You Know Those Promises

You know that you make certain promises with every intention of keeping but end up breaking those promises? I do that on a regular basis when it comes to candles.

Bath and Body Works seems to always have some kind of candle deal going on year round. I keep making vows that I won't bring home any candles but something always makes me acquire more. I've used up quite a few candles and have bought fewer candles this year. This year, I managed to use up quite a few Honeycrisp Apple ones and not add more Honeycrisp Apple to my collection.

At this point, Bath and Body Works is starting to roll out their winter stuff, I saw my favorite called Winter has been released. With a $30 gift card and a sale, I had to get 2 Winter. I'm waiting to see if they are going to release the Evergreen candle. Fresh Balsam can be nice and all but it's too potent.

In the past couple years, I have noticed something with the Bath and Body Works candles. When they would release seasonal offerings, they would have them in both 3 wick and single wick form and I really haven't seen that too often and I am seeing more and more seasonal offerings being listed as online exclusives. I do find that to be a little odd for some reason. When I do get a chance to go into a Bath and Body Works store, the staff will usually tell me what are the most popular seasonal candles are. At my local one they said that they have a hard time keeping the Honeycrisp Apple and Apple Weather on the shelves in the fall. Apple Weather is an online exclusive and Winter is too.

What I've also noticed is the packaging has changed from being just plain frosted glass to having some minimal decorations to having some serious decorations. For many years, I have enjoyed the plain frosted glass and the occasional minimal decorations on the glass but I do dislike all the flashy decorations on the candles. I've seen too many pictures on Twitter about the glass breaking because of the plastic decorations on the outside. I'm a huge fan of having minimal looking decorations and less chance of having a lit candle burning down my house.

I just wish that I could conjure up the ability to not bring home anymore candles.
 

Fall and Eau de Hongrie Review

Fall is definitely here in Ohio. Pumpkin spice is here (I despise anything pumpkin spice), the days are shorter, temps are lower and the grilling season is just about done. We might get one last blast of summer in October but I am not holding my breath for it.

Now since fall has pretty much arrived, that means with the cooler temperatures, the windows are now closed. That means that I am not burning candles two at a time. I now can only burn one at a time. I've thinned out quite a bit of my candle collection and when Candle Day arrives, a good chunk of my collection will be used up. Lets hope that I won't be entirely out of candles when that happens.

For the longest time, I held off on buying Ginestet Botryis and when I got around to wanting to buy a bottle, I found out that Botryis was discontinued years ago and I was bummed out. The closest thing that I had to Botryis was Viktoria Minya's Hedonist. Now that's changed to Eau de Hongrie.

I had gotten the Viktoria Minya sample set from Luckyscent earlier this year. I mainly wanted it because I couldn't find Eau de Hongrie on STC or TPC. And for the life of me, I can't quite remember what Hedonist Rose smells like either. So now I'm getting around to the Viktoria Minya sample set and I am test driving Eau de Hongrie.

Hongrie is more of a boozy type of honey but the booze isn't harsh, nor is it overpowering but definitely there. The honey is a dominant note too but not the sickly sweet type of honey. Sickly sweet perfume can be pretty gross and Hongrie gets close to the edge without going over to the edge. I do get flowers in the background but booze and honey are the main attractions to the whole thing. Hongrie is the one that smells the closest to Hedonist in terms of smell. Hedonist is Hongrie's big sister.

If you are mourning the loss of Botryis or like me, didn't get a bottle of it when you got the chance, Eau de Hongrie is more than acceptable replacement. I get a staying power of 6 or 7 hours and Hongrie is one of those that doesn't beat you over the head with anything. Hongrie is a smooth perfume. No harsh notes or angles.

I do believe that I would get a bottle, eventually. I am thinking that any kind of full bottle buying is going to have to wait until next year at least. But I wouldn't mind a bottle if it fell into my lap.
 

 

Best Laid Plans

Initially for my vacation, some rough plans were made for the art museum and going to the Mansfield State Reformatory museum but those plans haven't materialized.

For some reason, a bathroom pipe had burst and we have been dealing with that since Wednesday. It's been nothing but really loud dehumidifiers going round the clock since Wednesday. The kitchen isn't really usable and we are down a bathroom. We are hoping to have those things out of the house tomorrow. It's not just the kitchen that we can't use, it most of the house because of the noise. Some people have been checking every morning since Thursday to see if the dehumidifiers can be taken out and it's been a not quite there yet. Today was the day that the air conditioner was turned on to see if we can take even more humidity and have those dehumidifiers gone by tomorrow.

There is nothing like having to go through everything in your bathroom to see what could really be saved. I did lose some nail polish and a few eye shadow pallets. I'm not really upset about this because I do have enough eye shadow and nail polish with or without what I lost. This gave me the opportunity to really clean out and throw away stuff that was either too old to be used or something that I was never really going to be used. Now I am just looking at a bunch of stuff from my bathroom that's now in my bedroom. So if the dehumidifiers go tomorrow, I can  move some of that back into the bathroom. I'm just tired of not having this be in their place, not being able to watch a lot of things on television due to the noise.

On the candle front, I have finished 5 candles, had 2 that wouldn't stay lit and I have a 3 wick Apple Weather going right now. I've picked out 2 Midnight Snow candles picked out for the next ones to be used. I am still working on creating even more space and still seeing what kind of cash I can save for Candle Day.

Part of me still wants that full bottle of Gris Charnel for my birthday but even with Afterpay, it's not in the cards for me. The pandemic and inflation have made it impossible to justify a new bottle of perfume. Groceries and paying bills are a little more important and I do think that some of those travel sprays were a little excessive. Do I regret the travel spray purchases? A little bit and I am looking to make a job change so I can have some breathing room in the budget and eventually get that bottle of Gris Charnel. The saving grace to me right now that Christmas shopping is 95% done and I won't need to go out and get a whole lot when the time comes for Christmas shopping.

The good thing is that there might be an Ulta trip in store for me tomorrow. I have a birthday coupon and a gift card to use and I would rather just go to my local Ulta and actually pick it out. That gives me the chance to browse and not have to wait around for anything to get to my doorstep.

Queen Elizabeth II and Vacation

Thursday morning was the beginning of a post about a cosmetics cull and lipstick but as the day wore on, it wasn't going to happen. With Queen Elizabeth II passing away on Thursday, that post seemed to be a little too frivolous.

But couldn't help but think about all of the people on Twitter who decided to be idiots and be political about the queen dying. Folks, Queen Elizabeth was a figurehead, not a politician. The woman had no political power and no bearing on what laws were passed, if you are going to criticize the things that happened during her reign, look at the various governments she had. If you otherwise don't do that, you are just a fucking asshole. I shouldn't really be surprised at how many assholes there are in the world.

Right now, I am on my 3rd week of vacation this year. I have some rough plans but nothing set in stone. I don't have tons of cash but I do want to do some things. One of them is the art museum and the other is the Mansfield Reformatory but other than that, it's up in the air. I am happy to have the ability to wear any perfume that I want to wear without any kind of restrictions. On days that I have to work, I do have to be mindful about what I pick out in terms of perfume. I don't want something too heavy because I work in a bakery and it gets pretty hot there. Nor do I want to wear my favorites in case I have a hard day at work and why ruin that favorite with a bad association.

 Currently, I have 3 candles going right now and I am hoping that those will be finished by Tuesday. The other 3 that I have picked out, I hope to have finished by Saturday. If I finish more, that would be awesome. I am trying to scrap together some money to set aside for the Bath and Body Works Candle Day sale. Whatever I can save up is going to be great and whatever candles that I can use up before than would be awesome. It's funny that I am trying to finish up some candles only to get more. But with winter being on it's way and all, I still want to make sure that I do have a decent amount of candles. The Honeycrisp Apple and Apple Weather ones that I do have, my mother doesn't like and she says that they stink, so I must be a little more careful with those. I might have a decent supply of the Winter candles but I want to get more of those and maybe add some Evergreen candles.We shall see how that goes before Candle Day. And no, I don't plan on setting foot in a Bath and Body Works store on that day.

Talking About Lyric

It's been a while since I've talked about Amouage Lyric. I remember many years ago when I first smelled Lyric from a sample from Luckysent. I think that I might have bought either Epic or Dia but I am leaning more towards Epic. Then I fell head over heels for Lyric. Even in more financially secure times, it took me at least a couple years and burning through countless decants before I ordered a full bottle of Lyric. Then a a couple years later, a travel set arrived at my doorstep. My back up bottle of Lyric was bought a couple years ago with some extra cash.

Ever since the pandemic, I've been hunting for Lyric body products from discounters and having no such luck. Even the official Amouage website doesn't even have the Lyric bath and body stuff. At discounters, I could find all kinds of Amouage Lyric but not so much anymore.

A few days ago, Luckyscent sent me an email saying that they had some specials going on. Out of boredom, I decided to take a peek and my jaw dropped a little bit. Lyric is on sale on Luckyscent. It seems like if Luckyscent has some specials going on, it's either they want to get rid of some old stock or there are some perfumes about to be discontinued. I'm hoping that Lyric doesn't get discontinued because even with Afterpay, another bottle of Lyric isn't in the cards for me. Last year, the pandemic didn't hit me as hard as this year. I think with rampant inflation and the Ukraine invasion, things are not looking up for me in the world of money. But I always hope that things will turn around for me soon.
 

 

Gucci Guilty for Her Review

A while ago, I had purchased a rollerball of Gucci Guilty. I make every effort on not making blind buys even though it can work out. Rarely does it ever work out. This time, that blind buy didn't work out.

I thought that Guilty might be interesting and I was attracted to the lilac note. I smelled no lilac from start to finish. Truth be told, I couldn't pick out one single note except for some patchouli and something amber. Patchouli can be a little iffy on my and amber is a no go most of the time for me. It was a messy floral oriental on my skin. After reading some reviews, I fail to see anything sexy or sensual about this one. Guilty just smells like so many mainstream women's perfumes. If Guilty is sexy to you, I would really like to introduce you to Shalimar (current formulation and maybe vintage) and I would like to introduce you to vintage Bal a Versailles. Sexy is not and should not be a squeaky clean smell. It's a human smell not a soap and water smell.

Yes, I don't like this perfume and happy that it was only a rollerball and not a full bottle of perfume. I do think that I associate sexy and sensual with MKK and vintage Bal a Versailles along with Shalimar. Maybe I've been spoiled with niche perfumery. Niche perfume doesn't seem to follow the trends like mainstream does. For so long, I've been pretty bored with mainstream and getting a little bored with niche as well.
 

Coco Coromandel Parfum Review

 I thought that I would actually get around to reviewing the parfum version of Coromandel while I was on vacation at the beginning of the month. But I've been dealing with and still somewhat dealing with financials. The pandemic has done a serious number on some finances and it's tough dealing with some of the fall out. Yes, I would love to go out and get that bottle of Gris Charnel but I can't justify any frivolous spending for a long time. There will be too many things going on that need my time and cash.

While I was on that vacation of mine, it was in the mid 80's and pretty humid. So I only managed to use up 3 candles. If it wasn't so humid, I might have been able to use at least a couple more. But who really wants to hear about some candles? I also managed to catch up on some reading that I had been meaning to do.

Last year, I seemed to be adding perfume to my collection at a rapid rate and both the Coromandel EDP and parfum made it into my collection. But it wasn't until recently that I have gotten around to giving the parfum a whirl. There are a few reasons on why I don't really go for parfum versions of anything. The freaking cost for the amount of perfume, evaporation of dabbers are my two biggest ones.  

I've noticed that the parfum is a definite amber perfume with some citrus in the beginning. When I spray my decant of the EDT, I don't really notice the amber and the EDP, the amber is more pronounced. What really remains from start to finish on me is the patchouli. Patchouli and amber are two notes that can be a little iffy on me. Amber and I don't normally mix too well. Patchouli, it can depend on what it's with. The parfum is much deeper and richer that anything that I've smelled in the EDT and EDP. Lasting power is about 11 hours on my skin and that did surprise me though. Most Chanel parfums don't last quite as long, mostly 6 or 7 hours on my skin. After my 15ml bottle is all used up, I don't think that I will run out and replace it. It's great but the amber is a little too loud for me. I'll stick to the EDP.