Guerlain Habit Rouge Vintage EDC Review

There was a bit of good news today. I had my post op appointment today and managed to get the drain removed. The doctor did note that my skin was becoming irritated with the surgical tape and there was some irritation around the drain site. But she said all that would heal up because she is removing the drain. Now I can get in and out of chairs and my bed without discomfort. I still need to take it easy. I asked if I can go back to work with restrictions and it looks like I can start doing that. I just can't afford to stay out of work too long. Some paperwork was goofed up with corporate and I won't get the sick leave pay for a while due to the holiday and all. Now I can start getting more thorough showers now that my incisions are mostly healed up.

Since my surgery, I haven't exactly wanted to wear some of my old favorites like Lyric. I don't want any kind of associations of pain when wearing Lyric. So I have been wearing tons of Chanel no 5 and Infusion d'Iris. Both of those are a little more soothing and have bottles upon bottles of both of those.

Since I was starting to get a little bored with Infusion d'Iris and Chanel no 5, I wanted to test out something new. Tom Ford's Black Orchid was a bust and this time, I went with Guerlain Habit Rouge in vintage EDC form. I was poking around STC and somehow ended up browsing vintage stuff and stumbled upon the vintage version of Habit Rouge. So naturally, it went into my shopping cart and went back to browsing STC. I mainly was on STC to get a small decant of Rose de Nuit. Did you know that Habit Rouge comes in parfum form? I didn't and had to throw a decant of that in my shopping cart as well. With those 3 decants, I hurriedly checked out before I started to add more to my shopping cart. I was finally able to finish off the last tiny bit of the STC gift card that Portia from the Perfume Posse sent me when I won some sort of give away.

So I was needing a break from my normal stuff and took a little bit of a chance and sprayed on the vintage Habit Rouge. I had remembered the lemon, dusting powder and a halfway decent staying power. I had a hard time with the lemon then but I have always had a hard time with citrus. The biggest thing that I noticed was there was oakmoss. Actual honest to goodness oakmoss. Nothing made today with actual oakmoss, just some kind of moss variant. While I was loving the oakmoss, I was quite loving the lemon and the dusting powder note. Like I have already said, I always had a hard time with citrus, especially if it is sharp or has a powdery element to it. Habit Rouge combined both of it. Besides the oakmoss, what kept me fulling hating this was the leather. I do love leather in perfume, while most of the time I prefer a plush leather, this is more of a butch leather. I didn't fully realize how well oakmoss proper plays well with leather.
 

Grocery Delivery and Chanel no 19

 I have blogged fairly recently about Door Dash and have made some comments about having food delivered. But somethings have changed in the past couple weeks. I have become one of those psychos that gets most of my groceries delivered now. I have epilepsy and I do not drive. It's a tough thing to go grocery shopping. When I leave work, I try to grab the things I need and head home. I know that for $100 a year, I can join the Target Circle and get free same day delivery. Since I am on Medicaid, I can get Amazon Prime and Walmart Plus for much less. But if I am not shopping on Amazon or Walmart, I would need to spend at least $10 per order and most places have some kind of minimum threshold before I can get same day delivery and this is not including tip.

For quite a while, the Walmart closest to me did not do same day delivery to my house. I live in a goofy spot. Most places either don't deliver or charge a little more. I live in a rural area and not being able to drive, I am more dependent on delivery services more than your average person. But in the past two and a half weeks, I have been able to have groceries delivered to my house at no extra charge from Walmart. I guess all that griping on Twitter might have paid off. I can't be the only disabled person that is a little more reliant on delivery services. My blind friend has the same issues with trying to find rides and someone help her with grocery shopping. I gave her the heads up with Walmart Plus. Why not give someone else a helping hand? So my dry goods are delivered to my door and I pick out my fruits, veggies and meat in person. I can't fully trust someone else to pick out those things yet. Some people like the convenience but it's a lifeline for me.

I am still having some issues with the most current version of no 19 EDP. The bottle that I currently have is at least 10 plus years old. Last week, I had a huge hankering for some no 19 and found my 2 vintage versions of the EDP. While I do have a couple vintage travel EDT versions, I couldn't really get to those. The bottle in the picture might be from sometime in the 80's or 90's. I will admit that I enjoy the vintage version of no 19 much better than the current version. I think that it is the musk that is used in the vintage that I like a little better. The whole set up in the vintage version of no 19 seems to be better. I know reformulations are inevitable but I am not the biggest fan of them. Most of the time, reformulations make a perfume worse off. Mitsouko is one of the few perfumes that in spite of not having actual oakmoss in it anymore, the reformulation has Mitsouko still smelling like Mitsouko. If someone tried to bring back Deneuve, it probably wouldn't smell like it should. But is Deneuve was rereleased, I would still give it a go because why shouldn't I give it a shot?

Trying to Use Decants and Vintage Bal a Versailles

 I've started to do a little bit of what Portia from the Perfume Posse is doing. She is using up some of her decants and maybe some bottles. The idea makes perfect sense though. When you've got a million bottles of perfume already and billions of perfume decants running around, things start to happen, especially if you have some dabber bottles of perfume. So after finishing off that bottle of Chanel no 5 edt, I want to get into the spirit of that and actually do it. Thus far, I have finished a dabber decant of Lyric edp and a decant of Lyric extrait. I have tons of Amouage Lyric and I figured that it would be a great place to start. It's all in the baby steps people, all in the baby steps.

I was rooting around that huge perfume tub that I have in the "guest" bedroom. That guest bedroom is kind of like our formal dining room table. The rooms that nobody in my house really uses but it's a place where tons of things just end up. I am not exactly sure why a was rummaging around in there but I was. Two things occurred to me. 

The first thing is to organize the stupid tub. Things are on their side and they shouldn't be. That makes everything more prone to spilling and what is even more important is the potential for things to break. When you have a fair bit of vintage perfume, you can't afford either of those. Because vintage is, you know, expensive.

The second thing would be evaporation from the dabber bottles. I had found what is probably my largest bottle of perfume. My 9 ounce lyre bottle of vintage Bal a Versailles showed some signs. I'm thinking that 2 forces with that bottle are at work. The outside of the bottle smelled like vintage Bal a Versailles but the bottle was sealed and I remember the bottle being a little fuller than it is now. I'm thinking that since I found that bottle more on it's side, I think that the alcohol content of the perfume started working on the unbroken seal of it. I think that I probably have more vintage BaV than I know what to do with but I am not exactly a fan of evaporation. It's all the more reason to go through all of my perfumes that don't have a spray mechanism and really start using them up. Then I won't have to freak out so much over evaporation and I might manage to create some space. Now if my candles would quit multiplying, I would be happy.

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.
 

Molinard Vintge Habanita EDT Review

I have finally found a spare moment to blog. It's just been a little strange around here. I have been having a little trouble trying to find the time and even more trouble getting to have more than 30 seconds on the computer without someone needing to use it.

It has been years since I have worn Molinard's Habanita. Almost 10 years and it was in the beginning of being a perfume fiend. After being a perfume fiend for around 10 years, my nose and tastes have changed and will keep changing. I remember liking Habanita and have a small decant of the vintage EDT. I am not going to yap about the history of Habanita, well not really. I don't know how old my vintage decant is but it probably is a fairly new vintage, if that makes any sense.

I get a slightly fruity type of oriental. I am not talking the fresh type of fruity smell, more like a cooked type of fruit. My nose can't pick out any one kind of flower but it does have a floral aspect to it. I think the flowers keep Habanita from going straight up Shalimar. What bothers me the most is that distinct plastic, powdery doll smell. I keep wanting to say Barbie but my nose leads me into the baby doll type of deal that I probably played with when I was really little.

Vintage Habanita was a bit of a let down for me. I wanted something maybe a little more on the skanky side, a little smokier, just a little different and maybe a little more complex. Maybe I am so used to my older perfumes being more complex and having more working parts. Maybe it's because smoking doesn't shock anybody anymore, especially a woman smoking in public. Women smoking led to the development of Habanita and I think that Molinard dropped the ball a little bit when creating something for skin.

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.

Vintage Perfume

After reviewing Jungle Gardenia, I got to thinking about all the vintage in my collection. Vintage perfumes seem to be the ones that seem to have tons of staying power on skin. Mitsouko, Shalimar, BaV and s few others have staying power on skin in vintage form, no matter the concentration.

I think that perfumes of the past, before all these reformulations, were built to have staying power. Way back when, many could only afford to have one perfume and it was used only sparingly. I managed to score a set of vintage Dior, probably from the '60's, maybe earlier and both Diorissimo and Miss Dior are both in EDC concentration and have staying power. What was great for me is that they came in the original packaging and it was pretty interesting to see the prices that were marked on them. The price tag read either $2.50 or $2.75.

It seems like many new releases do not have lasting power. Amouage and Andy Tauer are one of the few brands that release perfumes with lasting power. Amouage's earlier perfumes can take a couple showers before they fully wash off. Andy Tauer's Une Rose Vermeille is nuclear waste. With Une Rose Vermeille, I need to use both Tide and Dawn and at least 3 showers before it fully comes off. I wish more companies would take notice. And take notice of the price points as well. Why should  I shell out $60 or more for a perfume that lasts only an hour or two, even on clothes?

Tuvache Jungle Gardenia Vintage Parfum Review

I was starting to bored with the same old scents and wanted to try something new. It happened when I was doing a decant cull. I was going through decants and throwing out the evaporated ones or ones that might have had 1 measly wear. Let's say that space was created, which was nice. The clearing out of old decants led me to my vintage parfum dabbers and since I was looking at trying something new, I figured that testing out Tuvache Jungle Gardenia.

I have never been a fan of tuberose, especially as a dominant note in any perfume. Too big, too buttery, well just too much period and Jungle Gardenia is no exception to my nose. I had ordered a tiny bit of it while reading a post on Perfume Posse. I always hope that there might be a tuberose that works for me but I keep coming up empty handed.

Jungle Gardenia is a huge tuberose scent with no discernible gardenia in it. It's the biggest, slutiest tuberose that I have smelled so far. It's the tuberose that's starting to rot with a little bit of some kind of musk thrown in. If there is musk, it's somewhere, and very hidden. Even though I adore skank in my perfume and not afraid of massive skank notes in my perfume, this is missing the mark with me. Don't get me wrong, there is no shortage of skank in Jungle Gardenia, it's the type of skank that I sure as hell don't understand. Good thing that I have only a tiny bit and I am not eager to find more of this.

Chanel no 22 Vintage Extrait Review

It's time for me to get moving on a review of some sort. What seems like forever and a day, I have been bitching about Chanel. The prices seem to have gotten out of hand. I understand inflation and cost of materials but really, I am sure that the glass and the perfume itself costs next to nothing but to charge an arm and a leg and make certain lines unaffordable to quite a few people. I keep hoping that Chanel will either make their exclusive line in smaller sizes or have maybe a travel set for a few of them and have them priced reasonably would be a good thing. I could get behind spending $75 or $85 for a travel spray of Coromandel but I don't see it happening anytime soon. I think Chanel should consider it. They have travel sets for most of their lines, so why not?

I was kind of bored with my current line up. Recently, I have been wearing the shit out of LAADM and a couple others. So I looked through some things and found a little dabber decant of vintage no 22 extrait. I do have a sealed vintage bottle of no 22 in extrait form but can't quite get to it now and haven't even busted the seal open on it. I dabbed some on yesterday and said that it smelled almost exactly the same as the vintage EDT. For those of use who have been floating around the perfume world a while, you know that the current EDT of any Chanel is going to smell different than something that is 10 to 15 (or more) years ago. One becomes aware that all concentrations of any Chanel offering is going to smell different. After a few minutes, I did notice that the vintage extrait is smoother and a little less powdery than the vintage EDT. But was surprised me the most is the musk in vintage no 22. I don't ever recall smelling any kind of musk in the vintage EDT but I am going to have wear the vintage EDT to see. The musk was nice and gave no 22 a very small growl, I'm not fully sure that it quite fits. The musk in the vintage no 5 gives that vintage a nice growl without falling apart or making no 5 slutty. The lasting power of Chanel no 22 vintage extrait was about 7 hours which I liked. I don't ever think that I will ever come across another bottle of vintage no 22 for a reasonable price again.

Vintage Shalimar Extrait Review

I have finally cracked open a bottle of vintage Shalimar extrait and wore it. I don't wear Shalimar that often for some strange reason. For quite a while, I was prowling E-bay and was always on the hunt for reasonably priced bottles of vintage Mitsouko, Shalimar and Jicky. I was mainly looking for the teardrop bottles and if the price was reasonable, I got it. If the bottle was sealed, bonus. Somehow, I managed to score two unopened bottles of vintage Shalimar extrait and one of the bottles was from the 1950's and the other is probably from the 1960's. The one I am reviewing is from the '60's.

The first blast was a whole lot of citrus, something lemony. Since it is vintage, the citrus smells a little bit damaged. Then the vanilla and leather do come out. I've noticed that the vanilla and leather doesn't come as far out in the extrait like in the current EDP, which I am the most familiar with. Nor do I get an animalic growl, well maybe a faint trace of it. Maybe I am too used to the skank in vintage BaV, Keihl's Original Musk and MKK.

After wearing the extrait and then wearing the current EDP version, I had remembered why I don't wear the original Shalimar too much. I don't wear it much because I am not a huge fan of a large dose of citrus in an oriental perfume. I really do enjoy the Shalimar Ode a la Vanille. The Ode a la Vanille does bring the animal growl out and amps up the vanilla while toning down the citrus aspect. But at the end of the day, I wasn't moved by the vintage extrait of Shalimar and that is probably a little sad.

Cleaning and Rearranging Stuff

For the past few weeks, it's been an effort to clean and rearrange shit in my house. For every project that I complete, I realize how much shit I actually own.

Today was the day that I "had" to turn my attention to my dresser. The project of the day was placing my old dresser somewhere else and replacing it with another, bigger dresser. Other people in my household wanted to do that. And that meant that I had to pack up my entire perfume collection. When I was packing up my perfume, I didn't count how many bottles that I had but became more aware of the sheer number of back up bottles that I did have. When I was packing up, I was more concerned about the dabber bottles that were opened and making sure that they were didn't get tipped over in the box.

The dresser that I moved into my room is taller, has more drawers to it. In went a million shirts, shorts and jeans. Putting all of my full bottles on top of the dresser isn't practical because of the height but I was able to place all my candles and some of my Galileo thermometers on top of the dresser. This means that I have three boxes full of perfume bottles split up into two places and no clear solution to get them back into one spot yet. As this was going on, this was the perfect time to get rid of more clothes that I didn't need or was worn out.

But some interesting things did happen while this was going down. I did manage to finish a full bottle of vintage BaV. Yes, I actually finished a bottle of perfume and I was so excited to do that. But with the dresser switch, a bottle of vintage(ish) of Chanel no 19(EDP, 1.2 ounce) was found and I forgot that I had more no 19. For the better part of an hour, I was wondering when I had bought the bottle and how in the hell did it get behind the dresser. I think that it might have either gotten knocked behind the dresser or  just randomly fell back there. I thought I was actually starting to make headway into finishing bottles of perfume but it looks like I didn't make progress at all.

A few hours later, I did a rough count of all my full bottles. I counted 95ish but I am sure that number is wrong and much higher. I didn't count my minis because I don't view them as full bottles but did count all of my back up bottles. Ninety-Five full bottles is a little embarrassing but kind of funny and I didn't think that I was up to about that number. I knew my collection was big but not that big.

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.

Vintage Dioressence Review

It's time for a review her folks. I haven't done tons of exploring when it comes down to the house of Dior. For some reason, Dior hasn't gotten a much of my attention or held a lot of my interest to really explore for some reason. But a few days ago, I was really looking for something else to wear. I think that sometimes I get tired of looking at the same old bottles that are on my dresser. I know that there is a huge bag of decants that I haven't worn or reviewed but my eyes always seem to gravitate to my full bottles. So let's get onto Dioressence.

I will admit that the two vintage Diors that I have tried before Dioressence were Miss Dior and Diorling. But I did try the current versions before going the vintage route. I have not tried the current version of Dioressence so I really can't compare the current and the vintage. I also broke one of my rules with this one. I tested this at work. I don't test anything new while I am at work. What if it sucks? I might have access to running water but it's a public bathroom and I don't have a back up perfume with me. So no matter what happened, I had to ride it out because going without perfume isn't exactly an option.

Dioressence takes off with aldehydes and I do love aldehydes. The aldehydes are fairly fizzy and somewhat soapy. The aldehydes do play a very important roll and I will explain why in a moment. About 10 minutes in, I smell lemons. Not freshly cut or squeezed lemons, lemons are overripe to the point of rotting, along with the ambergris that lends the skank. I find the rotting lemons and ambergris to be a little off putting and strange. The aldehydes keep the rotting lemons and the skank from getting out of control and scaring people away. As the wearing goes on, the more I can discern that Dioressence is a chypre and I do love chypres and this chypre is a green one. The lasting power on this vintage EDT is about 7 hours long. On my dry skin, that's impressive. I'm going to keep an eye out for a vintage bottle and will keep a decant on hand because I do like this one a lot. It's not quite love yet but I think it will be soon.

Pre-Reformulation SDV

Since my computer is being a butt, I am writing this on my Kindle. The weather has gotten much cooler and now I can start wearing my heavy hitters. After digging in my unworn bag, I had pulled out a small decant of SDV. I had to take a closer look to why I had a decant in there in the first place. On the label, it has the pre-reformulation 2007 on it, so I had to test it out and do a comparison with the current version.

Guerlain has always been able to make vanilla sing. I had learned to love vanilla a little later in my perfume journey and how I like my vanilla. I like my vanilla either burnt, boozy or inedible. Spirirtuese Double Vanille delivers on all three. The pre-formulated version is smoother, quieter and less boozy than the reformulation. But SDV is still fairly loud on me and has the half life of plutonium on skin, reformulated or not. I would like to have a bottle of the current stuff but it's not in the cards right now.

Vintage Chanel no 5 Parfum Review

No 5 is one of those perfumes that does get lost in the shuffle when I am deciding on what I am going to wear for the day. The parfum versions are located in the front while the spray bottles are more of in the back. Don't ask me why but they just are. Parfum wise, I have about 4 bottles while the EDT and EDP have two bottles. My parfum comes from E-Bay because that is my source for vintage perfumes. But with Chanel no 5, I do need to be careful. People will pass off a counterfeit perfume as Chanel no 5 and that had happened to me once.

I haven't gotten a bottle of no 5 parfum in probably 5 years due to many things and reasons. I had noticed a while ago that Chanel had really started to ramp up the price for every size of their parfum. Ninety-five dollars for 7.5 ml of extrait was hard enough to part with but $130 in not in the budget. What I am willing to pay for an Amouage as opposed to a Chanel is different. But let's get to the review.

Last night, my resolve failed me and instead of wearing vintage Bal in the evening (Now Smell This challenge), I had opted to wear some vintage no 5 extrait. The bottle that I had tried was probably from the 1950's. I had noticed that the top notes were damaged, but smelled like the top notes of Chanel no 5, so they haven't been totally destroyed by time. After the damaged top notes wear off, it definitely smells like no 5. In the vintage EDT, I noticed the nitro musks and the nitro musks gave no 5 tons of sexiness without being skanky. But the bottle of extrait I am trying out is different. I noticed that the nitro musks are giving the extrait a skank note that smells strange in Chanel no 5. The skank note reminds me of the skank not in Amouage Gold, which is almost like a twin sister of Chanel no 5. I think that I do prefer Amouage Gold to no 5 in extrait form.

Perfume Minis and Other Things

Cleaning has never been my favorite thing to do, nor replacing things that need replaced. But both needed to be done. I'm not one of those who has to scour everything once a week, I usually do that once or twice a year. The rest of the time, it's some maintenance (vacuuming, minor cleaning). After putting off cleaning my bedroom for about a year, I went through and sorted out some stuff to throw out or donate. You don't realize how much you really own until you start to go through things. Part of the reason is that I had bought a new mattress because my old one was falling apart. I needed more space to maneuver the old and new mattress.

I periodically do poke around for perfume minis. Usually I find them when I am doing my vintage searching on E-Bay. Most of the time, I find them through searches of  vintage L'Heure Bleue, Mitsouko and Deneuve. The mid to late '90's must have been the time where sample vials of perfume of minis that sprayed must have become more common. But minis must have been the decants. Where people could spend maybe a dollar on a mini to try out at home. Or they might have been those free with purchase or cost a dollar or two if some couldn't afford a full bottle. But minis don't seem to be common anymore in the land of travel sprays, TPC, STC and perfume companies getting on board with spray samples for people to take home. No, I am not talking extrait bottles because those are not minis. I do have a few minis myself in my collection. they are predominantly Deneuve. The Deneuve minis are the ones that I mostly see and for a fairly reasonable price on E-Bay. Let's face it, even partially full bottles of Deneuve are pretty pricey and the minis are wither the EDT or the extrait. But I've never been overtly enthused with spending what seems like a million dollars for a small amount of perfume.

Vintage Chanel no 19 EDP Review

Chanel no 19 is one of those staples in my perfume collection is one of those perfumes that doesn't really get a whole lot of wear anymore. For a while, it was my go to perfume for many occasions. But in the past 2 or 3 years, my collection has really expanded and it is not exactly on my radar so much anymore. When I had applied the vintage version of Chanel no 19 EDP for a bed time scent on Sunday, I had to take a look at both the vintage and the current version. Yesterday, I put some of the current EDP to really take a look.

I had noticed with the vintage that the opening is much sharper and much more astringent than the current version. After the bite of the beginning wears off, and it wears off massively, the rose comes into play. The rose isn't as clear, the rose is now powdery and that is something that I haven't found in the current version. A powdery rose is not something I exactly like. The iris in no 19 is not carroty and earthy and it seems like the powder had kind of gotten that too. The vintage version seems to have some serious staying power over the current version.

At the end of the day, I prefer the current version of the EDP but I'm starting to favor the EDT version due to the fact that in green perfumes, I don't like much more than the barest hint of powder. I find it kind of sad in some ways that Chanel is not my most favored house anymore in terms of perfume. I think in some ways, Chanel has kind of lost Coco Chanel's vision and direction. Coco Chanel had revolutionized women's clothing and revolutionized perfume as we know it.

Coty Chypre Vintage EDT

For the longest while, I've had a small spray decant of Coty's Chypre in my unworn pile. And when I was trying to make a decision on what I should wear, I noticed that my decant was almost empty due to evaporation. So I had to finish it and review it.

There are many chypres out there still in production today but I think that Chypre may have been the first modern chypre. Chypre is slightly brutal with a few rough edges in it but it is wonderful. I find that it's more akin to Chanel no 19 or maybe a little like Chamade. The version of no 19 that Chypre is akin to is the EDT and not the EDP. No 19 in EDP form is a little smoother and a lot more rosy but there is no way that Chypre is like no 19 in extrait form.

While I did find Chypre enjoyable, I'm not so sure that I will be seeking out a bottle but maybe a small decant for reference. I am starting to prefer stuff that is in current circulation.

The Large Bottles

Here is another post on bottle sizes, I think that it is a second post of bottle sizes, I can't be sure. But there are a few massive ones in my collection. I'm not talking about the 3.4 ounces of anything. Yes, 3.4 ounces can be a lot of perfume but I'm talking the bottles that are more than that. I'm talking those monster bottles.

It is rare to see huge bottles today. Huge as in more than 3.4 ounces in modern perfumery. Dior and Chanel have large bottles of some of their offerings but that is rare. I more often see incredibly large bottles of perfume regularly on E-Bay. The ones I see on E-Bay most often are vintage perfumes and the most common seem to be are vintage Guerlains. I do think that back in the '50's and '60's maybe even before, perfume was considered a huge luxury and you wanted the biggest bottle that one could afford. Now those bottles, even empty, are a pretty penny, if you go looking on E-Bay. Unless you have a really good thrift store, Goodwill or an antique store, you are limited to E-Bay, like I am.