something queer going on

1) I finally gave in and bought a bottle of Beaufort's lovely ginger/pepper/smoke perfume Coeur de Noir. I dithered about it for ages: did I love it enough to buy a whole bottle, especially when my perfume opportunities are limited (work has a no-perfume policy)? But recently I wore it again from my sample, having not worn it for a while, and I loved it even more than I remembered. Then a few days later I tried to wear it again and my vial was empty, oh noes! When I found myself opening up the vial and rubbing a cotton swab along the inside to get the last traces, I figured I wouldn't regret the bottle.

It was delivered today from Bloom Perfumery, along with the other samples I ordered and a couple of 2 ml freebies. (Freebies are Monsieur and Sucre d'Ebene, both from Pierre Guillaume; Monsieur sounds fine based on the listed notes, while Sucre sounds unsurprisingly too sweet; I mostly haven't loved other PG scents I've tried.) Despite my resolve to test scents in a more systematic way, I ended up ordering a hodgepodge of things that sounded interesting and/or have been recommended to me: Black Vetiver by Phaedon Paris, Haxan by Parfum Prissana, Oud Imperial by Perris Monte Carlo, Savitri by Parfum Prissana, Larmes du Desert by Atelier des Ors, Lentisque by Phaedon Paris, Nuits de Bakelite and Iris Cendré by Naomi Goodsir, Iron Duke and Terror and Magnificence by Beaufort, Northman by Alexander, Chypre Shot by Olfactive Studio, Garuda by Jul et Mad, and Tara Mantra by Gri Gri.

Excited to have new scents to try. Perfume testing in the fall/winter is not what's usually advised, I think, but I feel more myself in cooler weather and I seem to enjoy perfumes more then.


2) Also delivered today, the teas I ordered from Tea Source. I got the Phantom Power oolong (they describe it as "a hearty cup of fruit and bone," and I really could not resist); Clouds and Mist Supreme, which is a Chinese green tea from Sichuan, said to be floral and cucumbery; Clearwater Sencha, which is a Japanese green tea from the Saemidori cultivar and is said to have qualities of cantaloupe and snap peas (I've had what Tea Source called otsuka saemidori, which one of the heavily brothy, savory Japanese greens, and adored it, but alas Tea Source no longer has it); Root Word raw pu'er ("salted plums, citrus rind, juniper, and wilderness"); and Jasmine Dragon Pearls, which is your basic bitch of a jasmine tea but I like it a lot. As you can see, Tea Source gives their products fanciful names, which I don't love because it makes it harder to find something similar, but they do also provide lots of info about where the teas are grown, who grows them, and how they're processed. I'm too ignorant for most of it to mean much to me, but I like that Tea Source knows. And I've always found their teas to be really high quality, which I can't say for teas I've bought locally from other retailers (even specialty ones). That's why I go to the effort of ordering online. Shipping is free if you order over a certain amount.


3) And finally, today I spent the price of over a month's rent on a goddamn chair. It's a recliner, which I'm going to need when I finally manage to get top surgery; sleeping in a recliner rather than bed is recommended for a while after surgery. I probably should have bought it in a sensible way, by comparison-shopping online etc., but instead I procrastinated for ages and then finally walked into a furniture store that I've passed multiple times without going in, "just to see what they have," and ended up spending $$$. It's a powered recliner, which feels silly to me but apparently these days, the only manual recliners available also rock and swivel, which I didn't want. And when I thought about it, I figured that the ability to change positions with the push of a button might be very welcome post-surgery.

I feel (a) astonished that anyone can afford to have a whole houseful of furniture*, (b) pleased that I will finally have a comfortable chair like a goddamn adult, (c) full of longing for a nice place with nice furniture that I could enjoy living in rather than tolerate, and (d) horrified that the delivery people will contrast this expensive chair with my shitty apartment and probably laugh at me after they leave.

It's not actually being delivered until Dec. 13, the first available date on which I was neither working nor booked up with medical appointments. So I have some time to figure out where I'm going to put it.

The chair, by the way, is quite ugly but comfortable, which is the important bit. I also fell in love with a $500 rug (on sale from $900) but I did not buy it.

(*I know estate sales, thrift stores, etc. exist. I've yet to see a piece of furniture or a rug in a local thrift store that I'd pay money for**, and even if I did find a great bargain, I have no way to transport it or get it up the two flights of stairs to my apartment. Delivery is a must.)

(**Thrift stores seem to be geographically variable. I used to get great stuff, including furniture, from them when I lived in Minneapolis. Here in Santa Fe it's all junk--SF is full of rich people who resell their furniture at $$$ consignment stores. There are also, I'm told, a lot of people now who make their living combing thrift stores, snatching up all the good stuff, and reselling it online at a premium. So some it's just changing times, I guess. *sigh* I do feel like it's increasingly hard to get by if you're not rich. I'm definitely not poor anymore, but a comfortable life feels almost as financially out of reach as it always did. And I don't think that's just a matter of rising expectations.

Anyway, I have a chair! Or I will in a month, anyway.

Our weather stayed pleasantly and very unusually cool until about the third week of June, and then summer came in with a vengeance. Today's high was 97 F (just over 36 C), and I don't care for it. The good news is, our altitude and low humidity mean that even quite hot temps are tolerable in the shade--though 97 is about when they cease to be--and things cool off a lot at night. The bad news is, our altitude and latitude mean the sun is STRONG. I feel bad for everyone working outdoors. And sadly, there's no real cooling predicted for the foreseeable. Like most of the rest of the northern hemisphere, we're expecting a hotter than average summer.

It's sapping my will to do things I need to do for my health (exercise every single damn day, and follow certain medically indicated dietary restrictions). All I want to do is lie in front of the fan and eat ice cream and potato chips (not medically indicated). I'll be glad when it's October.


More cheerfully, today at work I managed to score a bunch of free essential oils (old testers being replaced by ones in newer packaging, but still perfectly fine and almost full in 30 ml bottles). So now I can do some scent experiments without it costing $$$$. I got: bergamot, Himalayan cedarwood, cinnamon leaf, clove bud, pink grapefruit, jasmine absolute (7.5% in jojoba oil), Bulgarian lavender, sweet orange, peppermint, sandalwood (10% in jojoba oil), and tangerine. I left some others behind in order not to be greedy, and regret it now--I should definitely have snagged the spearmint and the patchouli. (For those following my patchouli journey, I gave it a sniff and was surprised at how menthol-ish it was in addition to the expected "perfumed dirt" thing.) If there's anything still left tomorrow I'm grabbing it. I got a pretty decent assortment regardless, and I already have a vetiver oil and a lime oil. So I'm contemplating blends.

Now, of course, my lovely free oils will mean buying some little sample-size bottles, and some paper test strips (which I needed anyway), and some pipettes so I can control and measure amounts, and who knows what else. No such thing as a free fragrance, apparently.

A while back I bought some vetiver essential oil, not realizing that it would be much too thick to work in a diffuser. So I decided to dilute it with a carrier oil and try it as a perfume instead.

Today I finally got around to doing that, and I'm pleased with the result. I diluted it 1:12 in jojoba oil, and the result when worn is, unsurprisingly, a nice distinct vetiver, but not so strong that I'm going to be trailing clouds of the stuff. I'll be quite happy to wear it by itself, but I'm also thinking a layer of it might do wonders for some of the vetiver scents I have that turned out not to be vetiver-y enough for me.

I've had to slow the pace of my testing a bit, because seasonal allergies have given my skin a tendency to break out in hives etc. It's not specifically triggered by the perfumes (though I had what may have been a minor allergic reaction to one scent), but in general they seem to prime my skin to react to other things.

Partway through this round of testing, I gave up my game of not reading the scent notes beforehand. I'm just not familiar enough with enough notes to make it worthwhile. It's more useful to me to have some idea what I'm supposed to be smelling.

My experience with Jardins de la Bergamote, Psychedelique, Oud for Greatness, Hacivat, Invasion Barbare, Tonnerre, Coeur de Noir, Fathom V, Vi et Armis, Lignum Vitae, Seahorse, Marquis de Sade, and Myrrhiad ( under the cut )

My order of samples from Luckyscent came in a few days ago and I've been trying some things, without great luck so far. Unfortunately it seems like my new body chemistry absolutely eats perfumes; I'm tending to lose top notes very quickly, if I even get them at all, and few scents have much staying power.

( Specific scents under the cut )

I got my BPAL order of six imps (samples) a week ago (I was initially given an incorrect ship date and expected it much sooner; BPAL explained the situation after I sent them a plaintive e-mail). Since then I've been trying scents, reading the forums to compare my reactions to other people's, reading the Single Note Exploration forum at Basenotes to learn about the individual notes, etc.

I can see how this becomes addictive. I'm currently drawing up an enormous wishlist of other BPAL scents I want to try.

Below are my reactions to what I've tried.

( Vicomte de Valmont )

( No. 93 Engine )

( Jolly Roger )

( Plunder )

( Envy )

( Golden Priapus )

( Leanan Sidhe )

In summary: I love Golden Priapus and Jolly Roger, like Plunder enormously, like No. 93 Engine with reservations, don't care for Victome de Valmont and Envy, and hate Leanan Sidhe.

I'm going to give away my imps of the last three if anyone wants them. If you're outside the US I'll have to ask you to reimburse me for postage, though. If you'd like one (or two, or all three) send me a PM or e-mail me (kindkit64 AT yahoo etc.) with your address.

ETA: Envy has been spoken for.

ETA2: Vicomte de Valmont and Leanan Sidhe are now taken too.

I'm thinking of trying out some Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab scents, because I find commercial scents pretty uninteresting. I'd love advice from anyone who's bought BPAL stuff (whether you love it, hate it, or whatever). Are their scents very heavy? Are they usually very feminine? (I know to avoid scents with a lot of flowery notes, but if their scents run feminine in general I may not bother.) Are there particular ranges or scents you think are great and would recommend for a n00b to try? Of course I'm aware that a scent that's great on one person may be terrible on another.

Generally I go for citrusy scents or spicy, woody ones. I don't like florals. And I detest patchouli--the smell of it makes me feel sick.

ETA: At the moment I'm only considering their main lines of scent, the ones that can be ordered as imps' ears, rather than any of the special/rare lines.