Vintage Jicky Extrait and Other Things

It's been a rough few weeks. Some things are sad and a couple things are looking up.

Not this last Sunday but the Sunday before, I went to see my sick grandmother. She had been battling ovarian cancer for almost a decade but decided enough was enough and entered into hospice care. We understood her decision and supported it. It was getting difficult at the end with all the tests and she was getting sicker and sicker. My grandmother wanted to go more of on her terms. She passed on Friday and the funeral was today. The last visit, I went with a dab of vintage Jicky extrait.

Maybe it was the wrong me or the wrong perfume that day but it just didn't work. I have never gotten a whole lot of skank out of Jicky, even in vintage form. Jicky has always been one of those perfumes that seem to be acceptable in most situations but not that day. I think that it was the lavender that was bugging me.

Things seemed to be looking up when I got home today and checked the mailbox. I was eager to get my STC package but a couple other letters came for me and both made me pretty happy. A couple headaches did go away that were pertaining to my cash flow. Except for my Sephora order, I received my Barkbox order and my Ulta order. Gap finally decided to ship the shirts I ordered and my Chanel order is arriving tomorrow. Now I feel more comfortable with adding a new full bottle to my stable but I still kind of have my eye on the Viktoria Minya Hedonist travel set but I haven't made any hard and fast plans on what I should get.

Family and Visiting

It's always the same song and dance that seems to happen everywhere. Out of town family members some for a visit. In January/February, I was pretty excited. Earlier this month, I was excited but now, not so much.

I have two Labs and my dogs shed. Tufts of hair everywhere, dirt from their paws are everywhere. My house has never been spotless and pretty cluttered. My house is still sanitary but my sister is the type that will be judging. She knows that the house is cluttered and I have dogs. I figure that I will have some deep cleaning to do before she and my nephews need to be picked up from the airport. Mind you, I'm not going overboard, the bathrooms will get a good cleaning as opposed to a surface clean, make sure that everything is vacuumed and mopped and I have something set up in the guest bed for sleeping. Somehow I must manage this before Tuesday between work and watching Call the Midwife on Sunday. I'm not amused with what needs to be done but I do have a game plan on how to tackle the cleaning.

Along with the cleaning is making sure the house is somewhat stocked with snacks. My nephews are in grade school and probably are growing out of that fruit snack phase and wondering on what to do for snacks. It's just a lot of confusion and I am going to wait and see with this stuff.

Serge Lutens Bois de Violette Review and Other Stuff

It's been really difficult to blog lately and I mean really difficult to blog about anything, let alone perfume. My dad had surgery almost a week and a half ago due to colon cancer and we are waiting for the biopsy results to come in. Having my dad home means less time to blog (not like I do a whole lot of it) and work leaves almost no time to write about perfume. I do still wear perfume but I haven't really attempted to wear anything new. Financial troubles have also taken their toll on me but I am starting to see some marginal progress. With financial troubles makes me hesitant to reach into my unworn bag of decants. I just can't afford to buy anymore perfume right now and buying decants is almost out of the question right now.

With finances being very out of wack, it is making me appreciate my perfume collection a whole lot more. I am being forced to be content with the collection that I do have and I am hoping that I can drain a few bottles and sell off the ones that I don't wear. I haven't gotten around to seeing if Goodwill will accept perfume. Maybe a consignment shop would work a little better.

I was craving something new to wear, my hand picked out Serge Lutens Bois de Violette. I've always had somewhat of a rocky road with Serge Lutens offerings. Some don't smell good to my nose or too fleeting. It doesn't help that his exclusive line is sold at Barney's for an Amouage price. A Serge Lutens perfume works better for me if I spray, not dab. Dabbing just doesn't work all that well for me considering. I can't fathom why Serge Lutens refuses to include spray tops with his bell jars just like he does with the export line. With his export line, you have the option of spraying or dabbing. I'm too lazy as well to decant my own perfumes.

In the review, there will be a lot of comparisons between Bois de Violette and it's eldest sister, Feminite du Bois. Feminite du Bois is actually the mother ship for the whole Bois line, so there will be tons of comparisons between the two. The whole structure of Violette is almost identical to FdB from top to bottom. I'm not kidding, in a blind test, I probably wouldn't be able to differentiate between the two. Not at first sniff at least but then the violet comes out to play. It's not a shrinking violet but not an aggressive violet either, the violet is more of the assertive type. Then the whole FdB thing kind of quiets down and hums along. The sad thing is that Violette doesn't last long on me with a spray decant. I maybe get 3 and a half hours worth of wear out of this. I don't know when Serge moved Violette from the export line to the non export line but it must have been in the past 3 or 4 years. Most export sprays that I have last me at least 8 hours. Will I ever get a bottle of this? Probably not because I already have a bottle of FdB in my arsenal. I wouldn't turn my nose up if someone gifted me with a bottle of it either. My wallet is thanking me right now.

Insanity

Ever since I became an aunt three years ago, I started to dread this time of year. Reason being is that both of my nephews were born in November and before I know it, it's Christmas and I must get even more gifts. I used to be able to get away with getting only one gift for each nephew and now it has to be two. This year, I have been somewhat forced to drag out my Christmas shopping. Instead of just going to the mall two or three days ahead of Christmas, I did part of it after Thanksgiving, and I will be able to finish it up in a couple of weeks.

Instead of getting a butt load of decants this month, it turned to be getting massive amounts of Christmas presents and chocolate. I never really know if I have forgotten anyone or I have that one impossible person to shop for. What can be great about the mass amounts of Harry and David chocolate covered Bing cherries that I ordered, is that half the time, I don't even gift those.

Now, that my sinus infection is mostly gone and now I can finally breathe. With now having the ability to breathe, I can begin to wear my beloved Amouages and many other of my perfumes. It really does suck when one has some kind of head cold or sinus infection.