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.

Spring is Slowly Coming

Spring is slowly coming to my neck of the woods. The temps are slowly rising but still not short sleeved weather, my daffodils are starting to wake up and soon the hyacinth will start too. I have slowly adding to my spring/summer wardrobe but short sleeved weather can't come fast enough. This is when I am pretty damned impatient for warm weather. It's more than wanting to wear short sleeves, I want to be able to open the windows and have the ability to leave them open.

On top of the weather not changing fast enough, we have the coronavirus. Everything in the state of Ohio is pretty much shut down. Can't go out to eat unless it's delivery or takeout, most shopping venues are shut down unless it's a gas station or a grocery store, schools are shut down along with government agencies. So many day to day things are altered right now.

What I am really waiting for is to bust out the warmer weather offerings. I am ready to bust out Courtesan, no 19, Chamade and a few others. I am over winter right now and the dry skin it brings.

Blast from the Past

It's incredibly rare at this point for me to get a full bottle of anything. You have no idea how excited I was to order that travel set of Chanel no 5 in January and then a couple weeks ago, Coco Mademoiselle and now Estee Lauder Pleasures. Just afford those three in the past three months is amazing. Were they niche? No but getting solely niche isn't that important to me anymore. But to imagine to get this blast from the past. The original Estee Lauder Pleasures.

When I was in high school, Estee Lauder Pleasures came out, well a year before I hit high school. I fell in love at first sniff. When I got my first job in high school, there wasn't such a thing as online shopping, all the money I made went into a savings account that I couldn't access without a parental signature. Most of the time, this was out of my price range, so I waited for birthdays and Christmas to get a bottle or two. Most of the time, I wore Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon because it was cheap and I a little more access to a store.

For a few years, or quite a few, I wasn't in the habit of wearing perfume. I used up what I had and never really bothered to replace anything. Then Cuir de Russie came along and perfume wearing was back. But I still didn't get a bottle of Pleasures until about a week ago. It's dirt cheap at this point since it's been out since 1995 and has spawned a few flankers. I have never tried any of the flankers and have had no desire to.

I had debated for probably a minute on what size bottle to get, just a minute. The 3.4 ounce bottle would be overkill for me a 1.7 ounce probably would have been too much. Then I saw a 5 ounce bottle. If Pleasures was my only perfume, a 5 ounce bottle would have been great, so the one ounce bottle was the perfect size since I don't want large sizes of anything anymore. Pleasures smells basically just like I remembered, a dewy floral thing. Maybe a little or a lot louder than I remember (will probably wear soon to find out) and the dry down seems to be marginally different than I remember. But it's still the same from what I remember.

Home Smells

My latest thing is buying up candles and plug in home scents. For a long while, I have never been a candle person, let alone used plug ins.

For the past couple years, I have bought up a bunch of candles and now have started to use them. I am very specific about how my candles smell. I am not like my aunt who gets huge candles and goes through one a week. My aunt is very specific about her candles though. It seems like she doesn't care so much about the scent of the candle but how it matches her decor. It has to be either blue grey and maybe some green. I don't care so much about the look of the candle. I don't give too much of a shit if it's pink, blue, purple, red, orange but I care about how the candle smells. I'm not a huge fan of candles that are too sweet, tropical smelling or smell really artificial.

Candles serve a very functional purpose in my house. We do lose power quite often, since I live in a rural area. So candles are a must in my household but I still never burned them on a regular basis except mostly in the winter. When the power goes out in the evening, I need light. When it's winter out, candles are for light and heat.

Now my candles are much more than just functional, candles in general are not so much for function but ambiance. I am a huge fan of some of the Bath and Body Works candles. My favorites are Winter, Frozen Lake, Lilac and the straight up apple ones. It's funny how for so long I have turned my nose up at Bath and Body Works. In some ways, they have gone down hill. Pricing, discontinuing a lot of things, some things like "retired" stuff is only sold on their website. But this year's spring offerings are not that great. Many are too sweet and loud and just don't smell that good. I think that the lilac one and the rose and ivy are the best smelling ones.

I am gotten into use those plug in things because I don't always want a candle burning (I have dogs that do like to counter surf and I don't want to be babysitting the candle to make sure the house doesn't burn down). I have loaded up on some refills but have to keep reminding myself to change the damn things every 30 to 45 days.

Panic

The year 2020 is a difficult year so far with some major financial changes that I hope to resolve in the next couple months. It hasn't been the easiest time for at least 4 months but I am starting to make some big changes and the panic comes and goes.

In years past, I thought of nothing to spend whatever on bottles of Amouage, Chanels, Serge Lutens, vintage perfumes. Those days are loooooong gone. Now it's mainly considered to the occasional decant or two at this point. Last year, I was happy to get that bottle of Ubar and get the Kiehl's Original Musk Blend gut those were rarities and I was a little anxious about spending the money on perfume when I have plenty. I did my taxes and decided to splurge on getting a bottle of Coco Mademoiselle from Sephora. I offset a little bit of the cost because I had gift cards to use. That mini Chanel no 5 travel set was a splurge as well.

I am trying to appreciate what I have and tightening my belt right now. Last year's Ubar was a little bit of a surprise but still worth it due to Fragrancenet having a really good price for a 1.7 ounce bottle. I really don't see Amouage offering 1.7 ounce bottles of Ubar.

Why did I decide on Coco Mademoiselle and not the others that were at the top of my list? I felt like I couldn't quite justify the price of the others at this point in time. I had to set a hard and fast line with myself. Only get the smallest, most affordable bottle that was available and that was the 1.2 ounce of the EDP. I don't know what the intense version smells like, nor the EDT. For those of us who are pretty familiar with Chanel, every concentration smells different. I also did see some people say that the EDT has the tendency to disapear pretty quick, so the EDP it was.

Spring and Sephora

Yes, it's still winter outside and we have a ways to go before spring gets here. But I am ready for spring to get here. I am ready for the temps to warm up and stay warm, I am ready for short sleeved shirts, I am ready to have the ability to go outside to leave the house without a coat and a few other things. After Christmas, I get really tired of winter.

I am currently browsing Sephora and trying to pick out a Chanel. I have enough of no 5 to last for a while and it smells like the EDP has been reformulated. I am not sure if I want to go the original Coco or Coco Mademoiselle and which formulation. I decided to not go down the Andy Tauer route nor spring for the Hedonist travel set. I think that the price tag is part of the reason and I am still not sure about the Hedonist travel set. The original Hedonist, I love, Hedonist Rose is a take it or leave it and I have never tried Hedonist Cassis. Besides, I have two Sephora gift cards to burn and that makes the cost of a Chanel go down a little easier but getting a large bottle is out of the question.

I am currently in the process of doing a load of laundry. I am getting ready to spend the weekend at my aunts place and I do need some clean clothes, especially underwear. What I am really working on is what I am going to take perfume wise. It might be only 3 days but I won't have access to my whole collection. Do I take Shalimar or do I take Ubar? Do I take both? Do I take one and have a decant of no 22 or the full bottle of Hedonist? I am having the hardest time picking out. I have done it once, picked out a perfume and stuck to it for a week.