Kresley Cole: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

World of Books March 6, 2011 Leave a comment

I couldn’t wait for this book to arrive. As I’m a huge fan of Kresley Cole, I eagerly await each new book that comes out. And luckily for me, now I will no longer have to wait until it reaches Zagreb but will be able to instantly download it to my Kindle – yeeeey! 🙂
That wasn’t the case with this one though, as I’ve been on the waiting list here in Algoritam long before it came out.

Honestly I think Ms. Cole outdid herself this time. I recommend her books to anyone interested in paranormal romance as the place to start (even though that might set the bar high).

A slight spoiler ahead.

I loved Regin’s and Declan’s story. And when I say Declan’s, I do mean that. Aidan the Fierce being reborn through the ages because of his love for Regin, only to die in every lifetime (as someone else) each time they make love is some seriously tragic material. And I suffered through their tragedy, I laughed at Regin’s banter, my heart clenched at the strength of their tragic love, and well, the hot scenes did what they were supposed to as well. 😉

The romance I read usually manages to do one of these things, either I read one for the emotional satisfaction, or the great steamy scenes, or the characters’ conversations are fun to read. Sometimes two of those, but rarely all of it in such a strong (even cathartic) way. And that’s why I loved this book (maybe even a little better than all the others in the IAD series).

The best thing – this is not Aidan’s story, this is Declan’s story and he deserves it.

P.S. I’m left wondering what’s the deal between Nix and Lothaire. And who is this person he so badly needs to save.

Pic by: http://kresleycole.com/

Going straight for summer – Nobile 1942, Casta Diva

World of Perfume March 4, 2011 Comments: 10

It seems everywhere I turn, everyone is talking about spring and waiting for it. I am too, but the thing is, we haven’t really had a real spring in years, it feels we go straight from winter into summer, with two weeks of spring in between. And I know spring is supposed to last longer. 🙂

So, expecting spring, I am valiantly trying to separate myself from my lovely warm, winter orientals (I just don’t want to let them go yet) and I sprayed on some Casta Diva, the sample of which was found in my bag after my last Flores visit.

I’m not even sure I should be reviewing lush, white florals anymore as I love them so much, I keep thinking I will never try any I won’t like. And I love this one. It would certainly fit well into my growing white floral collection. It’s actually one I would recommend people start with as it’s not as heavy and heady as they can get, so I find it acceptable work perfume.

Notes: green and fruity notes, jasmine, ylang ylang, frangipani, osmanthus, neroli, oakmoss, amber, white musk and vanilla.

It starts off smelling fresh and not yet completely tropically lush, you can detect it’s somewhere in there, but the sun hasn’t risen to its zenith yet and the lushness hasn’t permeated everything, there is still a fresh, green breeze wafting. The fruity sweetness you smell is more the cocktails on the beach variety than actual fruit, it has that slight plasticky, candy smell that actually works here. I personally find it great. 🙂
And then as the sun heats you up on the beach while you’re drinking your cocktail, the jasmine and yland-ylang sneak up on you and seduce you into feeling even more relaxed.

I need to see what other people think of this as I find this a very polite lush, white floral, I am not the most objective person in that regard as I could drown in them. But I do think this one will not raise any eyebrows if you wear it to work. It just might get your colleagues to wonder where did you spend your weekend exactly.

After the initial fruity sweetness, it’s no longer that sweet, just what the flowers and vanilla give you and it’s also very polite. And it dries down into a soft, vanillic floral just hinting at that lushness of white, sandy tropics.

A thoroughly enjoyable ride. 🙂

http://www.nobile1942.it/index.asp

Pic by: http://www.punmiris.com/

Visit and try your hand at winning

Uncategorized February 28, 2011 Comments: 12

Suzanne over at Perfume Journal is having a wonderful drawing for a 4ml mini of Cartier’s L’Heure Fougeuse and at the same time wrote a wonderful post that made me blush and for which I am so very grateful.

Especially the part where she calls our perfume community a perfume “shire”. 😀

Thank you Suzanne!

P.S. I just realized I managed to use the word wonderful two times in one sentence. Oh well, I was excited so I’ll leave it now. 🙂

Perfume trivia

Uncategorized February 26, 2011 Comments: 13

This one is from my personal experience.

I am proud to say I seem to have turned my boyfriend into a perfumista! Or a word that describes that in a more masculine way. 😉

Anyway, he is not going to follow the new releases or look for interesting perfumes to try (he has me for that) but he will gladly try them and go a step further it seems. He started wearing perfume for sleep! And I don’t. I can’t believe it.
I started thinking how I might get into the habit because, you know, it IS a great habit but he beat me to it. And we can’t both waft so much, so I’ll have to stick to my wrists. Oh, well, as long as it smells great while I’m falling asleep, I don’t care who wears it.

P.S. If you’re wondering what he keeps wearing, it’s Paestum Rose by Eau d’Italie.

Giving in to my perfume sweet tooth – Un Bois Vanille

World of Perfume February 21, 2011 Comments: 22

I find it both interesting and telling that at this point in month, the two perfumes that made such an impression are both sweet. 🙂

First, I’m forever thankful to the Perfume Posse for hosting that incredible mass swap before Christmas, I got so many wonderful things in exchange, I still need to go through them properly.

One of the things I received was the decant of Un Bois Vanille as I never tried it before and since I, well, like pretty much anything coming from SL line, I wanted to try it. It took a while for me to take it out (two days ago actually) and I decided to spray it on without testing it first.

It wasn’t a mistake. 🙂

In my case at least. I’m not sure though how many people actually appreciate burnt caramel smell. But it’s so wonderfully done! I keep getting that burnt caramel/sugar vibe with some smoke hidden under that heaviness but it’s so good. (I’m doing a little happy dance in my chair just thinking about it) 🙂

Before you start thinking that’s all there is to it, I do get traces of vanilla, the one that makes me love Vanilia by L’Artisan (why in the world did they decide to discontinue it?!).

For me the burnt caramel never truly goes away but it certainly dissipates enough to get you to smell a nutty (slightly bitter) vibe and then it just dries down to a less sweet (not that it was too sweet in the first place) woody burnt caramel/nuttiness. The burnt part has here already been mostly cleared by the wind.

Notes: Black vanilla absolute, licorice, sandalwood, coconut milk, beeswax, caramelized benzoin, bitter almond, Gaiac wood, tonka bean

P.S. I do wish I got a 10ml decant instead of 5ml.

Steven Brust: Taltos

World of Books February 21, 2011 Leave a comment

I’m slowly going through Vlad Taltos books (I wish I had more time so it would go faster) and I’m having so much fun. 🙂

I love the way Mr. Brust writes and the fact that Vlad is such a real character in my mind. It doesn’t happen often that a character gets real for me in such a manner that I no longer consider him a character in the books I read, but as a person whose new adventure I am about to embark upon. There is a big difference between the two in my mind.

I’m reading books the way they were written, so I’m going back and forth in Vlad’s life. The story in Taltos is how Vlad met Sethra and Morrolan, who we already know from the first book that they are now all friends.

Well, they weren’t friends in the beginning and I love how it all started.
I particularly enjoyed reading this book because it is written in such an ingenious manner that you need to pay attention when you switch from the story of what is happening to Vlad at the moment, to a complementary story also told by Vlad of how he started with this whole assasination business. Not to mention the fact that each chapter starts with the explanation of what the final enchantment looks like and that continues through the chapters until the end.
And the most intriguing part is, I kept thinking when are we going to switch to present Vlad time (where he has adventures with his wife) so the whole book felt like it was a story being told by Vlad even though the main story is written as present adventure.

Hopefully, I didn’t complicate this too much. 🙂 It’s just that I love the way the books are written and all the little hints dropped everywhere and the fact you need to deduce some parts as they are never explicitly revealed.

I still feel that the books should be read in the way they were written and not chronologically.

Woody chocolate anyone?

World of Perfume February 17, 2011 Comments: 8

I should write this before it’s gone so if anyone has a liking, it can be snatched for a reduced price.
I’m talking about DSH Bois du Chocolate, a sample of which arrived with my last order and has been going around with me for weeks as it just didn’t beckon to me.

Today I decided to forget about the beckoning part and just try it. It’s wonderful! Simple yet brilliant. I don’t where this is coming from, I didn’t write this down when smelling it but now I look back to what it smelled like, I find it great.
Well, I thought it was great then as well. 🙂

Top notes: Sandalwood

Middle notes: Dark Chocolate, Vanilla
Base notes: Musk, Patchouli

Straight away I got dark chocolate and it wasn’t sweet. It was as dark chocolate is supposed to smell like. I wanted to describe that smell but the best I got is deep, dark chocolate. 🙂 And I need to work on better distinguishing variants of patchouli and vetiver, I thought I smelled vetiver and it turned out, patchouli was in the notes. But you certainly cannot miss the sandalwood. I did miss the musk and vanilla though. Vanilla isn’t surprising, as it probably underscores chocolate and is there to make it work its magic. Musk completely by-passed me, but then again, it was made clear to me yesterday, I can’t smell some musks very well (like Musc Nomade by AG, I could barely sniff it on my arm).

Anyway, I enjoyed smelling this, it’s exactly what it says, but it smells so much better than you can guess by reading the notes (or the name). Seductive but not sweet (I’m wondering now if I find the smell of dark chocolate seductive, it seems to pop out each time I smell a perfume with it).

And if I recover from my recent perfume stunts in time, while there is a bottle of this farewell item left, I believe I’ll have one. And check if men find it seductive as well. 😉

Notes and pic by: http://www.dshperfumes.com/

Steven Brust: Teckla

World of Books February 16, 2011 Comments: 2

I have high respect for male authors who manage to portray the inner workings of a male mind (and heart) at the same time making it sound honest and true to a female reader.
As a woman, I really have no idea what goes on in guys’ minds but reading Vlad Taltos’ books certainly makes me get a good glimpse.

It is so strange reading about an assassin (out of necessity but an excellent one) who also is something like a mob boss but who also suffers through relationship problems and tries to deal with them. That is what i got out of this book, the complications that led to it and keep the problems alive are from my perspective only the backdrop of that story.

At one point near the end, I started thinking that I might have misunderstood the whole character of Vlad Taltos but then my fear turned out to be unwarranted. 🙂
The best part of each and every book – even though Vlad struggles each time through a difficult situation where he can easily get killed and then he successfully tackles it, there is always a surprising additional bonus to come out of them. Both for Vlad and the reader. 🙂

Pic by: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/

Ombre Rose by Jean-Charles Brosseau (vintage)

World of Perfume February 15, 2011 Comments: 8

First off, a huge thank you to Olenska from Parfumieren who sent this. And here is where I have to say that packages arriving from perfume bloggers/enthusiasts are simply the best. You know what you are receiving but there is always something in there you are not expecting that makes it so much more fun.  🙂

Oh, where to start…
I loved this one from the start. I smelled the aldehydes and the rose in the opening and so much more than words can convey.
I love smelling vintage perfume becasue unfortunately, you really can’t smell that anymore today (well, you can but very rarely and it will probably then cost some serious money). Anyway, the thing is, vintage doesn’t always correspond to something you will like/love, but usually it does mean you will appreciate the trip.

I was completely prepared to love Ombre Rose. It smelled to me like the first cousin of Shalimar. Obviously not a sibling, but very close family. Somewhat more proper but with a twinkle in the eye that hinted at more interesting things. Not as powerfully present and strongly opinionated as Shalimar but still having the same beauty displayed in a different manner.

Oh, I was seduced by the rosewood making my association to Shalimar veer off in another direction and giving this spirit of its own. I was so happy to find another friend.

And then we got to know each other better.

Turned out that the twinkle in the eye was only learned from the more experienced cousin but there was nothing afterward to give it credence. The interesting cousin turned out to be a proper little miss smelling of shampoo flowers/rose and not the sexy minx from the introduction.
Unfortunately, we were not meant to associate for long.

Notes: aldehydes, peach, brazilian rosewood, geranium, sandalwood, orris root, vetiver, ylang-ylang, lily-of-the-valley, cedar, rose, honey, orris, tonka bean, cinnamon, musk, vanilla and heliotrope.

I do wonder though, how it was possible to turn one into the other, perfumer-wise. It must be a feat.

Pic by: http://www.jcbrosseau.com/index.php

The winner of the give-away…

Uncategorized February 14, 2011 Comments: 8

is KathyT. Congratulations!

Please contact me with your address so I can send the decants. 🙂

And since this time there were many more participants than usual, I have a consolidation prize of a set of samples to give to another lucky participant – Beautiful Things.

So, please send your address too. 🙂