Victoria's Secret No.1 Feathered Musk

Why this? Somehow or somewhere I read a review of this stuff which led me to seek it out. I think that's how it happened. Normally I don't chase after Musks (unless a lot of peeps describe them as "dirty" and "filthy" then I get curious) Chasing after a Victoria's Secret Perfume? Very rare. The last perfume I liked and owned from them was Halo. Released in 2000, Halo has: top notes of poinsettia, fig leaf, freesia and tiare flower; middle notes are orchid, pepper and vanilla; base note is sandalwood. Back then I fit into the wardrobe offerings of Victoria's Secret so I probably stumbled across Halo while buying some over priced panties.

This feathered Musk. What is a feathered musk? Musk from a bird? Please. And if anyone asks I'll say I'm wearing something else. No way in He// am I admitting to wearing something from VS. Anyhoo, this is a real surprise from VS. An actual perfume that's not all candy/vanilla/flowers/laundry scent. No. 1 develops on the skin and takes twists and turns along the way.

It starts off with something citrus, lime? Bergamot? No citrus is listed in the notes but I smell something zingy. Zingy with hints of coconut and chocolate. I'm not the only one smelling coconut, my husband smelled it, too.
The chocolate is a milk chocolate, not the deep dark chocolate found in Borneo or Coromandel. It isn't along the lines of Elmer's Chocolates (the cheapest, most inferior chocolates that show up on the shelves around Easter, ewww.) but more along the lines of Hersheys. Then it turns tobacco, cherry pipe tobacco, kind of like By Kilian's Back to Black, if I'm remembering the scent correctly. Very strong cherry tobacco. A couple of days ago I was wearing No.1, stepped out of the car and into the cold and I got a blast of cherry tobacco in the freezing cold.  Otherwise it stays close to the skin, it's light and unfortunately doesn't last long. I wind up reapplying this a couple of times a day, several sprays, too. I like to get whiffs from my perfume throughout the day, I don't from this, it's nose-to-skin after a couple of hours. If I could get the body cream that would create some silliage, I can't find it anywhere, it's no longer on the store shelves and not much is on the bay or amazon, mostly the perfumes & body spray are up for sale. Maybe when Vicky has the semi-annual sale, but by the time that rolls around I'll be onto the next big thing.

I've been wearing this for over a week straight. Unusual for me, and I didn't wear anything special on Sunday. Usually I'll wear something, uh, elegant and special and/or different on Sundays, like Joy, or I'll test drive something traditional, it depends on how I feel when I get up. Right now I feel like seeking out my Back to Black sample, I know I have several stashed here somewhere. It really helps when organizing perfumes if I put them in alphabetical order by house, not name. I was in the process of doing that but haven't finished.

Fumes and Fumes

Since I had my cardiac arrest I have not smoked a cigarette. September 10th to November 4th, equals almost 2 months so I'd like to think all the smoke residue or whatever you'd call it is gone from my lungs and inside of my nose. They say when you quit smoking everything tastes and smells better. Well, food tasted fantastic when I smoked so no issues there. It tastes just as fine now as it did then, except the after taste of it lingers longer than it did when I smoked-cause I'd always have a nice smoke after a wonderful meal, and after an ordinary meal, too. Gosh, I miss smoking.

It's the ritual of it that I miss the most. Get on the phone, have a cigarette, take the dogs out for a walk & have a cigarette, escape from work for a few mins & have a cig, The "after Thanksgiving dinner" cigarette is one of the memorable ones, so is the after Christmas and Easter dinner ones, and lets not forget the after a piece of birthday cake ones, too. And of course the after sex smokes, smoked in the bathroom or kitchen because Hubby hates smoking. Where was I going with this? Oh, the smelling part. Yes, perfume seems to smell no different now that I no longer smoke. I expected to be blown away by the stronger scents but it hasn't happened. Except for when I was at the pharmacy counter at Wallygreens and someone around had heavy handily applied Angel and it nearly knocked me out. It's strange, I've worn Angel since I came home from the hospital (Angel Les Parfums de Cuir) and it didn't bother me. The Angel behind the pharmacy counter blew me away, it kind of made me sick.

 Editing to add: Geeze I write these posts and leave 'em in draft. I've always had trouble finishing things. ADD in action here. Here we are 2 weeks later and I'm just going to hit publish, otherwise it'll sit in draft along with everything else that I haven't fully gathered my thoughts over.

Some Random Throughts on Old or Old Lady Perfume Part 2

About 10 or so years ago used to work with a woman, every Saturday it was just me and her in this one section. You get to know your work partner well. Jojo was in her early fifties at the time. She was one of those women whose weight didn't change, she was the same weight from her late teens onward. It seems these non-gaining weight women must have a trunk full of clothes from back in the day, because they'll pull out outfits from a different era and wear it from time to time. We had two of them at work. For example, Jojo would come in wearing acid washed baggy-but tapered at the ankle-jeans from the 90's, and maybe a day-glo top from the 80's along with it.
I think she kept perfume in the trunk, too, because she would wear something that would drive me up the wall! Our other retro dresser wears Opium and she uses a light hand and it's fantastic on her. Whatever Jojo wore, it had an old fashioned smell to it. I wish I would remember what it was! But the smell would get to me so much so that I recalled us having a perfume conversation before and her saying she liked "Vanilla Fields" so I brought her in a bottle, I had extras at home I had grown tired of. I thought at least it was from the same decade somewhat. From then on Jojo reeked of Vanilla Fields and that also drove me crazy. The seating arrangement changed before I picked out another perfume for her, so she continued on with Vanilla Fields.
Maybe it was our perfume competing that drove me crazy, or her heavy handed use of fragrance, I don't know. Why did I think her first perfume was old? Obviously this was before I became a perfumista, otherwise I'd have answers as to why. I think whatever it was smelled "Dated" to me. What makes something dated? Having been exposed to it during a certain period of time, just like a song or style of clothes would seem dated. So whatever Jojo was wearing was something I had smelled long ago. But even back then I'd smell my old, not-used-in-long-time bottles and the scent would bring me back in time, happy memories. Jovan Musk Oil. Coty's Muguent, Emerude. Heaven Scent. Jontue. Charlie. Enjoli. (Yeah, all the drugstore fragrances).

Sometimes when I smell some vintage perfumes they transport me back 30 years ago, to the bathroom of ** Mount Pleasant Street in Somerville, which was my Grandmother's house. She kept about 3 of those old metal cabinets you use when you don't have a closet or shelf space. I have 2 of the cabinets here, storing my photography stuff, plus her 1950's kitchen table and chairs. But those metal cabinets were loaded with perfumes, lotions, old medicines, those floral scented bath pearls and squares and dusting powders. My grandmother said you needed to dust powder before getting into a girdle, it made it easier to get on. What did she have for perfumes? Oh, a lot of Avon and the usual drugstore offerings, I don't recall anything exotic like Shalimar or any old Guerlains or Carons. The last time I was in there was 1989 when me, my mother, aunt, uncle and a cousin or two cleaned out the place, they were selling the house. My grandmother passed in 1980, but my uncle continued to live in her apartment, my cousin downstairs and once my uncle passed and cousin moved out the kids had to sell. But her bathroom was just as she left it back in 1980. I got an unopened Avon Timeless dusting powder set, it was in an amber faceted plastic container. For some reason Timeless appealed to me at the time, and I wasn't one to wear a girdle. I can vaguely recall it's scent now, I remember it being amber-y.

Second Chance

Its been a while since I've been here. I haven't been anywhere for a while, except the hospital. Its amazing, you're just chugging along with your life and then something happens and turns things upside down. Around 5am on September 10th, I suffered a cardiac arrest. If it was after 5am I wouldn't be here, Hubby leaves for work at 5 and he was in the bathroom getting ready when I hit the floor. (And I didn't just hit the floor, I banged my head on the way down on the table and now have a scar from it, in spite of the stitches, that's the least of my worries)Anyhoo, Hubby knows CPR and saved my life, he did the chest compressions, blew air into my mouth until the ambulance and fire department arrived. I do not remember anything. I do remember being tired and pushing myself to finish something at the kitchen table, I must have been making something, bracelets I think. Then I remember waking up in a hospital room and thinking I was in a hotel, totally confused. I had spent a week in the ICU, it was very touch and go, they all said I was lucky to have made it through everything. My heart had stopped, once they got that up and running there was some trouble with my kidneys so I had a round of dialysis. Then I spent a week on the cardiac floor, got a pacemaker last Thursday and was discharged on Friday. (I do feel like I fooled them into discharging me, I didn't feel ready but I just wanted to be home, in my own bed and so on).

Yes, a pacemaker. They call it an ICD and I just can't google it, as long as it isn't shocking me I don't want to know. Someone called it "like having a cardiologist in your pocket" and "an insurance policy in case your heart stops again". I go from thinking I'm fine to needing a cardiologist in my pocket, plus a whole team of doctors at the hospital. I was the youngest on the floor, I'm 45. Never thought I'd see this day or this happen. Thinking back on it, I should have seen it coming. My cousin visited me in the hospital and said they all have heart trouble on my mother's side, and I remember my Nana carrying around Nitroglycerin and my Aunt having a heart attack. So a family history, plus me smoking, being overweight, being on adderal, burning the candle at both ends, it all adds up now. They did say I had pneumonia (which I had seen my primary care doc for the day before, he said bronchitis) and that traveled to my heart causing infection and weakening the muscle. Or I may have had a bum ticker to begin with.

Today I finally feel slightly better. It wears me out just walking around Walgreens, using a shopping cart as a walker, picking up all my new prescriptions and whatever else. BTW, Skin Musk is on sale. Last night I managed to sleep on my left side (where the ICD is) and that helped, since I've been constantly on my right I've got a pulled hamstring which makes getting out of a chair or bed painful. Ugh. But today was better, I feel more back to normal, but am still sore where the ICD is, my ribs still hurt. And I'm still reaching for a cigarette, which I haven't had since this happened. I'm getting used to it. I'm chewing the nicotine gum when I need a pick me up. No more adderal, really, never again. I'm allowed 1200mgs of salt a day, which I adhered to all week except today which I cheated a little for supper.

So I've got a second chance at life. No idea what I'm suppose to do with it yet. What I do know is: when I'm tired I go to bed-I don't give a shit if things don't get done-they can get done the next day, I'm not breaking my neck at my job doing doubles (actually I'm not working at all right now, no set return date either, I'll just have to live frugally for now)and I'm not going to stress over stuff. So what if I couldn't remember the pin numbers for our checking accounts and now have to reset them? I got the money in the bank via a teller and will fix the pin situation when I have the time. My memory hasn't been so good since this happened. They took up a collection for me at work so the bills will get paid this month, at least the important ones. Maybe, maybe I'll list some stuff on ebay to make up the rest. I don't know. I'm just playing by ear right now.

The Old Lady Perfume Manifesto

Woman w/Veil on 5th Ave. Diane Arbus 1968

{Side note: OMG let me finally post something here! Been very busy working and with life in general, I attempt posting but only save them to drafts....maybe if I begin posting again I'll get back into the groove}

Old Lady Perfume and Old Ladies I Have Known

What is old lady perfume?

Ah, the dreaded old lady perfume phenomenon. Where to begin?

Before becoming a fume freak, if you had asked me about old lady perfume, I'd say something that smelled old fashioned and/or something that my mother or grandmother had worn or would have worn.

Does this Chantilly look old lady to you?

Ask me now and I couldn't name an old lady perfume. I don't really know any old ladies. Old ladies today aren't the same as old ladies of yesterday. You don't see many donning blue hair anymore, lol. When I was a child our neighbor, Gladys, had blue hair, I even told her so. There was a woman who worked at the library who was a friend of my paternal grandmother, Liz Mann, my father acted like she was the town spinster. He would say, "Liz never married...." perhaps she was attractive when she was younger. When I was 10 or 11 I was an avid reader & lover of books, my father introduced me to her and I remember visiting her at her home (an apartment as neat as a pin with doilies on the tables and furniture) for afternoon tea which involved real china and all. She'd hook me up with books at the library and send me gifts in the mail for Christmas and my birthday. But I don't recall Liz wearing perfume.

The only grandmother I knew was my maternal grandmother, "Auntie Nana" as I called her, I must have mixed her up with one of my aunts and the name stuck. BTW my aunt, my mother's only sister, was allergic to perfumes and didn't wear or own any. I can't really remember any actual perfumes associate with my Auntie Nana, I remember the names but I can't conjure up the scent in my mind. Avon Cotillion, Topaze* Houbgaint's Chantilly, Helena Rubenstien's Heaven Scent, which she gave me a bottle, along with the usual avon age approiate perfumes: Sweet Honesty, Delicate Daisies and such.  My Auntie Nana was very fond of perfume, she had a couple of cabinets full of perfumes, soaps, powders and such. The cabinets in her bathroom and the scent of that room will be in another post. I do remember her always keeping a handkerchief on her person, lightly sprayed with perfume which she tucked in her bra.

My paternal grandmother passed before I was born. All I know about her are a few things my mother told me: she loved perfumes and cosmetics, face cream, face cream, face cream. She was an attractive woman, she was voted most beautiful in her high school class-"It was a very small class." my mother would say if my father brought that up during a fight. Small class or not, I've seen her photos and she was beautiful. She would also use a whole box of Bell's Seasoning on the Thanksgiving turkey, which I'm reminded of every time I see a box. My mother was the opposite, very light handed with the spices. I wonder how that Belled up turkey would have tasted? Back on topic, you know what kills me? During WWII my father was in France. Guess what he brought home? Perfume. Probably for my grandmother, her sister, my mother (they weren't married or engaged at the time but they had dated and wrote back and forth) and whoever else. Where are the leftovers now? I have poked around in his duffel bag, foot locker and haven't found any.


As for today the only ladies I know who come close to being "old lady" are more of eccentric older women. Broadway Betty, her real name is Barbara. She wears a blond bouffant wig with her dark hair showing through in the back, it looks similar to a birds nest on the back of her neck. She must get a new wig every so often, they start off looking good (as good as a bouffant wig could look) then after a month or so the birds begin their work. She also wears heavy, bright blue eyeshadow and tight pants. She must have been a go-go dancer back in the day. I don't see her much anymore, she got kicked out of my work (she was a customer) for alleged solicitation. Occasionally I see her waltzing up and down Broadway. In fact, earlier today I saw her strolling along, birds' next popping out of the back and all.
 
At work I do encounter many older women, co-workers and customers. A week ago I worked a party which was comprised of a couple of retirement and nursing home groups. Did not really get any whiffs of perfume off any of them. I have worked similar parties before and recall smelling mainly on the shrill side scents, wild guess would be possibly Liz Taylor or Estee Lauder (no offense to fans of those frags). As for co-workers, I am the 4th youngest female there so there's plenty of older women, although not many carry sillage. My BBF rocks Angel on a daily basis and she's close to 60-she doesn't divulge her age much, nor does she divulge the name of her perfume, only to me and that was because she thought her most recent bottle smelled different. Once I became accustomed to it-it was obvious, no use in trying to keep that a secret. Another woman, age 73, wears Paul Sebastian's Design, it smells fantastic on her, I would have guessed it was a chypre. Several slather themselves with the Bath and Body Works lotions, anti-bacterial types and regular hand lotions. Meh. Another wears Cartier's Baiser Voile, smells great on her, horrible on me. One loves Shalimar cologne-the round bottle with the pointy top. Unfortunately I rarely smell it off her.

Sights, Sounds, Smells and Tastes Summer 2012

 It's been a rather uneventful summer, which is better than one filled with drama. Lots of work, yikes, I don't think I've worked so much before. One week I did 10 shifts, equal to 60 hours-give or take a few. That was in the beginning of this month and I'm still recovering. This week I called out on Tuesday & Wednesday, Thursday is my day off so II feel like I'm on another vacation. Yes, we took a vacation....

It was a stay-cation and it was fantatisic. Went places nearly everyday-we had to run/put some miles as in highway mileage on the car due to a recently dead and disconnected battery and a failed sticker test thing. Took some day trips, ran the motor, got the sticker on the last day of the vacation. I told hubby the next time I wanted to go to NYC or someplace way out I will disconnect the battery again. I also learned a bit about cars, uh, I dunno the catalyst convertor, O2 sensors, evap systems, what throttle is (thank you young man covered in tattoos in Auto Zone) and all that crap. We got a bluetooth dongle for the car, hooked it up and with an app on  the cellphone we could check any error codes (none), see the status of the current drive cycle, which emissions things had turned on-we needed those for the sticker. All that and I don't drive. Impressive, no? Boring, yes.







 Our day trips included what I thought would be a walk in the woods turned into a hike. An over a mile (or more=I can't tell from the vague map) hike over rocks and hills and more rocks. In the heat. Plus mosquitoes, loads of them + other various flying bugs. We met some people at the beginning who sprayed us with bug spray (bless them!) which helped but we still got bitten. My Chanel no.18 didn't stand a chance under all that deet or whatever they sprayed us with. A thunderstorm loomed overhead but didn't amount to anything. The coyote we saw on our way out was more threatening. That was no loose dog, luckily he looked at us (we were only about 100 feet away) and walked back into the woods. In spite of all that, I would go back if given the chance, I enjoyed it that much. Of course I'd bring along a shitload of bugspray, extra water, a walking stick-I used Hubby's umbrella to get myself out of there-the paths were so rocky. We've done walks/hikes before but never on such a rough terrain.

Lobster roll, fries, Pepsi. (Not shown-corn on the cob)

 Vacation also means lots of eating, and restaurant food rather than healthy home cooking. Oh boy, its been a bad summer as far as food & dieting is concerned. Normally I drop some weight during the summer, this year i gained. Haven't stepped on the scale but I can tell, I can tell, oh shit I can tell by my clothes. Most of the time i can hardly wait to come home and get into my fat pants (pajamas) and get outta of my bra and into a tank or wife-beater. Let everything lose and relax. Ugh, it sucks.I feel like shit, really. Have to lay off the chocolate, the little tiramisu cakes we got on sale (3 packages of them) and the fast food/restaurant food. It's been too hot to cook. Lately I've been getting these Samosas @$1.25 each. Hits the spot when you've been running around all day and haven't eaten. I only eat one but I'm sure they're fattening.

My Samosa comes in a brown paper bag, unlike the presentation above.

Another of my downfalls. Yummy & taste sightly boozy.

 We got some work done around the house, laid patio stones in the front-which came out great. hopefully they'll last over the winter without much shifting.Hung some new curtains  and I'm currently making a set for the kitchen. Still painting the kitchen floor, feels like it's become my life's work. well, it isn't easy painting a heavily traveled floor and waiting for paint to dry in the humidity.

Tiny rose from my yard. My mother planted these shortly after they bought the house. Every year like clockwork these bloom in July, usually on or around the 4th and only last a week or so, not very long. This year they bloomed in July and a couple bloomed in August. Late bloomers, I guess.






As for sounds-haven't been listening to anything special off the top of my head. So I'll conclude with a favorite summer song of mine.









Part 2 of Summer 2012, The Smells coming soon. At the moment I'm working with a new, abiet extremely shittty keyboard and can't bear to type any longer. A new one will be at staples tomorrow : )

At The Moment

In heavy rotation: Fiona Apple




Summer=Trashy Novels

Me thinks vanilla is better than no ice cream at all.

Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. 
 by E.L James
About a month ago I had one of those perfect days: no work, no bothers,  Hubby at work, plus the housework/laundry and such was finished the day before. I got up early, fed the dogs, put them outside, brought them back in, grabbed the morning's mail-which included a couple of packages of perfume!  Spent the rest of the day sitting around reading Fifty and eating chocolate, drinking iced coffee, having a smoke and test spritzes from the perfume, while wearing the fat pants (it was that time of the month). Pure bliss.

The Fifty trilogy aren't the most challenging of reads, but they're entertaining, And dirty. They're page-turners. After a while I found myself turning the pages to hurry over the sex parts to get back to the story. A couple of romps in the playroom was enough for me, S&M isn't a turn on, and I have read erotica before. It's reads like a soap opera, this happening and some twists. Personally I would have run after seeing the S&M equipment, or finding about his ex-girlfriends. I say that easily but when you're in love it's difficult to think straight. Right now I'm in the middle of the 3rd book, finishing it has been stalled because I was reading it on my phone via Kindle and last Friday my Kindle app dissapeared, along with a couple of other apps I had stored on my SD card. Hmmm. Might have something to do with the new virus or my SD card failed. Will get right on it.

Colored French Tips
I saw these on a few co-workers, some in fire-engine red and darker colors. Didn't care for them at first but when I saw neon pink tips I had to try it. I like the colored tips only if my nails are fairly short and there's not a lot of tip with color. Long nails with colored tips make me think of "Project Nails" because it seems all the project bunnies around here wear French maincures with ultra long nails and that kind of gave the French manicure an aura of tackiness.

I do my nails about once a week, and if I avoid the dishes and most work it will last (or at least will remain halfway decent) for the week.
 First week I did a deep bright pink with a iridescent base-leaving my nail beds unpainted doesn't look good-I need something to hide the vertical ridges, ugh, as if I don't have enough issues with my appearance.

Second week I did clear beds with metallic silver tips. I've done this before, it looks rather dressy. But I found that the silver started looking kind of dirty after a few days so.....

This week: neon pink tips. I feel like painting a black line at the bottom of the pink but am afraid I'll ruin them. Free-hand painting tips isn't as easy as it looks.

Perfume of the Moment:

Almost forgot, this is a perfume blog. Well, since the summer has been off to an unusual start-lots of rain & storms, too many cooler than normal days with a few hot & humid days it's been difficult to chose, especially a summery perfume. All spring I was waiting for the rain to end so I could wear Apres L' Ondee and that didn't really come about. It's still raining. So I've been spending my time in iris perfumes, lots of  Tom Ford Violet Blonde, Shalimar Parfum Inital, Chanel no.19 Poudre, and Eau de Shalimar. Not in that order and not in that rank. Shalimar Initial and no. 19 wear the best on me, I dunno but Violet Blonde turns very, very powder-y in the mid to late notes, a bit too powdery. I do love Violet Blonde, it starts off fantastic-it just doesn't end well. I have a few samples, no full bottle for me.

Quick Sniffs of late:

Angel Eau de Toilette. Ugh, no thank you. Something smells "off" in this, very sharp and chemical, very unlike the original. About 10 years ago I hoarded loads of samples of the EDP, I keep finding them all over the house and it's smooth &  rich,  like a fine chocolate. The EDT smelled like a chemical blast. (BTW I tested this earlier tonight, I am due for my period so my sense of smell may be off)

Giorgio Armani- Armani Code: loved this at almost first sniff so I went from sample to reasonably priced full bottle. It seems fabulous in small doses, no heavy handed application or it becomes "too much". I have not test drove this outside the house yet. Will get right on it.