April 03, 2007

Precious Presents

I could never afford any of these on my own (except maybe for the 4711). This is what you get if you have a nice boyfriend.

Les Parfums de Rosine Un Zest de Rose EDP
Annick Goutal Des Lys EDT
Guerlain Jicky Parfum
Dior Diorissimo Parfum
Serge Lutens Miel de Bois EDP
Serge Lutens Daim Blond EDP
Caron Narcisse Noir Parfum
Acqua di Parma Iris Nobile EDT
Jean Patou Joy EDT
4711 Eau de Cologne

Posted by oko at 06:08 PM | Comments (0)

My Precioussssssessssssss

And here's a list of my perfumes now that I'm completely addicted. It's amazing what you can find at Marshalls, TJ Maxx, Loehmann's, and the outlet malls, if you're willing to look. These are all the smallest sizes possible, like 30 mL, or 1 fl. oz.

Ivoire de Balmain EDT
Calvin Klein Euphoria EDP
Dior Addict Eau Fraiche EDT
Ralph Lauren Pure Turquoise EDP
Gucci Envy EDT
Gucci Envy Me EDT
Gucci EDP
Burberry Brit EDT
Donna Karan Cashmere Mist EDT
Mugler Angel Innocent EDP
Guerlain Shalimar Light EDT
With Love... Hilary Duff EDP
Annick Goutal Quel Amour EDT
Annick Goutal Eau d'Hadrien EDT
Annick Goutal Petite Cherie EDT
Gap Spun Orange Blossom Perfume Oil (only $3.99!)

OK, and these two I actually paid full price for because I really, really wanted them:

Jo Malone Orange Blossom Cologne
Annick Goutal Le Chevrefeuille EDT

Posted by oko at 05:23 PM | Comments (0)

March 31, 2007

A list! a list! my kingdom for a list!

Just so that I have it somewhere on record, I wanted to make a list of all the perfumes that I had in my bathroom cabinet before I went perfume crazy. Of course, I would never, ever store my fragrances in the bathroom again (the humidity and temperature extremes are terrible for perfumes)!

Love's Soft Jasmin
Bath & Body Works Wood Lily
Bath & Body Works Freesia
Bath & Body Works Field of Flowers
Prescriptives Calyx
Liz Claiborne EDT spray
Byblos EDT spray
Estee Lauder Beautiful
Estee Lauder Knowing
Clinique Happy
Bella's Secret Garden Peach Rose Bouquet
Almay Cologne Spray
Parfums Prestige EDT
Diorissimo Eau de Cologne
Tommy Hilfiger Tommy Girl (bottle broke)
4711 (like a gallon bottle, half of which was used - it smelled funky, so I had to toss it)
Hermes Parfum d'Hermes

Believe it or not, most of these were over half empty (except for Knowing and Liz Claiborne), attesting to the fact that I was a conscientious perfume user.

Posted by oko at 04:54 PM | Comments (0)

January 21, 2007

Baby Steps on the Primrose (Scented) Path

As I mentioned in a previous post, my newest obsession is perfume. But how did I become a fragrance addict?

To be honest, I'm not sure I can tell you exactly how it happened. All I know was that I was looking for Christmas presents at the mall a few weeks ago and somehow found myself at the perfume counter of a major department store. What were all these fragrances? Obviously, I recognized Chanel and some of the Estee Lauder brands, which have been around forever, but where did all these Gucci and Givenchy and Donna Karan fragrances come from? There was some fragrance called Envy Me 2, and I didn't even realize there had been an Envy, and even an Envy Me 1, to precede it. Seriously, it must have been at least 10 years since I had spent any time at the fragrance section - I remember Thierry Mugler's Angel as a relatively new release, and somehow she had given birth to a slew of other angels, Violet, Peony, Lily, and Rose, and even A*men (I'm sorry, with the asterisk, this just looks like Asshole-men to me) among them.

As I wandered through the aisles in a daze, jostled by the huge crowds and mesmerized by all the pretty bottles, some smiling, heavily made-up older Eastern-European woman sprayed me with Vera Wang's Sheer Veil perfume. Look, she said as she smelled my sprayed hand, it smells so beautiful on you - and it leaves a shimmer on the skin!

And perhaps that was all it took - some sweet-smelling sparkly stuff on my hand - to make me open the floodgates of 10 years of fragrance denial - or perhaps it was the addictive drugs in the spray that easily crossed the barrier of my skin to enter my bloodstream and brain to make me completely perfume insane.

Whatever it was, it made me ask my perfume-pusher to recommend another fragrance for me, something light and pretty. She led me to the Dolce & Gabbana counter and sprayed me with something called Light Blue. This is a very pretty fragrance she said, it's one of our bestsellers. I could see why - it was light and pretty, smelling vaguely apple-y.

But here's the thing. Even at my most crazy, I like to look (albeit obsessively) before I leap. I wanted to know more about these perfumes before I bought anything new. And where would I look? Why, the internet, of course! And therein lay my downfall, because I started reading the blogs of perfumistas much more obsessed than I. Light Blue? Forget it! The dull signature smell of silly teenage girls around the globe. Sheer Veil? Another uninspired floral. No, to be part of the cognoscenti, it was to be vintage scents and artisan perfumers all the way, no common department store brands need apply. I started making a list of the perfumes I needed to smell, the ones the blogs raved about, Guerlains from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, vintage Carons, niche perfumers like L'Artisan and Serge Lutens.

Now I just needed to find them.

Posted by oko at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)

December 28, 2006

The Sweet Smell of Obsession: The Past

It's officially official. I have a new obsession: perfume.

Every few years I get obsessed with something new. I was obsessed with dogs, I was obsessed with cats, I was obsessed with exercising and gardening (but not at the same time). Most recently, I was (and am) an obsessed birdwatcher.

None of these interests have ever really faded, except perhaps for the exercising, but in that I'm completely blameless. My sister borrowed my favorite exercise tapes two years ago and hasn't yet returned them. This lack of strenuous physical activity has absolutely nothing to do with my inherent laziness and lack of motivation. (Hey, I worked out almost daily for over six years and I still have the defined triceps and biceps to prove it - somewhere, anyway.)

Just so you know my scent history, in the past, I always wore perfume. Even as a little girl, I would steal spritzes of my mother's Coty's Muguet des Bois (lily of the valley) cologne and wear it to second grade. I still remember my classmate Reynaldo Vega telling me how nice I smelled and how happy that compliment made me. Positive reinforcement is key to developing habits, both good and bad, and fragrance was becoming a habit. (Ah, the power of men - very little ones included - to influence a woman's decisions!)

Anyway, I soon graduated to dousing myself with other fine drugstore brands. I remember going to the pharmacy after one of my confirmation classes when I was 11 and buying a bottle of Coty's Clover with my very own money. It was a big deal because I had to ask the old lady sourpuss clerk to get it out from the glass cabinet behind the cash register - scary!

And of course, since it was the 1970s, there was plenty of Love in the air: Love's Fresh Lemon, Love's Baby Soft, Love's Rain, and Love's Soft Musky Jasmine, which I ended up wearing throughout my teenage years. There was also 4711, everyone's favorite cheap cologne. (I like a fragrance that looks like you should drink it - the container resembles a fancy liquor bottle, with its little fake seal that you have to break open and everything. And, in the 18th and 19th centuries, you were actually encouraged to drink 4711 by its makers. Well, it's one way to empty a bottle of fragrance quickly.)

In my twenties and thirties, I upgraded to slightly more upscale brands. I wore Estee Lauder's Knowing and Beautiful (neither of which I like today), Dior's Diorissimo (my love affair with lily of the valley continued) and something called Privilege for Women by Parfums Privilege. There were also cheap little colognes picked up on sale from Bath & Body Works with names like Field of Flowers and Wood Lily and numerous bath sprays that matched my scented shower gels. I'm not sure if what I sprayed on myself actually smelled like "waterfresh breezes" or "wild blossoms," but I was willing to give them a try for the names alone.

In the late 1990s, I would wear Clinique's Happy and Tommy Hilfiger's Tommy Girl to work. I luckily got to smell Tommy Girl again just a few days ago when my almost-used-up bottle broke in the bathroom when I was looking for something in my medicine cabinet. Tommy Girl actually works pretty well as an bathroom air freshener, but I think I still prefer Open-Window-Fresh Swiffer as my exclusive floor fragrance. (And it's cheaper, too.)

But my boyfriend told me he didn't like perfume and I got out of the habit of wearing fragrance. So my scented world shrank and dwindled to the almost non-existent smell of the powder-fresh deodorant under my arms. Perhaps I had put too much stock in the opinions of men (very little ones included). But things were going to change!

Posted by oko at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)