Slightly less Trashy Friday with a giveaway

Probably not going to be a totally trashy Friday, all the babies in the celebrity world make me yawn. I love babies, and I wish all the new parents the very best, but I really detest the fuss they make over babies of celebrities. They didn’t do anything special, and too many babies  and children go through the day not knowing if anyone in the world loves them. Though I’ve got to say this report of TomKat already planning for baby No. 2 makes me oogie a little.

I’m not buying any magazine this week with celebrity babies in it as my protest, and I’m sending an extra few bucks to Modest Needs instead.  And I wish they’d stop with the baby issues soon so I can go back to my favorite shameful indulgence.  Let me just do my pitch for my favorite charity. I believe often the charity that helps the most is the smallest, the little things, the things that people need that will just tide them over a tough patch and keep them in their home, get them their medication for that week or a piece of medical equipment for their kid. My parents were always great for giving us the pinch hit when we needed it, but a lot of people in the world don’t have family or friends that can or will help them.

That’s what Modest Needs does. They take applications for the small things that people need — $150 to make up the difference in the mortgage payment because one of the parents was off work for too many days that month with pneumonia, the $60 for a prescription that ‘s so needed, but paying for that will put them way short on groceries for the week, $87 for the light bill.  Most people can manage their life pretty well most of the time, but live so close to the edge that having an unexpected expense or loss of a couple of days work may mean they are out of their home. It is the smallest acts of love and help of individuals that sometimes make the biggest difference.

 

dark forest.jpg

Got a sample of Montale Black Oud in my Caron decant order because it just sounds so deliciously dark. It goes on pretty medicinal, but that don’t scare me none, I love Tubeurese Criminelle’s pungent open like I love my own children.  Give the Oud a few minutes, and the oudishness starts seeping out past the medicinal smell, and the black one is just rich and dark. If you aren’t a fan of ouds, you will hate this with a passion. If you like the ouds, then you should love all the oudishness in this.  There’s some rose hidden in there that you do get in the drydown, but it’s a rose on fire and smoldering smoky hot in the embers.  Throw in some leather and sandalwood on this one, and it’s a dark perfume to love.  I’m still not sure I’ll ever wear it, but, lord, I do love to sniff it, so I’m sure spritzing it wildly about isn’t far behind. If Aomassai was a kegger in the woods, Black Oud is falling in the bonfire with a bouquet of roses in one hand and a bottle of Wild Turkey in the other.  Please don’t let me buy my own bottle, ‘kay?  If you are inclined to get a bottle, Suravi Online has it at a great discount. 

gasmask.jpgThe next Parfumerie Generale I sniffed from the sampler pack is one I weep when I contemplate putting on again, but I have to just to refresh and confirm my first impression.  Iris Taizo is an Iris Woody Balsamic, which sounds like something I would adore, so I was quite anxious to sniff it. Notes of Guatemalan cardamom, iris, jinkoh wood, fig-tree honey and precious unguents infused with the warmth of the sun.  Go on, please. So we laid the ingredients out to dry to infuse them with the sun warmth?   When I first put this on –and I need to type quick because I haven’t got much time before I have to go scrub it off — it smells wonderful!!!  Iris is out in the woods and happy and a little dark, but just soaring.  Then that damn honey pours over the iris, and the iris, she wilts and gets smothered, and there is no reviving the joy for me.  Now, at a distance and objectively, I can be okay with this perfume, but on me, smelling it for more than 15-20 minutes, I feel like I just got shut in a room full of snakes — either me or the snakes on my arm have to go.  Okay, be back in a sec, my time has run out on this one, needs scrubbing, that’s all I can smell now. (Note: even scrubbing does not get this off completely. It took a thorough spritzing of Bvlgari Au the Blanc to make me breathe easy again).

New favorite room spray — Geodesis Black Tea, available here. Right now the whole Geodesis line is making me happy.

Giveaway for this week will be two samples from any of the Hermessence or Hermes perfumes that I’ve got.  I have all but the Poivre Samarkande of the Hermessences, (Rose Ikebana, Osmanthe Yunnan, Vetiver Tonka and Ambre Narguile) or from the regular line – Eau de Merveilles, Hiris, Un jardin Sur le Nil, Un Jardin Mediterannee, 24 Faubourg, Bel Ami or Rocabar (Miss March’s brief review had me hitting the “buy” button).  If you want to be entered in the drawing, just drop a note in comments with a smiley face at the bottom of the comment.

  • Judith says:

    Patty, Smaller Montale bottles (well, 50 ml.) are available from their own site and from theperfumeshop.com. Nasrin at the latter is a sweetie, and very generous with samples with purchase (i’ve heard that Montale is as well).

  • Lisa S says:

    Patty,

    Thanks for the “heads up” on Modest Needs. It’s tough for working people on the edge. I’ve been there before and gotten the royal “f-you” from the government because my weekly unemployment checks put me about the so-called “poverty line” for a single person and they somehow thought I could pay for all my medical care/prescriptions myself! ummm…yeah…right… with rent and a car payment? Thank God for a doctor who hooked me up with “samples” to keep me going thru that spell. Now have job & once my health insurance kicks in in September – will put a little aside to stroke a check to Modest needs.

    But for now, I am off to give away 2 FB of Extrait de Les Plaquettes De Lisa (petits et mamans safe CMV Negative formulation)distributed by the Le Maison De Croix Rouge. :p

  • Keeg says:

    I am in!
    🙂

  • Cheezwiz says:

    Ooooh a Hermes give-away? Count me in.

    Thank you for posting the info on Modest Needs – what a unique and wonderful idea for a charity.

    Also I am with you on the honey. I love to eat it, but am not interested in smelling it on my skin. I think that’s why I found L’Instant so disagreeable.

    I will stick with my favorite organic honey mixed with almonds and granola. Yum!
    :d:d

  • Flora says:

    Hermessence????? I am IN! 🙂

  • patchamour says:

    Hi,

    I find Black Oud amazing — but haven’t worn my sample out of the house yet. I would love to try Hermes Hiris, so please enter me in the drawing. Many thanks.:)

  • benvenuta says:

    That second picture is simply genius!
    🙂

  • Patty says:

    March, you are a fine one to talk! =:)

    We used to get comb honey when I was a kid, and I lurve the smell of that, the comb and everything, but just the honey without all the filtering stuff… I’m fine with it for a minute or two, then i’m over it. I need to *eat* honey, not smell it.

    Love and mutual admiration right back your way. You are a great dame, and that is the best compliment I pay to women.

  • March says:

    You are a total freaking burrito of oddities, tucked inside a to-go bag of charm… bad honey? I thought it was an oxymoron. I am fascinated; it is one of my favorite smells… dang, I hope the Rocabar doesn’t repel you (thought I’d given you second thoughts after the Poison Kerfuffle):d

    PS Sending my check to Modest needs. Thanks. That’s so cool.

    PS Have I neglected to mention recently that I think you are one of the nicest, kindest, funniest people I have never met?@};-

  • Patty says:

    Judith, I’m breaking myself in on the ouds, but those two sound just wonderful. I wish you I could find the Montales in the smaller bottles or a sampler pack. A little oud goes a long way.

  • Patty says:

    Robin, did you like it? IIRC, you and I dislike a couple of the same notes. I had to shower to get it off as well, the honey sticks, me thinks.

    I foolishly ordered the Ava Luxe deluxe honey lotion, for some reason not bothering to think about the smell being in there. When it got here, at first I thought I could take the smell, but in 30 minutes, after I had slathered it all over my feet and legs, all I could smell was honey all day long. Two days later, after a couple of showers, I could smell only honey.

  • Patty says:

    Ina, I was sorta hoping somebody would just try it without thinking it through. 🙂

  • Judith says:

    I like Black Oud, but I like Oud Rose Petals and Oud Cuir d’Arabie even better (love these–and CdA is DH’s favorite). I hope I will like Iris Taizo. . . .
    Sure, I’d like to be in the giveaway 🙂

  • Robin says:

    Must add that I had a terrible time getting Iris Taizo off my skin too. Eventually had to resort to my old standby Liquid Tide.

  • TexasSnow says:

    I can’t stand honey notes in general…L’Instant would be perfect without it, IMHO. Sign me up for the giveaway!
    🙂

  • Ina says:

    Why would we want to stop you? *actively searching for logic in this statement*

  • Patty says:

    marina, that explains it. I had a sample of orchidee blanche, and I expected to love it, and I barely put it on and just went ew! It’s the honey. Love the iris in anything.

    Does the Nazgul have some honey in it somewhere or some form of that? I have suspected honey as being a note I hate in all forms, but I keep trying, but I become pretty convinved that even a drop of it gets magnified into a gooey, ugly mess on me.

  • Patty says:

    It was you, Dusan!!! 🙂 If you would like to figure out the giveaway each week, I think we can work something out. :d

    Love the Iris, it’s the honey that spits up on my nose.

  • Marina says:

    Patty,
    I wonder if you tried L’Artisan Orchidee Blanche (and if you haven’t, that could be quickly remedied)? It is iris and honey but has a rather different feel to it than Iris Taizo…is honey *always* an enemy for you in perfume or is it sometimes agreeable?

  • Dusan says:

    He-hey, so it’s Hermes giveaway! Now who put that idea into your head I wonder 😉
    You know I’m sick of all this celebrity babies fuss, to hell with all the effing greedy, miserable celebparents who’re shamelessly cashing in on their newborns. Sod off already I say. On the other hand, what you’re doing is just remarkable and while I don’t have much money to follow suit, at least I feed stray cats and dogs and would take them all home if I had more room or a less hostile dog ;-).
    I’d probably love your nemesis Iris, it’s got all the notes I lurv.
    Vetiver Tonka TonkaTonkaTonkaTonkaTonkaTonka *pants* and Jardin en Mediterranee, pretty please 🙂

  • Patty says:

    BTW, I just want to note that you all have let me down. Who was going to stop me from getting the Black Oud? Well, too late now, I hit the buy button, and that is on all of your collective shoulders.[-x

    :d

  • Patty says:

    Sariah, I had a feeling everyone in the known universe was going to like Taizo and not smell the honey. It’s me, I swear. 🙂

  • Patty says:

    Thank you, R! So many great charities out there, I have a hard time picking, but this one is just so small and so cool, I love the work they do. The first time I read about them, they had provided less than $20 to an elderly woman on assistance who had eye surgery and unexpected small expenses associated with that and just needed that much to make her part of the rent, or she’d be tossed out — I think it was $17. It just struck home to me how many people just need a little something.

    Happy Friday to you too, dear!

  • Patty says:

    Sybil — I swear, all I can smell is honey, but I can see how other people would find Taizo just beautiful. Objectively, I would say that too, as long as it’s not on me. 🙂

    That gravatar thing is tricky. I accidentally got mine, and I don’t know how to recreate it!

  • Patty says:

    Yes, honey does not like me at all. There could be but just a drop in there and it will make my nose wilt. I love the sound of it, but in reality, it makes me cry buckets.

  • Patty says:

    Twibbet — this one doesn’t have too much honey, but it appears almost any at all is too much for me. Just not a note that works out. 🙂

  • Sariah says:

    Hi. I was just testing Iris Taizo yesterday and I didn’t get any honey either. On me it was like a more subtle version of Jicky without the topnotes. I like it very much.

    Celebrity babies – yawn!

  • violetnoir says:

    What a lovely charity, Patty. We usually give to AIDS charities, the Red Cross or local SPCA (or Five Acres, heh, heh!), but I will have to read more about this one. Thank you so much for sharing this information, because you are right: It is just the little bit of help that can help an otherwise self-sustaining family get through a rough patch.

    Happy Friday, darling!

    Hugs!

  • sybil says:

    Honey, huh? Chemistry is so weird! I’m wearing Iris Taizo right now, and it smells fine, but I’m not getting honey. I was afraid it would be all Miel de Boisish on me but it’s actually good, thank heavens 🙂
    Hey…I wanted a gravatar! 🙁
    What gives, here?:d

  • Ina says:

    Agree with you on Black Oud which I happen to like but “damn honey” in Iris Taizo?? Honey? Damn? Surely you must not be well.

  • Twibbet says:

    I love the honey drydown in Amoureuse, but too much honey is just blech in general.

    Please enter me in the drawing! 🙂

  • Patty says:

    Marina, I know. And I can see how you could love it. It’s the honey not for me, I think, that turns on me and makes it so no good.

  • greeneyes says:

    I had never heard of Modest Needs before. Thanks for sharing this with us.

  • kuri says:

    I went and made a pledge at modest needs. I should probably donate more. 😛
    Yum, tea fragrances. Want to go try…
    Please include me in the giveaway!

  • Marina says:

    Aww, I adore Iris Taizo, almost as much as Aomassai. It takes my breath away, man 🙂

    I am going to enter this competition if I may, and would you let me choose my samples if I win? 🙂 I only need two…:x

  • shifts says:

    I lurv the giveaways so count me in!:”>

  • Emily says:

    Hi Patty! Eek! Eek! TomKat II!

    Would love to be entered in the drawing! Thanks! 🙂