Monthly Archives: December 2012

Looking back on 2012.

I've been thinking, World of Perfume December 28, 2012 Comments: 18

Prompted by this lovely post of Olfactoria’s.

This wasn’t an easy year for me and I can honestly say I can’t wait for it to be over. But even so, it has been incredibly fulfilling and has taught me and showed me many things I am grateful for. None of them came easily but nothing that is really valuable comes easily.  And here I am mostly talking about non- material things.

I think the most important lesson (after never say never)  I learned this year was that there is nothing you cannot do if you really want it and work hard for it.
Both apply to running. I never thought I’d get hooked, let alone run 2 half-marathons in a year. I was pretty much saying that would never happen when I heard that particular running school plan.

What I still can’t believe is that all the work (and torture) I went through with my thesis is finally done. I did it! IT’S OVER! 🙂

It took a lot of time and energy, taught me many things about researched writing that will be judged by university professors and generally gave me a glimpse into the world of research. It was fun to research and do it (except for the judging part but that also went well).

As with all life, the happiness seems to always be balanced with grief and I got my share when we had to take my little old dog to the vet as she was suffering very much.

When I look back, those are the things that occupied most of my time and concentration and are basically the reason I didn’t do as much reading, blogging and smelling as I would have liked.

I want to end on a positive note so I want to say that as I grow older, I appreciate more the friends and family I am blessed with.

Here I need to point out that my new friends are more and more coming into my life through our common virtual world.  Meeting them in real life is always incredible fun but getting to know you all virtually is both globalization at its finest and a wonderfully exhilarating experience. 🙂
Don’t you feel our lives would feel like we missed the friends we never would have
otherwise met?

I wish you all a successful and a fulfilling year – full of fun, hapiness and health!

champagne_toast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. No perfumes in this post, but I’ll be posting about them soon enough. 🙂

Ghosts of Perfume Past, Present and Future

Perfume thoughts, World of Perfume December 21, 2012 Comments: 23

Welcome to another Christmas-y blogfest! 🙂

Organized by Natalie of Another Perfume Blog with the name coming from Undina of Undina’s Looking Glass, bloggers will be posting their own thoughts on Ghost of Perfumes.

As we’re doing this right before Christmas and on the first day of winter, my thoughts naturally turned to smells and perfumes associated with this period.

I believe one of the first smells I ever associated with winter and the one I enjoy the most in this period, is the smell of snow in the air. Sometimes the air will smell of snow even though none will appear.
miris snijega
It might not really be the smell of snow, it could just be the crisp, cold air of bright winter but as days like that are hard to come by in Zagreb (the air is neither clear nor bright), on those rare occasions it smells like that – it reminds me of snow. The way air smelled in my childhood when it snowed or when we went skiing in the mountains. The one you breathe in as much as you can and the one that feels like it’s bringing health back into your body with every inhale.

If you know of a perfume that smells like that, I would very much like to know. I know one will eventually appear – it happened so far several times when I wished for a perfume to fit the idea I had in my head. This is the Ghost of Perfume from my past.
vanič
As for ghosts of present perfumes, I will be calling those forward before Christmas when I plan on doing vanilla crescents (that’s my free translation of the name of cookies) and again the meringues with cinnamon and almonds.

The warm scent of vanilla and spices will work its magic and I expect bring more calm into my life (and pleasure to my taste receptors). The perfumes that evoke such sweet and spicy things – Spiriteuese Double Vanille (review by Olfactoria), Piment et Chocolat, and basically any warm vanilla or warmy spicy oriental (some ideas would be welcome on this part as well). 😉

My future perfume ghosts still tease my mind.

Those are the perfumes I imagine when I read the notes and then when they come, they are not what I imagined. Not that they are bad, just not what I imagined.
boži kolači
The smell of Christmas trees, candles, mulled wine and cookies. As a perfume. All at once.

The dry smell of dirt and asphalt during summer in the city.

The green, wet smell of spring.

Please visit other participating blogs:

Olfactoria’s Travels

Another Perfume Blog

EauMG

Muse in Wooden Shoes

Undina’s Looking Glass

Suzanne’s Perfume Journal

ChickenFreak’s Obsessions

My Christmas picks

World of Perfume December 18, 2012 Comments: 8

My Christmas list pretty much always includes things I would like to receive for Christmas (sometimes things I give myself for Christmas). 🙂
So here is the list of my fragrant picks:

winterwoods
A we’ve been snowed in the past weekend, my thoughts naturally turned to Winter Woods and the perfumes Laurie Erickson makes. The other one I find very lovely and in the spirit of giving warmth is Ambre Noir.

No Christmas spirit is possible without some of Dawn’s creations. I know I repeat myself each years but I can’t help it, Christmas time spells Dawn’s perfumes for me.
pimetchoc_forweb
Some of my favourites include Festive, Piment and Chocolat, Gingembre, Nourouz and Cimabue and I’ll be having those in regular rotation these days.

I know this has already been mentioned on my blog but I am very much impressed with Voluspa candles. They don’t have Christmas candles but they do have seasonal candles and it’s not difficult to find those that would fit for the Christmas time.
I use the jar they come in for holding decants handy afterwards. 🙂

No list of mine would be complete without the mention of L’Artisan Parfumeur but this time I’m not going to reference perfumes but other fragrant items like: L’Artisan candles
and the most lovely L’Artisan Amber Balls.
amberballs

The last but not the least, the perfume to wear for snuggling on a cold winter night – Ambre Sultan

And this year’s other picks would again include Mariages Frere Christmas tea – I am a huge fan of their teas and regularly buy them.
I still haven’t tried the Noel one – hmm, I could make that my Christmas gift to myself.

Like I did with this last item. 🙂
Made by a Croatian designer Zoe leggings, they come in all manner of fun designs and I had a hard choice in front of me when I tried to decide which ones to buy.
In the end I went for Back to the Roots.

roots

P.S. And Santa, if you’re checking my list for possible gifts for me, a bottle of good whisky or red wine would be fine too. 😉

Images taken from: http://www.deshperfumes.com, http://www.sonomascentstudio.com, Zoe Leggings facebook site

Heather Graham: Keeper of the Night

Book review, World of Books December 12, 2012 1 Comment

I wish all my readers a very merry Christmas! I hope you spent it with your dear ones and had lots of fun times with them, enjoying good food and company.

Now, onto the book. 🙂

I don’t remember ever before reading a book that reminded me so much of a TV movie. You know, the one where the story is interesting enough and fun to read but not of cinematic value. Can’t say that is very surprising, this being a Harlequin title.

But the thing is, sometimes that is exactly what you need and I had fun reading it.

It was very easy to read and enjoy, had an interesting crime back story, interesting chkeeper nightaracters (the female hero is a tall redhead!), and an obvious plan for other books in the series.

We have 3 cousins who became Keepers of vampires, elves and werewolves (each for one race). It happened sooner than it was expected and now they are in L.A. having to perform their duties when they all wanted to pursue different careers. Rhiannon is the vampire keeper and just as she arrives to L.A., she has some big crime to solve. Luckily, there is the Elven Mac to help her. Well, work alongside her is probably better said.
Basically all components for some light book enjoyment.
I couldn’t guess the murderer but I know who is the next couple 😉

Tranquility connected to whiteness – White Aoud

World of Perfume December 12, 2012 Comments: 15

I’ve known for some time that smoky woody notes, especially those that were historically used for holy (and similar) purposes work for me when I need psychological tranquility. So it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise that oud would fit right in with those type of perfumes.

I feel like a broken record, this whole year I kept whining about how stressed I am and I kept hoping it would pass. Well, it hasn’t, and I’m even more exhausted now which is why I am craving tranquility in any manner I can gesnow whitenesst my hands on.

So, in keeping with that thought, yesterday I went to try some of the decants I have but never use, and ended up trying White Oud.

Oooh, the serenity that went through my nose and spread to my mind!

Today when I sprayed it on I got the most weird opening that is terribly familiar but for the life of me I couldn’t remember from where. 🙂 I keep thinking it must some type of medicine I took at some point in my life but can’t remember what. The saffron, oud and cardamom combination are to be “faulted” for that but I really enjoyed it. It doesn’t last long though, and I find it funny that even though I can smell oud perfumes and realize the differences between them, I still have a problem smelling those differences that aren’t oud.

There is some kind of bitterness swirling around the rose in the heart, possibly a combination of patchouli, cardamom and vetiver. It is also where the rose is most prominent to my nose.

Wearing White Oud has really helped me be calm and collected today and managed to keep my stress levels low as I breathe it in with each inhale (and I furtively smell the collar of my turtleneck each chance I get).

The combination of whiteness outside (there is still snow around) and the White Oud (how aptly it is named in my case) are really working for me – obviously the whiteness spells tranquility for me.

 

Notes: Damas Rose, Safran, Oud, Cardamom, Jasmine, Patchouli, Mysore Sandalwood,
Precious Wood, Amber, Vetiver, Vanilla, Labdanum

Snowed in!

World of Perfume December 9, 2012 Comments: 17

I shouldn’t be so happy about it but I can’t help it. 🙂 I love snow.

And we had a record-breaking snow yesterday. 40cm of snow fell in less than 15 hours which has never happened before in Zagreb (last record is from 1955 when 38cm fell in 24 hours).

The whole city pretty much stopped yesterday and luckily it happened on a weekend as I can’t imagine what would it have looked like if it were a normal work-day.

This made me feel Christmas is near and I put everyone in the mood yesterday by making warm egg-punch (made with rum, oranges and wine) and today by making meringues with almonds and cinnamon. They might not look great but they taste quite good. 🙂

So, as I’m getting in the mood for Christmas, I’m compiling a list of my Christmas fragrant and non-fragrant picks I hope to post soon.

Here are some photos of snow.

The terrace today:

snijeg2

The terrace yesterday:
snijeg4

Zagreb yesterday (pic taken from http://www.rtl.hr):

snijeg5

Kim Harrison: Pale Demon

Book review, World of Books December 4, 2012 1 Comment

pale demonI don’t know when it happened, but Rachel is seriously starting to get on my nerves. I don’t know when it went from being understanding about her state of life to annoying the hell out of me.

I’ve been thinking about it and wondering what exactly is it that annoys me to such an extent. I believe it’s the fact that as a former IS runner she ought to have developed a good shield against her own naiveté. And after the stuff she went through from the beginning of the series, I know she should have grown as a person. And not get sidetracked in her mind by good looking guys. Yes, she’s in her 20s but she is not a child and she deals with life-threatening situations all the time.

And then when it suits Ms Harrison, Rachel is suddenly a smart runner seeing and figuring out everything. It doesn’t work like that. Either she’s smart and gets things or she’s naive and it takes her forever to figure out the motivation behind people.

I just can’t figure out what kind of character she is supposed to be and I no longer have much tolerance for it.

That said – the story actually held me to the end even though it was rather obvious from the beginning what Trent was doing. I guess that wasn’t supposed to be the thrilling part we wouldn’t guess – the Rachel part took that over. And here I really couldn’t even begin to fathom what might happen.

But the whole experience was punctuated by my rising frustration with Rachel. She would fit quite well with all the YA novels I read, the only problem being, she is actually an adult.

So before you all go away from this thinking I hate the Rachel Morgan series, I finished the book and started with the next one (which is also annoying the hell out of me but not as much).

I sincerely hope Rachel becomes a more homogenous character in the future – otherwise I will probably tear a page in frustration at some point – the horror!

Kresley Cole: Shadow’s Claim

Book review, World of Books December 3, 2012 1 Comment

shadowsAarrrggghh! I finished it! 😦 I always feel like that after finishing a KC book. And I completely fell in love with Bettina and Trehan. Their story I mean. 😉

I now completely understand people who said this was their favourite book. There seems to be more mellowness in this book. Not to be confused with non-agression and lack of brutality. I mean, the Accession is under way after all.

But both Trehan and Bettina are somehow very loving people, Bett is after all very young and didn’t have time to grow bitter and cold and Trehan has spent a cold long life of Dacian princehood practically alone so it seems logical he would appreciate love.

I absolutely loved the part where Lothaire is giving him advice and orders on how to deal with his love life! 🙂 Lothaire of all people.

My favourite moments of the book is when Trehan is called Mr. Dacia which instantly went to Mr. Darcy in my head, some very good steamy scenes that make you fan your cheeks, and the banter between the two of them:

“Look at me, Bett! Look at me!” He cupped her paling cheeks, making her face him. “Breathe. Inhale, exhale.”

She squeezed her yes shut, gripping his shoulders, digging her nails into the muscle. !I’m supposed to take breathing advice… from someone who didn’t use his lungs… for centuries?”

Trehan being a vampire and therefore not needing to breathe until being blooded by his Bride. You can guess who that is. 😉

So they help each other find love and battle their own fears and demons. In the meantime, we have lots of fun.

 

Now, for the most important question – when is the next book coming out?!