Vacation Time

It's vacation time for me right now. It's a week of pretty much lounging around and not doing a ton of stuff this week. Mostly playing Xbox, maybe going to see the new Downton Abbey movie and might go to the old Mansfield Reformatory.

For a while I had this seasonal allergy that turned into a cold and now turned into post nasal drip. With that going on, I hadn't wanted to really wear perfume. Well, I really couldn't with my asthma kicking my ass. The only perfume that I could really tolerate was no 5 edt and at points, that was a bit of struggle. If I tried to wear perfume, any perfume, there was a very real chance of an asthma attack.

I haven't been been burning my candles and I was hoping for a while that I could start up again. There is someone in my household that started to develop hives and candle burning pretty much went out the window. Said person is still getting hives and I am thinking that my candles are not the problem. The reason why I really wanted to burn some candles is just to create more space in my room at this point.

There isn't a whole lot going on in the perfume front for me. There isn't a whole lot of room in the budget for perfume at this point and I've kind of went nuts in terms of perfume this quarter. The only thing perfume wise that I've gotten was decants of Epic 56 and Honour 43. I might regret that purchase in a way. My love for Epic Woman is well known and I do have a liking for Honour Woman. But we will see how that goes.  In ways, I kind of hope that I don't fall in love with either of them due to the cost of a full bottle isn't what I want to spend and no decant places really carry decants. I was lucky enough to nab decants of them at TPC but I haven't seen any decants in other places. Spending $500 on a bottle of perfume is a little rich for my blood. I mainly stick to the discounters for Amouge perfumes. If Amouage had Lyric as an exceptional extrait, I probably would be really screwed since I adore Lyric.

That was Pretty Quick

Currently I am going through some major drama and I am hoping that this thing that's going on will end in a week or two. At the moment, I am on a can't buy anything that isn't essential. I had to look through many things in my life and I have had to cut back at the moment. That means I had to rearrange. A sale is going on at STC or a super good sale at Ulta, Sephora or even Luckyscent? Nope, can't take the bait. Even my grocery list has gotten smaller and a little more realistic. Gone are the chips, soda and a whole lot of junk food. But I have a game plan going on with the groceries. I have a $40 some in gift cards on Amazon and I am looking at some of the Prime Pantry stuff. I'm mainly looking at the Tazo chai concentrate and some of the other basics to stretch the grocery allotment. I think that I will be fine.

I am giving the stink eye to TPC. I made an order on a couple dirt cheap vanilla scents when they where running a new years sale.It took forever to get my order but the thing that really got to me is that I had placed an order on the 2nd of this year but it was days before I was texted to say that they only had 1.5ml of one of the scents that I ordered. It took around 20 days before I received my order. But I finally have my order.

I got curious to see the goings on with the nail polish company, OPI. When I was younger, I used to polish my nails quite often and the best I could afford was cheap, drugstore type of nail polishes, and OPI was mainly sold at salons and was a little on the expense side. Now since I make a little more money, I am not as interested in polishing my nails. But I have gotten kind of irritated with OPI. The fall/winter nail polish collections have always been vivid and varied with colors. Take the Russian and German collection, you had your purples, your reds, blues and a few others. There isn't a shrinking violet in those collections. I just don't know what's happened the Iceland collection was a little wimpy, I was pretty unmoved with the Scotland line up (except for A Little Guilt Under the Kilt) and now the spring/summer line up is out and it's called Mexico City. The colors are vibrant to the point of neon but I am not impressed. Nothing is moving me with that line up. It seems that they are releasing season releases way too early.

Dior Diorissimo EDT Review

I've probably have got to be the oddest perfume nut. I have this huge, and I do mean huge pile of decants of various sizes that I haven't tried and reviewed and yet I keep getting more. How can I refuse 15%-20% off decants sales of Surrender to Chance's daily specials? After spending a small fortune on a carpet steam cleaner and spending a lot less than I thought in Cincinnati, I was able to get more than one small decant but Diorissimo was a decant that has been sitting in my enormous pile of decants that I have finally gotten around to trying and reviewing.

Diorissimo normally sold in EDT form but now I am seeing it in EDP form. Since both Surrender to Chance and The Perfumed Court only carry it in EDT form (I can't say if they won't ever have) that is what was available to me within my price range when I ordered a larger decant. The decant I have is not the current 2012 formulation but probably the one before that. I wouldn't call it vintage because my definition of vintage is before 1990.

For a while, Diorissimo smelled very familiar but I could not place it. It seemed like I had smelled this before and then I realized that it smelled a lot like the Easter lily that my parents always seem to get a couple days before Easter. My mother hates Easter lilies because it makes her sneeze and she is just not wild over the scent. Diorissimo does have a slight soapy feel but it adds to the overall feeling of the EDT without taking anything away. Diorissimo does have a slight green note that is kind of nice but I am not wild about for some reason. I really do like the EDT version but it doesn't last very long on skin. It lasts a little longer on skin and clothes than Diorling did. I might have to splurge, unsniffed, on a full bottle of Diorissimo EDP to get any king of lasting power.

Decants

When I found out that the ladies at the Perfumed Court were parting ways, I was left wondering about trying new perfumes. I'm past that stage where I would read the notes online and if it sounds good, I would buy it. That led to a few $150 or more purchases that were not that good. I'll admit that about a year after I fell down the rabbit hole, I had heard about The Perfumed Court, I was a little wary. It took me a year or two before I mustered the courage to put in an order. One was a small decant of something I had already had a sample of (Amouage Lyric) and Sarrasins. Then I knew that The Perfumed Court was the real deal. But The Perfumed Court was usually on the pricey side in my opinion. Usually it was the cost of shipping that was sometimes more than the decant itself. Since the breakup, the price of shipping has gone down from $5.95 to $2.95. I'm guessing that there is only one person who is doing the shipping on The Perfumed Court, there is no need to have the shipping that high. After placing a few orders with Surrender to Chance and poking around there in general, Surrender to Chance does not offer the 1.5ml spray. I had ordered a few sampler sets and they did come in 1.5ml non-spray vials. I did not realize that until the galbanum sampler set arrived and I did look at the orders that I placed. Dabber samples are not really my style because I don't think that I can judge any perfume fairly. But it does give me somewhat of an idea of what something smells like. Sometimes, especially when I'm not paying attention, dabber vial will compel me to get a spray decant. But at the rate I've been going, I've been buying less and been trying to be content with what I already have.
Surrender to Chance and The Perfumed Court are similar in price. Sometimes, Surrender to Chance is cheaper in decants and other times, The Perfumed Court is cheaper. But I think at this point, I have not been in any kind of mood to really go and buy decants or full bottles. Even though I have been buying sampler decants this past week, it's only been 3 or 4 small decants. And I'm the one who was used to spending $200 or more worth of decants per month and normally they were large decants. It doesn't mean that I've lost interest in perfume, a larger cell phone bill, a Rammstein concert, Mother's Day, and my mother's birthday coming up made me realize that I don't really need to be getting as much.

Do I really?

In the past week, I've ordered 3 large decants of perfumes that I already have. My mother was talking to me and watching do it. Her question was, "Don't you already have those?", My response was, "Yes.". Then she proceeded to ask me why I was ordering them again. My response was two of them were vintage and one of them wasn't available in the U.S. I have blogged before about E-bay scares the living daylights out of me so it's The Perfumed Court for me. The Perfumed COurt has introduced me to perfumes that I have not heard of or even thought of trying. Some were winners, some were not, some grew on me. Worth Courtesan is one perfume that I had dismissed as something nice but nothing special. I have mostly had a disdain for fruity perfumes but Courtesan isn't that fruity when I smelled a little closer. I now know why vintage perfumes of classics are more often than not better than the most current version.

Oh Dear...Broken Decant

I have had a lot of great experiences with The Perfumed Court and always seem to overspend my perfume allowance there. But I must say that I am a little bummed out though. I came home from work today and opened my package from The Perfumed Court. What got my attention was the fact that my package was very fragrant. I've gotten some decants that gave off a slight amount of fragrance. I pulled out the order slip and became very suspicious. The vial was broken and the attar had leaked all over the inside of the package. Every package that I have received from them has always been very carefully packaged and this was no different. Right now, I am giving the USPS the side eye. I have sent the Perfumed Court an e-mail to let them know that my vial has arrived broken. I hope that I won't have to send back the vial. I'm going to see what happens now.