It arrived!

Uncategorized February 18, 2010 Leave a comment

Just a short post to share my joy and euphoria with you. The package with samples from Roxana Villa arrived today. It was there waiting for me on my desk when I got home and I was practically jumping from joy anticipating the chocolate goodness waiting inside for me. I still haven’t tried any of the wonderfully packaged little samples (I need to take a picture so you can see), I still can’t decide with which to start. 🙂 I’ll choose soon and will review them as soon as I find the time.

Picture taken from Roxana’s Etsy site.

Some promotion for my own selfish purposes

Uncategorized February 17, 2010 Comments: 2

I don’t know how about you, but I’m always ready to either get something for free or get some reward in any manner. So, it turns out today, I’ll be doing a little jewelry and book promotion.

There is this interesting jewelry site (LuShae Jewelry) that offers rather great prices for their products (I’m already debating whether I really need this pendant or not) and there is a chance to win a sweepstake or a monthly prize of 200$. If you want to check it out, click here.
I’m still wondering how come they don’t have bracelets and necklaces but maybe in the future.

The second thing is, this week is the release of Kresley Cole’s Pleasure of a Dark Prince and to enter for a chance to win some books (I can never let such a chance pass me by), I just needed to let you know it’s out.
Here you can read my thoughts on Kresley Cole.
Btw, the book is already on its way to me – I’m just waiting for a call from my favourite bookstore (Algoritam) to let me know it arrived. 🙂

P.S. I promise my next post is a review of a perfume. 🙂

Acquired taste

Perfume thoughts February 16, 2010 Comments: 11

I seem to do more thinking about perfume lately than actual smelling. Yesterday I came home and there was a package from Niche place waiting for me – I ordered without smelling it, just from reading about it, Tommi Sooni, Tarantella.

Of course I had to try it straight away, without thinking about notes or anything regarding a review, all I wanted to see was if I made a mistake or not. 🙂 And it seems sometimes it’s ok to risk. I liked it although my initial thought was, this smells real good but it’s not what I usually go for. What I usually don’t go for are aldehydes, chypre and roses. Well, all I can say is that this seems to be changing. I started giving more wrist space to roses and getting surprised by the results. Aldehydes have just wormed their way into my fragrance wardrobe, now all it takes is for me to start loving the real chypres. That still might take some taste acquiring. Ideas wanted and needed! I mean, I have tried several of the more famous ones, but I’m still waiting for the bells to start ringing when I smell one and my knees going week. You know, all the signs that this is probably the one that will stay with you for the rest of your life. It might leave for a couple of months, but will eventually come back. For now, one that I would like to wear without fighting it would be just fine. Like it just happened with Tarantella. I don’t know yet if it’s going to be a life long relationship but it will last a bottle. 🙂
I figured, perfume groups are like food. I seriously didn’t like sushi when I first tried it. Then, I got the opportunity to try it again and it was ok, but not something I would ever want to eat. Nowadays, there are days I need to go and get a bite because it is exactly what I crave.
Even though I smelled Tarantella briefly, I know it is going to be one of those bottles that I will crave occasionally and will know exactly when I want to wear it.
Like I know when I would like to wear Amouage Lyric, the only problem is I don’t own a bottle of it so that is kind of a hindrance. But that rose went straight for my knees and I didn’t even recognize it.
I plan on giving them all a proper review (I still have some Lyric left in my sample – I’m saving it).
Btw, while writing this, I was looking for chypre ideas and found that the Perfumed court has a beginner’s list of things to try regarding chypre. 🙂 I think I tried all of those, and none of them made my knees go weak (ok, maybe vintage variants of some of them would, but they are rather hard to find).

P.S. If someone has a bottle of Lyric and doesn’t know what to do with it, please, just remember I’m here and I need one. 🙂

Random.org chose…

Uncategorized February 15, 2010 Leave a comment

Rosiegreen congratulations. 🙂 Please contact me with your address so I can send the package.

I think I kill the roses

World of Perfume February 13, 2010 Comments: 6

This week has been really hectic for me so I didn’t have time to smell anything (let alone review it). I decided to remedy that today and since I loved Santal Blanc, I took out of my bag of samples Santal de Mysore by SL.

Notes: sandalwood, spices, cumin, styrac balsam, caramelized Siamese benzoin.

It opens very similarly to Santal Blanc (there’s no way you can miss the sandalwood), but since I associate sandalwood after SB with white, the way I smell this is white, woody and vanillic. And warm because there’s no way around cumin. But I don’t mind, I love the warmth it brings to perfumes.

As always, I dabbed it and tried to guess what I smell, and I got the sandalwood, cumin, and benzoin, but the whole spices thing just went past me. I read the review of this at NST and realized Kevin was able to differentiate all these spices and all I got was cumin. Not that there aren’t spices in there, but just I don’t really know what they smell like. 😦 Well, one more thing to add to the list of things to learn…

Even though I enjoyed this very much, I am more happy with Santal Blanc. This one gets too sweet on me and although I like the sandalwood, I prefer the less sweet version of it. This one seems to be the middle ground for me between Santal Blanc and Spiriteuese Double Vanille by Guerlain. And although I do crave a bottle of SDV (and given the price, it’s going to remain a craving), and have a bottle of SB, I don’t really feel I need a bottle of this. Or want. If I had it, I would use it, but I don’t really think at this point I’ll be getting one.

Which brings me to the rose. Maybe it was my subconscious working (there have been many postings on roses the last week – Valentine’s day being tomorrow) but when I chose Ta’if from my sample bag, I didn’t know it was a rose scent.

Well, the initial smell set me straight on that point. 🙂 Before I got interested in perfume, I had a bottle of Very Irresistible by Givenchy (the first and original one). I was totally in love with it and wearing it for some time before I learned it was actually a rose scent. And I always thought I didn’t like rose scents…

So, when I smelled Ta’if and it reminded me straight away of Very Irresistible, I knew it was a rose. And what a rose it is! It smelled intoxicating and I realized why rose scents tend to be so loved by some.

Notes: pink pepper, saffron, dates, rose oil, freesia, orange flower absolute, jasmine, amber and broom.

So, after getting my initial, oh, it’s a rose, I went in search of notes. What can I say? I didn’t get much further than rose. Actually, no further than that. I couldn’t smell any of the notes (this doesn’t seem to be my day for smelling). It is so well blended, it seems like a fantasy rose story that starts with intoxicating you and then you just enjoy the ride. Unfortunately for me, it didn’t last that long. I seem to have killed the rose in the drydown and it went somewhat sour on me. I still can’t believe that happened! It was so great and I already say myself ordering a bottle and then this happened. It wasn’t terribly bad but it wasn’t what it was before. I am definitely going to give it more tries because it might just be a bad day for my skin chemistry (please let it be that).

What I liked about this is that it is much less jarring than Very Irresistible and doesn’t feel like it enters the room before you but with you. I would say it is a terribly sexy smell and I wonder is someone going to wear it tomorrow? 🙂 To tease their partner terribly with things to come hinted by the intoxicating rose…

I wish I could.

Birthday cake

Uncategorized February 11, 2010 Comments: 8

Some time ago, Carol from WAFT by Carol posted a recipe for a Red velvet cake which I found totally interesting. Here is a link to the recipe.

So, I decided to make it for my birthday and here are the pictures (Carol’s looks much better but hey, this was the first time for me):

As you can tell, I’m still not perfect at frosting the cake. 🙂 To put it mildly.

But it looked ok inside and everyone wanted a piece (that was good to hear).

Some guests wanted a second piece as well (yay for me!) so in the end there wasn’t really much left.
Although you might not think it by looking at the photos, the cake really tastes wonderful. And I can’t wait to do it again in the near future.

P.S. Carol was very helpful – I don’t do much baking, so I peppered her with questions. 🙂 Thanks!

Happy this year

Uncategorized February 10, 2010 Comments: 14

First off, join me for a glass of champagne while I talk about the passing year.

It’s been a year since I turned 30 and that birthday wasn’t the one I felt the need to celebrate. I was actually quite depressed (even though my friends kept telling me it’s the best decade to be in) and I didn’t feel happy and didn’t really celebrate much.

Consequently, the year was difficult and I am sincerely glad it is behind me. I am looking forward to this year being the starting point of much better things to come so I am celebrating it with everyone, and that will include all my wonderful virtual (blogger) friends.

And since we are here in the middle of the winter, it’s snowing and it’s going to continue snowing for the next 5 days, I am starting to fantasize of all the warm days to come so I want to give you something to remind you of warmer days to come: a 10 ml decant of PdN Eau Turqoise, 10ml of Kenzo Peace and 5ml of both, The Six scents series 1, No. 1 and Givenchy Organza 2008 Fleurs d’oranger.

Just comment to enter (until end of Sunday, 14). 🙂

Rachel Vincent: My Soul to Take

World of Books February 9, 2010 Leave a comment

I am no longer a young adult but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy books written for them. 🙂 So, in the last year and a half, I ended up starting more than one YA series. The last in line is Soul Screamers by Rachel Vincent and I only read the first book.

I’ve heard of Rachel Vincent before but haven’t read anything up to now, there is a non YA series in her opus but I can’t say the excerpts made me that curious about it. I blame it totally on the person writing them because as much as I can tell, RV writes pretty much the thing I like to read.

I’m a bit busy lately so it took me almost a week to finish this book, even though it’s not even remotely long. Good thing about it is that it is easy enough to read and interesting enough that even though a few days pass, you don’t lose interest (that happens to me a lot) and just start reading something else, but each time I did have time, I took it up.

The idea is interesting enough – not seen before, that’s for sure (in that variant). Bean sidhe (or more familiarly known as banshee) or sidhe characters have been cropping up everywhere. The worlds they inhabit are always different and it seems they might turn out to be the new vampires. There are so many traits that can be attributed to sidhe so they might come handy in the future. We’ll just wait and see.

The only problem I had while reading this is with the main female character. Are all teenagers so, well, stupid when it comes to interpersonal communication? Was I like that? Makes me wish never to have children. This is more general when talking about YA fiction than in particular to this novel, although it appears here as well. I guess that means MS. Vincent did a good job portraying teenagers but it’s a bit annoying reading through it. 🙂

All in all, I’m bound for my bookstore for the next book in series.

My first take on making my own body butter

Uncategorized February 8, 2010 Comments: 6

Let me start by saying it didn’t turn out to be a butter. 🙂 More like a buttery body emulsion. 🙂
I always try to find new body products that make my skin more soft and less dry (and hopefully help I never ever get another stretch mark). So, some time ago I found this great Croatian site that has a really good collection of essential oils (I was trying to find some oils to learn the smell of some of perfume ingredients). Anyway, they have also a good selection of individual butters and plant oils – for Croatian readers, you can find more here.
I ordered before summer some shea butter, sesame oil and some essential oils. I planned on using the butter and oil during summer due to their properties but when it’s hot outside, I realized I don’t like anything that leaves a fatty residue on my skin.
These days it is very cold outside and I need something strong for my skin and I came up with the idea to liquefy the shea butter since it’s solid at room temperature and put some sesame oil in it so it would be more easy to apply. While checking my essential oils to see what am I going to put in for smell, I found some 30ml of marigold oil so I took that as well.
And once the shea butter melted, I put the marigold oil in and some sesame oil and in the end clove leave essential oil. Poured it into plastic holders with caps and put them outside to cool. at first I thought I put too much clove because the smell was strong while the butter was liquid but once it cooled off, the smell was just right. But as soon as I put them at room temperature, it lost the butter strong consistency and somewhat melted into a buttery emulsion. 🙂 But, it feels wonderful on my skin and is absorbed much faster than one other real butter I have which is quite greasy and tends to rub off on my pjs.
You can guess where I’m going with this. 🙂 I plan on buying more raw materials and using them for my own concoctions. This time I won’t put that much oil into butter to make it more easy to apply – I think I put almost half of the shea butter weight in oil and that was too much.
I’ll let you know if next time I get a real body butter. 🙂

Almost strangled by tuberose: L’Artisan Tubereuse

World of Perfume February 5, 2010 Comments: 18

The title might sound as if I didn’t like what I smelled and that would be very wrong. But it isn’t that simple.

I wonder what tuberose fans think of this one? I only dabbed it on my wrist and I got hit by a tuberose wall (for a lack of better description).

Notes: tuberose, ylang-ylang, coconut milk.

As you can see, there aren’t really that many notes to decipher but I still didn’t smell coconut milk. 🙂 It’s camouflaged in all the tuberose.

Anyway, my nose was almost glued to my wrist after putting it on – it actually smelled narcotic to me. And I think this is the first time that my mind instantly associated tuberose with smelling tropical. The smell is actually so strong and saturated that I could feel the imagined tuberose jungle lianas winding around me while I stand there dazed and keep smelling it.

And although I really enjoyed smelling it, I’m not sure I would be able to wear it. I just can’t imagine smelling like that (not that that might not happen, who knows what will be my favourite note year from now?).

I guess I did smell ylang-ylang because I got the feeling of tropical lushness. This is the first scent for which I can say that it grabs you by the neck and doesn’t let go with its intensity. I’m sure if you’re not careful with applying, you are definitely going to give yourself a headache. But you will probably be drugged by the smell, so you might not care. 🙂