Okay, everything I said about Swapmania, I take it back.  Just my casual comments last week netted me a couple of offers on some fragrances that I’ve been without for a long time. So, yeah, okay, I get it!!!!  It is the thrill of the hunt, I just forgot about it. Must be spending these last two years getting all zen and losing my competitiveness and trying to curb my more acquisitive nature.

Well, no, that’s not going that well.  I get on these kicks, like the caftans and then the Eskander stuff, and my little budget gets blown up. I did get a Camille Franks caftan this week that belongs on a beach in Mexico, which further aggravates my budget because I’m trying to figure out how to get Mexico in there – taking my mom on an Alaska cruise for her 75th birthday present, then I want to take my sons trekking in Nepal in the fall.  But at least I’m waiting and trying to get bargains on my little gems through eBay so I can do the other trips, but no room for beaches in Mexico.

But what about perfume?  I mean, has there been anything much this year so far? I know it’s just January, but I was so happy in the fall with so many releases that made me happy, and then I sorta ran out of steam with nothing that’s making me squeal or even giggle with delight.

So I’m just going to live vicariously through Swapmania and read it tomorrow and hope for inspiration or maybe someone that has some Fath Iris Gris they just don’t like at all – too much peach and iris damnit! – and really really want a bottle of Guerlain Spiriteuse Double Vanille for it because it seems to be sold out everywhere!  *pauses, looks around*  Anyone?

Well, hey, it could happen. I could also get a 24-inch waist and win the lottery, which may be more likely.  So what’s your dream swap?  Try and make it somewhat realistic – no Tommy Girl for Mitsouko vintage parfum or anything.

Patty

I think I have a couple of giveaways to catch up on.

First, the six winners of the Harvey Prince fragrances, and I’ll send these out randomly just by grabbing one from the box:  Lisa S, Suzy Q, bookhouseshell, tika, Antje and rosarita.  Just click on the Contact Us over there on the left, send me your address, remind me that you won one of the Harvey Prince minis, and I’ll get it shipped out to you!

Then I had 4 Cartier Convoitee samples I was giving out from the week before.  So same instructions as above for these four commenters:  Fearsmice, Cheryl, Barbara and EileenS.

I know y’all are getting ready to do that SwampMania thing.  No, I didn’t spell that incorrectly.  It’s just not for me. I used to swap on MUA and BN years ago, but the bad experiences and volume of people wanting to swap run of the mill department/discount perfumes for hard to get, expensive, never discounted scents was just daunting. Worse yet, I had specific things on my wishlist that I wanted to swap for but continued to get the “hey, look at my  list and tell me what you’d swap for your ridiculouslypriceddiscontinuedraredoblisdawemesqueirisgris thing.”  I’m too nice for swapping, I hated to say no, but to get even close to the correct value, I would have needs a couple of body parts in addition to their ENTIRE swaplist just to make it come out somehow.

So I gave it up and shut down all swapping forever.  Then there was the splits. Most of the time, they went great, and I’d probably do one again if anyone could ever get us a cheap bottle of one of those Guerlain rarities that comes in large vats that begs to be split.  My favorite split story was a Caron split, and I got a message back that one of the splitters really didn’t like the fragrance and wanted to return it for a refund.  Huh.  Well, no.

No SwampMania for me, but I admire y’all that do that.  Now, I am going to add a note that March probably covers, but someone e-mailed me about.  If you swap for a fragrance and for some reason the fragrance you were sending in the swap becomes unavailable because of breakage or something wrong with it, don’t guilt your swappee into taking something they don’t really want so you can keep The Precious. If you want it that bad, and they don’t want something else you have, just offer to pay them the going rate for it or send it back and cry yourself to sleep over the loss.  If you’ve been using it with wild abandon and have to send it back, do offer to compensate them for what you have used if it’s beyond just a couple of sprays.  The best rule I have, make sure the entire swap is complete and both parties say they are happy before you open and start using.

But I started thinking, if I were to swap, what would I want and what would I swap some of my most precious lovelies for, like the Parfum Sacre extrait and Chaos parfum and Doblis? Some of that latest uber-dollar Guerlain thing that was in that gorgeous big bee bottle (shaped like a bee, not their normal bottle they call a bee bottle) that I sniffed in Paris in November.  More Quand Vient La Pluie in the parfum. I have some EDP, which is great, but I looooooved that parfum.   I’m sure there are some other rarities out there that I’d swap for, but not that many.

I remember when I first swapped, I was delighted to trade off my unloved bottle of Fracas for a teeny sample or decant of Serge. Those were heady days, the thrill of the hunt. Tubereuse Criminelle was the most elusive. I think it was Marina or Victoria (Perfume Smellin Things and  Bois de Jasmin) that were the saints I got that from. I would stalk the MUA lists daily, looking at what they had, what they wanted, working deals to get something they wanted, just to get a sniff of it.

Don’t judge, you know you’ve been in that jonesin’ perfume gutter with me.  So your most valued treasure, what would it take to pry a small amount of it out of your hands?

Patty

The nice people at Harvey Prince gave us their Holiday Gift Set to do a giveaway on to some lucky commenters. I thought about giving it away as a group set, but decided since there are six of them, it would be more fun to have six winners.  Six commenters on today’s post will be drawn at random and get one of the bottles.

These are 8.8 ml mini roll-ons of each of the following:

• Ageless: The scent that defies age. Crisp, inviting notes of pink grapefruit, pomegranate, luscious mango.
• Eau Flirt: The magical scent that flirts for you. Its warm, tempting notes of pumpkin pie & lavender are irresistible.
• Eau Fling: Light, casual, charming. Playful notes of pumpkin, jasmine, raspberry, black currant.
• Coupling: For making him all yours. Aromatic cinnamon, nutmeg, enchanting gardenia, fresh cucumber.
• Eau de Lite: The diet perfume. Crave-resistant rosemary, peppermint, green apple, sandalwood, fennel.
• Eau de Creme: The rush of your favorite scoop. Pink passion fruit, rum raisin, vanilla, dark chocolate.

I didn’t sample any of these because they are roll-ons, and I didn’t want to muck up what would be given to six of you with using it on me, that just seemed, well, wrong somehow.  Not that there’s anything wrong with my skin, but I broke my arm when I was in 1st grade, and they had to rebreak it midway into healing because it didn’t set right, and I all too well remember the smell of dead skin under that cast that didn’t get sloughed off through washing. I mean, ew, I’ve a freak about dead skin since then.  The scars of scent that are left on you in childhood.

But a quick sniff by uncapping them, they are light and seem really fresh and fun.  According to their material, they use no animal testing, phthalates, parabens, sulfates, benzene, GMOs, or triclosan.  A plus for sure.
But as I’m busying around today, trying to get some pressing things done and make it in time for the “Bring It On” musical tonight (yesterday when I was writing this), we’ll just have to talk about other things since my mind is completely blowing off in 3,000 different directions.  And I am coming up completely blank!  So how about a nice simple, what perfume is in constant rotation for you these days? Mine is, surprisingly, that Angel Taste of Fragrance. Even more weird when I hate Angel. I have to do a whole post sometime on how to wear Angel for people who hate Angel, or did I already do that?

Patty

For me, I coveted eyes.  I’m as blond as the day is long, my hair is blond, my eyelashes are blond, I’m fair, so without eyeliner and mascara, I have no eyes. People often comment when they see me after I put on mascara that they had no idea I had eyelashes at all, much less such long ones.  Ack.

Five hours of misery, and  — I have eyes!  I leapt into permanent eyeliner. Basically, they tattoo eyeliner on you.  and it was miserable. I have the most sensitive eyes. They water easily, hate bright lights, swell up. I’m not a pretty cryer at all – swollen, red, just horrific looking.  And I found out my eyes have lots of nerves and blood vessels, but sloughs off topical anesthetic like it were popcorn.  My eyes only numb up for maybe a few minutes at a time, then they start hurting when the needles starts again. Normal people do not have this experience, it’s a lot easier for them. I’m nothing near normal.

But I don’t care. It was worth it plus.   I don’t put on makeup, but I have eyes, you can see them, they have definition, I can skip mascara.  It was worth it, and I’d do it again.  Well, maybe. I need to go back for a touch-up, but I need a couple of weeks to get temporary amnesia.

And that takes us to Cartier II L’Heure Convoitee, the latest L’Heure entry.  The coveted hour.  Red – lipstick, love, heat, fire, passion.  This scent also has a coolness to it – red icy heat.  Lipstick, iris, carnation.  I waffled on how much I liked this at first, but I wound up loving it in the end.  It feels like the burlesque it was inspired by, and that’s why I’m enamoured of the work Mathilde Laurent has done with this whole series.  It is art, it takes its inspiration seriously, creating what it is, not mucked around in by PR people who make it something else entirely that may sell better or be more widely loved, but will have lost its way.

I spend a lot of time thinking about perfume and art.  Well, some people daydream, I think about how smell can be art, or can it?  I’d  like to think so, except I know how undefinable that can be.  But the same way a beautiful painting can make my eyes well up with tears, so can a perfume that captures perfectly a moment, an idea.  So I completely embrace what Cartier is doing with this series, and I’d love to see more of it. Plus I really like wearing convoitee, especially when I covet.

Do you like the L’Heure series?  Or do you find it arty, but it doesn’t speak to you in a “I really wanna wear that!” kind of way?  I’ll do 4 samples of the Convoitee to four lucky commenters that I pull by random draw next week.

Patty

I’ve always believed in the theory that how you start the new year is how the year will go for you.  I’m thinking I need to ditch that because if how I started 2012 is any indication of how the year goes, I need a hole to hide in for the next 12 months.

New Year’s Eve morning – decided to pay some lingering parking tickets.  Denver city and County raises money by ticketing side streets 1x a month because we forget to move vehicles for street sweeping.  I thought there were two, one on each of the boys’ vehicles.  Logged in citation number, and there are five totaling almost $600.

Ow.

New Year’s Even afternoon – youngest son has been in tooth pain off and on for four months, he made a dental appointment, then forgot to go, kept forgetting to make another one.  Pain is getting worse, more on than off.  I finally call a dentist and the soonest we can get in is January 9, which he says will be okay, he can make it that long.  Then it all gets worse, and he’s curled up in the fetal position practically. I tell him I can get him into the ER dentist on Friday.  No, he’ll be okay.  Saturday noon, I tell him he’s going, I can’t take this anymore. Whining 21-year-olds are not that much fun.  $600 later at the dentist, he is back to normal.  My new year hasn’t exactly started yet, but the path in is not that much fun.

Ow again.

Kitchen sink plugs up also on Saturday, wait until Monday to call a person, they can’t rooter it out, schedule camera, they also fix my bathroom sink while there, charge me – that’s right – about $600. Camera guy comes out, is in the process of telling me how awful my problem is, he can’t see anything, I’m going back to look at the camera, and whoose, camera thingie dislodges something, and water is running through my pipes!!!!!  Yeah, this is awesome. But the guy shows me how corroded that junction is, it’s cast iron, it’s failing, need to replace it, should be about a day job, he’ll get a quote.  Comes back. No, no, it’s not a quote for $600. $6,000!!!!!!!  for a day’s work, 8 hours, one guy because two guys can’t even fit in this space. That’s almost $800 an hour.  I told him, um, no, I’ll shop that around, checked and see trenchless systems and lots of less expensive ways to deal with it when I’m ready to, and the amount they were charging for that job was about triple what they should have charged. I know they look and see a single woman with a nice home in a nice neighborhood and just start jacking up the rates.  If I wasn’t so mad about that potential gouging, it would have been hilarious.

Ow III.

Now, I’m looking at my 6 6 6 for the three unexpected bills I had to pay over New Year’s and hear the faint clop-clopping of four steads in the distance.

My version of finding a hole to hide in for the rest of the year was Musette telling me about a book she got for christmas – Bags to Love: in Pop-up.  Every purse lover should have this book. The bags pop up, it’s full of cute little facts and quotes. and get the Shoe Love: In Pop-Up to go with it if you love shoes too.  Every girl I’ve shown this to so far has just squealed with delight, as did I. I love thumbing through it, folding and unfolding the pop-ups, ignoring the horrible 2012 start to the year. It’s a grown-up girl pop-up book.  Now I want a fashion pop-up book and a perfume bottle pop-up book.  Anyone know how to design one of those?

And I’m on a cleanse – dietary and karmic.  I’m just not sure how to do the latter.

How did your New Year start? Awesome or  a trail of tears like mine? Do you think it matters?

Patty