Yes, it’s allergy season and things aren’t smelling right enough for me to give a decent review this week.
On PST I asked what everyone is looking forward to for the summer: food, scent, whatever. I mentioned that I’ve joined a group that’s going to create a community vegetable garden in a corner of a local park. We’ll donate the food to local food banks, and get students in the local schools out there tilling the soil for Community Service credits and the scouts for their badges. I like the idea of tilling the soil and am looking forward to the idea of growing something.
I was cleaning the perfume shelf and ran across something I hadn’t thought about for a long time: Bvlgari Blv. I didn’t buy this one, it was a gift. Back in the last century I worked at a bookshop in 2 Rodeo. There was a couple who were visiting from Europe who were looking for guidebooks and tips on things to do in the area. I love Los Angeles (and Santa Barbara, where they were heading) so I gave them a list of things to do and see. The next Monday the man came back with a wrapped package as a thank-you, which I thought was incredibly nice of them.
It was Bvlgari Blv.
I don’t like Bvlgari Blv. It’s one of those clean, fresh things that hate me. Of course I was effusive in my thanks since it was a very generous thing to do.
So, what have you been gifted that just wasn’t you?
Photo of the garden plot we’ll be soon tilling is mine.
Occasionally my mother or my sister in law used to give me a department store Christmas set. I can remember I think Elizabeth Taylor Passion and Bacio Perfume By Marcella Borghese. I didn’t like Passion and Bacio was OK but too sweet. I usually gave them away whenever I moved. While I was really just trying to lighten up, I can see that giving away unwanted perfume and then moving might be wise! 🙂
Love reading all of these!
My sister-in-law always gives me some horrid no-name bath coffret for Christmas in scents like Cranberry Lime or Unwashed Feet. I give them to my daughters to make magic potions in the bath or garden. The girls are happy and I am rid of the stuff for another year!
I can’t remember the last time anybody gave me a perfume gift – no, wait – I think my Mom gave me a bottle of Opium waaaay back in high school. These days, the BF occasionally funds a nice perfume purchase for my birthday, but I’m definitely the one who makes the selection. I’m not sure if it’s just in my little world, or if it’s more widespread, but perfume gifting seems to be on the decline. Other types of scented products – candles, diffusers, etc. – seem to be a safer bet.
It’s harder these days since they’re so much more expensive and there are so many of them. The days when someone had one signature is pretty over..
Hardly anyone even bothers to give me scented things anymore, unless I ask specifically for them as they 1) feel I have more than a sufficient quantity and 2) tend to get what I want without help. And they may have a point… But years ago I was given a bottle of what I think was the original Fendi – a typically 80’s tuberose- heavy expensive nightmare that was instantly headache inducing. I gave it to my mother, who loved it, and wore it lavishly to show her appreciation. I had to ask her to take it down several notches as even from a distance, it prompted headaches. Nowadays, if I find I truly love a mainstream scent, I often wait till my birthday or Christmas to request a bottle, as those scents are easier to find than the ones I usually find myself wearing. 🙂
I liked the original Fendi, in very very small doses. But it seems to be one of those scents that the people who love it tend to apply like they were at a car wash..
Wow, I’ve been working on a post about this very dilemma– and nervously second-guessing whether or not to persist with it. You’ve given me courage, Tom, for which I thank you. 🙂
I’d love to read your take on it!
Happily, no one gives me unsolicited perfume anymore. But I do occasionally get “bath sets” from far-flung relatives: lotions and bath gels and salts, oh my. Just got a lavender thing recently, in fact. I like lavender, but the scent is so strong it made me feel nauseated just sniffing it through the packaging. It will find another home. Soon.
regifting is your friend..
Hey, Tom! Great idea on the community vegetable garden — a win-win for everyone! I’ve not been gifted much in the way of perfume and only when I specifically requested it, such as many years ago a gift set of Chanel’s Coco. Nowadays DH wouldn’t dream of it A) because he already thinks I have waaaay too much of it (imagine that!) and B) with the high cost of niche, I think the sticker shock would kill him. I much prefer getting cash (that way I can buy decants/samples of what I want) or non-perfume items that I’ve asked for.
cash is always most welcome..
OMG. I rarely get perfume from non-perfumistas because…well, why? But in the early days I got a bottle of Fresh Index Pomegranate Anise. It gave me a migraine every time I tried it (same with Jo Malone’s LimeBasilMandarin stuff). Of course, I was effusive in my thanks because that’s just decent behavior (my ex used to take pride in being somewhat ‘negative’ when receiving gifts he didn’t like/want – he thought it was about the gift itself and was surprised to find people thought him churlish rather than discriminating.
xoxo :Devil:
I have to admit, I had that one.
A few years back, I was given the 80s coffret from Hell for Christmas. It had mini bottles of Red Door, Poison, Curve, Sung, and a few other olfactory nightmares. I gave the whole thing to a senior center.
This really did make me lol :)). Hell did spew out some fragrance in the 80s! A couple that we knew long ago gifted me a bottle of some Liz Claiborne thing – a triangular bottle in primary colors? can’t recall the name. I tried to wear it because it was kind of them, but I couldn’t stand it.
yikes!
Ha! I don’t know what made me laugh harder–the thought of that dreadful gift, or the fact that you gave it to a senior center where either a) they’ll be happily reminded of earlier days, or b) their sense of smell will be so gone they won’t mind those overpowering scents.
*touches the tip of her nose with her index finger* You got it!! 🙂 That was my thinking, too.
One of my grandmothers gifted me CK Euphoria for one of my birthdays. She said that she was sick and tired of my Chanel’s and my Arabie. Turns out that she always hated Chanel perfumes for no reason. I think that I did give it to my sister because she did like it somewhat. I think that niche perfumery and upscale perfumes have turned me into a snob. Calvin Klien may be good for teens and tweens but I want my Chanels, Amouages, and Tauers.
Well, as long as you gave a pretty “thank you” I don’t care if you used it as kindling. Which frankly I think that CK anything recent is best for. Wear your Arabie, Chanels and Tauers with pride!
I was given the same one as a gift. I remember thinking I should at least try to wear it because I had a whole bottle plus the lotion. I wore it to work and everytime I did someone always commented that someone in the office smelled liked a whore. She never sniffed me closely enough to realize it was me. She assumed it was another woman who had some nasty taste in perfumes. I didn’t think it was that bad but I stopped wearing it to work and used it other times. That was back before I became a full fledged perfume nut and I didn’t have as many other scents as I do now. Now it would just get put into the back of a drawer until I could find a good home for it.
Whenever someone says someone smells like a whore I have to wonder how they know what one smells like. Loads of experience?
How funny! A friend of mine was also given CK Euphoria. (Wonder why it’s so popular for gifting?) It was given to her by her then-girlfriend who, it turns out, is actually a bit of a whore.
That question crossed my mind too. Lol. I think she was one of those fabric softener scent type of people.