This is Stupid

I was going to do a review of Rouge Perfumery's Jasmin Antique. Well, that is not happening right now and I have a fair bit on what I want to say about it.

When I was reading either today's scent of the day or the 3 day weekend, there was something mentioned about the Chanel Les Exclusifs line extraits and had to go and take a look and there was a vain hope that there might be a more "affordable" option on any kind of no 5 extrait that wasn't the family sized version of no 5. When I saw what looked like the extrait is back in stock, I took a look. That seemed to be a huge mistake. It looks.like they rebranded/redid the whole extrait thing. If you just want the extrait itself, there is only 1 size and that is a 30ml bottle and that will set you back $440. But if you want it to come with a stupid case that has something that will help you open the bottle that is and extra $100. Yes, I had to do a double take at the whole set up was $550.

When I was that, all I could think about how stupid the whole set up was. For $400 I could buy an Amouage at full price or go to a discounter and get 2 Amouage offerings and those would be 100ml not 30ml. I could get a Serge Lutens bell jar for that price and those are 75ml. And all the while, kicking myself on not stocking up on the no 5extrait when I really had the chance 2 or 3 years ago or even when I started collecting perfume and 7.5ml of extrait set me back only $95. But that was a long time ago. It looks like I will be rationing what I have of the opened extrait and keep my sealed vintage sealed until I can nab more extrait.

 

Candle Day 2025 and Other Stuff

 

I did mention in another post about Bath and Body Works and their Candle Day. After the 2020/2021 fiasco, Bath and Body Works changed how they do things. They made Candle Day last the entire weekend and probably ramped up production after the 2020/2021 to make sure that they would have either enough 3 wick candles to sell or pretty close.

If I recall correctly, last year the sale started online on Friday at 8 or 9 pm and in-store at 6 am the following day. This Candle Day, it started online on Thursday at 10 pm. When the online parts starts happening, you get to wait in a virtual line and that is what I did. I was one of those idiots that waited 40 minutes in that virtual lime. Some years, I didn't wait more than 5 minutes but others, I waited for an hour. All to buy 6 damn candles. I promised myself that I would get only 2. I honestly think it was my bills were paid up for the week and since last week was Thanksgiving, I had a bigger paycheck and and that is how I justified it. And the price is $9.95 per candle. But what does my stupid ass do? I order another candle with some hand sanitizer. So right now, I am so very done with the candle buying. So now, I can say I have pretty much broken up with Bath and Body Works and my goal is to only shop at Bath and Body Works during Candle Day. It might be a difficult thing to do to.

I have been working through checking Ulta, MAC and a couple other websites to check to see if I have any use it or lose it points. The $250 worth of ULTA points was one of those. So yeah, I did redeem that. A bottle of Chanel no 5 edt, a body wash for my dad and some gummy vitamins that work for me is how I used that. I had MAC points that I had to use before the end of the year was used for the smaller lipsticks that are good for stocking stuffers for my mother. But at the end of the day, I was using all of that for stocking stuffers.

But with that last bottle of no 5 edt, I think it will be the final bottle of perfume that I will buy for the year. It might have been "free" but I look at it as how many points I had to save and even though I had to spend some money to get to that point, I wanted to make sure that I made it work. I would have been happier and maybe a little surprised if Ulta started selling the parfum version of no 5. If that happened, I would have gladly used my rewards balance for that. Well, I wanted to make the last full bottle purchase for the hear to be something more solid. It would have been a lot better if it was the parfum version but nobody seems to habe it.

The good news is that I am finished with my Christmas gift shopping, all thanks to the current paycheck. I might do Christmas shopping all year round but I used this past one as the final push to finish it. I always get paranoid about shipping this time of year and always try to finish it up as soon as I can.

But since my last vacation is winding down, it seems like all I did was shop and wear perfumes that I do not get to wear all that often. Lyric, the original Coco, Arabie and I am sure that I am missing a couple. It's partly because I kind of forget that I have them since most of my collection is out of my line of sight, so things do get forgotten about. But I want to make the final two days count in terms of perfume.

Out of Stock? And Other Things

My computer is still being an ass and I still can't get a whole lot to work on this stupid thing. Too many things get "timed out". I can't exactly do much of anything on this stupid thing, even Blogger is having a tough time. So I am a little frusterated with a few things and might have to switch to my really old and crappy laptop to get some of the results that I want in terms of blogging.

My mother is back in the hospital and this time she is in a place where the staff is better able to manage her care for the time being. I don't know how long she is going to be there or what is going to happen. So with missed time from work, things are going to be very thin for a while. But what makes a couple things easier is that the Father's Day gift has already been paid off and my dad's birthday is in August. 

You know how I wasn't exactly enthused with Cheirosa 62? Now I am smitten and I never exactly expected to be smitten with it. For what it is, I think it should be priced more like the Bath and Body Works line up. I still think that it is a little overpriced for what it is. I did break down and did get the 8 ounce bottle of the body spray and after that bottle is gone, it probably won't be replaced and I will probably be sticking to the lotion which is a little more reasonably priced. But with all of the perfume that I already have, it might be a while and I have two one ounce body sprays which will make that other bottle last a whole lot longer. If I only had a handful of perfume, that body splash would be gone pretty quick. But there have been perfumes in that past that I have either disliked or outright hated but then fell in love with it for some reason, or developed some kind of liking for it.

While I was poking around and planning my next purchase of Chanel no 5 parfum, I kept noticing that many of the major retailers that carries Chanel have been out of stock of the parfum version. In a tizzy, I go to the Chanel website and see that Chanel isn't carrying the parfum version of no 5, no 19, Coco and Coco Mademoiselle and I find that a little strange, Why would Chanel get rid of the parfum version of anything, especially no 5? No 5, along with Coco Mademoiselle are their flagship perfumes. Unless there are issues with production or shipping. I am dreading that no 5, especially in parfum form will be reformulated, even though I am not really in the market for a bottle right now. I am hoping that when Sephora has thier fall sale, it will be back in circulation but if it isn't, it won't be the end of the world. 

Eau Premiere Thoughts

For a good, long while, I couldn't get enough of no 5 Eau Premiere or any version of no 5. The only version of no 5 that I can't get into is L'Eau, to my nose, it bears no resemblance of no 5. But for some reason, any no 5 variation had dropped off my radar. I think that I was sidetracked by other things, especially MAC lipsticks and my recent tuberose love.

But when I couldn't get enough of no 5, I was more obsessed with the EDT and extrait version and it was to the point of ignoring my first no 5 love, Eau Premiere.

When Eau Premiere first came out, I was a little hesitant to try it. My dislike of no 5 came from when I was at a perfume counter. My hands were horribly dry and didn't have any hand lotion on me. So I figured that I would give the no 5 hand cream a try. It was either the hand lotion was old and gone off or the lights from the counter itself made the lotion go bad and then I had a dislike for no 5.

Fast forward a few years when Eau Premiere came out, I had ordered an eye shadow from Chanel and for some odd reason, I picked out a sample of Eau Premiere to try. But when I did, my opinion of no 5 had started to change to maybe no 5 isn't so bad. What really changed my opinion of no 5 is the Sensual Elixer. When I was at the mall, I bought the Sensual Elixer instead of Eau Premire. The Sensual Elixer is long gone and if you can find it, it's stupid expensive and stupid expensive isn't my thing right now. When I realized my mistake, I went over to the Chanel website and ordered myself a bottle. At the time, Eau Premiere wasn't sold in the traditional Chanel bottles and there were many sizes. Today, I think that I probably should have gotten the 5 ounce bottle of Eau Premiere when it was being offered but that was then, tI don't know when Chanel did away with some of their larger sized bottles of Eau Premiere and the old bottle that it used to come in but it did happen. There is very little in the Chanel line up that is over 100ml. Most people are not seeking out the Les Exclusifs line.Outside of the Les Exclusifs line, the 200ml bottles are either no 5 edp or Coco Madamoiselle. But I was pleased to see that Eau Premiere has a travel spray and when that happened, I snapped that up. Currently, my travel spray set is MIA but I have a general idea of where it might be but I am not quite ready to tear apart a room or two to try and find it.his is now. I am trying to save some money and not spend it.

 

Sephora Spring Sale and Chanel No 5

So it's the Sephora annual spring sale and it runs until the 14th. I had initally planned to give this one a miss. For me, April can be a lean month or a flush month. This April is a lean month for me in terms of money. Can't always control how things go in terms of money and I did forget that Sephora has a spring and fall sale.

What I do like about Sephora's spring and fall sale is that you are not limited on which brands are whatever percentage off. If Ulta is having a percentage off sale or a really good coupon, some brands are off limits. I have never been able to use a coupon on MAC or Chanel. Urban Decay and Too Faced can be hit or miss. But I have taken advantage of the Sephora sales to get some Chanel perfumes for less. You have no idea on how happy I was to nab a bottle of no 5 extrait and the 200ml bottle of Coco Mademoiselle Intense.

So replentishing my supply of no 5 extrait isn't in the cards right now. And you know what, I am okay with that. The only things that I am getting from the Sephora sale are two inexpensive hand lotions, well, inexpensive for Sephora. I am trying to keep the grand total to be under $20. I work in retail and I go through hand lotion like no tomorrow and I would like to think that I would spoil myself a little bit. One of those hand lotions is going to my mother for Mother's day and the other is going into my work coat. I am not wasting my Amouage or Chanel lotions on my place of employment.

I am hoping that the next Sephora sale I will be able to get that bottle of no 5 extrait. My no 5 collection might be fairly large but I don't want to start to really tear into my vintage no 5 extrait collection just yet. My vintage no 5 collection is nowhere near as extensive as my vintage Mitsouko collection so I don't exactly want to wear it quite as freely as Mitsouko. But now is not the time I want to go spending money like a drunken sailor, I spent enough on my cellphone bills and dog food for the past two or three months.
 

The Only Time I Feel Like a Millionaire

 It's that time of year again. The time of year where you either owe or get a refund. It's tax season and I just filed my taxes. For me, it's the only time where I feel like a millionaire because I get a refund. Since I don't have dependants, my refunds are small. This year's tax refund is a little bigger.

On one shoulder, I have a voice saying that I should get one of the many perfumes that I haven't bought yet but really want and the other shoulder, I have the sensible voice saying that I can't do that. With a larger cellphone bill and I am making sure that this year is the year that I follow through with bankrupcy. I scoured the Ohio missing money website and saw that I did have something and it is a fairly big amount. With the tax refund and that "missing money", I would have enough to pay a lawyer for the bankrupcy and have enough left over to pay for my larger cellphone bill and not have to worry so much. Plus, I am on the using up decants and sample challange. So I don't exactly want to go adding more full bottles or decants to my collection.

One of the bottles of perfume that I really want is a larger bottle of no 5 parfum and the other is a current version of no 19 edt or maybe the parfum version of Coco. There are some niche bottles that I would like but I am drawing a blank on which one would I like the most. Maybe I will go with an Andy Tauer offering but the perfume buying is going to be much farther down the road.

My First Bottle of No 5

Even though it's Labor Day in the US, it was a day of labor for me. Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer and beginning of fall. I wasn't at work today but after procrastinating for a few months, I moved all the clothes that I had in the guest bedroom back into my bedroom. I don't know how many dressers that have been moved in and out of my room these past few months. I could have started months ago to start putting those clothes away but never could muster the motivation to do it. So my clothes are now back in drawers. My candles haven't made it over into my room but I don't have the same set up nor space to have them in my room. What I did manage to get was my bottles of De Profundis and Sarrasins out. I am a little excited to start going through my collection to see what I want to keep and what I can sell. I am still looking for a place where I can drop off my unwanted perfume and have someone else sell it for me.

Way back before I started to seriously collect perfume, I did try the Chanel no 5 hand cream. I don't know what the hell happened to that hand cream but I think that the hand cream might have been either left out for years or was in the back of the cabinet and rather than throw the thing out, the sales people put a try me sticker and put it on the counter. So I promptly ignored no 5 for a few years, until the release of Eau Premiere. When I tried Eau Premiere, is when I began to understand no 5. 

When I was at the perfume counter and I thought I was getting a bottle of Eau Premiere but got a bottle of the long discontinued Sensual Elixir. So off to the Chanel website and ordered the Eau Premiere and a bottle of no 5 edp or I might have gotten the extrait first. But when I was working on one of our guest bedrooms, I found my first bottle of no 5 edp. The bottle is about 2/3 empty and when I took a whiff, I noticed on how different the first bottle smells compared to the most current bottle of no 5 edt. I find that the older bottle is much less powdery and less floral smelling. I am thinking that Chanel might have either had to do some serious reformulations to suit modern tastes of the rose and jasmine harvests got pretty funky. But there is a fairly noticeable difference if you do a side by side comparison and I have noticed that in the edt version as well. Let's see what I can do with my perfume collection before I test out more no 5 or add anything new.
 

Amazon Prime Day and Chanel no 5

 Well, tomorrow and Wednesday is Amazon Prime day. I am not exactly buying anything for me because there is nothing that I truly need but I am doing some shopping for other people. What was going on with my Kindle was that I had too many background things running and that is what was draining my battery and part of the reason of why the stupid thing wasn't charging. My mother needs a new Kindle because hers is just about dead. As soon as I order her that Kindle, I will be redeeming a $25 gift card and order my dad that one of those Xbox games that he has been thinking about for his birthday. If there is anything left over with that gift card, I will either buy a cheap book or an episode of Daria. Daria is one of those MTV shows that I loved and that was when MTV was still pretty good. But we shall see.

But for the past couple months, I have been wearing a whole lot of Chanel no 5 on days that I have to go to work. The only formulation of no 5 I won't wear is the parfum. The parfum is just too fabulous to wear to work. It's a good thing that I have so much no 5 that I can wear it with abandon. The only other perfume that I have been wearing to work is CdG Kyoto. With all the heat that we have been having, I want something a little more dry and cooling. I could probably go for L'Air du Desert but it doesn't have the cooling effect that Kyoto does.

I still haven't gotten that stupid dresser into my bedroom. It seems like every time I want to do just that, my mother changes her mind. What I had to do is tell her is that I am tired of most of my belongings spread across three rooms. I would love to get that dresser in my room and go through my clothes and figure out what do I want to keep, throw out or donate. What I truly want to do is actually use some of my candles. I have no place high enough to use my candles. My nightstand is too low, the high boy dresser has a TV and I would rather not destroy that. I would love to have a spot to show case some of my perfumes and have a little more selection than what I have now.

Valentine's Day

 It's Valentine's Day here and for those who follow the Catholic faith, it's Ash Wednesday. I work in a bakery and had to deal with the overload of paczi yesterday. If I didn't work at a bakery, I wouldn't have had a clue about Fat Tuesday or Ash Wednesday. But the paczi that we sell at my store is an overrated jelly doughnut. You would probably have a better paczi if you went to an old school Polish bakery.

I'm not following Valentine's Day either. I might be off but I am not with anyone, so I have nobody to celebrate it with. I am waiting for tomorrow because I want the half priced Valentine's candy. But we shall see if I really want to be out and about tomorrow. Probably not though.

I'm pretty sure that many people have bought their significant others jewelry, candy, flowers and perfume. I was thinking about that I think would be great perfumes for a Valentine's gift. Then I got to thinking about a list of solid choices for Valentine's perfumes, even though I am bathed in the traumatically discontinued Fendi Theorema. The people at Fendi were total morons for getting rid of Theorema.

I have to start off with Lyric. Since the Valentine's colors are red, pink and white, the bottle fits with the general color theme. Since roses seem to be the most gifted flower on this day, the spicy rose of Lyric fits the day. Lyric is one of my most loved perfumes and probably the first Amouge that I fell head over heels in love with and then Epic was my second. Yeah, Amouage is expensive and probably the most expensive brand on this list but you only live once.

The original Shalimar is going to have to be my 2nd choice in all of it's vanilla goodness. Shalinar isn't a straight up vanilla thing, there are more moving parts. There is the citrus aspect of it and whatever else is in there to make Shalimar a little on the slutty side. I haven't tried too many of the Shalimar flankers outside the Ode a la Vanilles. Shalimar is pretty affordable but the Ode a la Vanilles from around 2010/12 and crazy expensive if you can find them.

My third choice would have to be the tried and true and probably my lamest pick on the list is Chanel no 5 in extrait form or the edt form. You could possibly get away with the edp version but the extrait and edt are the first two versions of no 5 that came out. I would ignore all the other no 5 flankers for Valentine's Day. Coco said that she wanted no 5 to smell like a woman and not a flower. In the '20's, that was revolutionary in terms of perfume but that would be a whole different post. With no 5, outside of the aldehydes, no other note sticks out but no 5 wants you to move in a little closer.

I was thinking of putting Mitsouko on the list but outside of perfume nuts, who really would seek out Mitsouko? She is a little too strange and maybe a little too harsh for a lot of people. I am thinking it's a little too strange. I am leaving out vintage Bal a Versailles due to the fact that it's vintage and can be a little on the pricey side. Plus I don't think that most can deal with the outright slut in vintage Bal a Versailles.

I Finally Managed

When I posted about how committed I was to finishing that bottle of Chanel no 5 edt, I wasn't so sure if I was going to be able to do it. My perfume collection is so large and I don't often wear the same perfume more that two days in a row. But I knew that I was going to struggle with this, no matter how committed I was to finishing a bottle.

It was a little bit of a struggle yesterday and this morning. Yes, I was struggling over the 3 sprays left of one freaking bottle. I kept telling myself that there was just a smidge left and I could get through this. I am not really looking to procure anymore full bottles of perfume right now. I don't really have the means and I just don't have the drive right now to get more.

What I am trying to do is stock up on basic stuff right now. Body wash, toilet paper and other basic things. I really need to get that stuff all taken care of. With winter coming, I would rather start stockpiling the basic stuff. I don't want to get caught in a snow storm trying to get milk or toilet paper because I didn't bother to go shopping to get said items that I've needed to get for the past week. The Farmer's Almanac is predicting a colder, snowy winter in my neck of the woods and if I have already stockpiled on some basics, I don't have to go out.

I've gotten back into the habit of having lit candles and trying to use some of them up. I will admit to the fact that Bath and Body Works did have some really good candle deals recently. And I have noticed that they have really started to release their winter/Christmas stuff. The candles that I really want to stock up on are the Winter, Tree Farm and Frozen Lake candles. What's great right now is that Bath and Body Works doesn't seem to be ignoring their single wick candle line up. In years past, they seemed to just focus on the 3 wick candles and pretty much ignore the single wicks. I am planning on partaking in the single wick candle sale that they have going on right now. I don't plan on getting a whole lot and I am probably only get 2 or 3 candles for Candle Day. Let's hope by Candle Day that I have made a sizeable dent in my collection.
 

It Shouldn't Be This Hard

 For a long time, I have said that I was actually going to finish that bottle of Chanel no 5 edt. I keep saying it and it never seems to happen. I have no real idea on why I         can't just finish the damn bottle and be done with it. There is only two more wearings in the bottle so I think that by Wednesday, I should have the bottle finished.

Let's think about it, I have more Chanel no 5 in various concentrations than I know what to do with. So there is no freaking reason on why I should be hoarding this stuff. Especially since no 5 hasn't been discontinued and I don't think that no 5 will be discontinued in the near future. I don't think that it has been reformulated but reformulation is always a threat when it comes to perfume, especially the longer that a perfume has been in the market. Chanel no 5 in various concentrations is pretty easy to find.

Granted Chanel no 5 might not be the cheapest perfume out there and I have spent far more on other bottles of perfume. But for probably most people, the price of a Chanel perfume is the most they can spend on any kind of perfume. I do wish the the extrait version of Chanel no 5 was a little more affordable but I know Chanel can set their prices on whatever they sell. The extrait is the one that I have the least amount of and that is the only formulation that I kind of do hoard due to the expense. Eventually, I will get another bottle of extrait. At this point, I think that might be when Sephora has their spring sale sometime in March or April. And that is when I take Afterpay out of time out.

For me, Afterpay was an awesome idea when my limit was at $600. Since I am at a current limit of $1,400 it's not so awesome for me. It's too easy for me to get into the habit of just buying things since I make payments every 2 weeks. It's just all of those little purchases that seem to get to me. With those little purchases, I can find myself making 6 or 7 payments in the same week when I really don't pay attention. So my account is frozen until my payment plan is complete. I still do think that the BNPL concept is pretty cool and possibly a better option than credit cards. I think that a bottle of Gris Charnel extrait and no 5 extrait are still in that cards but I am going to have to wait until I get Afterpay all squared away and move out of the holiday season.

Perfume and Being Sick

 Somehow, I got some kind of summer crud that is going around work. I've had this garbage since Friday and I sick and tired of not being able to sleep due to all of the coughing. It's got to be all of the post nasal drip. No matter how many nedulizer treatments, blowing my nose or coughing up crap I do, I still end up coughing the night away. It's the wheeze when I am not coughing that really annoys me. I also am doing the cough suppressant stuff and sleeping with two pillows to no avail.

Even though I am getting my sense of smell back, I still don't really want to wear perfume. Most of the time, the only perfume that I want to wear and can wear is Chanel no 5 edt but I don't even want to wear that. My asthma doesn't seem to want to behave to well so I shouldn't even attempt any kind of perfume. I have already taken a couple days off from work that I probably shouldn't have but I don't really want to end up in the ER due to my stupid asthma.

With my birthday coming up in a few days, I'm really holding off on another full bottle of perfume. I put a freeze on Afterpay and is going to remain that way until it's paid off. I am probably get a few decants from STC or TPC. I haven't made decisions yet, I'm just trying to kick this whole cold bushiness.

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.
 

Perfume Bottles

In my massive collection, I don't have too many dabber bottles. Most of the ones that I do have are either vintage BaV, minis or pure parfum bottles.

There is a pretty good reason on why I don't have too many of them. I've spilled a few of them. With the ones that I have spilled, I managed to save a fair bit of perfume but I don't really want to take too many chances at this point. 

Since last year, I've had Coromandel and no 5 in pure parfum form sitting on my dresser, untouched. Well, this past week, I decided to rectify that. I really wanted to try Coromandel in pure parfum form. Anyone who is familiar with Chanel, knows that every concentration smells a little different. But I had forgotten how much of a pain in the ass opening an extrait bottle of Chanel can be. Trying to get the string undone and then trying to get the stopper out without shattering or spilling the bottle. I had gotten Coromandel directly from Chanel and no 5 from Sephora.

I had an easier time opening no 5 than I did with Coromandel. What I am thinking is that since no 5 is a huge seller, there might not be such a huge need to really seal the bottle. Coromandel was damn near impossible, probably since Coromandel isn't as widely known to the general public. So who knows how long my bottle of Coromandel was sitting around before it got to me. I was incredibly paranoid of spilling my bottle of Coromandel; knowing that if I broke/spilled the bottle, I wouldn't be getting another bottle anytime soon.
 

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.
 

Clearing Out the Old

I spent a little bit of time on Sunday going through and getting rid of my make up and finished the job today. You have no idea on how much I threw out. It was tons of eye shadows and lots of scary looking lip gloss. I am in a serious de-cluttering mode. I just want to either use things up or just throw them out.

When I was going through everything, I didn't quite realize how many Kat von D eye shadow palettes that I had. What in the world was I thinking? Getting those palettes full of shimmer and phenomenally strong colors. Medium or dark purple? I don't have wicked mad makeup skills to work with anything outside of neutrals that are pretty close to my skin tone. I'm pretty basic with eye shadow and the two palettes that I use are the original Urban Decay Naked palettes., especially the mini palettes.

Yes, I threw out a bunch of lip gloss too. Just like all of the eye shadow that I threw out, the lip glosses were pretty ancient as well. Like 7 years old or older and were really looking sketchy. And I realized that lip gloss isn't my thing anymore but lipstick. But what has amazed me was the amount of lipstick that I have bought in the past 6 months and I hung on to those. I am seriously going to have to start wearing lipstick again.

Since I have seemed to have doubled down on the de-cluttering, I've doubled down on trying to use up one bottle of Chanel no 5 edt and one bottle of no 5 edp.  My collection of no 5 is truly horrifying and just want to slim that down a little bit. But I seem to be talking out my butt a little bit when I am waiting for the Sephora sale to start in a little over a week. My mother asked me to add a lipstick that she wants to my back and I have a cheap brush set and another travel spray added to my cart. But I want to start using up my make up. Now if I could really quit getting so many candles, I'd be in better shape.
 

No 5 Eau Premiere and Other Things

I've been wearing boatloads of Chanel recently and already bought boatloads in the past year and I am taking a little bit of a break from the house of Chanel. It's the fact that I have seemed to neglect so many of my other perfumes. Amouage, vintage BaV and a few others have been seriously neglected.

Initially, when I bought that travel spray set of no 5 Eau Premiere, it didn't smell like it had been tinkered with. Eau Premiere has been tinkered with. I mentioned before that the current edp smells quite a bit different than what I had gotten 6 years previously. My full bottle of Eau Premiere was procured when Eau Premiere made it's debut. The Eau Premiere tinkering is more along the lines of what happened with the current no 5 proper edp. The reformulation is slightly noticeable but not something huge. I still love Eau Premiere but hate reformulations. I get that reformulations happen for many reasons but there is no reason to screw up a perfume, especially if it is a classic.

We have barely started fall and Bath and Body Works has started to drop their winter line up. This is just insanity, it was maybe mid July, that Bath and Body Works started to drop their fall line up. It seems like seasonal line ups are released earlier and earlier. Especially this year though. Not sure if it is because the pandemic is still going on or what is going to be happening with the whole Christmas season and the American postal service. Every time that I watch the news, the news people seem to be asking store owners about the Christmas season. The answer always seems to be the same, they don't know what they will be getting in their shipments or even if they will get anything. I am about 2/3's done with my Christmas shopping but with the postal service, I will probably need to order things earlier than I really want to.

Yes, the Winter candle from Bath and Body Works has just come out and I did order 3 of them. I wasn't able to really stock up on them due to a poorly planned out Bath and Body Works Candle Day sale. I'm still trying to use up or get rid of candles but yet, I still end up getting more. I have half a mind to see if there is one consignment shop near me that will off load some of these candles or maybe I could donate some. I'm all set on apple candles though.
 

Living Dangerously

Fall is quickly coming to Ohio and I have already started rotating some of my collection. I am starting to put away the more summery perfumes and getting out some of the fall stuff. When fall starts to arrive, that means county fairs come and that means that I have to start rotating stuff. Not all of my summer stuff has been put away though. We still might get a heat wave or two and I would still need a lighter perfume to wear.

When I went to my county fair yesterday, I wore LADDM. I wasn't about to waste no 5 or anything fancy really. LADDM seems to suit fall pretty good and does suit a county fair. I think that fall suits LADDM the best. LADDM congers up bonfires, clam bakes and just about anything fall.

For the past few days. I've seemed to have been living dangerously. For me at least. A while back, I did some bonehead things and got into some trouble with credit cards. I've gotten it about half way paid off and haven't even tried to apply for anything new. Until about Saturday when I was poking around the Ulta and Sephora websites. I wasn't really looking for anything in particular but did impulsively applied for their credit cards and got approved. Low limits but having the chance of things growing as things improve but it's nice to have some new credit. Sephora has a couple Chanel things and sizes that I can't find at Ulta but the Sephora card probably won't be used all that much but it will be a great tool to have in the future. I did use both cards and took advantage of the discounts. Had my eye of no 5 extrait and the full sized Coco Mademoiselle travel sprays. But I am making a point not to charge very much on both of them and in ways those two new credit cards are serving a purpose. One reason is utilization and the other is that they are places I both shop, even though I mostly shop at Ulta. I am just going to pay them off in a couple months and probably not going to use them for a couple months afterwards. Not like I really needed those two new perfumes and credit cards but it's nice to have a little back up in terms of credit.
 

Wearing Chanel no 5

My folks have arrived back home on Tuesday and happy to be home. It was a goofy 10 days though. Too many late nights and too many early mornings and with a retail job makes things a little crazy. The late nights, early mornings was due in part because of the dogs. They always wanted out but since they have a hard time staying in the yard, they could only be outside on a leash.

Things got pretty strange when I lost electricity on Sunday, the day after my parents left. The sun was out, it hadn't rained that day and it was out for almost 10 hours. The only thing to do was to sit tight and try not to flush the toilet or run water needlessly. I was getting pretty annoyed after a while since I was really starting to run low on battery life with my cellphone. The constant checking to see when electricity would be restored and trying to keep in touch with my family kind of sucked it up. When the electricity came back on, the computer didn't work quite right but obviously works fine now.

It does seem during those 10 days I mostly wore no 5 in various concentrations. Eau Premiere, the EDP, and the EDT but mostly Eau Premiere. I had the opportunity to wear many other things and did wear other things but mainly stick to no 5. Maybe it was more of a comfort thing. I am thinking about getting a back up bottle of Eau Premiere but not fully sure if I want to get one quite yet. My bottle of Eau Premiere is when Eau Premiere was first released. I am thinking that Eau Premiere mostly likely been reformulated and definitely been put into new packaging. I am not fully sure if I truly want a new bottle of anything right now.

Candles and Chanel no 5

 

It looks like Blogger is going to let me upload different pictures again instead of recycling the same old pictures. Don't ask me how it was fixed but it was fixed. There is no point in looking a gift horse in the mouth.

I swore to myself that I would not get anymore candles because I had 40 something candles to use. That didn't happen since I am up to over 50 right now. Now I have to get moving on burning candles. Especially since I hadn't really had a candle going since two days before Christmas. I started a candle on Sunday but haven't had it going since then. For a few weeks, it was almost like perfume decants, they kept multiplying at an alarming rate. It's gotten to the point of enough is enough with candles and I have to whittle this collection down to something more manageable.

My latest perfume fixation seems to  be on Chanel no 5 right now. I have a fairly healthy stock of no 5 and for quite a while, my preferred version was the EDP. Could never really afford the parfum version on a regular basis and dabber bottles seem to really evaporate quickly so what's the point of spending that kind of money? Seems like lately that I am wanting the EDT version. Little softer, little more luminous and just a little easier to wear. I have been looking at the 1.2 ounce bottle of the EDT that I have and it's a little less than half full but not more than that. I figure that since I have a fairly healthy stock of no 5, why not finish the bottle? I have tons of perfume already so finishing a bottle would be quite a feat for me. So I think that I will be wearing the shit out of no 5 to finish the EDT bottle and probably will finish off the EDP bottle that I have going on as well. I do have that mini travel spray and some vintage parfum but why do I need to?