test out.Good thing that I did find it and test it out. For the first 10minutes, I enjoyed the living daylights out of it. After the initial 10 minutes, I was like, is this it? I was waiting for the whole thing to keep developing and stay enjoyable. But it got a little more annoying than anything else. I wanted it to go to the realm of Kiehl's Original Musk Blend. You know, kind of slutty but not really. I do get a little bit of orange blossom but mostly generic musk. It might be a me thing right now. I just expected a little bit more out of the whole thing but my opinion might change in a month or two.

County Fair and Perfume

So I am working most of Labor Day weekend. I worked yesterday, today and Monday and since I am going to my county fair tomorrow, I got to thinking of which perfume do I want to wear.

Every county in Ohio has a county fair and they can be very different. In rural or more rural areas, it's about farm animals and 4H. More suburban areas it's more about arts and crafts, and rides. My county fair is all about 4H and that is where I am going. I plan to eat a fair bit of fried food and look at all the animals that the kids in 4H raised. There are a couple barns that I do avoid because they make me sad. The beef barn is one of them because I know most, if not all of the cows in the beef barn will be slaughtered on Tuesday. I don't go into the pig barn for the same reason but maybe not so many. Maybe because I didn't grow up on a farm and that is why I get so sad. For farm families, this is a normal thing. But if you didn't grow up on a farm, things like this aren't a normal thing.

I am still working on using things up or just plain old using things up. But the culling of my stuff isn't easy because part of me thinks about the money that was spent. But if the body care stuff smells off or is separating, it goes in the trash. I am going to have to look at if it isn't opened and I don't want it, I will donate it and it won't be money wasted so much. But let's talk about what I am thinking of wearing tomorrow.

Normally I do wear something from Andy Tauer and I am thinking of sticking with Andy Tauer. It's either the discontinued Noontide Petals or Au Coeur du Desert. I might go with an Avignon route. There are other perfumes that I can wear but the later two seem to be the best suited for the county fair. It's fall and I am slowly switching to my fall perfumes and Au Coeur du Desert seems to blend in a little more with the smells of the county fair.
 

Back from Vacation

 

So Tuesday was my first day back from vacation. It wasn't a great vacation, let alone good. Between my mother repeatedly calling from the hospital either wanting clothes or just angry calling, it was marked by appointments or visiting my mother. So it was not very relaxing. I have a little under 3 weeks to go before my next vacation. I enjoy taking most of my vacations a little later in the year.

I wore a few of my perfumes that I don't exactly get to wear too often. I was wearing more of the bombastic perfumes like Lyric, Number One Intense and Nuda. I figured that if I am going to be on vacation, why not wear my louder ones and it wasn't hot and humid so a louder perfume was and is easier to wear.

Was I able to make progress with my candle collection? The only progress that I was able to make was finishing that Winter candle from Bath and Body Works and start a Sun Drenched Linen from Bath and Body Works in single wick form. I was hoping to make more progress with that but between all the appointments, phone calls and other bigger projects, it wasn't really possible to do.

Even my Kindle was being an ass. I wasn't able to watch Prime Video for some reason and after talking to Amazon, I had to do the option of last resort and that was resetting my Kindle to factory settings. Let's just say that I wasn't to happy with that. I could have used my Fire stick but with my mother always calling or the appointments, the Fire stick was a bigger pain in the ass for pausing movies and shows that I was willing to go through.

So now, things are getting a little more back to normal. The only things that are different is how my mother is still in the hospital and we have a holiday weekend coming up. I am planning to go to the county fair on Sunday and eating a bunch of junk food and seeing the animals. I do not plan to go with one of my friends though. He is more interested in a certain section of the fair with the folks that take pictures of wildlife. I have no problem going over there and looking at the pictures and talking to them for a couple minutes. I do take issue with the fact he wants to rush me through so he can do nothing but deep fried Oreos, eat from the Italian food stand and see if there is a way he can get business for his photography stuff. So he seems to take away the enjoyment from anything because he wants to use certain events to see if he get an opportunity to make money. I asked him once if he can just enjoy fairs and festivals with friends and family without looking for ways to bullshit or bully his way into some kind of minor side hustle. If he wants to keep friends and family in his life , he has to give it a rest. I want to enjoy small things like that. I have enough problems and want to try and enjoy something, even if it is something small.

Subscriptions

 

Every so often, I do look at subscription services and if they look like they might be worth the money, I look for a free trial. It seems like I have become more aware of subscription services. I have been a Prime member since the beginning of time and ever since Amazon stepped up their game with Prime, I started to take notice. Then it was Barkbox and my dogs love their Barkbox. Wal-Mart Plus is questionable and I am debating on if I should discontinue the Wal-Mart Plus since I don't see any worthwhile benefit to it.

For a while, I have been taking a look at the Sephora same day delivery subscription. When it was offered for free around Christmas, I decided to give it a whirl to finish off a Christmas gift. While I didn't subscribe to the free 30 day trial then, I kind of liked it but it saved my bacon on Christmas Eve and I forgot about it. But a few days ago, I decided to give it a go. I was completely out of my retinol and was almost out of one of the shampoos that I like and figured what do I have to lose? While I ordered the shampoo and retinol, I threw an Infusion d'iris travel spray. My order arrived pretty quickly and I was impressed with that. Even though Ulta doesn't offer a same day delivery subscription like Sephora, I can order at 6am and I might not get it until 7 or 8pm. So it is Sephora for the win for prompt delivery.

After 30 days, I will have to make a choice on if I want to keep the same day delivery from Sephora. At the end of the day, it would only cost me $50 per year to keep it. I don't think that that is a bad price for what is being offered. If you are a huge Sephora shopper, I think that this is a pretty good deal. I am becoming a bigger Sephora shopper than I have been in the past and I do think that this would be worth the $50 per year. If my math is correct, you would only have to use it 7 times before it pays for itself. On Sephora, same day delivery is $6.95 per delivery.

It's getting to the end of August and normally, I have already hit the threshold to keep my diamond status with ULTA but I am only 27% there. So I am probably not going to hit that by the end of December. I am only $60 from maintaining my VIP status on Sephora for the next year.So with the same day delivery subscription, Sephora is starting to become a little more of my go to for some of my beauty needs. Now if they sold Lush and have No. 5 in extrait form, I would be a fairly happy camper.

The 2nd Vacation

Yesterday was the beginning of my 2nd vacation of the year and began with a shaky start. My mother is in the hospital yet again. It seems like with every medication change something seems to go wrong and she ends up in the hospital. I am thinking of she might be more sensitive to medication changes and yesterday's visit wasn't great and it looks like today will not be a great day to visit. So I will stay away today and take care of things at home, like grocery shopping since I am just about out of quite a bit of things.

But being on vacation means that I can wear what perfumes that I want. I was starting to get a little aggravated at wearing Cheirosa 62 for the days that I work. So with yesterday being my first day, I wore Nasomatto Nuda. I was game for a massive jasmine bomb and I am thinking about wearing Lyric today and haven't worn that in a while or maybe Jubilation 25.

What I am hoping to do is to burn a couple candles this week, granted that the only things that I can't miss is my dog's surgery tomorrow and my dental appointment on Thursday. The dental stuff is just a cleaning and nothing major. If they want to do any kind of fillings, it is going to have to be a no. It's not so much about the money but it is supposed to be just a cleaning. The last time I was at the dentist, it was supposed to be checking how I was healing and they checked that but decided to take care of a small cavity. I just don't want to spend any more time in the dentist chair than I need to.

But back to the candles. Every time I make any kind d of promise, I back slide a little bit. I have used up 3 candles and then Bath and Body Works has some kind of promo. I took advantage of their BOGO candle sale and had to replenish my Honeycrisp Apple candles. I did want to get a couple more but it wasn't exactly a great idea. And yesterday, there was a promotion for the foaming hand soaps and I used my reward for a Sweet Whiskey single wick. The apple candle I got is only available in 3 wick form. So it is back on the bandwagon of no buy for candles right mow.

My big annoyance for the past few days was my Kindle. Everything except the Prime Video app worked and worked just fine. I did just about everything except the restore to factory settings. I was hoping that customer service would have a different solution nut as it turns out, it was the only solution. But when I did the factory reset and went through the whole rigamarol of putting in the WiFi password and entering my Amazon imfo, everything on my Kindle works just fine at the moment. 

So now it is off to get a shopping list together and get the said shopping done.
 

Sezzle and Getting Older

I don't know how this got to be somewhat of a financial review spot. I still am not in with PayPal, Klarna or Affirm and I am okay with that. But somehow, Sezzle decided that I would be worthy enough to be able to use $150.

Let's just say that it works like Afterpay and Zip or like any BNPL service. Like Zip, you do have to pay a $4 finance charge. With Afterpay, I am not spending $4 to use the platform and maybe be able to use the limit I have been given. So, like Zip, I can pay some bills with it, if I am running short of funds but it won't be something I would use often.
 

Getting older sucks. At the ripe old age of 42, my knees are starting to bug me and I am not thrilled with the prospect of having to make a doctor's appointment for knees that hurt. But I fell on one knee and that one really isn't getting much better. Nor am I thrilled with the idea of having to make an appointment for a dermatologist for getting some skin tags removed before I start picking at them. I am not going to worry about my hair turning gray but I do want the hair on my chin to disappear and will look.into that nut that isn't quite so important.

Getting older sucks when one gets excited about finding really good deals, especially online for very basic stuff like toothpaste or shampoo. And I have taken to deal shopping for stuff like that. Since I put discretionary spending on hold, I have to get a little bit excited about something.

It was either Thursday or Sunday, I wore Epic 56 from one of the two dabbers that I have. When I visited my mother in the hospital that day, she said that I smelled really good. But for a good long while, I couldn't place which perfume Epic 56 reminded me of. Then it eventually came to me. Epic 56 is a fancier version L'Air du Desert Morrocain. It has been a while since I have worn the original Epic and LADDM but I am sure that the original Epic would be the same thing.

Shopping

I have been working on curbing needless shopping, especially when it comes to things that I do not need. Let's say it is really difficult to do. I have made progress but I did back slide on that a little bit. My mother ended up in the hospital on Friday night and they say she might be coming home on Thursday. So I did back slide a little bit and after looking back on the past month, it is starting to look like it's been marginally more than a little bit. 

The things that were on the excessive side were those two Luckyscent orders. One was the Hiram Green sample set and the second order was the spray decants of the two new Andy Tauer releases. The Bath and Body Works order was on the excessive side too, in its own way. I didn't need that single wick candle or those three hand soaps. They might have been on sale but I still didn't need them. I am having a hell of a time trying to use up what I already have. I am hoping that I can make progress on the candle that I started three weeks ago.

The past Prime Day, I was getting some of the essentials. You know, the boring stuff like vitamins and toothpaste. So I did find the vitamins that I really wanted and used my gift card for that and a set of jasmine and gardenia candles. Those two candles are little and would make either a house warming gift or a birthday gift. The good thing is that I haven't hit up Ulta or Sephora. I know that I am probably going to lose my diamond status at Ulta this year and I am okay with that. I will just have to remember to use those points before the end of the year.

Since I am getting back on track, I have to really behave these next few weeks. I have a vacation coming up and I want to make sure that I do have some kind of fun money for it. On Sunday, I did.notice that I was getting low on the chai reach concentrate. When  I was starting the checkout process, there was something that popped up about bed sheets. I do need some bed sheets but it wasn't that night on the priority list. But I did cave and got some new bed sheets in black. I don't know what possessed me to chose black, but I did.

The only good thing right now is that I haven't gotten a full bottle of anything at this point.

Amazon Prime Day 2025

Since we have gotten through another Amazon Prime Day, I have some thoughts on Amazon. Amazon used to be a website that used to sell only books way back in the day when online shopping really wasn't much of a thing. So I have been shopping from Amazon for quite a while. Eventually, Amazon became this huge thing.and I became Prime member. Back in the day, I would have to wait the better part of a week before I got my books and it was the shipping cost was atrocious but as online shopping evolved, so did Amazon.

For quite a while, I was a Prime member off and on but for the past couple years, I have stuck with Amazon Prime. With how much Prime shows I watch and how much my dad likes the 2 day shipping, it's worth it. But for the past couple Prime Days, I haven't been too interested. This year, I did spend a little bit but not much. I ordered a 4 pack of spearmint tooth paste, 2 bottles of hair and nail vitamins and a video game for my dad to give on his birthday. Do you know how hard it is to find spearmint toothpaste? It is pretty difficult. When I got my package, the game and toothpaste were correct but what I got instead of the vitamins that I ordered, I got Poo Pourri. That is nowhere near what I ordered. I chatted with Amazon and wondered how vitamins and the Poo Pourri were similar. I got a refund via an Amazon gift card and I didn't have to return the wrong item. I can use the Poo Pourri as a gag gift. I did have to download a couple songs that I was thinking of getting.

But last week, I did get some things accomplished. I went through all of my clothes and got rid of what I didn't want and organized the rest of it. Do you k ow how hard it was just to even get started on just my closet? It was rough. It was a grand total of three and a half black trash bags of clothes for donation. I wasn't quite so willing to go through my makeup and perfume to see what can be either donated or possibly sold. I did find a place that will accept the candles that I do not want but I do have to sit down and really think about what needs to go and what stays.

 

Lush Sleepy Review

 

Since I have used up my Lyric hand lotion and shower gel, I decided to start something new in terms of body stuff. I still have the Lyric body butter and even though I don't have a lot left, I am hoarding it. Right now it's the Lush Sleepy shower gel and body lotion.

I do have the Lush Rose Jam body wash but not the lotion of Rose Jam. I think that Rose Jam has a gift set on ULTA and I will eventually check it out but right this second.

I had a dentist appointment on Monday and wanted something a little more calming. Going to the dentist is always rough for me because it never seems to be good news when I go.

Sleepy is a lavender dominant line up but it's nothing to loud. Sometimes lavender can be loud but Sleepy is not loud in anyway shape or form, it is soothing. I can't say that it made me sleepy but made.me feel calmer. I did find that the body lotion felt a little greasy on me for a good long while. The greasy aspect took me by surprise because my skin is really dry and sucks up lotion like it is going out of fashion. Sleepy is a little loud when I first apply it but quickly calms down. 

For a while after my dentist appointment, I had the bright idea or remembered the bright idea of layering Sleepy with Jicky. Jicky is a slutty lavender bomb. I couldn't find my spray bottle of the edp but found some last dregs of a Jicky extrait that I had gotten at Saks Fifth when I was first starting out in my perfume journey 15 years ago. Granted that this was a sample of what was the current extrait at the time.  I don't even know if Guerlain still makes the extrait of anything anymore. Let's just say that the Jicky extrait that I had and Sleepy play together beautifully. This combo is something that I would do again when I find my full spray bottle of Jicky or just say to hell with it and pull out my monster bottle of vintage Jicky. My monster bottle of vintage Jicky is probably the last time that Guerlain had the tear drop bottle of anything. Now I am wondering if Iris Silver Mist would play nicely with Sleepy.

Many Things and Some of it Bad

It's been a rough few days in my neck of the woods. On Thursday, we got a phone call from my grandmother's memory care letting us know that she did pass between 6am and 7am. We are just waiting for the doctor to sign off on the death certificate before we finish planning the funeral. Her death wasn't really a surprise between her dementia and her kidney disease. 

But this got me to starting think about what I need to wear in terms of clothing but I started to mostly about which perfume to wear. I have more of what I want to wear in terms of clothing. The choices are Jicky, Infusion d'Iris or De Profundis. Even though I have a mini of Calvin Klein Euphoria but I think is inappropriate even though it was my grandmother's signature perfume. 

Since I have a dentist appointment today, I decided to give Lush's Sleepy body products a go. Wanted something a little more soothing for today. With the whopping dose of lavender, I am thinking that this one can be layered with Jicky since Jicky has a huge lavender note. I figured that why not give layering a go. I haven't applied Jicky yet so I can't tell if that combo is any good. When I get around to using some Rose Jam, I can probably get away with layering it with Lyric. Eventually I will report back and see how it goes.
 

All Sorts of Things

I kept flirting with the idea of doing a post (if I hadn't already), of what I would like to see in parfum form. Not seeing Chanel no 5 parfum in stock online got me to think on that a little bit. You very rarely see parfum version of anything anymore. You might see extrait de parfum once in a while with niche but nothing else. Amouage did have the parfum version of some of their line but but that was mostly done away with and they now have the Exceptional Extrait line up. Intense version of any perfume is pretty meaningless to me. I want the ritual of a splash bottle of parfum version.

The two perfumes that I would like to see done in parfum form would be Estee Lauder Pleasures or Clinique Happy. Pleasures does come in an intense version and I haven't smelled that yet. I don't want to go back into the habit of blind buying again since I have pulled myself out of that recently. Estee Lauder and Clinique have the means to do something like this but they don't. Maybe something in the original formula doesn't translate well or they think something might not be good enough for even just a holiday run. I don't know which one I would get first if that happened because I am sure that they would be more reasonably priced that what Chanel would sell and maybe a little bit of a bigger bottle.

It looks like Andy Tauer did release another limited edition after he released Nexin. This one that he just released, was sold out when I got to the website. I wasn't looking to get a bottle, I was interested in the price, the concentration and how big the bottle was. I did notice a price increase on Andy Tauer offerings but I did notice a price hike on other perfume line ups. The price hikes on groceries is a little rough but seeing bigger price hikes on everything else sucks. I have enough perfume perfume to last a few lifetimes but I still want to try new things.

One TV show that I have watched ever since the beginning is Call the Midwife on PBS and the 15th season will drop sometime in 2026. I just found out that season 15 will be the last season and we will be getting a prequel. I am sad that Call the Midwife is ending but I did notice that the quality of the show has gone down in the past few seasons. Too many new characters were introduced and left fairly quickly with little to no explanation. I did noticed in the past season or two is that there have been a couple episodes that were very nitty gritty like in the first three seasons. I think that that should have been my first inkling that there really might not be a whole lot of time nor life for Call the Midwife. I did notice the past season when one of the main characters that has been there since the beginning was absent for a couple episodes, and she was in every episode before. So after Call the Midwife is finished, it will be mostly Grandchester and All Creatures Great and Small of my TV watching.

Starting to Get Somewhere

I am typing this on my Kindle since this is the only technology I have that is still working okay for the most part.So I view it as getting somewhere since I kind of gave up on the home computer for now. I am not so willing to even attempt trying to blog on my cellphone.

I am not fully sure on what happened with my mother and why she was having a meltdown. But she has been in the hospital since last Monday and she is coming home tomorrow. So that means that I have to get a little more serious with the cleaning right now. I am just taking a little break before I hunker down to get going on the last little bit.

 What I did was refreshed the bottles of perfume that I have sitting out. I was a little tired of looking at the bottles that I had out for weeks but not really wearing. There are some that remained. I kept Lyric because I still wear it quite often and no 5 edt and the parfum  version. I still have loads of no 5 that I really need to get working on to thin that part of my collection. What changed was I put away what I wasn't really wearing and pulled some new ones out. I pulled out some Epic and Ubar along with a bottle of no 19 edt. We are going to have loads of 90+ degree temps next week and want something a little cooler but has some kind of backbone. My bottle of Charles 62 has remained due to this be my current work go to.

One thing that I am looking forward to is either a full bottle or travel spray of something from the perfume house called Headspace. Portia from Perfume Posse was having a drawing and somehow managed to win. I am not one who wins anything in any drawing too often. I am perfectly happy with a travel spray, especially since I have never tried anything from Headspace. There are just so many perfumes houses and perfumes and I can't get to them all.

Out of Stock? And Other Things

My computer is still being an ass and I still can't get a whole lot to work on this stupid thing. Too many things get "timed out". I can't exactly do much of anything on this stupid thing, even Blogger is having a tough time. So I am a little frusterated with a few things and might have to switch to my really old and crappy laptop to get some of the results that I want in terms of blogging.

My mother is back in the hospital and this time she is in a place where the staff is better able to manage her care for the time being. I don't know how long she is going to be there or what is going to happen. So with missed time from work, things are going to be very thin for a while. But what makes a couple things easier is that the Father's Day gift has already been paid off and my dad's birthday is in August. 

You know how I wasn't exactly enthused with Cheirosa 62? Now I am smitten and I never exactly expected to be smitten with it. For what it is, I think it should be priced more like the Bath and Body Works line up. I still think that it is a little overpriced for what it is. I did break down and did get the 8 ounce bottle of the body spray and after that bottle is gone, it probably won't be replaced and I will probably be sticking to the lotion which is a little more reasonably priced. But with all of the perfume that I already have, it might be a while and I have two one ounce body sprays which will make that other bottle last a whole lot longer. If I only had a handful of perfume, that body splash would be gone pretty quick. But there have been perfumes in that past that I have either disliked or outright hated but then fell in love with it for some reason, or developed some kind of liking for it.

While I was poking around and planning my next purchase of Chanel no 5 parfum, I kept noticing that many of the major retailers that carries Chanel have been out of stock of the parfum version. In a tizzy, I go to the Chanel website and see that Chanel isn't carrying the parfum version of no 5, no 19, Coco and Coco Mademoiselle and I find that a little strange, Why would Chanel get rid of the parfum version of anything, especially no 5? No 5, along with Coco Mademoiselle are their flagship perfumes. Unless there are issues with production or shipping. I am dreading that no 5, especially in parfum form will be reformulated, even though I am not really in the market for a bottle right now. I am hoping that when Sephora has thier fall sale, it will be back in circulation but if it isn't, it won't be the end of the world. 

A Zip (Buy Now, Pay Later) Review

        My computer is still being an asshole since Windows 11 has been installed and so is my internet connection for some reason (still) and I am hoping that sometime soon things will get straightened out but today is not that day. I am still kind of new to the whole buy now pay later scene. For the longest time, I was only able to get my foot in the door with Afterpay and I have been using that for about 3 or 4 years. Thus far, it seems like Afterpay is still the easiest to get your foot in the door with. I still can't get my foot in the door with Klarna, Paypal pay in 4 or Affirm and I am okay with that.

     In the past couple months, I somehow managed to get my foot in the door with Zip and Sezzle and I was never able to beforehand. I haven't used Sezzle yet but I have used Zip. There is a reason that I am reviewing Zip today. Some of the reason why I wanted to use Zip was for the times where I need to pay my cellphone bill and didn't quite have the means to pay it. Afterpay has never let me pay my Verizon bill through them. I can buy cellphones, gift cards and giftcards if I went to Verizon through the Afterpay app but was never "allowed" to pay my cellphone bill for some reason. With Zip, I have the ability to do that.

     While it is a great thing that I can pay my cellphone bill on Zip and I am sure that I probably could pay other bills through Zip, I have only a $150 limit. To get a higher limit, I would have to pay off 5 orders. I am working on my last 2 orders to pay off and even then I wouldn't know what kind of limit I would have afterwards and it would raise my limit to probably $200. It kind of helps but it doesn't, I would rather pay my entire cellphone bill if I need to on Zip but a $340 cellphone bill is quite a bit. I have the top of the line cellphone plan and 3 brand new cellphones that I am paying on. But I have been able to pay at least part of my cellphone bill with Zip and this is mainly what I am going to be using Zip for.

     There are some big differences between Zip and Afterpay in terms of getting things. More often than not, Afterpay doesn't have a minimum threshold when using Afterpay. If I spend $15 at Ulta and use Afterpay, I am only paying $3.50 every two weeks. With Zip, the minimum threshold is $35 but the biggest thing that I have noticed with Zip, there is a $4 surcharge with every purchase that I would make and have made. Let's just say that I am a little hesitant to use Zip because I am not exactly so willing to pay an extra $4 for every purchase that I am thinking of making. So if I am making a $35 Walmart purchase, I am actually paying $4 on top of that $35. Yes, for every order, Zip tacks on an extra $4 surcharge for every order that I make using Zip. I haven't used Sezzle yet and don't know if they do the same thing. But Zip is giving me more of a credit card kind of vibe without really being a credit card.

     I am intriged though on when I pay off my two other orders on what my limit would be afterwards. I am not expecting too much of an increase. With Afterpay, the limit increases start out pretty small. When my limit was $100 and after about 6 weeks my limit was raised to $200 and was increased by $100 until I hit $1,400 and then I was looking at $250 to $500 increases in one sitting and I am thinking that Zip might be more of the same way but I haven't been using Zip that long or that often. For me, Zip does have a purpose but it's probably not going to be my primary BNPL go to, that's why I use Afterpay because I am not a fan of surcharges or added fees tacked on to my purchases. While I might be okay with having what I have with the whole BNPL, which is the fact that I have options if I need them.

Vacation and Technology

       Right now, my internet connection is being a jerk along with this huge computer update. It was decided that we needed to switch to Windows 11 since apparently Windows 10 won't be supported too much longer. So it's been a rough few days trying to get things to work let alone properly. Having a hard time trying to upload pictures to stick on here but I am not going to worry about that right this second. Then I am trying to get used to the Samsung Galaxy update and I am not liking it too much. I just don't like slow internet along with system updates. I am just sick and tired of things getting "timed out".

     So far I am day 6 of my first vacation of the year. Yesterday was my mother's birthday and we went out to dinner. Wednesday was marked by one doctor's appointment and I had another one today. But I did manage to go to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. This was the first time that I have been in there since before the pandemic. It took them 4 years to remodel the whole thing. It looks nice enough but there seems to be less stuff on display. No Balto display, no shrunken head display and there seemed to be much less. But then again, I didn't spend a whole lot of time there. There were too many schools trying to get one last field trip in before summer vacation. It seemed that nobody was paying a whole lot of attention to these kids and I was constantly tripping over groups of 10 year olds with no situational awareness. I am hoping that I will be able to go back with far fewer people and more time on my hands. That pesky doctor's appointment said that I couldn't spend a whole lot of time there. In a way, I was a little more hoping that I would go to the art museum and I think that it might have been a little quieter with less kids running around. With every field trip that I ever took as a kid, nobody was turned loose, we all had to stay with our group. Maybe standards have been relaxed.

     Right now, I seem to be beefing with Ulta right now. A couple years ago, I had ordered a bigger bottle of Chanel no 5 edp or Eau Premiere and was sent some kind of celebrity scent. I was not thrilled with that one and it was a massive pain in the ass to fix. And I thought that that was going to be a simple mistake. A month ago I had placed an order and when it showed up, I was missing a couple lip liners and I just decided that I was just going to be refunded. I just didn't want the hassle. On Sunday, I had placed an order for smaller bottle of Coco Mademoiselle Intense and some Lush bath and body stuff and paid with a good chunk of points that I have accumulated. When I got my order, I was a little surprised to find that I was missing the Rose Jam body wash and somehow ended up with a purple eyeliner. I was a whole lot less amused this time around. I don't wear eyeliner and if I did, it wouldn't purple and it was a NYX eyeliner. Since when does a NYX eyeliner cost a shade over $12? And how can one confuse eyeliner and bodywash? For a while the Ulta reps couldn't find my order and when they did, I had said that I have been a loyal customer for 8 years and I have noticed a decline in getting what I have ordered and when I get it. I hate complaining about stuff like this but when these mistakes are becoming more frequent, I think that this is a training problem. And the training problem rests at the feet of corporate suits as I always think it does and some of the blame rests at the manager's feet. I had the choice of either getting my points back or they send me the bottle of Rose Jam and I chose the Rose Jam. After all is said and done, I still have $80 in rewards points but I will wait for when Ulta has a really good point multiplier going on before I go and make another order since I will probably need more lotion and face cream.

Bath Stuff and Bad News

 Well, there has been some pretty bad news on the mom front. The hospital finally got around to doing the tests that they needed to do. The tests have determined that my mother has dementia. I am thinking that it's probably in the moderate stage. Mom hasn't been released yet and at first they were talking on releasing her tomorrow but now they seem to be going for Wednesday. I am just waiting for them to push it back further, so I don't know when she is coming home. At this point, we don't know what kinds of services she needs or anything. I know that my dad wants to keep her home as long as he can. So I think that my father is starting to get a lot of things in order and see what exactly needs to be done. I am not fully sure that we would be able to keep my mother at home for very long. In some ways, I do hope that my sister comes out, even if it is a week, to help us get a few things set up. Mom's dementia could progress slowly or quickly and my mother is about to turn 70 next week, so she is kind of on the young side of all of this. It's just a lot to take in at this point. So I have been trying to clean up the house a little more and use up some candles to try and save my sanity. In the past 2 weeks, I have used up 3 candles.

I know this is a rip off from March's post over at Perfume Posse butI don't often talk about bath stuff but something kind of funny did happen. Some time last year, I had bought the Drunk Elephant Sweet Pitti deoderant and I started to use it about 2 weeks ago when I ran out of my other deoderant. For the first couple days, everything seemed to be fine until about 3 or 4 days ago. I noticed a smell while I was at work. Since I work at a grocery store, sometimes you can get just random bad smells and I didn't think anything of it. Then when I was at work the next day, it was the same thing. Then after I took a shower the next day and put on my deoderant, I realized that smell was me. Well it was the deoderant and I had to take a look at it. The Sweet Pitti doesn't have baking soda or aluminum in it. When one works in the bakery, it can get really hot and humid and that means that I sweat. I don't want to be wafting onions in the bakery. The smell of rising bread and cookies is what most people should be smelling when they enter the bakery. But that doesn't stop me from wearing perfume while I am at work.