Pulling Out the Old Stuff

So I am starting to pull out some of my older stuff. It's not always the vintage stuff. Some of what I have been pulling out is the stuff that I have had since the beginning of my perfume obsession or pretty close to it. Today was the original Lolita Lempicka and yesterday was vintage Mitsouko.

It took me a while to get into the original Lolita Lempicka. It was the licorice or anise that I wasn't used to, probably because whatever I might have tried or smelled that was very anise dominant, I wasn't a fan of. Now the the original became Mon Premier, the original scent is getting harder to find and hard to find at a decent price. I still think that the Mon Premier bottle sucks because I think it is too crude compared to the original. The Mon Premier is a little thinner and has been tinkered with. I would rather have the original bottle and juice but I will keep searching. Or just might bite the bullet and order a bottle, even though I have made a resolution to not buy anymore perfume for the next six or seven months.

But I have been flirting with the idea of pulling out and wearing Mitsouko.. As much as I love Mitsouko, I find that Mitsouko is a challenge to wear. Mitsouko is a bossy perfume, even in the best of circumstances, Mitsouko can run you over. So, I don't wear Mitsouko all that often.

There was a time were I couldn't get enough of Mitsouko. When I first got into perfume, I wasn't thinking about vintage perfumes or looking for vintage. Then a few years later, I did get into vintage perfume and started shopping on Ebay for vintage. I was snapping up vintage bottles of not only vintage Mitsouko but vintage bottles of Bal a Versailles. Let's just say that vintage Bal a Versailles seemed to be a little cheaper. Since finances are a little on the tight side, I don't have the income to prowl Ebay let alone too many bottles of anything as much as I would like. Let's just say that I am hoping that tight finances and saving up for a trip will force me to make a bigger effort to use up what I have.

 

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

 

Guerlain Mitsouko

 The good thing about not having my whole perfume collection totally at hand is that it is forcing me to try and use what I have. Even though I did manage to grab a couple more bottles, my selection is limited. And by a 200 full bottle strong collection, having around around 12 bottles to choose from is a little more difficult to do. I am always worrying about what if I have a craving for Amouge Epic or Coromandel? That means I will have to muscle my way through that craving.

Every Friday, Now Smell This has a community project where one wears something that corresponds to whatever theme there is for that day. This past Friday, the theme was chypre. And since the only chypre that I had from the 12 bottles that I have, it was Mitsouko, what seems to be the queen of all chypre perfumes that's still in production. Mitsouko was pretty well represented on Friday. In some ways, Mitsouko was a little lame because so many wore it but it was all I had in terms of a chypre that day. Plus, it was a very long time since I had worn Mitsouko. I had forgotten how strong Mitsouko could be and the lasting power is phenomenal. Since I was wearing the current EDP, I would not recommend wearing it outside of the low 70's in temps or it gets unbearable.

When I was pretty new to serious perfume smelling and collecting, I found Mitsouko early on. I didn't fall head over heels with it right away but really enjoyed it for some reason. After a while I mostly figured out why. It's not like most modern perfumes. Most modern perfumes release anything that makes them smell good are in the first 15 minutes. Mitsouko releases it's beauty slowly. It took me a while on why I liked Mitsouko so much and eventually fell in love was Mitsouko's balanced nature. I was taken surprise by how peach was presented in Mitsouko. I am used to sickly sweet peach in so many of those cheap perfumes that I did wear in the past.

Then I tried vintage Mitsouko in all of it's oakmoss glory. I heard people waxing poetical about the vintage version, I wanted to try it on one hand but didn't on the other. Around this time, it was my first attempt at trying to curb reckless spending. When I did try it and fell in love, it led me down a rabbit hole called E-Bay. I was buying as many reasonably priced bottles as I could. By the time I was finished with getting vintage bottles of Mitsouko, I moved away from Mitsouko and went on to Shalimar. I do think that I will have to pull out and wear Mitsouko more often.

Green Perfumes for Fall and Winter

I do not have a whole lot in terms of what is called "green" in perfume. Green can be floral or could be like cut grass or leaves or a few other things in terms of perfume. But there isn't much of a presence of green in perfume.

The greens that I do have fall into two camps. It's either geared for spring and summer or geared more for fall and winter. The long lamented Deneuve in either edt or extrait form is more of the spring/summer type of thing. Chanel no 19 is in the same category. Spring is where the days are getting longer and warmer and full of promise. The days of wearing short sleeves and shorts are either in full swing or just beginning.

Givenchy III and the queen, Mitsouko fall into the fall/winter camp. Where daylight is in short supply and it's either pretty cool out or outright cold. The large decant if the Givenchy III just doesn't give the whole spring/summer vibe when I wear it. Givenchy III gives off more of the late fall/early winter type of vibe. Where most of the leaves have fallen from the trees, it's mostly rainy outside and I would rather just stay indoors. I still wouldn't associate Givenchy III with any kind of fall activity or food. I can associate many of Andy Tauer offerings with state fairs or clam bakes.

Now we get to the queen, Mitsouko. When I do wear Mitsouko, I usually wear the vintage edt or the current edp. I cannot get the current edt to last anymore than an hour or two on skin or clothes, so the current edp it is. I am not spending major amounts of money on something that lasts only an hour or two on skin. The reason that  I have so much of the vintage stuff is the oakmoss. The vintage edt has some staying power that rivals the current edp. I remember someone saying that Mitsouko is like a Tiffany lamp. The light of a Tiffany lamp is muted and gives a soft glow and Mitsouko does the same thing in terms of perfume. 

The reason that I'm really not going to mention Diaghilev is that I only have two dabber samples. The other reason is that the sheer price point for a 100ml is either a full months rent or mortgage payment for a lot of people. Unless you are swimming in fun money, I don't think anyone would really have a bottle. Even with Afterpay, a payment would be most of one of my paychecks.
 

Still Going Through Old Favorites

I am still finding some old favorite perfumes. So far, I have been wearing the crap out of Lyric and no 5. I am so close to being able to finish a bottle of no 5 in EDT form and I am fairly excited about that. It's been so many years since I have been able to finish a full bottle of anything. The last time I was able to finish a bottle of anything was either Estee Lauder Pleasures or Clinique Happy and that was probably in my very early 20's. I have boatloads of Chanel no 5 and don't really need to add any more to my collection.

Back when I first fell down the rabbit hole, I discovered Mitsouko. I had spent a lot of time and money procuring the current formulation and all kinds of vintage and amassed a fairly big collection of Mitsouko. When I first applied Mitsouko, I immediately loved it and understood her. I still have that teardrop bottle with the dolphin label that I can't get open for the life of me. So now I think that I am going to be wearing Mitsouko tons more.

For some reason, I have gotten more compliments on Mitsouko than any other perfume in my collection. Maybe because Mitsouko is so unusual in terms of a perfume. Most perfumes now seem to be either the fruity floral, aquatic or the your skin but better thing. I figure since Mitsouko has been around since 1919, there must be something about her that keeps her in production. I hope that she stays in production for many more years to come.
 

Seeking the Familiar

Since I am still working with that strict budget, I have been seeking out some of the old, familiar perfumes. Perfumes that I had bought early in my perfume journey and wore the shit out of. So since I have been cleaning some things out, I've been finding a couple things.

Chanel no 5, no matter what the concentration is one of those old favorites and a soothing one at that. I have the EDT, EDP and parfum all on my vanity. And that reminded me to pull out my bottle of no 22 EDT. I haven't gotten around to trying out the EDP due to lack of funds and I don't need to be on E-Bay looking for decants. I don't need to get burned because people like to sell Chanel dupes.

I found a large decant of the current batch of Diorling, right before it was discontinued and a vintage bottle of it. I am still kicking myself for not getting a bottle or two when I had the chance. Even though the people at Dior told me that they have no intention of bringing back Diorling, one can hope and keep pestering them about it. If they can keep cranking out these J'adore flankers, they can bring Diorling back for a limited time for me to nab a couple of bottles.

An old favorite that is comforting is Mitsouko. It doesn't matter if it is vintage or current to me, I adore Mitsouko. I don't pull it out often enough and wear it and I did pull out a bottle of a newer version of the EDP and a vintage EDT. The EDP that I did pull out was from probably 10 plus years ago, so no honest to goodness oakmoss in that one. I have tons of the vintage EDT and I am still trying to get a stopper to come lose from my huge bottle of Mitsouko.

Lyric is another perpetual favorite for me. I love wearing Lyric in all of it's spicy, rosy goodness year round but I love it especially in the heat of summer. It took me a long time to actually get 1 bottle of Lyric but I am glad I did get that bottle and got the travel spray and a back up bottle. I have no clue with what is happening with Amouage. I can't find the Lyric or Epic bath product and there isn't any Ubar to be had anywhere. Let's hope it's a supply chain issue with the ingredients.
 

The Same Stuff Over and Over Again

My mother cut her California trip short and is now home. So much for some of the projects that I had planned to do. Three of the candles that I had started, refused to stay lit and in the trash they went. I have already finished 2 candles yesterday and will finish 2 more today. I have no freaking idea on what candle I am going to start now but that's okay at this point.

I was none too happy when I found out that a trip was cut short. I had made a decision to redeem most of my Ulta rewards points and get a bottle of no e Eau Premiere and another bottle of no 5 edt. I figured that it would arrive before my parents came home and they wouldn't see any kind of packages and gripe about it, even though I redeemed my Ulta points for them.

But I noticed something. There are some perfumes that I buy over and over again. No 5 in many of it's concentrations, Mitsouko, vintage BaV, Amouage Lyric and Epic seem to be the ones that I have the most of. I will admit that after no 5, I haven't gotten the other ones listed in quite a while. But with vintage Mitsouko and BaV, I haven't been prowling E-Bay for them. Amouage is getting harder to find a discounters and my beloved Deneuve has gotten so stupidly expensive, especially for minis. So no 5 it is.

I do wish the no 19 was a little more widely available and if Ulta carried it, I'm sure I would have stocked up even more. But Ulta and even Sephora mostly focus on best sellers but that seems to be most department stores that focus on things they know that they can sell pretty easily and even with my healthy supply of no 19, I don't reach for it often enough. I really ought to start wearing some other stuff that I have.
 

General Stuff

 Amazon Prime Day has come and gone and really didn't see much that caught my eye. That meant that I stayed under my $50 limit. I'm happy in a way that there was nothing in particular that I was looking for except an inexpensive funny shirt and garden lights for when my father's birthday rolls around in August. Better just to get that stuff out of the way early.

I am still making a concerted effort not to go hog wild when it comes to spending. A vet appointment is coming up a couple days before my parents go to California and I want to make sure that there are funds to cover the out of the ordinary cost. All I can say is that it's a good thing Prime Day is over and I am so over the Bath and Body Works semi annual sale. I've bought enough stuff this year from BBW and with over 60 candles and no extra place to store them, I can't even begin to think on what order to burn my single wick candles. I know I will probably be going through a fair bit of them when family members leave. That means I can seriously burn whatever I see fit. If I want to burn to straight up apple candles, I can do that. Or I can burn two or three candles at a time if the fancy suits me. I just have to make sure to air out the house before my folks come back.

Recently, I have been hankering for Mitsouko, especially the vintage EDT. I have a partially used bottle going but the mugginess is what kind of prevents me from busting her out. I love Mitsouko because she is a queen. She know what she wants and goes after it, she is not the type that extends friendship so readily, she knows that she is a sensual being but doesn't take just anyone into her bed. Mitsouko is a fearless and demanding queen. I think that I shall wear the queen before bed tomorrow since it's pretty hot outside.

Backups and Obsessive Loves

 

My Chanel package arrived on Friday and you have no idea on how quick I ripped open the package. I haven't ripped into the cellophane yet as I am still gazing at it. It did cross my mind about maybe picking up that Eau Premiere travel spray but ultimately decided against it. I honestly do have enough no 5 to last me quite a while. Maybe at a later date will I get that. Or that 5 ounce bottle of Estee Lauder Pleasures. Decisions don't have to be made today or any time soon about new bottles of perfume. Ever since the last third of last year, I haven't been buying a whole lot in terms of perfume, even decants. I had some other worries and not a whole lot in terms of fun money to even really contemplate buying anything and when I did, it went to candles for some strange reason. Well, candles are cheaper than perfume, right?

What got me to thinking of obsessive loves is Amouage Lyric. Lyric, I think was one of my first major loves when I did fall down the rabbit hole and waited quite a while to procure a bottle. Spent most of Sunday debating on if I should get that a back up bottle or not and eventually did get that back up bottle of Lyric. I have been wearing the snot out of Lyric recently. 

I've had many obsessive loves when it comes to perfume. The type of obsessive that I wear that perfume most often and I do quite a bit to get a few bottles. It seems like every perfume person has back ups of certain perfumes and even those back ups have back ups. There is always the fear of reformulation or any perfume being discontinued. 

Mitsouko would be another perfume that I have a shit load of. I have two bottles of current formulation but even more of the various vintage versions. Gotta compare between vintages and how the newer bottles fair.  But the longer the perfume has been in production, the greater the chance of reformulation. Hence why I do try to grab back ups of perfumes that I love.

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.

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.

Perfumes that Haunt

Mitsouko has turned 100 this year. It's amazing to have any perfume that makes it to be in current production 30 or 40 years but to make it to 100 years is phenomenal. I have been obsessed and worn Mitsouko on and off for 10 years but never exclusively. I never could figure out why I enjoyed/loved Mitsouko until I read from the original book, The Guide and tried Diorling. It's the balance of three notes.

But digging around those perfume boxes that I had to set in another room. Yes, 4 cardboard boxes full of my perfume collection. I can't get to all the boxes and we are still rearranging stuff and getting rid of stuff. I stumbled of part of my stash of vintage and current Mitsouko. I am still attempting to get that one monster bottle of vintage Mitsouko unstuck. It's a teardrop bottle of Mitsouko with the dolphin label. In the description from the seller on E-bay, she said that there was a chip on the bottom of the dabber and he/she managed to get the dabber unplugged once but never again. Unless I end up busting the bottle, I might say screw it and just but the dabber part and transfer the perfume to another glass container but haven't brought myself to that point.

The last time that I wore Mitsouko was this past Easter and I had used one of my vintage bottles. But I sniffed the current stuff and some of my vintage and realized that Mitsouko does have a haunting quality to it. Mitsouko is like an onion, to discover her secrets, you got to peel back the layers and it takes multiple wearings before you can begin to figure her out. But she never really leaves you alone. I think that I might have to start wearing her once a week and probably wear her tomorrow, heat be damned.

Sealed Vintage

I managed to liberate one of my boxes of perfume. The box I managed was a box full of dabber bottles. I still don't have shelf space yet but I did have to take a closer look to what I have in there. Most of those dabber bottles were extrait versions and a couple were my bell jars. Half of them were open and half of them were not. Two of them were the vintage Shalimar extrait and they were sealed.

No matter what the name of the perfume is, finding a sealed bottle can be difficult and finding it at a reasonable price is a rare thing. I do have a few sealed, vintage bottles of perfume and I always seem to wimp out on opening them. I worry about evaporation with dabber bottles, especially with vintage. I might have a substantial supply of vintage BaV and Mitsouko but I don't have a large supply of vintage Shalimar. Part of me is saying that life is short, start wearing it but the other part of me knows that vintage has a finite amount floating in the world and I should use the vintage sparingly.

Some of this rings true with discontinued finds. I have a few bottles of Theorema and Shalimar Ode a la Vanille that I want to wear with abandon but always seem to hesitate because I want to hoard.

Eau No

Did anyone ever have this computer problem? Every time that I go to certain websites on my PC, it pops up as "connection insecure" and can't get on said website? I am having this issue. Facebook, STC, TPC and a few others but not my blog or Yahoo. I don't know if it the firewall or not but I know that I am not having this issue with my Kindle Fire. So I have no flipping clue on what's up with the computer and I am not motivated right now to deal with it.

On Sunday, I was searching for one of those perfumes that I haven't worn in a while. I do have a few that I don't wear often and some have a reason. Sunday was the day that I decided to wear vintage Mitsouko. I do love Mitsouko but she can be a little hard to wear. When I applied my vintage Mitsouko, it seemed like a mistake and didn't have the time to wash Mitsouko off and apply something different.

Some perfumes can be a mistake in certain circumstances. L'Heure Bleue and L'Heure de Nuit are two of them. Both are powder bombs but L'Heure de Nuit isn't a massive powder bomb as L'Heure de Bleue. Both of them just are not meant for hot and humid weather unless dabbed and a very small amount. I've noticed that no. 22 can be that way as well, especially in the vintage EDT form but the extrait form is wonderful and barely any powder in it. But it's difficult with perfumes loaded with powder or the vintage chypres to wear on a daily basis.

Just Some General Stuff

I don't have much to yap about perfume right now except a random thought. I spent most of the morning in Mitsouko. Mitsouko is something that I don't wear often even though I have 3 bottles of the current version and 6 of the vintage. The random thought that I had in my head was Mitsouko is 99 years old this year and I wonder if and how Guerlain is going to commemorate that fact. It's not every day that a perfume turns 100 years old. Way back when, Mitsouko did have some sort of flanker something with the word lotus in it but it didn't last to long. I hope that if a flanker is done, it won't be wildly expensive and too much of a departure from the original.

I'm not a fan of a lot of shopping, especially grocery and shoe shopping. But I am a little annoyed with my local grocery store. Okay, more than a little annoyed. I am not a coffee drinker at all, I hate coffee and coffee hates me. The tea I drink is the Tazo chai latte concentrate. Ever since the 4th, the regular latte has not been restocked. At first, I was getting the organic, which doesn't taste the same and a little too spicy. Now, it's the "skinny" latte which I don't like period. It's tasteless. It's always been the hope that when I do stop in, they will have it. Every single time, they don't. I don't have the time nor willing to waste money on gas to go out of my way to go to Walmart to get it. So I had to order it last night off of Amazon and it will be shipped to my house. I think that if I don't find it today, I will mention it and state how unhappy I am with the stocking of item.

Today, it's about 6 hours before Amazon Prime Day and I am eagerly awaiting to see what deals are to be had. Primarily on the Kindle Fires but I am really interested in the Fire 10. I love the Fire 10 that I've got but it's dying and I'd rather replace it now, especially if the deal is going to be pretty good. I could go with a different tablet but I want to watch the movies the I have purchased off of Amazon and I just prefer the Kindles.

Spring is here to stay

It looks like spring is here to stay. I have been pretty busy. With the new puppy and many changes at work, I don't have much of a motivation to blog or try anything new. But since the weather is much warmer, almost unseasonably warm, it's difficult with my perfume collection.

A few days ago, while having the new puppy outside to use the bathroom, I end up getting stung on the top of my head by a hornet. I don't know why but I remember wearing vintage Bal that day. That's the little dickens to the left. I have forgotten many things with having a puppy in the house. How often I need to take them out to go to the bathroom, playing, chewing everything, even hands and much more. Right now, she is napping on the couch downstairs, so I have a little bit of time to blog.

But back to the hornet sting and vintage Bal, I had to take a look at my collection. Most of my collection is on the oriental side or kind of on the sweet side. I don't have much in the way of stuff that will keep the bees away or be overwhelming. I have Chanel no 19, Mitsouko on cooler days, Deneuve might be a little sketchy and LADDM. So I have just four perfumes that probably would bet me through spring and summer but I'm not counting on it. I am looking for another spring/summer perfume that won't attract bugs and things that sting but coming up short with what would be good.

New vs. Old

Many classic perfumes have gone through reformulations. The longer a perfume has been in circulation, it's a given. There are many reasons why reformulations happen and it can be very annoying or down right infuriating. I understand why some reformulations happen. Some ingredients are either banned because of allergies, harvesting is cruel or some become endangered. I understand why some things have to be outright banned or severely restricted. But I'm never a fan of having things banned due to allergies. Perfume is not essential to living, it's honestly not. Food is essential to staying alive. But I am strange when it comes to the vintage and current stuff.

Let's take Mitsouko, probably the most talked about reformulation. I like both the current version and I also like the vintage version. Since they have restricted oak moss, Mitsouko hasn't quite been the same. But the reformulation is still beautiful. Even though I don't wear Mitsouko as often as I should, I'm finding myself drawn more and more to the current version of Mitsouko than the vintage version and wearing the current formulation more. I don't know why I am drawn to the current formulation more but I'm thinking that the current version is a little brighter than the vintage version.

Chanel no 22 is another one. At first, I didn't like no 22. I found the EDT version to be too harsh and the vintage version to be smoother. Eventually, I started to enjoy no 22. Now I thing that I wasn't prepared or used to the powder and incense combination. I haven't tried the EDP version of no 22 so I can't comment on the EDP version. The version that I enjoy the most is the extrait version. It's rosier and more subdued. Powder bombs are hard to wear and harder to pull off.

Perfume Accidents

I don't know how many people that own dogs that like to counter surf or animals that let themselves on counters, dressers, or nightstand. And I don't know how everyone stores their perfume hoard. But I know that I own two dogs that love to counter surf and that I store my perfume on my dresser. But even with the best storage system and even with no animals, perfume accidents can happen.

People, like me, who have large perfume collections can relate to spilled perfume. Let's think about it for a minute. I have perfume minis, vintage splash bottles and perfume in extrait form and that means that these don't have a sprayer, leaving them more prone to being spilled. I'm not talking that a little extra goes on your hand when you are applying perfume. I am talking that either the whole bottle gets emptied or most of the perfume gets spilled. It's annoying when it happens when that happens.

Last night, I was applying Cuir de Russie in extrait form as my bedtime scent. I hadn't worn it in quite some time and wanted to dab it on, not spray it on. The bottle slipped out of my hand and most of it went into the carpet. My bottle of Cuir de Russie in extrait form was a third gone but quite a bit had soaked into the carpet. I did manage to save 4 ml at best and I am pretty bummed out even though I still have that massive bottle of EDT that I don't seem to wear that often. This is the third time in recent memory that this has happened. First, I knocked over a bottle of vintage Mitsouko, spilling a third of it and then my dogs knocked over a bottle of vintage Bal and I lost 80% of the bottle. I hate losing perfume due to spills and most of my spills seem to be the vintage version.

Compliments and Perfume

I'm sitting at home looking outside and waiting for the snow to hit. Since I live in the snow belt in Ohio, we are expecting around 5 inches of snow. All the weather channels seem to be debating on when all this snow is truly going to hit. One says Thursday, another says Friday, and the last one says Saturday. So I don't really know at this point.

It's rare that I ever receive compliment of wearing perfume but I do get them once in a while. Let's think about it, perfume wearing seems to be the new smoking. It really must be due to the fact that you get many people from all walks of life and all ages that wear way too much perfume. It's beyond way too much perfume in ways because people seem to bathe in them and one of the keys to perfume is restraint. I do have some strong perfumes and some that are bombastic and even my lightest ones, I make every effort to apply lightly.

But I do receive compliments when wearing perfume. It always takes me by surprise when I do get a compliment on my perfume wearing because most people I know just tolerate it. Or if they do like something, they keep it to themselves and they don't even ask. They probably figure that a lot of my perfumes are very expensive and a large amount are expensive. When you consider the price of certain brands (Amouage, Xerjoff) and discontinued or vintage perfumes, it can get pricey fast. The perfumes that I receive the most compliments are with some of the stranger perfumes in my collection. Here is the list of the ones that garner me the most compliments.

1. Mitsouko seems to garner the most compliments with people who are in their late 50's and 60's and it doesn't matter if it is the current version or the vintage version. Mitsouko is one of the oddballs in my collection that seem to baffle a lot of people and it's kind of the gold standard of chypres.

2. Serge Lutens Feminite du Bois is probably my first niche purchase that I don't seem to wear often enough and when I wear it, men always ask what I am wearing. FdB smells wonderful but different enough to get yourself noticed.

3. Amouage Memoir for Women. This one definitely gets a lot of attention from both sexes and all ages. I don't know what attracts people to me when I wear it but I probably wear it so well that it does

4. Andy Tauer Une Rose Vermielle. Probably one of the most approachable Tauer's that does get a lot of love. It is part of the fruity floral theme and probably one of the best of the genre. UNR doesn't smell cheap and it doesn't smell horribly expensive.

5. Guerlain Shalimar. Shalimar is probably one of Guerlain's most approachable classics and it's the gold standard of orientals. It's slutty enough to keep me happy and it is safe enough to wear in public and not scare anyone away.

6. Amouage Epic. The spicy rose that sports some gaic wood and oud. I can never quite pin point why I love Epic so and the compliments that go with it. But the Turandot  reference intrigued me in the beginning to give this a try.

Buying Backups Matter

The thought hit me last night when I was looking through my collection last night when looking for my before bed perfume. Do backup bottles of perfume matter or needed? I have to say yes they do in a few ways.


When you are always dealing with the threat of reformulation due to restricted ingrediants, backups do start to matter if a perfume is either your signature or one of your favorites. Mitsouko is an example of a restricted ingrediant and subsiquent reformulation. The IFRA had decided that too many people were allergic or some such thing to oakmoss and that meant that Mitsouko had to be created without oakmoss. But a chypre that is like Mitsouko, the oakmoss in all of it's inky glory, is vital. So Mitsouko was in real danger of being discontinued but treemoss was substituted and Mitsouko doesn't smell quite the way it should but it's a valiant attempt of the perfumers to save a part of perfume history. Now this is when hunting down vintage and back ups become vital. But if you are like me and don't live close to a really good Salvation Army or flea market, E-Bay is probably your only way to go. And in my opinion, it becomes a good like trying to find any reasonably price bottles. But I keep looking for bottles and very rarely come across one I can afford.


Then there is the discontinued perfume deal. Because there are companies that just up and decide to discontinue a perfume. Sometimes it is that a perfume after a while just isn't doing well in terms of sales and I can see that aspect of having a perfume discontinued. Sometimes it's not the right time to release that kind of perfume. Take Deneuve for example, it was released during the time where the bigger the better perfumes was fading and the watery CK Ones and all similar ones were becoming all the rage, so a floral hyper didn't sell and being sold by Avon didn't help. Some companies seem  have a tendency to just discontinue a popular perfume for no reason. Fend seems to be one of them. Theorema is probably the most recent one. I know that it maybe it's not the biggest best seller for Fending but just by poking around the internet, it's popular enough to keep it as a staple in Fendi's perfume portfolio. When perfumes are discontinued, it's always good to grab a few bottles.