It's Tuesday and the final day of the swapmeet. Also, International Waffle Day, plus the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Birthdays today: Flannery O’Connor, Sarah Jessica Parker, Aretha Franklin. What fragrance are you wearing?
I'm in Sarah Jessica Parker Stash SJP.
Reminder: 3/28 is Lady Gaga's birthday. Wear one of her fragrances, if you have one, or scent a Lady Gaga song, or wear any fragrance that you think fits either Lady Gaga or the perfume name "Fame".
And for those of you who like to plan ahead, see Scent of the day ~ Friday community projects 2025, where I'll try (but usually fail) to have the next five or six weeks mapped out in advance.
Note: the Phoenix porcelain teapot from Tenmokus in Hong Kong is marked down to $120.
Hello.
Sotd is L’Occitane Herbae. If Spring greenery was a candy, this would be it.
Breakfast was warm brioche, scrambled eggs with plenty butter and a decaf latte. Made me happy. 😊
If spring greenery was candy, I would probably work in my yard more. Lol.
If spring greenery was my magic pillow, I would probably sleep even more!
Both so true! 🤣
Yummy breakfast…thanks for sharing.
Come over tomorrow!
I’m wearing Fracas today. It’s an empowering scent – just what I need to cope with some work frustrations. I also think it suits Lady Gaga’s attitude perfectly. Glamorous and over-the-top.
You smell great.
Great connection, I may borrow that idea for Friday.😉
Thank you – you have inspired me for the CP!
Hope that your work frustrations are resolved soon.
I needed something green after all the florals I’ve been wearing, so I’m wearing Niki de Saint Phalle, which is one of the greenest scents I own. Yum! I wish it hadn’t been discontinued, but I have a back up bottle, so I’m good for a few years.
You smell wonderful!
NdSP is amazing. Glad I got a bottle when I did!
I am wearing SDV for comfort and calm at work .
I watched lots of conferences Live during the Paris Perfume week this weekend, sometimes i had to wake up really early because of time difference but it was worth it. I am planning to go there next year, they said 4000 people visited this year and 1000 online. I loved the masterclasses with perfumers the most, with Delphine Jelk, Isabelle Doyen, Jean Claude Ellena and Dominique Ropion. I already ordered two books and have a list of others I want.
Very interesting…I didn’t realize there was virtual attendance. Going to research more myself. I read the article below on Fragrantica…hope it’s ok to post the link…I have no affiliation. It references changes on location next year I think too.
https://www.fragrantica.com/news/PARIS-PERFUME-WEEK-2025-Overview-22290.html
Yes, they said it will be at another place much bigger next year since there was so much attendance and interest! There is another one in July, Grasse perfume week, I will check if there will be Live talks there too.
What a lovely teapot!
I’m wearing EL Private Collection from a vintage mini, courtesy of a very kind NSTer. Such a gorgeous, warm chypre! To complement it, I’m also wearing a vintage flannel shirt from the very early days of the old Banana Republic catalogs — so vintage, in fact, that the label says it was made in The Kingdom of Siam. 💕
Wow! Banana Republic made some high quality items back in the day imo.
Yeah, this shirt is what I call venerable. Still has all its original buttons, and only has one patch where a buttonhole tore. I bought a woven belt at the same time as this shirt, and that belt would still be with me except for my waist expansion. 🤫
That’s really cool about your vintage shirt!
Also you smell wonderful!
Thank you! I love old school, “elegant lady” perfumes.
That’s so funny…strictly speaking, it has been known as Thailand since the late 30s, and that’s what it was called when I was there as a child in the late 60s. BR didn’t exist until the late 70s.
Was probably a bit of marketing fun on BR’s part. Actually, I looked at the label again and it says “Made in Thailand, Kingdom of Siam”. In embroidery! Labels used to be cooler. But somewhat itchier. 😉
Wow, real embroidery on the label…that was probably made when BR was still independent.
And got curious because could not remember. In 78 they were founded as Banana Republic Travel & Safari Clothing Company, and 5 years later Gap bought them and shortened the name.
Athleta was founded in 98 and bought by Gap 10 years later, in 2008. (was curious about that too because nearly everything I spend at Gap these days is from Athleta)
Founded in 78! Wow, that’s later than I would have guessed. But it makes sense, because earlier than that I wouldn’t have had $$ to mail order anything. 😂 I loved the safari vibe.
Vintage flannel feels completely different than the current stuff.
Yes! Even if it’s just our imagination. 😂
I have one of my Dad’s very vintage flannel shirts. It’s made of wool and is so warm!
I’m in Vanille Insensee. I was on a mission to use up the rest of my bottle this winter, and I’m getting close.
Stopped at my favorite coffee shop this morning and they have little signs up that they won roaster of the year from Roast magazine. They do indeed have delicious coffee but in my opinion their steamed drinks are the star of the show. They make all their own syrups in house using real ingredients unlike some big box coffee shops that just pour their mixes out of a box. (I won’t name names ⭐️💵) Their chai is hands down the best I’ve ever tasted. But I’ve never had ltsg’s FIL’s chai.😉
Are you going to replace your bottle when it’s gone?
I’m not. I’ve enjoyed it but after 100 mls, I’m ready for something else. Also I think it’s not available here anymore? Prices on evilbay are crazy! I think Eau Duelle from Diptyque would be my replacement.
Yes, pretty sure VI is gone.
I have never tasted ltsg’s FIL’s chai either but I think of it as the reference chai…
Hope everyone had a lovely weekend!
I’m in Mugler’s A*Men Pure Leather. I’ve never smelled the original, but this limited edition flanker is very compelling. I smell of coffee, leather, caramel, patchouli, vanilla, and incense, which sounds like a lot, but it works. It’s pretty startling for a mainstream masculine, which I gather is one of the attributes of the house at its best.
A* men Pure Havane and Pure Malt are probably worth a sniff too, if they are still findable
Oooooooooooooh, your SOTD notes sound great to me!
There’s a lot going on, but it holds together really well!
Living Grace
*waves to cm8*
Waving back 😄
Commando for that yoga class tonight.
FREEBIE to CONUS regulars – OJ Tanger 10ml in orange box.
Call dibs here please.
Plumbers/contractor here for shower. Am trapped for most of the day.
Trapped, I tell you.
Waiting for contractors is the worst.
Dibs, please. Thank you.
Hi pl67 –
email me at vivienne dawt elliott1 in the land of outlook dawt com.
Twins with contractors. I have contractors here tomorrow for new shower and plumbers and flooring people next week. Then I will feel trapped. I may have to get out of the house for a while.
Hope the contractors are quick and do things right. 🫰🫰
Sampling J’ai Trois Amours by Coty today and notes are below. Nicely done w/ lots of sweet jasmine . Noses are Alberto Morillas and Honorine Blanc so I expected it to be pretty good.
Banana Flower Accord, Triple-Origin Jasmine Extract, Pink Pepper Extract
PSA Nordstrom has 15% beauty w/ some exclusions right now. 🙈
Thanks for the heads up!!
Thanks for the info, She-ra!
Is that the Coty exclusive line?
I didn’t even know they were in the U.S.
I ordered a discovery set direct from their website. It shipped from France.
In a tiny spritz of Douceur de Siam. At the last minute I remembered an upcoming in-person appointment, with someone whose perfume opinions are unknown.
Hope it goes undetected or appreciated!
Hello to all you beautifully scented people. Hope the day is treating you all well. My SOTD is Le Labo Santal 33.
This is one of those scents that I share with the hubby. Don’t know who it smells better on…..him or me. 🙂
Happy Tuesday to you!
Wearing Infusion d’iris today. In 8 days, I have the rest of back teeth yanked and I am not looking forward to it. I am still exhausted from spending most of Sunday cleaning out my grandmother’s house so it can be sold.
Both are sounding exhausting, Dawn. You smell great, though!
That’s a lot to deal with, I hope things ease up soon.
Oh Dawn, hoping the dental work won’t be too bad and that you can get some proper rest soon.
Oh yuck. That dental work sounds awful.
In Ormonde Jayne Orris Noir.
Beautiful sunny day. I just finished my avocado salad for lunch and back to work. I was assigned only 2 new projects for this year, but they are very challenging. I hope the new person assisting me in doing the field and part of the office work meets the expectations. I heard that he was just transferred to our design department because they were not happy with him at the construction unit. Something to be worried about, but I will try to be as relaxed as possible. I have a Teams meeting with my boss later today. Let’s see how he will be addressing my concerns.
Happy Tuesday! 🌻
Good luck with the meeting and the new guy!
Thank you, Lillyjo! 🤞🏻
I hope it works out! I have no qualms about providing fair feedback …
Thank you, Hajusuuri! I have many doubts about it.
Best of 🍀for the meeting.
Thank you, Aurora! I really hope everything goes well.
Hope that your meeting went well, and that the new guy doesn’t end up being FNG.
Not as expected. I have to wait and see.
Uh oh.
You are lucky! They no longer sell it and it’s a masterpiece. But The Mandarin Mayfair Hotel now have exclusive rights to it and it’s used as a diffuser scent for their lobby & hotel. Why do I always love the discontinued ones from Ormonde Jayne the best? Tiare, Sampaquita, Orris Noir, Privé…
It always seems like our favorite scents are the ones that get discontinued. The Mandarin Mayfair Hotel must smell heavenly!
Happy Tuesday! I’m wearing a blend of 5 or 6 bath and body works scents. They have a new pistachio one that smells pretty good.
I just learned about the new xerjoff duran duran perfumes….I’m gonna have to get a second job!!
I really like the pistachio one. I tried it yesterday.
Duran Duran perfumes?!? Do tell!
https://www.fragrantica.com/news/XERJOFF-X-DURAN-DURAN-Black-Moonlight-and-NeoRio-22299.html i hope there will be samples or travel size bottles, because they look quite pricey! I’m sure they’ll smell great since everyone seems to like the xerjoff Tony iommi fragrances
OMG, they had Iommi scents as well? I’m dead!
I wasn’t quite sure about how to approach the Lady Gaga CP, but Glannys has inspired me – I’m very keen to think about what I mighf have in the way of glamorous and over the top perfumes.
I’ll start with a no-brainer, Diva from Emmanuel Ungaro.
I thought of Diva too, Gaynor! You smell gorgeous.
Perfect!
Wonderful choice!
Frozen cherries and yogurt smoothie
This morning, I reached for one of my favorite fruity chypres, Liz Earle essence No 9, naturally that’s the one that became discontinued, No 1, the citrussy chypre is still in production and excellent too… but different.
Tonight being sleep-deprived I wanted a comforting scent and chose Jean Patou Sublime which must have been the first amber I ever smelled and immediately purchased. The bottle I have now is also vintage, got it years ago, I call it the tulip bottle, this perfume smells like gold.
I hope you sleep well tonight.
Oh thank you Lillyjo, it’s still only 9pm, we haven’t changed the clock yet (it will happen Sunday).
I hope you have a good night sleep, Aurora!
Thank you, still awake but starting to wind down, the plan is no later than midnight.
Fingers crossed that you don’t see this before you get a good night’s sleep! 😉😴
Thank you Jalapeno, yes I was asleep when you posted😃. Feel much more alive today.
Got 3 hours of sleep, from which I was rudely awoken by a group text congratulating the team on a code we had last night and achieving ROSC. Maybe TMI, but people go unexpectedly, so love ‘em while you got ‘em!
Anyway, I’ve decided today is the day I’m going to crack open my BdI extrait in honor of the above gentleman, who ultimately, hours later, continued on his journey. Safe travels, friend! 💞
Dumb Question of the Day: Is there a right way or a wrong way to open these Chanel extrait bottles..?😳
There probably is but I have decided not to follow it because why stress me out and what would I do with the cord and the paper (vellum? something else?)?
Enjoy your bottle!
I’m going with your scenario: no stress, all action! 😀
https://youtu.be/XR-hm_39odU?feature=shared
Here’s Dacob opening Coramandel extrait. He starts around 7 and a half minutes.
Oh, lotsa drama! 🤣
That’s a good group chat to have been on, Deva!!
Question for you – which do you love more?
Profumum Roma Ambra Aurea?
OR
Astier Ambre Liquid?
OR
Are they very different?
Thank you:)
I’d say they’re very different kinds of ambers. I love them both! AA is much thicker, weightier, and viscous. Very appropriate for cool/cold weather. A very warming type of perfume. Both are round, smooth, and voluptuous, but the AdV is much more radiant, sparkling, lifting and very appropriate for warm weather/year round use. Also, I think AA is more linear and AdV is more complex. Lots of different spices in both that give a bit of a unique vibe to each. YMMV but I highly recommend BOTH! Since they come in smaller, more affordable bottle options, I see no rational reason to not have both in your collection, even if you’re trying to keep said collection small-ish. Also, lasting power of both is superb. Hope that helps!
As for the group chat, I prefer to never be texted on my off time for anything, unless you’re planning to cancel my shift due to over staffing, which never happens. I don’t need pats on the back any more than I need a kick in the🍑. I know my job and do the best I can for the people under my care and I don’t need external validation OR criticism. I like very clear work/life boundaries. Please don’t text me for anything even though I’m sitting in your parking lot. It’s entirely possible I’m a biotch… 😅
Not a biotch. I don’t even like getting texts from our cat sitter at an ungodly hour, which she does both when we’re travelling and when we’re home. She woke me up from my trying to stay asleep and not be jetlagged with pictures of my kitty first night in London (and yes, I have do not disturb set, so I don’t know why my phone buzzed at midnight), but she also texts me at 6 a.m. when I’m home. She’s an awesome cat sitter, but the off hours texting bugs me.
And I definitely don’t like hearing from work at odd hours. (I accept I’ll hear from them at 6 a.m. as most of my team is back East, but nights are a no.)
Ermahgerd! Cat emergencies = texting! Nothing else. Don’t text pics, I already know my cats are the cutest kitties in the world. =**= Seriously, I’m glad you have a dependable cat sitter because pet anxiety when traveling is real, but holy cow! 🤯
Thank you Deva!
I have AA – you were the enabler. And you have described it very well.
So, I only need one…perfume math:)
Getting an unimportant text message at an ungodly hour sucks so hard! Especially if it’s a BS text.
SOTD = and Fragrance bean
Love it 🫘! As I noted on my IG post, I just realized that the bottle is lopsided! Not lopsided like the Bertrand Douchaufur (sp?) but the bottom is not even. I will need to check on the others to see if they have the same quirkiness.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHonZ0QxR2o/?igsh=MWhoNjJyamhxNG00aA==
Twice (or so) a year, I donate to United War Veterans Council when the pick up is NOT the same day as garbage day. I have a thing against that … no bad experience but it just does not feel right. Anyway, this morning was not garbage day so I did the deed. Instead of 4 bags, I decided to include 2 more that I was going to drop off but could never seem to do so. I just realized it was SOOOO easy even though I had been doing this for quite a while! I will call in 2-3 weeks to see when they are coming next. I have TONS of stuff to give away. I was scheming to see if I can translate the number of items donated to amount in my perfume kitty but decided not to because this will make me think too much on which perfume to buy (nothing on my list right now).
What a wonderful place to donate to.
I have “donate more stuff” on my short term To-Do List. Maybe I’ll get it done later on this week….
I didn’t have anything in mind to wear this morning so I followed your lead, Robin, and am also in Stash today.
It’s the first day of the year where the temps are in the 60s here, so it’s a pretty great day. It’ll be short lived, but that’s ok.
It’s beautiful! Can’t wait for “severe thunderstorms” tomorrow with a high of 70!⚡️☀️
I hope the thunderstorms happen but are not severe! And I can’t believe it got into the low 70s today.
Plenty of warm and sunny weather here. I’ll try to send more of it your way!
Thanks, I’d appreciate that! This is definitely not typically our sunny season.
Hey twin! Wish we’d made 60 today but we did not. High 50s and sunny though, could be worse.
We ended up making 71 today, which is wild. Your weather sounds perfectly nice too. We’ll be back in the 50s in a couple days.
I was running late for work so I chose to wear Rose Cherie from the purse stash.
2 more hours until a day off. Work has just been so stressful lately with all these district visits.
Enjoy your day tomorrow, lillyjo! Looks like more sunshine 😎
My brother recently had a visit from the higher ups at his job. He was neither pleased nor impressed about it.
Another very cute teapot that has nothing to do with my life-maybe I need a lifestyle upgrade..
SOTD=Jovoy La Liturgies des Heures. I have this on rapid rotation and never seem to tire of it. I should explore of incense perfumes, but this came in a 100ml bottle, so I have lifetime supply! If anyone wanted to investigate this, I’d be happy to send a decant!
Adorable hubby and I had lunch today with adorable sister-in-law, retired State Police person, and her adorable retired therapist
girlfriend, at a cute little cafe called ZouZou’s in a hamlet near Ann Arbor. They have 50’s B&W French photographs on the walls, and yummy bagels and ginger cookies and tuna salad sandwiches grilled on yummy foccacia bread. An excellent time was had by all. Good food, good conversation, and we took the scenic route home through the big state recreation area- a wide swathe of trees growing on moraines with kettle lakes and swamps, with soil too poor for agriculture, so the state made it a big park after a lot of farms failed in the 30s. We saw people hiking with dogs, and went by the big equestrian staging area and camp ground(empty) and passed a couple of lakes which had one or two die-hard boats out there-I can ‘t imagine anyone was catching anything. A pleasant day. Take time to stop and smell the roses, or whatever, folks!
Aww, the whole thing sounds like a fabulous day! It’s a treat to have family! (Most of the time! 😉). I worked with some fellow work campers last summer from Michigan and had no idea about the swampy lands there until they enlightened me. They said the state/county finally made it a “preserve” because I guess they couldn’t find a way to make any money off it any other way. Anyway, nice to know no one will be building anything near their house in future.
Yes, it was so unproductive it wasn’t bringing in any tax monies! Michigan is very practical that way!
Kyoto for me today, for calm and for spring (I was in Kyoto in spring). Also, Ouarzazate was calling to me while I was in London but I told myself I could get it at home (and probably for less).
Warm day today — 17C for the high, so in the 60s F. I will take the odd happy warm day in the midst of the rain. Something has to get us through. Also have to get through endless evenings of board meetings for a nonprofit where I just joined the board; the artistic director and his wife who was in charge of operations just quit and there’s no backup plan. (Arts = melodrama for melodrama’s sake, on all sides…sigh.)
Ugh, sorry about the melodrama and hope it all gets settled soon!
I’m wearing Narciso Rodriguez White Cube for the first time in quite a while and it smells SO good. I’ve been enjoying other perfumes but I haven’t worn something *pretty* lately. White Cube is definitely pretty in the best way.
Smelling very pretty ringthing!
Love White Cube! Need to get it out again.
A little bit of crazy in my part of the world currently. Yesterday one of my cousin’s husband had hip replacement surgery. I remembered about it this morning and texted her some well wishes. Sounds like everything has gone all right so far.
Then a surprise in the local news: a landmark in my area burned down late last night/early this morning. It was a derelict old sugar mill that I would pass on the way to Costco. AFAIK no one was injured. I *thought* I heard sirens last night. But I am close to a fire station and an Interstate, so I hear sirens on a regular basis.
SOTD = Tom Ford Bitter Peach, from The Sample Stash. Not sure how I feel about this one. I don’t hate it. But do I like it? 🤔
Such a shame about the landmark.
I felt the same way when I tried Bitter Peach.
After seeing more information, it looks like only a single building burned. Most of the complex is still standing. Late night news footage isn’t noted for its clarity sometimes.