Friday, June 27, 2008

What's Your Friday Perfume?

Hello all! Sorry to be late again this week! I may have to start asking about your Friday perfume on Thursdays just to keep up! I'm wearing Caron Fleur de Rocaille today, with notes of violet, gardenia, lilac, rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, mimosa, sandal, rosewood, orris, and musk. This is a perfect "warm" warm weather perfume, perfect when you need a bit of coziness from a scent, even if it is scorching outside. As much as I love lighter florals for summer, sometimes they can't wrap me up in the comfort I need.

What are you wearing today or this weekend? Have you discovered anything new? Please do share!

Have a wonderful weekend.

*image from FragranceX

Friday, June 20, 2008

What's Your Friday Perfume?

Sorry to be so late this morning! Lateness is becoming a habit with me these days, it seems. I blame Mercury retrograde (as always). I'm constantly forgetting things, dropping things, running into things, and running late these past three weeks. To add a bit of sweet calm to my life, today I am wearing Annick Goutal Petite Cherie, with notes of vanilla, peach, musk rose, and grass. As I run into doors and spill Diet Coke today, I'll be humming "I feel pretty, oh so pretty..." all because of this perfume. (Well, okay...I'm wearing pink, too. That helps.)

What are you all wearing today? I hope you feel as lovely as you are!

*image from annickgoutal.nl

Friday, June 13, 2008

What's Your Friday Perfume?

Hello all! My perfume today: L'Artisan Orchidee Blanche. I haven't worn this in well over a year. In fact, I had sort of forgotten about it. Shame on me! My collection isn't so large that I don't know what I have, but it's easy to get into a rut of sorts. If I am not wearing a sample, I'm usually wearing the same two or three perfumes from my collection. Does this happen to you? Any forgotten favorites languishing in the drawer or cabinet?

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Prize Update

Hello! Just an update to those of you who won prizes in the "Going Away Giveaway": I have everything packed up and ready to ship. I was unable to get to it this past week with the new job (which went quite well the first week!), but I hope to get everything to the post office on Monday.

Three people have yet to claim their prizes: Gina, Vida, and Kimber K. If any of the three of you sent me an email, please re-send it and be sure to indicate something in the subject line about the giveaway, especially if I cannot recognize you from your email address, as I mark anything suspicious as spam (including emails with the subject line "hello").

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Friday, June 06, 2008

What's Your Friday Perfume?

This week I decided to break out of the back-and-forth pattern I've developed, going between L'Artisan Dzing! and Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess--oh, that's right! I didn't tell you! On the day I officially accepted my new position, I was passing through Nordstrom to meet friends at the cafe for lunch, and there it was: the last bottle. Yep. I got the last bottle (besides the tester...do they sell those? do the SAs get to keep them?) at Perimeter Nordstrom. Ha! Oh...but I was breaking a pattern, right? Yes, I decided to break out of the back-and-forth and try something new, so I pulled three sweet Carthusia samples from my sample drawer and gave them all a shot. Today I'm wearing my favorite of the three, Fiori di Capri, with notes of wild carnation, lily of the valley, oak, amber, sandal, and ylang ylang. This represents as a peppery white floral with an oaky base, sweet and heady at the top, but still rather dry, which makes it wonderful in the heat.

I also tried two others, Via Camarelle (lemon, bitter orange, marine musk, cedarwood) and Io Capri (wild fig and tea leaves), but to be honest I was too nervous and distracted by all the new things at work to pay them much notice. I liked them both at first shot, particularly Io Capri, which is probably the best treatment of fig I've found in a perfume so far because it veers away from the beachy-ness most fig perfumes seem to have and really does become something wild and green. I'll definitely be trying them again...but of course my favorite of the three is the most floral. Old habits die hard, and also, I was less distracted on Thursday because I was getting more used to my new digs.

And in case you were wondering what I wore on my first day at the new job...Dzing! of course. It's the closest thing I had to a security blanket!

Okay, your turn! What will it be today, or this weekend? Discover anything terrific this past week?

Happy Friday, everyone!

*image from Carthusia.com

Monday, June 02, 2008

Thoughts, and What's Next

Hello Friends! Congratulations to those of you who won something in the drawing. If I could, I would give something to each and every one of you. You have all done me the kindness of reading this blog.

I've been thinking about ways to stay in touch, and I decided a couple of things. First, if you'll still visit, I could keep up "What's Your Friday Perfume?" so we could all touch base with each other. Second, I still have to finish my reading challenges, so I will still be posting my thoughts here and over at the Short Story Challenge blog. If you ever read this blog for the books, I hope you'll still drop by now and again.

Wow, I did this backwards: I did "what's next" before "thoughts." A reader (Uma) asked me in one of her comments:

"...it would be just interesting to know what were the most interesting and breathtaking (both positive and negative) discoveries you've made during your time as a perfume blogger - lines, scents, notes - whatever. What's your personal résumé?"

I've been thinking and thinking about this. The first thing I thought was this: When one is new to this sort of perfume experience, as I was, practically everything is breathtaking. I'm not entirely sure I ever got over that, because it seemed that almost everything I tried, I was moved by it for one reason or another. I suppose, though, the most consistently breathtaking line for me has been Frederic Malle. I can't think of one of these scents that didn't grab me by the collar and shake me around at least a little bit. Two of my very, very favorites, Iris Poudre and Une Fleur de Cassie, are from this line.

That said, the line that holds more favorites than anything, where I'd own a bottle of every single perfume if it were possible, is L'Artisan. The only ones I might be able to pass up are Ananas Fizz and Verte Violette, because the first one doesn't suit me at all and the second lasts...well, for just about a second. The other line I love is Hermes, although I didn't write about too many of their perfumes.

And this may sound nuts, but I was truly blown away by how much I loved Flowerbomb when I finally got around to wearing it. For some reason I expected it to be really awful, very "woman wearing too much perfume in the elevator," but instead I got an elegant hippie. Lovely.

The biggest disappointments to me? I didn't have many. I wrote about the few that I had. I wasn't in this long enough to be jaded about too many releases, but I will say this: I don't understand flankers. It's too much of a supermarket experience for me. It's like buying Wheat Thins--you can get original, low fat, low sodium, garlic and herb, roasted vegetable, cheese flavor, and on and on. Okay in a cracker, not so good in perfume.

The other thing that disappoints me are perfumes that are supposed to smell like soap or laundry detergent. (Come out from behind the draperies, Clean Fragrances. Everyone knows I'm talking about you.) If the idea is to blend in with the rest of our blandly scented environment, then why wear anything at all?

I suppose the last thing (because it's the end of the day, my brain is taxed, and I like to end on a positive note) is that I learned I am most definitely a white floral fanatic. Gardenia, jasmine, tiare, tuberose...I find them absolutely intoxicating. I thought for sure I'd come out on the side of heavy incense, and while I very much appreciate a good dark perfume, the crisp or creamy white petals will win every time.

I know there's more! I'll try to add as I think of it!