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.
 

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.
 

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.

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.

Tauer Golestan Extrait de Parfum Review

I am currently in the middle of some kind of eczema flare right now. Currently, I'm an itchy mess. My mother asked if it was all the perfume I wear and I had to say no. Perfume is one of the things that doesn't trigger my eczema no matter what I seem to wear. I'm thinking that it's all of these weather fluctuations that are triggering it. I think that I really should think about making that doctor's appointment and see if I can get in early before I go to work. The joys of working in the afternoons is having a hard time trying to get a doctor's appointment early enough so I am not late for work.

When Andy Tauer released Golestan last year, I quickly snapped up a mini from his website. It seems like TPC and STC seem to not be stocking as many perfumes as they used to but then again, I am ordering less from them to begin with. But I haven't been wearing any Tauer offerings a whole lot for some reason and I have quite a bit of Tauer offerings.

Yesterday, I quit dragging my feet and decided to wear Golestan. I didn't give a shit if it was humid out, I wanted to try Golestan. When I first dabbed it on, I immediatly identified the Tauer base. Then the tuberose came in to full effect about 5 minutes after I first put it on. For a while, I couldn't figure out why Golestan seemed to familiar. I knew that Andy Tauer did something like this not too long ago. I was mulling over that all day yesterday and then this morning, I finally figured it out. This is almost like Tuberose Sotto la Luna. Some people have compared it to Gardenia Sotto la Luna. But it has the Sotto la Luna Tuberose vibe. And you can't get the tuberose one anywhere and I am guessing that it has been discontinued. I do get some jasmine is Golestan but it's mostly tuberose and the Tauer base to my nose.

I can't exactly tell you about the lasting power since what I have is a dabber but it is an extrait de parfum and you can smell it. I would like a full bottle of this and maybe I will get it for my birthday or I will get that bottle of Lonestar Memories first. But my birthday is months away and I have time to make that decision.
 

Tauer Golestan and Sephora

 It's been a long time since I've blogged about anything relating to Andy Tauer. Last week, I had received an email saying that Andy Tauer has released a new perfume. I will admit that I did get pretty excited. So excited that I ordered a mini on Thursday. When I get my mini, I will probably give it a shot right when I get it.

I'm still trying to make an effort of slowing down the whole perfume buying thing. I am making nowhere near the purchases in terms of perfume like I used to. Shit, I haven't even tried Sundowner yet and I do have a dabber from Luckyscent. I'm still trying to lay off the candles too and might have to skip Candle Day in December with how things are looking. Inflation and not working as much have really taken a toll on the finances.

Since the Sephora sale is going to be winding down soon, I pretty much stuck to what I had already picked out. I think that my haul was pretty decent for with what I had to work with. Some Drunk Elepant soap and lotion, a Boy Smells Hinoki Fantome and some kind of face wash. I wasn't so enthused with the sale this time around. Thus far, I am not so interested in procuring anything more from Sephora for the rest of the year. Anything regarding make up will most likely be done at Ulta but I think even then, I won't be getting much. There is only so much make up and perfume you can buy before it kind of sucks. Ulta and Sephora mainly carry the latest and greatest perfumes and I have enough of Coco Mademoiselle and no 5 to last me quite a while.

Fall is Coming and Evaporation

So much of this year, especially this summer has been mostly spent in Chanel no 5, Coco Mademoiselle and Lyric. Today's perfume is Amouage Epic. Epic is more of a fall type of perfume to my nose for some reason. It just reminds me of fall.

Now that we are creeping into fall, it's time to begin breaking out the fall perfumes. I don't have a lot in the way of transition scents or ones for fall. The main one that I have is LADDM. 

I did notice that the perfume in the bottle evaporated a little more and I haven't been wearing it in quite a while. I took a look at the bottles that I have on my dresser and noticed that my Andy Tauer full bottles seem to evaporate much quicker than the others. I think that this is probably the main reason why I really don't have too many full bottles from Tauer Perfumes. I really think that it's the bottle design that is causing the whole problem with evaporation. Evaporation is the bane of my existence when it comes to perfume. I hate throwing out decants due to evaporation and had to do some of that last week with my unworn and not reviewed stuff and I need to do that again with that makeup bag to see if there are a few that I do need to pitch. So I guess this fall is going to be pretty heavy on LADDM and a couple other Tauer offerings and will probably have to push myself to just finish those bottles and not have to worry so much.

Let's talk candles at this point. I am still working on trying to whittle down my collection and it's been really slow going right now. It seems like as soon as I finished 8 of them, I replaced 6 of them. I'm about to finish up to more candles and will have them finished by tomorrow at the very latest. But I do think that I should lay off trying to use up the single wick candles and really attack the 3 wick candles. The 3 wick candles just take up so much damn space and I need the space. Do I need that space? Not at the moment but would like to have some kind of extra space if I do need some. What I am fighting against is that Bath and Body Works has released their Honeycrisp Apple and Apple Weather candles and then soon enough Winter and Evergreen will be released. I'm still torn on if I should burn to 3 wick candles at a time or just one 3 wick candle. I have no idea yet.
 

Quickly Evaporating

 Recently I have been wearing the same few scents over and over again. Can't seem to get enough of Lyric, no 5 or Deneuve it seems like. I haven't been wearing a lot of my Andy Tauer perfumes. After that LADDM mini breaking and a fair chunk spilled on my hand, I haven't been wearing them too much. So I took a break.

After going through a couple perfumes, I took a look at the Andy Tauer bottles that I had on my dresser. In spite of me not really wearing them for a couple months. it looks like some evaporation took place. I do find that a little strange though. The bottles of Noontide Petals, Une Rose Vermeille are older bottles and I have worn them but they shouldn't really be as low as they are. Noontide Petals and URV aren't that terribly used up but LADDM is a fair bit lower. I'm not so upset that LADDM is somewhat evaporating in all honesty since LADDM is still in production whereas the other two are not. I am honestly thinking that it's the whole design of the bottles and spray mechanism that is probably the issue or even the cap itself that is the issue. 

With everything going on with the evaporation and looks like Andy Tauer is revamping his whole lineup, I am currently reluctant to get and more Tauer perfumes at the moment. I don't veiw that as such a bad thing though since I have to much perfume already and really ought to start using up full bottles.

Candle Day is Almost Here and Une Rose Chypree

 Christmas shopping is pretty much done for me. I am looking at getting my dad another video game and getting a friend a small Starbucks gift card and that will complete my Christmas shopping. Thus far, I still haven't seen any kind of deals that excite me.

What I am really excited for is when Bath and Body Works is going to have their 3 wick candle sale this weekend. This candle event is different due to the pandemic, instead of it being 1 day, it is being held all weekend and the price is a little lower than last year's price. Instead of $9.50, it's $8.95. Not a huge difference but either way, it's still a fabulous price. I am going with a friend on Saturday to get some candles but I gave him the heads up that we are going fairly early and we are not pushing it to later afternoon nor pushing it to Sunday. I'd rather not lollygag and not get the ones that we wanted. With the pandemic and what might be sketchy stocking, it will be better to go early. We both don't plan on getting the maximum of 15 candles. I have only budgeted $50 and never planned on getting the full 15 to begin with. Even though I know what I want, I am pretty stoked to go.

I was poking around Luckyscent for some strange reason last night and Andy Tauer's website and had to do a double take. It looks like Andy Tauer might be revamping his whole line. I don't know if it's because of the pandemic or just wanting to make changes but it seems like this year, the changes have been huge. Earlier in the year, Une Rose Vermeille was discontinued and now it looks like Une Rose Chypree has fallen victim to discontinuation. I hope that they are not permanantly discontinued, it just seems like Andy Tauer has released so many things so quickly but has discontinued a bunch of things in the process. It looks like I might be using Une Rose Chypree a little more sparingly even though I don't wear it a lot.

Andy Tauer L'Air des Alpes Suisses EDP Review

It looks like Andy Tauer might have discontinued another one. This time in the form of Une Rose Chypree. I'm not really convinced that he discontinued both Une Rose Chypree or Une Rose Vermeille. Partly because of Covid-19 and it's making shipping a real bear to deal with. I hope that he really hasn't and maybe someone out there has the straight answer. But finally I get motivated enough to actually review a perfume. Part of the reason is that the decant I had had only one or two measly wearings before it was all gone. I think that either STC or TPC changed their decants and evaporation is a bigger problem now.

L'Air des Alpes Suisses is definitely a Tauer perfume because of the Tauer base. Hints of pine, lavander and a whisper of ambergris but it's not a heavy perfume. Nor is it in the likes of the generic colognes that I have smelled a million times before. For a while, I couldn't put my finger on why it smelled so familiar. It's similar to Les Annees 25 (not the BIS version). Pine isn't a not that's used too often in perfumery. If it ever is, pine takes on that pine car freshener or Pine-Sol. I really do enjoy L'Air des Alpes Suisses and not because it is from Andy Tauer and I am a fangirl of his work; I just enjoy this one. The lasting power on my skin is about 6 hours. For me, this would be great on hot and humid days or just plain, old humid days. Suisses is definitely full bottle worthy to me.

Tauer Les Annees 25 BIS Review

In mid-September, Andy Tauer did release a new review. At this moment, I can't remember the name of it and I do have a decant but haven't tested it out. But a couple weeks ago, Andy Tauer had a surprise release. He released a flanker of Les Annees 25 BIS. From his em-mail, the impression that I am getting is that he was surprised on how fast the original sold out. Granted, it was a limited edition with only 500 bottles made. I hoped that this will be more of a permanent part of his line up. I was lucky enough to get a 5ml mini directly from his website. I ordered within a half an hour of getting the e-mail, I was that eager to test this one out.

Since I haven't put this in a spray decant, this is from dabbing Les Annees 25 BIS. It is so much like the original Les Annees but yet it's a little louder but yet a little smoother than the original. It's kind of like what happened with L'Air du Desert Marocain and Au Coeur du Desert. Louder yet smoother at the same time.

Since I am working off a couple dabs from 3 days ago, I have to give this another go today and see what else that I can get from BIS. But from what I am remember that BIS is pretty much full bottle worthy and I hope it sticks around in the line up for a while.

Les Annees 25 BIS

Only a couple months ago, Andy Tauer released L'Air des Alpes. I have finally gotten my decant of that after waiting pretty much a month for it but at least I got a decant to try. When I woke up yesterday and checked my e-mail, I saw that I had an e-mail from Tauer Perfumes. There is a surprise release called Les Annees 25 BIS.

In the e-mail, Andy Tauer stated that minis would be shipped to the US and I naturally snapped one up. I am wondering how different it is going to be from the original Les  Annees 25. I am still kicking myself for not getting a bottle of Les Annees 25 when I had the chance. I wonder if it is going to be like Au Coeur du Desert. Au Coeur des Desert is a smoother, quieter version of L'Air du Desert Marocain. A full bottles of Les Annees 25 BIS is being sold for $160 and I hope that this is not a limited edition.

The No Buy Period

I have embarked on a no buy for perfume. I had started in September and since then it's been really tough. Andy Tauer has released a new perfume and when Luckyscent had a promo if you spent $100 and over, you entered a promo code to get a 5ml mini of it. You don't know how sorely I was tempted to get a bottle of Lonestar Memories to get that mini. If I remember right, on Andy Tauer's site, if you bought a full bottle, you could get a mini too. But some reality busted right through and it came in the form of needing two crowns on two teeth. Have I gotten those two crowns? Nope, still dealing with insurance stuff and also need a tooth pulled first.

When I am saying no buy, it doesn't mean that I don't get groceries or do anything, it means that I've really tightened my belt. I only allocate so much a week for groceries and allocate a whole lot less for going out and doing anything. But it seems like I have been attempting this no buy thing for too long. The last full bottle I had bought was Kiehl's Musk Blend in August. It was cheap enough without free shipping, a 20% coupon and a gift card. But all of those things made it cost me next to nothing. But it's still very had to change old habits, even my decant purchases have changed. I have really had to cut back on that. If there is a 15% or 20% coupon, I take a look at it and debate of it there is anything that I really want and if there is, I can't go above a 2ml decant. If I play my cards right and save my money, I might be able to get something around Christmas time.

New Releases

There was a time where I did pay attention to new releases. After a while, I only paid attention to only a few houses that were releasing something new. Amouage, Chanel, Andy Tauer and Serge Lutens were the ones that I did pay attention to. For a while, most of those houses have new releases every couple months and I couldn't keep up with all of the new releases. So many of the new releases have smelled like so many other perfumes that I have tried before or smelled on other people before. Except Andy Tauer.

Andy Tauer has been one of those perfumers that doesn't release a perfume every few months. Seems like every year and a half or maybe two, he does release something; so he takes his time with something. I have been eagerly awaiting his newest release and found out through his Facebook page that his newest creation is going to be released on September 15th. The funny thing is that it happens to be on my birthday and I am a huge Tauer fan. If it is full bottle worthy, I won't be able to sink money on a bottle but I am waiting for the moment that I can get my hands on a decant.

Fall

Here in the US, we are coming upon the unofficial end of summer. Summer doesn't technically end for another 3 weeks but kids are back in school and in many parts of the country, it's fair time. In a lot of ways, I do like going to my local county fair and will sometimes go to others. Seeing the animals, eating things that are not good for me. But every time I go to the fair, I keep thinking off what perfumes really work for fall. In Northeastern Ohio, fall is filled with county fairs, clambakes, cooler weather, changing of the leaves and eventually, changing of perfume to fit the season. I just can't help but wonder where the summer has gone. It seems like yesterday, the kids were just let out of school and making all this noise to dead quiet.

Quite a few of Andy Tauer's work do fit with fall but there are a few that really fit. I find that L'Air du Desert Marocain, Lonestar Memories and Au Coeur de Desert fit the best. I can say that Les Annees 25 and Noontide Petals fit pretty well too. Les Annees 25 was a limited edition and Noontide Petals has been discontinued. I am always saddened when a perfume is discontinued or I find out that a perfume that I fell in love with was a limited edition.

Guerlain has always been a little bit of a goofy house to me. Quite a few of their perfumes have been really sweet or more geared for spring and summer. I don't see that many that are geared for the changing into fall, except Mitsouko, especially in vintage form. Mitsouko has that muted amber thing going on that just seems to suit those cool fall nights.

Theorema is a fabulous fall fragrance. Sweet, candied oranges with an oriental feel. Not too heavy for fall and works in those fall days where it's not quite sweater weather but the longer sleeves that don't cover the whole arm. It's a pity that Fendi decided to discontinue this gem and I don't know why Fendi likes to discontinue things after 2 or 3 years.

Feminite du Bois is rounding up this little list. It doesn't really matter if you have the Serge Lutens or the Shiseido version because they both work very well in fall. Not too heavy but it's interesting because it's not a typical feminine perfume.

Samples, Samples and More Samples

I am still obsessed with some home based stuff. I am currently looking at corner shelving to put my perfume collection on since I am still working on my clothes situation. It's the getting rid of throwing stuff out and donating stuff that has been a huge challenge so far. It's amazing that how much stuff can be accumulated in such a short amount of time. But at this time, I am still looking at the Bath and Body Works wallflower refills. I am gearing up for having enough of them to last me a year before I need to stock up again. I am pretty picky on candles and room sprays. Most are either too strong or just smell strange. my favorites are the apple or lilac ones. The pumpkin apple or whatever they pair the apple with doesn't do it for me due to having just a very faint apple smell that's drowned out by the cinnamon, clove and other things that have been added.

Yesterday, I hopped on over to Andy Tauer's website to just bite the bullet and just order a mine of Les Annees 25. For some reason, when I went to check out, there was an issue. My order couldn't be completed and I was left scratching my head. I figured that I should check out Andy Tauer's blog to see if there might be any info and there was. Apparently, there is a problem with some kind of government agencies/post office that are starting to kick back sample packs and minis back to Andy Tauer. So right now, no more sample packs will be mailed to the US and I think a few other countries. I hope that this isn't permanent but it just might be. The funny thing about this is that Andy Tauer is still able to ship full bottles out to the US and that doesn't make any sense but when dealing with the post office/customs, nothing ever makes any kind of sense.

With that stuff said, I would rather order samples, minis and full bottles through Andy Tauer's website and not Luckyscent or anywhere else. I would rather the cash I am paying going directly to the perfumer and not some middleman.

Andy Tauer Eau D'Epices Review

When Andy Tauer had his 3 15ml travel set, I decided one of them would be Eau D'Epices. For quite a while, I never really picked it up and tried it out for some reason. I'm not sure why, maybe when I did try it, I couldn't describe it and still can't really describe it.

I just can't find a way to review this in any real way. The typical Tauer base smacks me in the nose. Then come some spices and what smells like vetiver. I'm not exactly sure if it is vetiver but I smell something woody/grassy in there. What struck me the most on how similar it is to Orange Star. Eau D'Epices and Orange Star can be considered siblings.

Lasting power is about 6-7 hours on skin and has moderate projection. Looking at everything, I don't think that I will seek out a bottle. It's a good thing to though. Looks like this one is either discontinued or sold out. I am leaning towards discontinued since it hasn't been seen on Andy Tauer's website or Luckyscent in quite a while. But on the perfume blogoshere, it doesn't seem to get a whole lot of love.

Tauer L'Oudh Review

Yesterday, I decided to suck it up and just try something to review, even though I wanted to wear Ubar. I will admit that I have never smelled a perfume where oud. I was thinking of testing L'Oudh on Saturday while at work and I am happy that I didn't.

L'Oudh starts off really strange. It started off as this strange cat pee type of thing. That sticks around for a good 15 minutes. Then there is a shift to something rubbery. A cross between a Band-aid and asphalt and L'Oudh just kind of stayed there. I didn't get a whole lot of development after those things except what smells like a little pepper. The dry down was okay but there wasn't anything is L'Oudh that I enjoyed or even tolerated.

I might be the biggest Andy Tauer fangirl but this really stunk on my skin. Too much of this composition smelled like Zoologist Civet, which I wanted to like but just hated. So I guess that it's money saved for me.

One Over the Other

Ever since I've started down this perfume journey, I've noticed a few things. I have always preferred one house over the other. Or I lose interest in a house at a certain point. Some perfume houses seem pretty prolific when releasing perfume, others, not so much. But I lose interest all the same.

Let's start with Chanel. I do have some Chanel offerings in my collection. No 19, no 5 and no 22, Cuir de Russie. For a while, it was pretty easy to get decants of any Chanel offering, all I had to do was bop on over to TPC or STC and get a decant. Then Chanel decided that they didn't want that stuff and probably said that not so hot legal stuff will happen if you don't stop selling Chanel decants. That kind of ended a good chunk of my Chanel thing. I live out in the boonies and don't have access to a mall too often let alone a Chanel boutique. I just can't justify blind buying and I have underwhelmed by recent releases nor am I amused with Chanel changing the formulation of the Les Exclusif line (EDP instead of EDT). So it was time for me to move on.

Serge Lutens was another house that I kind of was obsessed with for a while, especially in the beginning of exploring what perfume had to offer. After a while, I did get kind of bored with his work. It all started to smell the same and the new releases started to smell like they were just poorly constructed. What also got me is some of the pricing has gotten outrageous. Three hundred plus dollars for a bell jar. Not happening unless I somehow manage to win enough with a scratch off lotto ticket (which ain't gonna happen since I don't play).

Amouage got irritating to me. While I love a ton of the earlier stuff, I did lose interest after Honour. Then Amouage really departed from their roots. What I did try were things that I have already smelled a million times before with a lower price point. So I am not amused with an already expensive brand cheapening itself but keeping the prices.

The one house that still fascinates me is Tauer Perfumes. Andy Tauer has experimented quite a bit but stayed true to his roots. Andy Tauer has kept prices reasonable in terms of niche perfumery and makes the effort to give the best quality perfume he can. The works released have been consistently good even though I didn't get along with a couple perfumes. I know that Andy Tauer is coming out with a new perfume and I can't wait to give it a go.

Tauer Perfumes and my Mom

 My mother has never been a huge perfume person but takes a passive road when it comes to perfume. She does comment once in a while about what I wear. When she said that Au Coeur du Desert smelled nice a few months back, I was thinking of getting her a full bottle for her birthday. Then I decided that it was a little bit of a stupid idea, I was the one that really wanted a full bottle. I jumped to Andy Tauer's website and ordered a sample of Au Coeur du Desert and LADDM for her for Mother's Day. Since my mother will be in California for Mother's Day, I gave her gift early. She loved the gift. When she tried LADDM and Au Coeur du Desert, she had told me that Tauer perfumes smell a whole lot better on me than her. Yes, she told me that Tauer Perfumes was my house. She has also tried Lonestar Memories and did like it but she didn't think that one suited her. She said she thinks it's because she prefers lighter perfumes like the crap that Dolche &Gabbana releases. The one thing that I am not looking forward to is the dogs begging to be fed at 5am nor getting my arm ripped out of it's socket when I take them on 8 walks a day. They don't like to listen to me when they are not on a leash. Well, they don't even like to listen to me when on a leash but I have better control of them when they are on the leash.

I do spend quite a bit of time on Now Smell This, especially reading the posts on what other people are wearing. Quite a few of us do wear Andy Tauer offerings on a regular basis on NST. But I see a lot of Une Rose Chypree, LADDM and one or two others quite frequently, there is one that doesn't seem to get talked about too often. That perfume is Une Rose Vermeille. URV either isn't as popular or others have it in their collection but forget about it. It took me a while to truly fall in love with URV. A lot of it was the raspberry note and some of it was the fact that URV has the lasting power of depleted plutonium. So I am wearing URV even though it's going to take a couple showers for it to finally dissapear.