Still Here!

Time again for my once-a-month post! I just don't have as much to say as I thought would when I started this. Kudos to all you fabulous bloggers who post daily - or even regularly! I'm about to leave on vacation, going to Los Angeles for several days. My daughter has been out there for the whole month dancing at The Edge and I'm flying out there and then driving back with her, all 1200 miles. Soooo not looking forward to that driving part! But I AM looking forward to seeing her in a few of her classes because she is so very talented and since she graduated from high school, the opportunities for me to actually see her perform have been few and far between. And while I'm on the subject of dancing, I am so glad that So You Think You Can Dance is back on. I do believe this is my favorite reality show. All of those kids are so good, the choreography is (for the most part) of very high quality, they have interesting music and I just LOOOOOOVVVE dance!!! Maybe even more than perfume, but it's really too close to call. Here's a clip of my favorite dance this week.



I fully intend to shop when I get there. We will absolutely visit the ScentBar, the Farmer's Market and The Grove, maybe the Beautyhabit store, Barney's, hopefully we will have time to go down to Costa Mesa to the South Coast Plaza, whatever else we have time for before or after the daughters' classes....



Hey, and look! The Droop is growing up!

Whoaaaa!

Just a real quick post because I have to get to bed! I ordered a bunch of samples from OuchiWowa Dumdididum. Okay, you know who I mean, that place in Germany, First in Fragrance. DearDaughter and I were talking about perfume a couple of weeks ago and it so happened that during the conversation, those provocatively named perfumes by Etat Libre D'Orange came up. Being a 20-year-old, she was immediately fascinated by the concept of Secretions Magnifique and Putains de Palace. So I ordered samples because what DD wants, DD gets. Yes, I know it's my fault.

First, let me say, this place has very generously sized samples. They're all in those 1.5 or 2 ml atomizers so there's plenty to go around! Which is not necessarily a good thing.... From the reviews I had read of Secretions, I was expecting claws and fangs to come out of the spray nozzle. But it's not that bad. No way it's going on my skin (but it did go on daughter's!!), but it's not totally stomach-churning. There is a very metallic tang to it that made my daughter think of the way her toes smell after a particularly brutal day at the dance studio when her toes are bleeding and it mingles with sweat to produce an absolutely lovely accord. Too yummy!

Now onto Putains de Palace. This doesn't smell half bad at first, but then it develops a sort of plastic-y smell. Okay, that's about gone now. This is very strongly floral, almost too strong. I think it's making my stomach hurt...or maybe it's my lunch not sitting well. Hmm, I think I'll go and try to wash it off. Excuse me.....

So Many Perfumes!!!

It's been forever since I updated here, but I guess it's okay since I'm the only one who reads it! My time has been consumed lately with my newest addiction, swapping on MakeupAlley. I only thought I had lots of samples and decants before - now I literally have no place to put all the things I'm receiving. Many of my lovely samples are still in the boxes in which I received them, when I want to try a particular one, I have to stop and think where I got it from to know which box to look in. I've got to find a system!

I have discovered that I love the house of Balmain. A while back I posted about Jolie Madame, now I have fallen in love with Vent Vert and Miss Balmain also. Vent Vert just makes me so happy I can hardly stand myself. I am indeed a green note ho. It's bright and sharp yet smooth and just really lovely. One of the listed notes is galbanum and I believe I've loved everthing I've tried with that. Miss Balmain is more girly, with gardenia, citrus, coriander, jasmine, rose and amber. I can't really provide a good description of it because I don't necessarily smell those notes, it's very well blended and just smells yummy and sunny! Now I need to seek out more Balmains, because I have so much room for them... And on a side note, these are the longest lasting EDT's I've ever tried!

Now to my latest discovery. Bath & Body Works Temptations Iced Tea Twist shower gel. I have taken three showers since yesterday afternoon just so I can smell it some more. I keep hanging out in the bathroom because the smell lingers there. I'm sitting here waiting for the mall to open so I can go buy the lotion and home fragrance oil. It's absolutely wonderful! It's a very simple smell, just like fresh-brewed ice tea with lemon in it and they captured it exactly. I want to fill up the tub with it and just sit in it forever. I'm trying to decide how many more bottles of the shower gel to get. They usually just make these things for a short time and I'm trying to balance how long the stuff will stay good against ummm....the rest of my life!

Our new baby has also been keeping me busy. We named him Rupert and he has already become an invaluable part of the household. He's the rowdiest little thing and a complete mess, will chew on anything that he can reach, so we have to constantly watch him so he doesn't damage himself. The other two hueys keep an eye on him too, but they don't always know what's dangerous because sometimes they're troublemakers too! Want to see another picture of him? Good, because here he is!

You see all those cords? I've moved them since then :)

My New Baby!!!

Don't really have much to say about perfume today, except that I wore Hermessence Ambre Narguile last night and I just love it! It kind of reminds me of Todd Oldham's perfume with that top note of Carmex. Yummmmm....

On a completely unrelated note, I just had to come here to post a picture of my new baby.

The breeder sent me this picture last night and I am so much in love! He is a blue long haired Chihuahua so now we'll have the complete set. We already have a white one, a black one and my parents have a red one (she is BEAUTIFUL). He's only five weeks old right now, so we won't go pick him up until the end of March. I can hardly wait. We'll probably make a side trip to Barneys and maybe the Chanel and/or Hermes boutiques to feed my perfume habit :)

And it begins again...

I just realized that all of these perfumes I have been so lovingly acquiring since November will soon be off-limits for months. A partial listing of these are:

1.the beloved SL Chergui

2.Costes

3.Robert Piguet Baghari

4.Chanel Coco

Notice anything? Yep, they're all very warm, cozy scents. I live in West Texas, where summer begins approximately the 2nd week of April. No kidding. We usually have several days where the temperature is around 100. Mid to upper eighties is the norm and there's lots of days in the nineties. I can't wear those fabulous 'fumes when it's 95 degrees! The above picture is actually what the landscape outside the city looks like! We're at the edge of the Chihuahuan desert.

I used to almost exclusively wear light, "green" type perfumes but I had kind of gotten away from that lately. So now what are my options? I have a couple that might work, but I need waaaaay more than that! I'm thinking Davies Gate Garden Made and Isabella Rosellini's Manifesto will continue to be just fine, but I am open to more suggestions. And okay, I'll try that Philosykos again just because Sweet Diva has been so nice :) But really, I still need more than that. At least 3 or 4 per week........

Iris, Iris, Iris.......

Me and iris, we're having us a rumble. I just don't know what to make of this note, and my brain has fallen back on pseudo-science to make sense of it. Iris smells incomplete to me. There seems to be something scooped-out, or hollow, about it. I keep conjuring up this mental picture of an antigen-antibody reaction. Iris would be the antigen floating about looking for its' mate (the antibody). In some perfumes, i.e. Chanel No.19; 24,Fauborg; Baghari; Fragonard Grain de Soleil, etc....iris apparently doesn't offend my sense of completeness at all. In others such as Iris Silver Mist (I'm sorry! Please don't throw me out of the blogworld!) and Iris Poudre, I keep wanting to add something, anything...?


I went searching on Osmoz and found that the ones I like all contain jasmine and three of them have orange blossom and bergamot as well. So, in a MASSIVE leap of...something, I have decided that the indolic scents of jasmine and orange blossom are my iris antibodies! Hey, I just made this connection as I was typing this! Five minutes ago, I thought maybe I just didn't like iris in the top notes, but it was okay in the middle or base. But I like my new idea better. And it's interesting because I don't really care much for jasmine or orange blossom alone or even as predominant notes. Apparently I don't like indole that much either. We actually use indole as a reagent in microbiology, if anyone cares. It's one of the reactions (positive or negative) used to differentiate and thus identify bacteria. I have no idea what the relationship is between that indole and the indole in jasmine and orange blossom. New research project maybe?

On a related note, here is a picture of my perfume critics.
They are long-haired Chihuahuas. The black one is named Stanley and belongs to my daughter and the blonde one is Poo and he's my baby. Anytime I put perfume on, both of them come running to sniff my wrists. And they have definite preferences! Of course, being dogs, they love musk. Anything that has a good dose of musk gets licked right off. Which is strange, come to think of it. Surely perfume doesn't taste good (except for the Dessert line, and please...we don't go there). And they seem to like those indolic smells too. Dare I say it may be the poo-poo accord?