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How the other half lives

Posted by Robin on 19 April 2008 25 Comments

This is a subject that has been troubling me. I have always been a straight-down-the-line Chanel girl: Allure by day, Coco by night. I scoffed at a former colleague, a self-confessed perfume slut, who agonised daily over which perfume to wear. Life’s too short, I told her. Lots of perfumes is like lots of handbags – it just complicates matters.

— Columnist Hilary Rose in Finding the perfect perfume, at the UK Times Online.

Filed Under: perfume in the news

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25 Comments

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  1. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 10:21 am

    Poor thing. She doesn't know what she's missing, in my opinion. Half the fun of perfume is in the hunt for new and interesting scents. Of course, she would say the same about me and cosmetics. Unless the Apocalypse is nigh and I can't get to Saks, it's Laura Mercier for me, all the way! No reason to reinvent the wheel there!:-)

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  2. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 10:33 am

    There's a point to be made, there, someplace. But what about shoes?

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  3. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 11:13 am

    What I don't get is, if it bores her, why does she bother at all? Why not go au natural. As I do with mascara which I just cannot see the point of.

    Oddly, her tone reminds me very much of a conversation I had yesterday with my mother, who kept declaiming “but there's no point to having so many”.

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  4. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 11:27 am

    I so love cosmetics..:-) call me a sucker (or a slut)…it's true that is what I am and I can be totally fascinated and puzzled by a whole new color of lipstick and the why and how of it..!! Like those impossible purple-grey-brown shades from the '90s that hardly looked well on anybody, or all the shades of 'the perfect red lipstick'…how many right and wrong shades of red are there..??! ;) to begin with. Have been staring ad the MAC red lipstick video next to the article, made notes of the mentioned colors and will visit a MAC store the coming week. On top of that I am so unfaithfull to any brands as I may be with perfumes…as long as they smell good!

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  5. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 11:46 am

    To each his own! I can't think about “all the nuances of tinted moisturiser” for even 3 seconds :-)

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  6. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 12:11 pm

    Yes and I wasn't even mentioning eyeshadows, but products for lips are mure fun because they can be changed so often on one day.

    Sofar we haven't even mentioned facial lotions/cremes and how they smell. A few years ago I refused a Dior creme and chose for a Shiseido lotion instead only because of the perfume in it. The saleslady was baffled for 'who cannot like any Dior creme?!”

    If the perfume for 'The Skincare' Line by Shiseido wa available as a separate perfume, then I would have bought it.

    The 'Doir Capture Rides' smelled too much like an old aunty of mine.

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  7. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 2:28 pm

    Does the sun matter? LOL! That's what I love about us all…we're all so passionate about so many disparate things.

    I do think, however, that her article was very tongue-in-cheek; at least I hope it was!

    ps. remember the Brain Cramp posts from L'il whatever a few days ago? Well, here's a sensory brain cramp for you: Doblis and housecleaning. Imagine scrubbing the bathtub, wearing Doblis! Maybe I wear a sheath dress and pearls, as my Tia J used to (yes, she cleaned in them, just like Beaver's mom:-)

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  8. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 2:56 pm

    Shoes, brand new shoes made of the finest leather…remember how such shoes smell….or that very exclusive brand new leather handbag…

    Of course shoes matter or a brandnew car…if only for the smell !

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  9. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 4:47 pm

    Bores her? Really? Although I can see her frustration with finding the perfect perfume. I recently became bored of mine, and am on the hunt for a new one (preferably a rose or jasmine combined with incense), but this most frustrating of hunts makes me want to just give up and revert back to my standard Chanel. But in the end, I guess I just have more stamina than Hillary Rose. :P

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  10. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 6:09 pm

    I have lots of perfume AND lots of handbags – I have the handbag switch down to a science.
    Shopping for perfume these days is a bit intense. I had some credit for a scent I didn't care for I got for Christmas so I went to spend it and got pretty overwhelmed pretty fast. I wound up with Flowerbomb, which is an easy everyday kind of scent for me (I also already had a sample I had tried), but I always kind of want to find that exotic gem that nobody else is wearing – lol

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  11. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 7:17 pm

    Well, inspired by a recent post of March's I went on the hunt for a perfect foundation/tinted moisturizer with SPF and UVA protection. My hunt had me utterly bored in about two hours. I did get one that's okay, good colour, works fine, etc., and I intend to wear it for the rest of my life. However, I did find possibly the one cosmetic product that seems indespensible to me: Dior Pro Cheeks blush in Hip Peach. (Must-have Brown is good, too.) Weird spongy-textured cream that is almost idiot-proof and produces a nice healthy flush. It's the sort of product that almost convinces me I could be interested in makeup.

    But then I put on some Third Man and come to my senses. I could never unthinkingly spray something on every day – and Allure? Kill me now. Perfume is about pleasure (not, like makeup, about “fooling the public”, as my Dad would say) and habit is not pleasurable.

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  12. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 8:45 pm

    LOL — I can't complain, she has more stamina than I do w/ tinted moisturizer.

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  13. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 8:47 pm

    I have been carrying the same black purse every day for the past 2 1/2 years. If I could get away with wearing the same black shoes every day, I'd probably do that too ;-)

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  14. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 8:49 pm

    Erin, I doubt I'd last 5 minutes on tinted moisturizer. On the other hand, I can waste 3 hours looking at pink/lavender eyeshadows, even though I already have 90 of them and I wear eyeshadow maybe once a month? Sometimes twice? So yeah, we all have our own little issues ;-)

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  15. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 10:16 pm

    Don't get me started.

    Shoes, glorious shoes . . . all of them in black.

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  16. Anonymous says:
    19 April 2008 at 11:38 pm

    I used to quest for the “Perfect Bag” that I could carry for several years, and did find and carry some, but something happened that gave me a Handbag Problem. Maybe discovering the great bag department at Burlington Coat Factory, or discovering eBags. I do carry a bag for a while before I switch out – I don't match them to my shoes or change it out every day, but I have a decent collection.

    Now makeup is another story. I hardly ever wear it anymore but I have a huge collection – mostly eyeshadow and lipstick. I think it is a color thing – I also am an artist and a quilter and I have to have every color of everything in those arenas, too.

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  17. Anonymous says:
    20 April 2008 at 11:19 am

    I think it is a color thing for me too, with eyeshadows, anyway.

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  18. Anonymous says:
    20 April 2008 at 2:13 pm

    Ha ha ha!! I have the same obsession with pink/lavendar eyeshadows. I must have about 20 different ones. I am trying hard to branch out into other colors, but always seem to be drawn to pinks/purples. I think its because shades of lavendar & purple make my green eyes more noticeable. Browns are a failure and just make my eyes look tired.

    I'm also a lipstick junkie. The colours fascinate me. Must be because I draw & paint. The sensation of new makeup is the same as opening a new box of paint or pencil crayons.

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  19. Anonymous says:
    20 April 2008 at 2:32 pm

    We must have the same eye & skin color or something — pink/purple makes my eyes “pop”, as they say on MUA, anything else makes me look sickly & pale. People always tell me I should wear green eyeshadows, but green eyeshadows make me look like I'm getting over some terrible illness.

    But I am not joking when I say I can open up my eyeshadow palettes and just stare happily at the colors, even if I'm not going to put on any makeup. LOL! Luckily, eyeshadows are cheaper than shoes or handbags.

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  20. Anonymous says:
    21 April 2008 at 9:09 am

    CheezWiz and Robin, have you ever considered trying 'gold' as an eyeshadow shade? Shiseido has the most precious shades of light gold both powder and creme!

    My eyes are green/grey and lately the only shades that work for me are gold, and rose and I love the sparkles in them.

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  21. Anonymous says:
    21 April 2008 at 9:27 am

    I look horrible in anything yellow-toned, unfortunately, and can't do sparkle.

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  22. Anonymous says:
    21 April 2008 at 9:36 am

    ..and that is why there never can be enough colours of eyeshadows and lipsticks…;)

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  23. Anonymous says:
    21 April 2008 at 12:13 pm

    I am thinking that the author uses perfume as just part of the “uniform” that she puts on every day. Like Tania Sanchez wrote in one of the essays in the new book, she puts on perfume because part of the routine is putting on perfume. As for her search for a new one, I got the impression that she gave up way too easily, and am wondering if she's just anosmic and doesn't know it.
    I love lipstick and really dark burgundy nail polish. :-)

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  24. Anonymous says:
    21 April 2008 at 6:08 pm

    Absolutely — she isn't pretending she cares much about perfume. And I don't care much about tinted moisturizer, so hey. I do love buying lipsticks, although I always forget to wear them.

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  25. Anonymous says:
    22 April 2008 at 2:16 am

    Allure during the day and Coco at night?? Phew…I feel a headache coming up.

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