Okay. I've decided to take a different approach to writing in this blog. Part of why I haven't been is that I set a standard for myself with regard to how things had to be written, what style I had to use to present them, etc. But the fact is, my own natural "voice" is fairly entertaining, and I do a lot better when I write freeform than when I follow a strict pattern.

From now on, my reviews will continue to include some basic stuff (like the notes in the fragrance), but I'm just going to write my own impressions of it, perhaps with a bit of social observation, perhaps not. I'm just going to write because I like to write, and I love perfumes and I've been restricting myself too much, so much that I wasn't writing at all.

From now on, look for much more "freeform" entries here, including in the reviews. And look for more frequent entries, now that I've decided to lift the restrictions on myself.

I wear perfume most days. Most days, I don't go out, and if anyone's around to smell me, it's just one or another of my little kids. I wear perfume because I want to, because it pleases me to wear it. I wear it because I can.

The thing is, it makes me feel better about the world when I'm wearing nice perfume. I mean, if I can afford to wear expensive French perfume (although I don't always wear French perfume; there are a few good American perfumes that I like, too, particularly in the Estée Lauder and Elizabeth Arden lines) just because I feel like it, then everything must be okay, right?

So, my advice is to wear perfume just because you want to wear it. Doesn't matter if there's anyone else around or if you're going somewhere special. Perfume is a consumable, so consume it!

We've set up a slightly more user-friendly RSS feed, in case anyone's interested. And eventually, honestly, we'll put up some more reviews. Miss Dior is on the list, among others...

Due to recent fee hikes by eBay, fee structures that we consider ridiculous and unwarranted, we are being forced to reconsider many things.

Foremost is our pricing. We try very hard to offer our items at good prices that are below retail and we even consider the price of the shipping when we set our prices. Now, however, eBay are going to be taking such a very large bite of the price that we will be forced to raise prices significantly or sell elsewhere.

It will no longer be viable to sell our perfumes in our store on eBay at all, as the profit margin on them is fairly low to begin with and the many overseas sellers with false location details compete unfairly in the perfume category (or just sell fakes). Until we decide how to proceed, we will not be adding any additional inventory to our store.

We will also be preparing listings for other sites, ones that are Australian-owned and Australian-based.

Please note that this will affect ALL eBay sellers in Australia, the United States, and the UK who maintain stores, so you can look for and expect price increases across the boards, along with an increase in sellers who close their stores and/or abandon eBay entirely. (You may want to let eBay know how you feel about this.)

We recommend checking out the following Australian auction sites:

http://oztion.com.au/

http://aussiebid.com.au/

With enough support, either or both of those could give eBay a serious run for its money.

We still have plenty of perfume stock on hand, and more on the way. We'll be selling some of the Father's Day stock at eBay on auction, and the rest of our perfume will be sold on other sites (very likely the first one in that list).

Perfumes are surprising. Sometimes, things that you think you wouldn't like, you end up loving, and things that, by all rights, you should love, just don't work.

One perfume that surprised me was YSL Opium. It's a very rich, spicy, strong oriental, which is not normally my style at all, but oh, it's heavenly. I get compliments when I wear it, too, so it's not just me who thinks it's wonderful. I can't wear it every day (and I wouldn't want to), but when I do wear it, it's always such a nice experience. I always shower with the scented shower gel and then put on the scented lotion and then the EDT on top of that, and it lasts and lasts. (For about a week, the shoulder strap on the drivers' side seatbelt in my car had a distinct Opium scent, from where it rubbed on my freshly-perfumed neck, so how's that for staying power?)

But wait! There's more! Continue reading Surprises....

I've turned off comments on this blog, at least for the time being. I kept getting slammed with comment spam and it's starting to tick me off. It's not that the spam even gets published, but I have to keep deleting it and blocking IP addresses and it's irritating.

I may set up this blog to accept comments with a registration, as my personal weblog does, but really, people rarely comment here, anyway, so it's not like I'm losing anything.

Spammers are the absolute scum of the earth. I think they're worse than perfume counterfeiters because spammers pester EVERYONE, not just those who sell and wear perfume....

My husband has a very bad "nose". He can never tell what perfume I'm wearing. He can't even normally tell if it's a floral or not. The only perfume he recognizes regularly is Diorissimo, and that's only because he doesn't happen to like it!

On the other hand, my four-year-old daughter has a very good nose, and she loves "peefeeume". She'll often ask to wear it, and she recognizes the bottles by sight and can name them. At this point, she can't always name the fragrances by smell, but I think that's only a matter of time, really.

The other day I wore Estée Lauder White Linen (I should do a review of that one; it was my signature fragrance for many years). She smelled it and said, "It's dry." I said, "What do you mean? That it dries on your skin? Or that it smells dry?" And she answered, "It smells dry."

I wouldn't have thought of White Linen that way, but now I must admit, she's got a point...

Perhaps she'll go to Paris and become a perfumer. Or perhaps she'll just end up with a few drawers full of perfume, like her mum...

Okay, this is something new to me.

Fragipani, as most people will know, is a tropical flower, but it was also a person! The Marquis Muzio Frangipani was a well known 16th century Italian, a lover of perfumes and fragrances. He, or his perfumers, found out that you could suspend perfume absolu (essence) in alcohol, something that revolutionized the perfume industry.

Presumably, the flower is named after him (well, hey, the macadamia nut is after one John MacAdam, a scientist who went on an expedition in Australia and apparently discovered the nut, so why not name a flower after a perfumer?)

I spent some time doing a big update on the Fragrance Facts page. I included a fairly long list of common and traditional perfume ingredients. I owe much of the structure of the list to John Oakes' "All About Perfume" and some of the information, but I also did my own independent research and I did make every effort to put the terms and items in my own words (I'm not a big fan of copyright violation). By the way, I do very highly recommend any and all books by John Oakes. His style of writing is extremely entertaining.

I finally found some nice, totally unscented lotion. This is great for using on your skin prior to applying fragrance, to make the fragrance last longer (this is a big problem if you have dry skin, as I do). I've seen recommendations for jojoba oil and for almond oil, and even for a light layer of petroleum jelly (ick), and also have seen recommendations for unscented lotion, but try finding it!

Well, today I did, and it was at a shop I frequent anyway, The Body Shop! The lotion is sold with the option (and intention) of letting you choose what scent you'd like put in it from their fragrance oil range, but I wanted it unscented, and that's just what I got.

So if you, like me, have trouble getting fragrance to last on your skin and you've had a hard time finding unscented lotion, drop around The Body Shop and pick up a bottle of the unscented lotion. It's a fabulous "base" for fragrance.

I've so far done reviews of fragrances I actually like or can recommend for various reasons (such as Shalimar, which I don't, personally, like, but which I still appreciate and know to be a fine, classic, well-loved fragrance). I haven't done any of perfumes I truly hate and would never recommend.

Part of me says that I should just call 'em as I see 'em (and the fact is, I do tend to like more fragrances than I hate, but there are a few that are, in my estimation, real stinkers and I can't understand how anyone wants to wear them). That's part and parcel of being a "critic" (and I mean that in the sense of "critique", of course). Not all movies get good reviews, not all music gets good reviews, why should all perfumes?

So I'll have to think about this a bit, I guess. I don't actually want to put people off a fragrance that they might actually like (because perfumes are very personal and there's no accounting for taste, including my own)...

Bit of a dilemma, to say the least.

Apologies to those who have submitted comments and gotten an error message page and not seen your comments published. I've got something set incorrectly somewhere in the blog mechanics, and I'm trying to fix it now. I did publish the comments people have made, though. In the meantime, I"ll be mucking around in the back end of the blog system to try to work out what I have set improperly.

[EDIT] Yay, it seems to be working. Currently have just the generic page for the "you've made a comment" thingy, but I did change the colors so it coordinates with this blog. Some time if I'm feeling ambitious, I may change it round a little, but for now, well, feel free to comment and you'll just have to cope with the generic "thanks for commenting" page.

Oh, and comments are currently moderated (that is, anyone can comment but before they appear on the site, I look them over and publish them). This is to prevent spammers and other nasty sorts from making trouble with my bandwidth. It's pretty easy to become a "trusted" comment writer, though. Just write non-spammy and non-abusive comments and you're pretty much approved (I do that manually, too). You can even disagree with me, so long as you're polite about it (perfume is such a very personal thing, I would certainly expect people to disagree with me on, well, pretty much every review I do, so feel free to share your own opinions. I can take it. Don't like Treséor? Hey, it just leaves more for me, right?)

I admit I shamelessly lifted this from Wikipedia:

Famous perfumes classified by year of creation

* 1714 : Eau de Cologne by Farina (Johann Maria Farina 1685-1766)
* 1889 : Jicky by Guerlain (Aimé Guerlain)
* 1917 : Chypre by François Coty (François Coty)
* 1919 : Mitsouko by Guerlain (Jacques Guerlain)
* 1919 : Tabac Blond by Caron (Ernest Daltroff)
* 1921 : N°5 by Chanel (Ernest Beaux)
* 1925 : Shalimar by Guerlain (Jacques Guerlain)

But wait! There's more! Continue reading What and when....

It shouldn't come as a surprise to hear that I've got a whole drawer full of fragrances. Only a few of them, however, are full-sized bottles (Tresór, Sensi, and Sunflowers). The rest are medium sized (50ml or 1.7 oz) or, more likely, that which is known as a Mini. A Mini is a small bottle, generally around 5ml but possibly a bit more or a bit less, depending on the manufacturer. Minis can last a surprisingly long time, particularly if it's a fragrance you want to wear but not wear often (those "have to be in the mood for it" type fragrances).

But wait! There's more! Continue reading In praise of Minis....

This is the Perfume Blog. I'm starting this here because, well, I have a professional and personal interest in perfumes. I wouldn't call this blog "commerical" though it has aspects of that, nor would I call it entirely "personal" although I'm a real person and I write subjectively here (so take the reviews entirely for what they're worth to you; these are just my own opinions, nothing more or less).

The design of this blog was meant to evoke early 20th century Paris. The colors were chosen because pink and black was a combination that was popular around that time. I chose the lace because I liked the feminine, bouidoir type feel (note: boudoir, not bordello, although my late beloved grandmother always said if you wore too much perfume you smelled "like a French whorehouse").

Anyway, welcome to the blog, and I hope you'll enjoy the ramblings and pontifications that end up here.