well, my head is just spinning!
See, I spent the weekend in the LEAST glam place on Planet Musette: Britt, IA. Labor Day, as the Posse knows, is my yearly pilgrimage to the Draft Horse Hitch Show. Five Hour Drive to The Back of Beyond. Most of the people who attend this show are no-nonsense, sunbaked working farmers and horse people. I spend the weekend in horse muck, with folks whose beauty regimen is definitely horse-centric.
But now I’m back to thinking about glamazon BEAUTY CREAMS, Human Variety.
So…there’s been a lot of loose talk about beauty and body creams lately – perfume groups are yakking body butters like nobody’s business – maybe in preparation for winter’s drying weather? On the lower end of the spectrum my Pacificas and Perliers are in the bathroom and they seem just fine. But with all the talk of Carnal Flower and Jubliation 25 and Epic and MFK and Chanel (pant!pant!pant!)…I was curious: where do folks keep that stuff? I’m a body buttah HO, as you all know – and the heavier the deposit of perfume, the mo’ bettah, bay-bee! But that poses a bit of a problem because at some point I think the heavy-perfume creams become more like perfume, which creates storage issues. None of us would leave a bottle of Epic extrait in a steamy bathroom, right? ..so what about that crystal jar? I love slathering cream on still-damp/warm skin so I tend to drag the jar (and a little plastic spoon because YOU KNOW YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO PUT YOUR FINGERS IN THE JAR…right?) into the bathroom. Which is a pain. But what else can a cream-lovin’ perfumista do? I asked one of my favorite SAs what he thought and he snapped at me “oh, just put it in the bathroom linen closet! Most of them are in opaque jars . What? you’re gonna go halfway across the house to the Joan Crawford Refrigerator!??? 
You should be using that stuff up pretty quickly anyway – it’s body cream.” Well..yeah! But he’s a guy! And he’s laboring under the assumption that we are like Normal People who have, at best, 2 body butters. Not 12. Or 22 (ooooh! twenty twoooo. I would kill myself stone-dead with delight). Another ‘guy’, Carlos Powell of Goodsmellas, said he doesn’t use heavy perfume body butters but if he did he would keep them in the same cool, dark places he keeps his perfumes. I asked El O. Yeah. Moving on…. Our Posse Queen, Patty White (StC has a lot of body cream samples, btw, if you want to try some of the high-end stuff), she keeps hers in a bathroom – but not in the ‘shower’ bathroom, where it gets hot and steamy. And they’re in a cool, dark closet. In ANOTHER bathroom (for which I would kill everybody in this town). Or else on her nightstand. A lot of nightstand action, btw. I confess to having no fewer than 4 creams, at any given time, on mine, including this incredible unscented cream from Soyphisticated Candles. I would keep a little Joan Crawford Refrigerator in our bedroom, stocked with Amouage and Malle creams and a bottle of Bolly – but El O is on the brink as it is. So I sneak my high-end creams into this perpetually cool, dark little space next to his gun cabinet, behind his recurve and quiver. I would sneak them into the gun cab proper – but he won’t let me have a key. Sigh. If I get busted on the creams I will never hear the end of it. I have got to get my own closet. Maybe my own suite? I have used La Mer cream (the original) as eye cream for the past 200 years – it works better for me than all other specialized eye creams. I keep it in the refrigerator crisper and dispense a week or two’s worth into a smaller container that sits in the bathroom vanity drawer (you’d think, with all this caretaking of Product, that I would look waaay better! ). If I look too raccoonish, I take some Witch Hazel (which I also keep in the refrigerator) and do the ol’ “cotton pads on the eyelids’ maneuver. Then the ‘pat pat pat’ with the cream (apparently it’s the ‘pat pat pat’ that reduces the puffiness, more than the cream. That’s what my dermatologist says, anyway. Of course, he doesn’t use any of these creams. He uses Dial soap. And he looks fabulous. sigh. guys. I tellya. )
Curious how the retail Pros do it, I went to Mindy Yang, proprietress of MiN NY (one of the fab destinations in the new NYC ‘perfume district’). Mindy takes her cream storage SERIOUSLY! Check out how she parses each type of product to its respective storage area. Le Sigh. No gun cabinet for her!!! I want EVERYTHING in her arsenal – it just sounds so cool. You can find all of the stuff she touts on her shop’s website:
The following is from Mindy:
Premium high perfume content body creams are delicate in nature. The same goes for skin care products with lots of active ingredients. It is most important to store yours in a cool spot, out of light (about 10 degrees lower than normal room temperature). Close your jar tightly closed to avoid bacteria contamination. Do not use if you notice changes in your moisturizer’s smell or texture.
But wait, Musette – we want to hear about the horses too! How was the show?
Just so you know, Amouage Ubar body cream DOES exist. And it is fabulous. 🙂
I live in such a dry climate and a good slathering is a health necessity. But, I’ve given up on the really really super nice pricey yummy stuff for one reason……scented body lotion is like crack to my irish setter, Rockne. If he can get to any part of my anatomy after a slathering, he will lick every last molecule off me. No matter how bad it tastes to me (and trust me, in an attempt to understand Rock’s addiction, I’ve tasted several), he seems to think it’s ambrosia. So in order to protect my big red baby from all those chemicals, I’ve limited my body creams to all natural potions from the health stores. Not that some of those aren’t quite nice, but I confess to missing the posh scented ones full of non-dog-friendly chemicals.
Anyone else ever have that problem with a dog? He also likes liniment (Icy Hot), Vicks Vapo Rub and Vaseline..
wow! Rock’s got EXCELLENT taste! (haw! see what I did there? ‘taste’….get it?? :Who-s-the-man: …..okay, I’ll stop! :Pondering:
My boys do not seem to notice scented creams v. any other sort of cream. Except! Perlier Miele – the honey one. That one is sort of interesting to the little guy. But not overly so. None of them would come within a million miles of Icy-Hot or any of its kith or kin. Rock is ……unusual…at least in my dog experience!
xoxo :Devil:
I’ve got really dry and sensitive skin and always have quite an array of lotions and creams on hand. Sadly, very few are of the perfumed variety, as present finances dictate that I can either have the fumes themselves or the body products in their place. I do think that a lovely Hermes body cream is a good option for when I’m going for extensive testing or being stuck in hospital for a few days, so I’m giving some serious consideration to that possibility. I’d still bring a heavy duty unscented cream anyway, so if it seems a bit too much I can always blend it down. The downside is that 6 or 7 ounces is nothing for my skin to suck right up – a week and a half, max. I’m a slather-er and I admit it, lol!
Slathering is excellent therapy OhLily! I hope your hospital stays decrease (for all the right reasons!!!)
btw – I mention/link Soyphisticated Candles up in the post (no affiliation and I buy everything – no freebies). She has this incredible cream called Whipped Cream Dream. I have the unscented version, though you can have it scented with any variety of EOs. I have fallen madly in love with this stuff. Very emollient. My cranky skin is loving her lotions and creams.
xo :Devil:
Thank you! The cream sounds really nice and it reads like it’s full of good stuff, and it also doesn’t hurt that it’s inexpensive – It’s going right on next month’s goodie budget! 😀
let me know what you think of it!
(also, get one of her lip balms. that’s what started this whole thing for me. The most amazing lip balm EVAH!)
xo :Devil:
I’m gonna have to try out the Amouage bath and body stuff. I keep meaning to but keep forgetting. I probably keep forgetting since I am trying to finish up a couple unscented lotions and never been a bath taking person, just a shower person. Labor Day weekends can be fun for someone like me who will spend one day at the county fair and that’s it. But not exactly for the animal people who spend all weekend there. The beef cattle barn is a barn that I always avoid because on Monday night, they will become a family’s dinner for the fall and most of winter.
Amouage shower gels are the stuff of angels, Eldarwen. I haven’t taken a bath in 5 years (I wouldn’t get in this tacky tub unless there was a tornado. Or I was on fire). One tiny squirt of Epic or Jub25 on one of those Salux cloths and you have enough scent for the entire shower. Slick that body cream/lotion on afterwards and you are good to go for the rest of the day. Bonus: the bathroom smells divine!!
xo :Devil:
Fab post, darling Anita! I’ve often thought the same thing. I finally gave in to the fridge as I kept one too many body creams in the steamy bathroom, and that, plus “saving” them for special occasions that rarely occurred, left me with product gone bad — waah! So, lesson learned. Of course, I can’t afford the ‘spensive creams now anyway.
Normally, I keep my scents in a four-drawer chest in my upstairs bedroom. But this summer when we had that horrific triple-digit heatwave where the A/C was struggling to keep the temp at 80, I cleaned out the veggie drawers in the fridge and put most of my good stuff in there. And when that wasn’t enough, I put ziptop plastic bags full of stuff on one of the shelves. DH came home and said, “Was there a fire sale at a perfume store?”
That DH! :Happy-Grin:
You know I have Extremely Limited Simoleans these days – but I find that when I do spend discretionary, I now tend to spend on perfumed creams rather than the perfume itself. I dunno why – it just feels more luxe. I didn’t worry overmuch about them in the triple digits, just kept them as cool as I could and used them Early and Often, in the Chicago Way (election year humor!)
xoxo :Devil:
I agree with Janice , Musette – if he can have a gun cabinet, you should have a fridge!
My dream is of having a walk-in fridge (like a walk-in closet) for all my ‘fumes and lotions. And of having air-con for me (which would of course be good for my collection). For the time being, pots, tubes and bottles seem to be covering every surface in my (hot) bathroom. So far, only a few casualties, really, the worse being the organic items that don’t have any preservatives in them.
Read something somewhere that said we are being a bit conned over the “all natural” products as it is simply not safe to use these unless you do so within weeks of buying them, and that they should absolutely be kept in the fridge for the very short time that you use them.
And I was told that I should only use one product at the time, and not open another till that is finished …. that is so never going to happen!
That’s why I don’t bother with ‘all-natural’ anything. I figure I’m pretty much a hot pot of preservatives at this late date anyway.
As for gun cab v. fridge: My perfume collection is like Topsy, with the armoire bursting at the seams. Actually…..pretty much everything in this house is ‘mine’ – were I to move out tomorrow, he would be left with his gun cabinet, a bed, a recliner, a 60-in LCD TV ……..hey! Guy Heaven!!! :Overjoy:
xoxo :Devil:
So funny you should ask this question now. I finally just ordered—and I partly blame you, because you’ve talked about how wonderful the Amouage body creams are—my first Amouage body lotion, and I hesitated for a long time, wondering how quickly I’d use it and how I would store it. Most of the cheap stuff (I have a lot of cheap stuff) just lives in the bathroom, but I’m thinking this gets a place in the very limited drawer space in the nightstand.
And the question that comes to mind reading Mindy’s comments… How does one achieve “about 10 degrees lower than normal room temperature” without having an actual fridge for storage? I think if one partner gets to have a gun cabinet, then a perfume refrigerator is totally reasonable.
Well, Good for you! Which Amouage?
I confess to not having a clue how to achieve that 10 degree difference. That little space next to the gun cabinet seems to be much cooler, hence my stashing the creams there – but I wouldn’t swear to it.
Alas, no fridge. No room. I have a perfume armoire the size of a refrigerator (a full-sized refrigerator). That gets me the hairy eyeball as it is! LOL!
xoxoxo :Devil: