Dior La Collection Couturier Parfumeur Grand Bal Review

I will admit that I have never been the biggest Dior fan girl. Nothing has really moved me in terms of Dior. Diorissimo doesn't it for me, even in vintage form. Current released (Dior) kind of gross me out and annoy me. I will explain with Grand Bal.

I do have a liking for jasmine dominant perfumes with Sarrasins being my favorite. Jasmine can be a little difficult because under the wrong circumstances, jasmine is abhorrent. Overwhelming and cloying. Grand Bal has jasmine in spades, you can't miss it. At first, I thought that I was smelling tuberose, which is my arch nemesis in terms of perfume but it was the jasmine. The jasmine and tuberose thing reminded me of Nuda but even though tuberose isn't listed in the notes that I see, I'm pretty sure it's in there to add some creaminess. What got me was the whole watery thing in Grand Bal and I loathe things watery. I'm thinking that Dior used calone and won't fess up to using it. Yep, Grand Bal is this whole watery jasmine mess that just doesn't work. If it doesn't work in the EDP version of Diorissimo, it won't work in Grand Bal. Grand Bal was just a huge mess on my to where I can only smell a watery jasmine that was done horribly.

The lasting power of Grand Bal is 9 hours on my skin and that's 9 hours to long with some pretty hefty sillage. Good thing that I am not willing to part with $210 for this.

Andy Tauer Lonesome Rider Review

I will admit that I am a huge fan of Andy Tauer and his work. Yep, I'm a fan girl. Even though I might not like some of his work, Andy has consistently released some good, if not great work. And I have enjoyed most of what I have tried.

About a week and a half ago or two weeks ago, I had ordered LADDM from Andy Tauer's website instead of Luckyscent. Ordering from Andy's website works out a little better than Luckyscent in terms of price and I'd rather that money go directly to Mr. Tauer and not Luckyscent, I'm strange that way. I did run into a little issue with the website and never received an e-mail confirmation. I had checked my junk e-mail and trash folder to make sure I hadn't missed it. Nope, it didn't arrive in my inbox. I had contacted Mr. Tauer and had explained my situation and was wondering if everything went through like it should. Mr. Tauer had e-mailed me back and said that he would take it up with his IT people and was sending me something special in the mail for my inconvenience. For me, it wasn't any kind of inconvenience, just a very minor annoyance. When my package of LADDM arrived, it was just the perfume itself but there was another package. Inside, there were 5 samples and a note. It was very sweet of Mr. Tauer to do that. Inside, were a few that I haven't tried yet and Lonesome Rider was one of them. Naturally, I had to try it.

First blast was the grapefruit. Normally, any kind of citrus bugs the shit out of me but the grapefruit is bright and almost effervescent. The leather comes into play about a minute or two later. The leather is not the plush leather of a worn handbag or Chanel's Cuir de Russie. I am strongly reminded of brand new shoe and a shoe store. At 10 minutes in, I'm not so sure if I'm liking this so much. I keep looking for that whopping dose of Tauerade that I'm so familiar with and not finding it, well, not a lot of it. The cistus does poke through along with some floral notes that I can't identify at this point that ties all of this together. The lasting power is about 8 or 9 hours on my skin with some projection and that's normal for Mr. Tauer's work for my skin except for the projection. I usually get a little more projection with the Tauer line. I think that this one just isn't for me and I am okay with that. I will keep sampling Mr. Tauer's work and keep buying it.

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.

Amouage Jubilation XXV Review

I have slowly been wading through Amouage's men's offerings. I think that I just have Gold for men left to try.

At first whiff, I get the incense and a big slug of it. At a closer sniff, I get a little bit of orange that peeks out and a little bit of rose. The rose and orange peek out once in a while but they are not really in the forefront. I do get some patchouli in there that gives it some earthiness. Patchouli and I are definitely not the best of friends but the patchouli isn't annoying and it's smoothed out by the oud. I couldn't place what Jubilation XXV smelled like at first and then I knew. Jubilation XXV is mostly a dead ringer for Comme des Garcons Avignon. I swear, it's almost Avignon but a little more expensive smelling. Probably because Bertrand Duchaufour created Avignon and Jubilation XXV. Jubilation XXV lasts on my skin for about 6 hours and I wasn't thrilled about that. I expected better from Amouage and I'm used to 10 to 12 hours from the women's offerings.

I've been underwhelmed and disappointed by the men's offerings from Amouage. The men's versions are thin and nowhere near as impressive the the women's versions (especially the ones up to Honour). Jubilation XXV doesn't fit the bill and I am not amused.

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.

Still Got Nothin'

I still don't want to try anything new and I especially don't want to blog about it now. What I think that I am trying to do is finish a bottle of something or try and use what I've already got. It's not exactly a bad thing to not be trying anything new or buying any more perfume right this second. I am somewhat being forced to enjoy what I already have. I have decided to limit myself to limiting when I can or will buy full bottles of anything. I'm having some pretty decent success with limiting the times of year that I do buy a full bottle. The limits are tax season, my birthday, and the Christmas season. I have the option of buying a perfume or not but in the past couple years, I've only gotten three bottles and I'm happy with that.

My latest obsession is nail polish. Now it seems like I have a million bottles of nail polish running around and some of those are multiple bottles of the same color. I am an OPI devotee and twice a year they release a collection. It's very rare that I love enough of a collection that I actually get the whole collection. But if I find a polish from a collection that I like I always end up getting 3 bottles of said color. OPI probably always takes the top two best sellers and decides which one goes in the permanent collection. I don't slavishly wait for the next seasonal collection to be announce. I make and effort to go and use what I have and then maybe go looking for what the latest collection is. So I do end up missing collections an I am okay with that.

Yapping

I do have a couple perfumes that I could be reviewing but I can't really form an opinion on them quite yet. I think that this whole warm up to spring like weather for a day or two and then back to really cold weather is getting to me. Winter usually gets to me about February. I'm sick of the cold, sick of how ugly it is outside when there is no snow on the ground. I want it to get warm and stay warm. I want to break out the short sleeves and later on, shorts.

Thus far, I haven't filed my taxes yet and I am debating when I should file them. I should file them in the next few days. I probably should have filed them by now but I am a procrastinator and I can't exactly wait a whole lot longer. I am coming up on when my Amazon Prime renews and my sister coming into town. I keep debating but I think that Thursday or Friday will be the day that I file. Knowing me, if I file too early, I have spent the refund before my sister gets here, file it too late, it would be the same situation. But with the Amazon Prime, I have been buying gift cards for Amazon to make sure that the money for the Prime renewal. I usually do Give the Gift of Prime and then I can use the gift cards.

I have shortened my fast list for my tax season full bottle. The ones that I was thinking of were Guerlain Liu, SDV, and Andy Tauer's Au Coeur du Desert. I knew I couldn't get all three and in January, I thought I could possibly get 2 but my sister and nephews are coming in and I don't know what we will be doing but I'd like to make sure that there is something in the account. My choice is Andy Tauer's Au Coeur du Desert. I kept dithering on a few others as well but I asked myself on which one would I actually wear the most and then the decision was made for me.