Of Shalimar and Decants

When Portia on Perfume Posse announced that she was getting back into the habit of using up samples and decants for the year of 2025. I leapt at the chance of using up some of my decants and samples as well. I figured that with all the decants and samples that I have, I really should start using some of what I have. The decants that I am currently working on is Patou Joy extrait, Amouage Honour and one of my decants of Diagilev. I figure to start out with 3 a month and stick to my dabber samples right now. If I can work on getting more than 3 a month, that would be awesome and it would be a bonus if I could actually use up some travel sprays and full bottles this year as well. But with the 3 that I mentioned that I am working on, I am almost done with those. And when I finish those 3, I will move on to something else.

But what do I do when I commit to this decant challenge/resolution thing? I order 2 more decants. I ordered another decant of Tigress Musk and a sample of Memoir Man. I think that since that I don't order decants too often anymore, it's okay, I just won't get more samples for a long while. What works a little more in my favor is the TPC doesn't do as many sales as they used to and I can't recall the last time that STC had a sale. I figure with inflation and all, it's not exactly worth it. Without sales and coupons, I am less tempted to buy. But I am doing that even with groceries (looking at sales and coupons). I am only trying Memoir Man because I haven't tried too many of Amouage's men's offerings and maybe I should try more. I did try the men's version of Lyric and Epic way back when and wasn't too terribly impressed. The men's version of Gold was something I liked much better than the women's version. But we shall see how Memoir Man fairs.

There is a reason that I did mention Fabrege Tigress Musk. Earlier, I did pull out one of my bottles of Shalimar and sprayed an unhealthy amount. The Shalimar bottle that I used was when it was the early days of my perfume journey. It's kind of vintage but not really and I haven't pulled out a vintage bottle of Shalimar or vintage anything in a long time. Shalimar was always a lovely perfume on my skin. But I had forgotten how slutty Shalimar is. It's not exactly vintage Bal a Versailles or MKK but the sluttyness is there. When I sprayed Shalimar, I started to get a really wicked craving for Tigress Musk and naturally it's in the pile of decants that I can't get to at the moment. The decant of Tigress Musk that I have already is probably half full. The reason that I only ordered a decant is because getting a full bottle never quite works out. When I remember to look, it's either not available or the cost is a little over the top for me.
 

Pleasures Body Lotion and Amouage Honour Bath and Body Stuff

 While I was on vacation a couple weeks ago, I kept meaning to post something but never seemed to come up with anything. If I did think of something, I forgot, then time really got away from me and now we are at the end of the month. And I don't really talk too much about perfumed bath stuff. I managed in the past couple weeks to start using Estee Lauder Pleasures body lotion and Amouage Honour soap and body butter.

I don't really get into bath soaps and lotions too much any more. In high school and when I went to college, I loved body washes and lotions. When I fell in love with something at Bath and Body Works, I had to have the matching body wash, lotion and mist. Back in the late 90's and early 00's, Bath and Body Works was cheap and cheap was my budget. 

Since my perfume collection has grown, my bath collection didn't. Most of my perfumes don't have bath and body lines, so regular soap and unscented lotion will have to do. Chanel, Clinique, Estee Lauder and Amouage are the only ones that have a full bath and body line. Truth be told, that suits me just fine. I don't really need tons of bath stuff since I am trying to use things up and get rid of things.

When I was testing the Pleasures body lotion, I wasn't expecting to be impressed with it. Until I was impressed with the body lotion. I was expecting it to be either not moisturizing enough or too heavy. I was also expecting it to be either overwhelming with perfume or bear no resemblance to Pleasures. It was the right amount of perfume and moisturizing enough without being too heavy. I have dry skin with really scaly elbows and my elbows need all the help they can get. When you spend almost sixty dollars on a lotion, my expectations are a little higher than what I would spend at a grocery store for some lotion.

It took me forever to finally open and use the Amouage Honour woman bath stuff but I finally did. I can never make up my mind on if I like or love Honour woman. Honour woman can be equal points of love and annoyance for me. Honour woman was the last Amouage that I really paid attention to. I didn't pay too much attention to Beloved. I think that was when Amouage was really starting to release tons of things at once and it got to be too much for me.

Amouage packaging has always been on the decadent side but Amouage is a house that knows that if someone is going to spend the money, the details of everything matter. When I opened the bar soap, it was the engravings on the soap that really wowed me, just that little detail amazed me. Yes, the little decorations will wash away but it is still awesome. The bar soap didn't really lather up too well but I have the same issue with my Epic bar soap. The body butter was mostly decadent but in terms of moisturizing properties, it wasn't moisturizing enough for me. It definitely smelled like Honour but I found the smell to be a little too dense.

What I have noticed is that it is harder and harder to find Amouage bath and body stuff. I am having a harder and harder time trying to find Epic, Lyric and Memoir in bath and body stuff. I think even Amouage might be having problems too getting  supplies in to make these things. I am running pretty low on Lyric and Memoir bath and body things. I'm hoping that I can start replenishing my stock soon enough.

Amouage Honour Woman Extrait Review

 

Amazon Prime Day ends today and I am still not seeing anything that I need for a good price. No good book deals, well, on the books that I want to get. But my parents had a field day with getting all kinds of things. I decided to get only 1 book on my wish list.

My dog's vet appointment is tomorrow and as far as I can tell, I do think that I will be OK financially but only tomorrow will tell. I don't think that the appointment in itself will be too bad but the medication he is on is where I am kind of worried. The medication is more of an expected expense but a vet visit is not exactly. But to have both the medication and a vet visit in the same week seems to be a little much. I shall see what the final bill is for both of them tomorrow. My local pharmacy always seems to get a little salty when I use GoodRx but I don't care.

Now off to the review but in many ways it's not really a review. It's been a few years since I had Amouage Honour on skin. I remember enjoying it on skin but not much else. It's supposed to be more of a gardenia type thing. Nope it's more of an aquatic tuberose type of thing, not really a gardenia thing. I have never been a fan of anything tuberose dominant. In extrait form, it's nothing but aquatic tuberose to my nose with not a whole lot going on development wise. I think that I was eager to get and like Honour in the beginning and did like the EDP but I will have to dig out a decant of the EDP to see. I think that I was more enamored with the concept of Madam Butterfly, the white bottle and the word gardenia. The extrait is not for me and my bank account is happy with that.

Tax Things and Birthdays

We seem to be into tax season, well the very beginnings of it anyway. No, I haven't filed mine yet but I know that I will be getting a refund. There are a million ways on how I can use that money and I shouldn't be using it on perfume. But I will be.

My mother has always had a marginal interest in perfume. But she has always gone for the Dolce Gabbana stuff or something from Estee Lauder. She used to like Chanel mo 5 but she said that something changed in it and it doesn't smell the same. I gave her a dab of vintage extrait and that is when I knew what the issue was. Chanel had taken out the nitro-musk and that is why she didn't care for it. That is when she had taken the two vintage extraits and gave me her current version of extrait that I had gotten her one year. But this is a little different. In August of last year, she had fallen in love with Amouage Honour for women and at Christmas time, I had gotten her the bar soap and the matching body butter. So I think that for her birthday, I will be getting her a bottle of Honour. So using part of that tax refund is going to that.

But I am still looking at something for myself. The short list is Amouage Ubar, Guerlain SDV and Tauer's Andees 25. The problem is that I can't make up my mind on which one. It's funny, I can easily make up my mind about many things but when it comes to perfume, I can't make up my mind, either which one should I wear for the day or which is my next bottle purchase. I hope I can commit sometime soon.

Amouage Honour Extrait and Amazon Prime Day

As an Amazon Prime member, there is a thing called Prime Day. It's kind of like the Black Friday of the summer and I had forgotten about it until I had received an e-mail about it. I've always loved the 2 day shipping, the Prime videos and music which has saved me tons. Now since Prime Day begins on July 16th at 3pm, I'm looking at a few things. My Kindle Fire is starting to not hold a charge and randomly shutting off and it's out of warranty. I'm hoping for an extremely good deal on a Kindle Fire and maybe getting one for my dad for his birthday. But we must see.

Since it's been really hot out and my eczema giving me grief, I'm a little limited on what I can wear. I was digging through my dabber decants because most of those are extraits and I had pulled out Honour. I remembered that I liked Honour and it was probably the last Amouage that I had enjoyed. I remembered that it was a watery gardenia thing so the extrait refreshed my memory.

I had mostly remembered the structure of Honour but not really much else. I was hit with a huge watery tuberose. Tuberose and I don't get along, period. I smelled a little bit of jasmine and that was once in a while but the tuberose just hung around and smothered everything except the calone. I have noticed that I'm not much of a fan of calone. Calone seems to make perfumes lousy and weak. I can't really comment on lasting power because of this fucking heat and humidity and there is no projection, probably due to the fact that I had a dabber sample. So a bottle isn't going to be in my collection

Amouage Honour for Women Review

I received my sample of Honour for women when I had ordered Amouage Memoir for women from the Lady Ruth website. In many ways, this reminds me of Amouage's Reflection for women but slightly different. Instead of a watery freesia, I get a watery gardenia. But the gardenia is anchored by the tuberose and jasmine that I smell 15 minutes after application. As much as I like it, it's a big white floral. It's the type of big that I have come to expect of Amouage. Three years ago, I was a huge lover of white florals, but my tastes have changed to accommodate leathers and aldehydes. I love how Honour lasts at least 12 hours on my skin. At the end of the day, I can't see myself buying another big, white floral.