Clinique Happy Bath and Body Stuff

It can be a difficult thing to find matching body products for perfume. Most of my niche perfumes don't have matching body products or they were discontinued (looking at you, Amouage).Unless something is a huge seller or the body products would be cheap to make and sell really well, none too many make matching bath and body products any more.

I know that Chanel focuses bath and body products on the no 5. Bath and Body Works has always done matching bath and body stuff since day one. I have only been able to find Estee Lauder Pleasures in lotion but no soap. But this leads me to Clinique Happy. A couple years ago, Ulta had stocking stuffers or the beauty stuff you could hang on your tree. So naturally, I snapped a couple of those up. How could I refuse a 5ml travel spray and 2 ounces of lotion?

Turns out that the 2 ounce lotion is some kind of funky lotion. I have had and tried the Amouage body butters and for a body butter, there was a firmer texter and it took a while to work into skin. This funky lotion is called a gelato and who knows why, maybe Clinique thought the term body butter was over used or wanted to draw some people in. I am just not so enthused with something just sits on my skin and takes forever to absorb.

I did eventually get the body wash and lotion. I find that the lotion doesn't quite moisturize enough. I find that the texture is nice but with my dry skin, I want my lotions to be a little more substantial, even in summer.

But the body product that really liked was the body wash. It cleans all the gross that has been accumulated. I love how much lather there is with the body wash and how it takes all the grime without fully stripping my skin.

I will admit that the Happy body care doesn't quite smell like the perfume but few body products smell like their perfume that they are supposed to go with. But I am mostly okay with that. With the way that Happy seems to deteriorate, I think I will mostly stick with the Happy products.

 

Christmas is Over

Christmas is finally over but the holiday season isn't quite New Year's. Since I work in retail, I can't exactly relax yet. I just have to make it one more week before everything calms down.

Christmas Eve and Christmas day had some drama in it. The skilled nursing place that my grandmother is at, isn't really doing what they really need to be doing. She has dementia and a busted leg that can't put any kind of weight on her leg. God above, I know it's the holidays, could someone really try to keep a better eye on her? To keep reminding her to call for help if she needs it and making sure that she isn't getting up on her own. Bringing a dish to Christmas dinner is always filled with drama. I wanted to just make the mashed potatoes with caramelized onions the night before but that led to when I make mashed potatoes, it's too lumpy. At the end of the day, Christmas was nice enough. But I am tired between work, wrapping presents, having to travel places.

I didn't get any perfume presents per se but got money towards it. Got a $15 Sephora gift card and had a $10 reward and turned that into the By Killian sample set. I have an Ulta gift card and there is a Clinique Happy sale, so I will nab that when I get a chance some time soon.This is pretty much been the closest that I have come to being gifted an actual bottle of perfume in years.

I have said that Clinique Happy doesn't have the longest shelf life when it comes to perfume. I have vintage bottles of Mitsouko that smell fabulous but for some reason Clinique Happy has a shelf life of about 5 years if you don't wear it to often. If Happy is your signature, you don't need to worry so much about shelf life.

It seems like the Bath and Body Works semi annual sale is pretty lackluster this year. I do remember last year's semi annual sale having more of a selection online. I narrowly missed out on nabbing more of the Sweet Whiskey candles but did manage to nab more Leather and Brandy single wicks. I was hoping for a little more selection for this sale. The good news is that the Pink Lavender  and Espresso candles are back in stock and what makes it really awesome is that they are in single wick form. But more candle buying has to wait until I use some more candles up and the next really good candle sale comes along.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving is Now Over

Thanksgiving is now over and now we have entered the Christmas season. That means from now until a couple days before Christmas, my inbox will be filled with sales ads.

This year, the deals seemed to be decent but nothing was really exciting me. I did nab a couple foaming hand wash things from Bath and Body Works for 20% off but didn't bite on the buy 3 get 3 free because I am really waiting for Candle Day. I did find the Clinique Happy body wash for a song. There was a time where I could easily get a body wash that matched but I don't see that anymore. In the mid to late 90's, I could get a gift set that was a bottle of perfume and the matching lotion and the soap. When I find those types of gift sets, it's usually a full bottle, lotion and travel spray. The last gift set that I got that I had a body wash was CK Obsession and that was in the later 90's. I kind of wonder when that switch over came about. It doesn't look like too many perfume companies offer body washes anymore. Even Amouage doesn't even have a whole lot in their bath and body line up. I keep looking for the Lyric, Epic and Honour stuff and I am having a hell of a time trying to find that stuff. That means that Amouage might be redoing their whole line up. I hope that Amouage isn't discontinuing anything as well, especially Lyric. Lyric is pretty much my go to Amouage.

Clinique Hint of Citrus Review

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

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

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

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

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

More Body Stuff to Review

 Clinique Happy is a throwback perfume for me. Happy came on to the market my sophomore year of high school (I know that I am dating myself). A few girls, along with myself did wear Happy but it seems like we seemed to stick with Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon. Working at minimum wage job for only 15-20 hours a week isn't a ton of cash and affording something a little more expensive than Bath and Body Works at the time was a luxury. When I was younger, and in high school, I did spend quite a bit at Bath and Body Works.

I don't ever recall trying out Happy's matching soaps and lotions but I now have had the opportunity to try out the gelato body cream. The body cream felt rich and decadent when I put it on after my shower and I really did enjoy the feeling while applying but I did notice about an hour in, the body cream doesn't seem to be enough for my dry skin. It might be leaving my skin feeling a little softer but not exactly moisturized. It might be due to the fact that it's almost 90F outside and pretty dry outside. This is where I think that I  have gotten a little too used to Chanel and Amouage body products. The Happy gelato cream does smell like Happy but there isn't a ton of scent to the cream. With Chanel and Amouage products, I don't really need to apply the perfume on top of the body products. This is probably a shrewd move on Clinique's part to get people to buy more but I'm not going to grudge them on that. I find the lotions to be nice enough but it doesn't really suit my needs in terms of lotion.

It's a rarity for me for me to use one of those pore strip things. I've never had problems with pimples, acne or blackheads. Once in a while I do use the pore strips when the sides of my nose look a little clogged up. The original pore strips got some of the crap out and I wanted to see if the charcoal pore strips would work any better. This turned out to be a bit fat no. The only thing that I noticed is that it was just easier to see what kind of crud came out of my nose than anything else. Do the Biore pore strips really work? Can't really say for others but for me, they don't really work all that great.

I just seem to be striking out with a lot of things come lately and all that I am hoping for is that we actually do get rain tomorrow even if it's in the form of thunderstorms.

Clinique Happy in Bloom EDP Review

 

Clinique has always been a pretty solid brand. Clinique has always been pretty affordable in terms of price. Where you can afford a little bit better than the drug store brand of makeup, skin care and perfume. Better than Bath and Body Works in terms of perfume too. I haven't really paid much attention to Clinique in about 20 years. Twenty years ago, I was a broke ass college student and didn't have the means to go replacing makeup or Clinique Happy. I couldn't even afford the drugstore stuff, I was to worried about being able to afford my classes and books and then I noticed that two of my favorite lip gloss colors were discontinued. But now it's time to take a little bit of a look at Clinique Happy in Bloom.

Any serious perfume nut seems to have a fairly dim view of flankers. Once in a while, there is a flanker that is very good and sometimes, even better than the original but not often. I don't take flankers too seriously and I do find them a little gimmicky and a company trying to maximize profits.

I do enjoy the original Happy and find it to be a really good spring/summer perfume and I do have to retry Happy Heart (the bottle I had gone bad). I wasn't even aware of Clinique releasing anymore flankers of Happy until I nabbed a little travel/sample set from Ulta. In Bloom does have the Happy DNA in it but it distinctly different. In Bloom is more of an aquatic type of floral deal that would work really well in late spring or early summer. The longer In Bloom stays on skin, the floral part takes the shape of muget and a very aquatic one at that. Most of the time, I do dislike perfumes that are aquatic but this doesn't bother me too much and I kind of like it.

In Bloom stays fairly close to skin and sticks around for about 5 to 7 hours. I still wouldn't really consider getting a bottle but I think that this travel spray will last me quite a while. Do I have the desire to test out the other Happy flankers? I don't see an overwhelming need to.

Clinique Wrappings Review

 

For the past few nights, I have been wearing Clinique's Wrappings. I  have heard of Wrappings mentioned on the Now Smell This blog but never tried it. Last year I did buy that set from the Clinique website and now got around to trying it. It was cheap enough and if I either didn't like it or didn't get it, it wasn't going to break the bank. That is one of the things that I have always liked about Clinique is the affordability of their products.

When I first sprayed it on, I smelled nothing and was thinking about how I was gypped. Then I started to smell the moss that reminded me of vintage Mitsouko. If anyone is familiar with vintage Mitsouko, they know the inkiness of real oakmoss and I smell the inky oakmoss. But that moss note is green but not like the green of Chanel no 19. I was really enjoying the oakmoss and green but then things changed. The green oakmoss was still a player but I got something astringent that I couldn't put my finger on and still can't. Then came out an overripe fruit note but this kind of overripe fruit smells like it's starting to rot. Then I was strongly reminded of either Dioressence or Diorella but definitely a Dior perfume. I remember that I don't much care for either of those Dior offerings. But overripe/rotting isn't exactly my thing but the extreme dry down on my pajama sleeve reminds me of the overripe of Jubilation 25. I just don't now what to make of this and definitely don't know why this is only offered during the Christmas season. I really don't peg this as a Christmas type of scent, more of the dreary January and February type of scent. I'm also not really understanding the hype over this perfume.

The lasting power of this one is about average with about 6 hours on skin. When Wrappings is available it's no more than $35 for the perfume and lotion. The goofy thing is that the perfume bottle itself isn't even a full ounce. I don't think at this point that I will be seeking this out again (to purchase) and probably won't reach for my bottle very often.

Simply Pretty

Before falling down the rabbit hole of perfume, I never gave perfume much thought. I did wear perfume but I was quite a bit like many people, casual perfume user. I didn't seek out new things, didn't explore notes, nothing. I was into simply pretty. For years, I was a user of Estee Lauder Pleasures and Clinique Happy. If I wore other perfumes, they were of the straight up floral type.

Then came that e-mail from Chanel and getting that massive bottle of Cuir de Russie. I found Cuir de Russie to be pretty likeable but still wasn't sure of it, it wasn't what I was used to smelling, especially on me. Then I started to love it and seek out the perfumes that were not the simply pretty. I started seeking out the unusual, the animalic and the straight up weird. And I had found plenty of those and then started branching out into looking for vintages. When you starting seeking stuff out and trying new things, it gets expensive and fast. Now I am at the point of I have enough right now and I am trying to finish some full bottles perfume and decants. Let's see how long this lasts.

Now back to the simply pretty. Pretty and nice is just that, pretty and nice. But after a while, the pretty and nice failed to move me. I think it was the fact that I wasn't this person that was a teenager or someone in my early 20's anymore and did want the things that were a little more mature and maybe those that are a little more funky. Simply pretty and nice is more for the person who doesn't really love perfume, it's for the ones that are wearing perfume for the sake of wearing perfume. I do have a couple of perfumes in my collection that are pretty (Un Coeur en Mai for example), I find myself not reaching for them too often to seek out a lot of the simply pretty.