lunabee34

1. ( cut for straight-up whining about my health )

2. Shot #2 kicked our asses on Saturday. Twelve hours after the shot my arm hurt so badly that it is the worst physical pain I've had outside childbirth. Which is, ah, saying something. Fortunately, the pain responded to tylenol which kicked it back to a manageable level. Both of us had fevers, body aches, and general tiredness on Sunday; I also had a terrible headache. Today, I'm still tired but pretty much fine. I'm still having the heightened neuropathy in my leg that started after the shot, and my arm still hurts a little (I've got a big, hot rash over the injection site), but I'm mostly fine. Josh is mostly fine now, too, but it took him a little longer to get that way than I did.

3. In other random news, I forgot to post about when I had the MRI. I found it strangely soothing and trancelike. It did not sound at all like the MRIs I remember from 25 years ago. Instead of a hammer beating on a metal drum, it sounded more like music to me; there were definitely tonal shifts and varying rhythms. It was oddly hypnotic. If I hadn't been worried about being completely still, I think I would have fallen asleep.

3. Have some awesome stuff to look at.

Thanks to amejisuto, I now know that Star Trek perfumes exist. I don't even know what to say about these, y'all. I mean Red Shirt? Pon Farr? Somebody did not think through the marketing strategy. *dies laughing*

Cuckoo Clocks by executrix
Blake's 7
Blake/Gan
This is full of all the hallmarks of executrix's writing: humor, spot-on dialogue, dangerous wit; it's extremely funny in places, and then it's very much not. Highly recommended.

I decided I wanted to get back into testing my perfumes. I have a few reviews I wrote in my notebook and never typed up, so I'll go ahead and post those so I can get back to testing in earnest.

( all BPAL )


Crepe de Chine Eau de Cologne E. Millot 1925

Top Notes: Neroli, Italian bergamot, Lemon, Orange, Egyptian basil, Oil of peru, Aldehydes
Heart Notes: Gardenia, Ylang ylang, Carnation, Lilac, Rose oil, Romanian chamomille, Egyptian jasmine
Base notes: Sandalwood, East indian musk, Oakmoss, Vanilla, Vetiver, Benzoin, Labdanum, Indonesian patchouli

This smells like jasmine, soap, and old lady. It is pretty uniformly horrible. The notes sound so interesting, though. I wonder how old the bottle was; that may have contributed. Then again, I pretty much always despise jasmine, so the jasmine may have wrecked it for me. This got passed on.

Michael by Michael Kors

Top notes are freesia, incense, chinese osmanthus and tamarind; middle notes are tuberose, iris, peony, orris root and arum lily; base notes are musk, cashmere wood and vetiver.

This is a very sweet white floral. The tuberose is almost a gardenia dupe. Josh cried almost instant headache, so I didn't leave it on long enough for the dry down, but I could just start to smell the woodiness of the iris start to tamp down the florals before I scrubbed it.

Clean (the original)

This soap-inspired scent combines litsea cubeba, orange, sweet lime, pink grapefruit, passion lily, rose geranium, and white musk and is perfect for women who enjoy crisp, subtly. It opens with a bright burst of freshness and dries down to a simply CLEAN scent.

This does smell fresh and clean. Very bright and citrusy but very sweet (must be the sweet lime). I don't get any orange or grapefruit, but I do smell rose geranium (yummy) and soap. Clean is a good descriptor. I would like to smell this on someone else, but it's not for me. I passed it to a friend.

BPAL Rapunzel

Angel’s trumpet, bois de rose, orris, and wild lettuce.

I really like this. It smells green and sweet and a little of rose. Josh detects a note of ginger. It's a keeper!

( SWAPS AND GIVEAWAYS )

Incipient Madness

An unwholesome smoky musk, dark and sweet, laced with Virginia tobacco, honeyed black currant, and red patchouli.

This is a limited edition, so I don't know how hard it would be to find, but it's a very good dupe for Comme des Garcons Black. The smokiness is clearly coming from birch tar (so yummy!) which is the main ingredient in Black. I like this more than I thought I would even with the sweetness of the patchouli underpinning it. Black is much nicer; IM is more astringent, not as smooth as Black, but they're very close to each other. I'm going to pass this along because even if I do like it, I'd much rather wear Black.


Fire for Thy Step-Mother's Daughters

Flaming coals, hellfire, and blackened bone.

So Josh's response to this is that it smells like nagchampa which is his response to every BPAL with patchouli or incense in it (and he's not wrong, exactly). Emma thinks it smells bitter and sawdusty. I think it does give a good impression of fire and warmth, but that the dragon's blood smells sweetly mildewy like it always does to me. Definitely not a keeper.

New Orleans

Sweet honeysuckle and jasmine with a hint of lemon and spice.

I knew this was going to be horrible on me because of the jasmine, but I soldiered on in the name of science! Jasmine just smells like sickly sweet poop to me. I could barely leave it on long enough to get much of a whiff. My friend M liked it and did not scrub hers but she said ten minutes into the drive home, it suddenly amped up to a thousand rather than fading away as it dried down. This will be going to someone who can abide jasmine LOL.

Guerlain Champs Elysees: Delicate fruity-floral fragrance. Mimosa, rose, almond, and forest fruits are followed by melon and exotic fruits.

I have found a Guerlain I like. Hallelujah! Normally I am not drawn to florals or fruity scents, but this just smells really nice on me. It's not strong, very close to the skin, with rose predominating (but not in that annoying way that all BPAL roses turn into one note tea-rose on me). There's a hint of apricot that could turn rancid on me the way it does in Tresor, but it turns sweetly fruity instead. Emma thinks it smells bitter, like flowers, and like old ladies. LOL Despite being fruity and floral, she's right that this is not a scent for a teen. Josh is not enthusiastic, but he doesn't dislike it, so score! Luca Turin hates this (like with the passion of a thousand suns), but he loves Hermessence Vetiver Tonka, so what does he know?

Opium Yves Saint Laurent: Top notes are coriander, plum, citruses, mandarin orange, pepper, jasmine, cloves, west indian bay and bergamot; middle notes are carnation, sandalwood, patchouli, cinnamon, orris root, peach, lily-of-the-valley and rose; base notes are labdanum, tolu balsam, sandalwood, opoponax, musk, coconut, vanilla, benzoin, vetiver, incense, cedar, myrrh, castoreum and amber.

Wow, they put everything but the kitchen sink in this one. LOL This was a Sunday night test, so lots of opinions. C just hated it, absolutely despised it in a way that was very funny. L used to wear it years ago, so she liked it just fine and smelled it with the nose of nostalgia. M didn't really care for it but realized that someone in her family used to wear it years ago, so it brought up memories of her grandmother's house. Josh likes it; he thinks it's a warm scent, smelling of cinnamon, vanilla, and rose. For me, the jasmine initially threatens to make it unwearable. Fortunately, after about ten minutes, the jasmine is completely gone, leaving something really nice: sandalwood, balsam, vanilla, cinnamon, musk.

BPAL Kathmandu: Saffron, blessed sandalwood, Himalayan cedar and the miraculous lotus of the Buddha with chiuri bark and Nepalese spices.

This is another Sunday test, and I don't seem to be having a whole lot of luck with the BPAL we test. No one likes this one. I smell lotus and cedar, no sandalwood (which I love), and a medicinal underpinning. MM smells sweet sandalwood. M thinks it smells like a minty version of Valentine's Day candy hearts. Emma just says no. L thinks it smells like rose and candy and weirdly like Tabu. C smells tea tree oil, and A smells sandalwood.

BPAL Rome: A recipe gleaned from Classical Rome: cypress, juniper, chamomile and rose.

This one turns one-note tea rose on all my Sunday testers. Another dud.


( Swaps and Giveaways )

This clears the backlog of reviews! I will now be reviewing perfume in real time. Whoooo!

( Autumn Overlooked My Knitting, Delirium, Qandisa, Bayou, Nephilim, Athens, Pain, and Bulgari Black )

First, an enthusiastic rec for Olay Smooth Finish Facial Hair Removal Duo Fine to Medium Hair. I've spent the past decade or more getting my eyebrows and my upper lip waxed fairly regularly. In the past few months, though, my skin has gotten so dry that waxing my upper lip has been more trouble than it's worth, creating irritation that lasts for much longer than it should. So I tried using this depilatory cream and am extremely pleased. In six minutes, my lip was hair free without an ounce of discomfort. (Of course, I then had to stop myself from slathering my whole face in it because, as I reminded myself, even Eva Green has tiny little baby hairs on her forehead and she is the most beautiful woman in the world.)

On to perfume! I did a little stats work today and discovered that I have tested 77 BPAL, 17 Chanel, 8 Guerlain, 3 Dior, and 12 assorted scents to date. I'm no Luca Turin, but that seems an impressive number of trials to me.

( Three BPAL reviews )

Have some perfume reviews!

( Multiple BPAL )

Comme des Garcons Black: According to Fragrantica, Top notes are black pepper, incense and olibanum; middle notes are leather, licorice, birch and pepperwood or hercules club; base notes are cedar and vetiver.

I love this perfume. It does not smell of licorice at all on me, thank goodness. Most things with an anise or licorice note just go all black jelly beans on me. Black smells like pepper, cedar, salt, vetiver, and leather on me. I wish it was a little more long lasting, but it smells so good while it lasts: warm and spicy and utterly sexy.

So, I just tested Serge Lutens Miel de Bois. Fragrantica says: Miel De Bois or 'wood honey' is sweet and warm woodsy fragrance. Raw, sweet and heavy white honey allied with dry wood is an unusual combination for women and men seeking for novelties. The top notes are dry wood that breaks and crashes in your hands: Guaiac and oak. Then there comes luscious, sweet and dense white honey. The base is composed of wax, animal notes, iris and hawthorn.

I knew this would be too sweet for Josh before I even tested it, and I wasn't wrong. He smelled oaky woods but said that ultimately it was too sugary sweet; the scent did tamp down and become a bit more palatable for him as time went on, but nothing he'd be able to stand me wearing on a regular basis. Emma was being 12 and told me it smelled like cough syrup and rubbing alcohol which it does not; I can accept that it smells bad to her, but this was just shorthand for yuck without any nuance. LOL

I instantly smelled honey and woods. It's powdery and warm. It smells a bit funky and weird to me in the first few minutes but that quickly burns off. Strongly honey and strongly sweet. The wax comes to the fore as time passes for me. It's not something I really like all that much except that it instantly and viscerally reminded me of this Bath and Body Works product I used to love.

In my memory, this product was sold some time between 1997-2000. It was some kind of lotion that was very thick and as you applied it got thinner and more liquidy. It was honey-scented and it was sexy sexy sexy sexy from the scent on down to the texture, friction making it more pliable and slick. These qualities were not lost on my burgeoning relationship with Josh. It was not packaged in the same packaging as their other products; it was from one of their outside lines.

So I have just spent the last hour down the rabbit hole trying to no avail to find this product. Bath and Body Works did carry Savannah Bee Company stuff in the mid-2000s, but that's too late for my memory. I found this extremely cool blog that is exclusively devoted to vintage B&B stuff. I sent an email asking them for help, so maybe I'll get lucky and solve the mystery.

Anybody else remember the product I'm talking about here?

I fell out of the habit of testing perfumes (although not of wearing them, thank goodness) this past spring when Fi got ill and stayed that way for so long. It wasn't any direct consequence of her illness; I think I just got depressed. My arm also started bothering me during that time period, and some other health issues were manifesting, and I stopped doing a lot of things that I enjoy (like reading books, wtf; I legit quit reading books I wasn't teaching for a whole semester; I don't think I've ever gone so long without reading a book in my life; I usually read at least one, sometimes 2-3 books a week).

But I've made a BPAL order, I've got a fair amount of scents still waiting to be tested, and a huge backload of write-ups to post. So . . .

( chips away )

I've got like a bajillion imps I'd like to swap, so my next project is to get that together for my next review post.