Natori ~ a new-again mother’s fantasy

   It has been a wee bit hectic with the holidays and babies and such things. However I have been making my way through Carol’s  (of WAFT) perfume sample care package, attemting to slow down and really experience the candies.  Natori EDP has been positively buzzed on the blogs and mentioned on the best of 2009 lists.  It has also made it’s way on to my wrists repeatedly.  

With the first dab and sniff, one word comes to mind.  Lush.  The sparkling sparkling aldehydes fizzing softly into a rosy-plum cashmere like accord.  I feel like I’ve taken a luxuirous bubble bath ALONE lotioned up, put on  a cashmere wrap dress.  Shiny hair and heels, I’m ready to have a lovely day out.  This perfume  is so elegant I feel child induced stain proof too.  While I agree Natori is nothing earth shatteringly new and different, it stands out as it isn’t a super trendy thrown in all of whatever is popular concoction.  It is sweet, but it never ventures into the ghastly, and might I say the patch-amber-musk at the end is divine?  Warm skin, not  hippie-ass and incense.  Natori maybe just what I needed to get back into the swing of new releases…  I think Imust hunt down a nice big decant as I bet it intensifies with a good spray. 

notes:  aldehydes, rose, plum, ylang-ylang, purple peony, night-blooming jasmine, patchouli, amber and satin musk accord

It’s a new year.  Resolutions : organize my life, stop and smell the roses and atempt to live in creativity more often.

Feerie Van Cleef and Arpels

Very first, Thanks to Carol of WAFT for the candy in the mail!

Second . . . the bottle.  COVET!  How adrable would that be on my nightstand?  or empties decorating my little princess’s room? ALready I hope to love this one. 

Sniff — erm… it’s my mom’s Bvlgari.  I just can’t love it.  I have mentioned before, wearing someone else’s signature  perfume is like wearing thier underwear.  And I just can’t do it.  grrr.  but I still want the bottle.  In deeper reflection, Feerie is pretty and pleasant.  Almost elegant.  Violet duskiness meeting a very soft musk.  Very in the woods spying on the fair folk.  I suppose I could gift a bottle of this to Mummy Dearest and see if she’ll give the empty bottle to her favorite grand daughter.  Because dammit.. I’m still coveting the bottle.   

Final thought — Carol’s sample swap was the EDT… I can’t help but wonder if the Parfum is worlds better.  Next time I’m at Needless Markup, I must test!

I’m still around

just trying to keep my head above water with two babies. 

 

What have you smelled that knocks your socks off lately?  Me nothing much.  New anyhow.  I’m still inlove with the elder Chanel ladies and about to dive into Theorama for the season.  I’ve been appreciating the amouages, particularily epic and jubilation and lyric for all thier femme glory.  How about you?  Where should I sniff from here?  Anyone got a suggestion or sample or such?

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Thankful for

2 healthy happy children

a great husband who is home for good

helpful family and good friends

hot tea for stuffy noses

Divine L’etre Aime Femme

spray — warmish spice herbs.  seems like fall potpouri.  The potpourii must be the woodsy note that is the new thing for feminine perfume.  And now…. I smell fruit.  I check the notes available at perfumed court and see Nectarine.  Aside from the decetable peaches available at my farmers market around mothers day (we call them crack peaches.  people wait in line for an hour to buy a peck at a time!) I do love a perfectly ripe juicey nectarine.  Further into the sniff I feel as though I am at a bonfire eating an almost too sweet syrupy fruit.  Through out the day I smell bnfire and fruit.  I love the bonfire, but not so much the fruit.  In the end, I’m left with a hyper sweet after taste.  This realy isn’t my favorite, though I do find it interesting.

Update

Well, readers, I had the baby Tuesday June 2 at 2 am after 5.5 hours of lightening fast labor and no drugs.  Wow.  what a crazy trip that was!.  Maxwell is 8 pounds, 10 ounces 20 inces and absolutely perfect.  When life calms down I’ll be back to work reviewing. 

SOTW :  Kiki, Jicky Encese at Lavende…. lavender seems so soothing after the birthin’ and helps Max sleep too.

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you out there.  I’m pretty lucky to have the most awesome little girl ever.  Just wish I’d go into labor already with number two.

 

SOTD: New Femme EDP.  Cuminy, warm, a little sexy skin perfection.

Split Interest?

Is anyone out there interested in a Split of Ellie D?  It runs 185 for 1/2 ounce at Luckyscent, which is a bit hefty during the recession….

If I get enough interest I’d love to arrange a split.

 

On to other things —  pregnancy is really messing with my nose.  I recieved (finally, thanks US MAIL) a very nice surprise package from the winner of the last drawing.  Thank you so much Jen!  I have yet to sniff much of it as everything smells kind of off to me lately.  Hopefully things go back to normal post birth. 

However, my beloved Eau des Merveilles still smells pretty great to me, and I have actually gotten to the half way usage mark on the bottle of EDT.  imagine that!  I might have to replace it in a few months.

Poll — Scent Marie Antoinette

Taking (ok, kind of stealing) a page from the brilliant blogger at Now Smell This, I am asking my readers what they would scent Marie Antoinette?  Inspired by tickets to the Houston Ballet’s production of Marie this Sunday, the thought has been on my mind all day.  In a past post, I decided Vero Profumo’s KIKI fit the bill with it’s decadent sweetness, musky frenchness and utter wrist glued to the nose sniff perfection.  Though I have been pondering if this is the absolute choice…

Somedays Jicky seems quite appropriate.  KiKi seems to be a nod to the Guerlain great, though on the wrong day it tends to remind me of the airport bathroom in Houston’s Hobby.  Serge Luten’s Fleurs D’Oranger seems almost right, though not quite enough girlish coquetteishness.   I almost think something pinker….

 

Leave your thoughts, I’ll be thinking on it too.  I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with and why!  And if the fabulous Now Smell This catches wind of my copy-cat poll, please think of it as a nod to your fabulosity!

And the winner is….

maitreyi1978!

I’ve sent you an email!

Sample Swap Meet

Got some samples hanging around that you’ve tried and not loved?  Me too.  Once a month I’m rounding them up and I will draw a winner from the comments posted on the drawing listing.  I’ll send you the samples, you can send samples back, something not perfume related or even nothing at all.  I’m seriously sick of looking at my sample bowl overflowing with things I’ve tried and not loved but don’t know what else to do with!  I’m desperately trying to downsize myself in an effort to keep clutter down…

So the official February sample swap consists of:

Donna Karan Chaos– .25 ml

Ormonde Jayne Tolu EDP  over a ml left in manufacture sample spray.  I love this, but bought a little of the parfum recently. 

Etro Messe de Minuit– most of 1.5 ml

Chanel Sycomore — 1.5 ml — nice but not my favorite vetiver

Neil Morris Prowl– half the manufacture vial –patch monster!!

L’artisan dzongkka — aside from the nifty name, it left me kinda cold.  though so many others rave about 1.5 ml.

Neil Morris.  le parfum d’odette — pretty, but just not me.  most of the manu. vial

Parfumerie Generale L’ oiseau de Nuit — about 2 ml .  sweet, too sweet for me, and woody.  the dry down is pretty nice

Look for updates until Jan 31, when I finish the month’s sampling

So… leave a comment if the batch strikes your fancy, I will draw for a winner Feb. 5