Brief words about a few perfume oils I've been testing.

As I mentioned the other day, I have finally gotten around to updating my perfume lists, and now I'm getting back to testing the ones I haven't had a crack at yet. I'm working through the oils and indies first, and then I will move on to the commercial ones. I'm going alphabetically, as that seems to be the most practical way to do it. So here are a few brief words about what I've tested in the last week or so (I wear a different one each day to get a proper feel for them).

Smellies!

While Richard Avedon had his camera out, I had him take some pics of my little perfume collections from recent purchases. I haven't bothered with all of my regular commercial perfumes, just the oils and whatnot from the discoveries I've made online over the last year.

This is my teeny tiny collection of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. Hell's Belle, Black Phoenix, Snake Oil and Jazz Funeral were part of a Christmas present, and Thirteen, Soothing Systems, Diary Of A Lovestruck Teenage Cannibal and Detestable Putrescence were the ones I bought from the lovely Livejournal girl I mentioned in the earlier post. She also sent me some freebie samples of other BPALs, including one particularly gorgeous one called Love's Philosophy, a blend of vanilla, cream and saffron. Unfortunately it's no longer made and by all accounts rather difficult to find. I did happen across a bottle on eBay the other day, but I STUCK TO MY GUNS and did not bid (admittedly, I seriously considered it), because I decided to refine my NY resolution to a month-by-month thing and my first goal was no online purchases in the month of February. I really, really wanted to make an exception to bid for it, but if I did that, there would be something else and something else and something else and it would never end. So I REMAINED STRONG. I'm sure I'll be able to hunt down a bottle eventually. I hope...

These are my Wiggle Perfumes. Aren't they gorgeous? They are roll ons, and they're perfect for carrying around in one's bag. They come in bigger sizes, but I only bought the small ones because I like having lots and lots of smaller bottles of different fragrances rather than just a few big ones of the same thing all the time.

And these are the roll on perfumes from The Garden Bath that arrived this week. These are the only full size ones I have so far, but I have a list of more I intend to buy when funds permit, because I really like this lady's fragrances. I also intend to get some full size body scrubs from there as well, because I bought some samples a while back and loved them.

And these are my samples and smaller decants from various places, and Imps from BPAL. I'm slowly working my way through testing all of these and compiling wish lists for full size bottles. Hard work!

My 5 favourite perfumes in 2009.

I am more a fan of perfume oils than commercial fragrances, so this was a good year for me, because I discovered Wiggle Perfume, The Garden Bath, and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. There wasn't a huge amount that grabbed my attention in the commercial perfume world - it was pretty saturated with one cheap, tinny celebrity fragrance after another. I hate those things, and it kind of irks me that perfumiers would agree to get involved. I mean, they have to earn a living like everyone else, but it's just so trashy. When Spongebob Squarepants has his own fragrance, it's well and truly time for the trend to die. So with commercial perfumes, I mostly stuck to my old favourites this year (Miller Harris Fleur Oriental, Lolita Lempicka, etc.). I did get a few decants from The Perfumed Court and found a couple of new loves that way, but mostly, I was all about the oils.

5. Chanel Coco Mademoiselle. I was given a sample vial of this earlier in the year when I bought some foundation, and I fell in love with it immediately, which surprised me because I'm not generally a fan of Chanel perfumes (too cloying). The website refers to it as an oriental, but to me it's more of a floral with a bit of vanilla in there somewhere. It's very classy and lasts on me for hours.

4. Miller Harris Noix de Tubéreuse. I really, really, really want a full bottle of this (I only have a 5ml decant), but it's not within my budget at the moment, sadly. This is a heady floral that lasts FOREVER. Gorgeous.

3. Wiggle Little 5. This was the first Wiggle perfume I tried and I could not stop sniffing myself. It's a floral oriental that would be perfect for a night out when you're all frocked up and sexified. Of course, I don't frock up and get sexified these days, so I just wear it around the house or at work. And sniff myself constantly.

2. The Garden Bath Southern Magnolia. (I can't link to the specific perfume, as Donna is on holiday and has taken down her wares for now.) I love Wiggle Mostly Magnolia, and that almost made it into my top 5, but in the end it was pipped at the post by The Garden Bath. Southern Magnolia seems to be more of "one note" than Mostly Magnolia (which, as the name suggests, is not entirely magnolia). I don't know if Southern Magnolia has any other notes in it, but the only thing I pick up is the pure, delicious scent of magnolia. It has great staying power on me too. I now want to get the scrub and lotion in the same fragrance so I can layer myself with it. Mmmmm. (I said magnolia a lot there, didn't I? There's not really any other way to describe it, though.)

1. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Jazz Funeral. Wow. This perfume is like nothing I have ever smelled before. I described it to the best of my limited ability here, and there's not much more I can add, really. It's so unusual and intriguing, and whenever I wear it, I just sit there sniffing myself every few minutes. I just love it to death. Ha! Death! Get it? Get it?

My 5 favourite bath and body products in 2009.

This list was a bit harder than the others, because although I buy a lot of bath and body products (well, shower - we don't have a bath), I tend to buy the same things over and over and have done for years. I don't really branch out much, so there's not a huge amount that I tried for the first time in 2009. However, I did manage to find a few new favourites.

5. Palmer's Dark Chocolate and Peppermint Lip Butter. I'm not a lip balm person, for the same reason I'm not really a lip gloss person. I don't like sticky things on my lips. However, I bought this on a whim at my local IGA one day because my lips were feeling a bit dry and also, I am the World's Most Highly Suggestible Impulse Buyer. It was less than $5, and I figured I'd just throw it in my handbag and - let's face it - probably hardly ever use it. As it turned out, I loved it, and now I have it within reach constantly.

4. Mrs Meyers Dryer Sheets. Okay, technically these are not a bath or body product, but I just had to get them in somewhere, because I love them so damn much. In Australia, you can get one brand of dryer sheets, and they suck. They don't work very well and they stink of really cheap fabric softener. The Mrs Meyers ones, on the other hand, have very little scent at all, and work a treat for getting the static out of your clothes. Unfortunately, it costs me (considerably) more in shipping than it does for the product itself, but I've come to terms with that. These are so good I will pay pretty much anything to get hold of them.

3. The Garden Bath Lemon Chiffon Cleansing Sugar Body Scrub. Generally speaking, a scrub is a scrub is a scrub to me, but I do prefer the soapy ones to the creamy or oily ones (again, it's that whole feeling sticky thing - I have a real issue with that). This is a soapy one, and it feels great on the skin, but my true reason for loving it so much is the smell. It's like sugary lemon custard, but without a hint of the egginess that is often present in custard. Like the filling of a vanilla slice. If it was lemon. Gorgeous.

2. Palmer's Cocoa Butter Formula Moisturising Hand Wash. I wash my hands A LOT. It probably stems from years of working in customer service and handling hundreds of dirty forms, pens, computers, and so on. I've become a bit of a germophobe over the last couple of decades. Consequently my hands are always trashed and dry. Then of course, with the whole not-liking-stickiness thing I have to force myself to use hand cream, even though I really dislike it. This hand wash helps a lot with not drying my hands out so much, and I have been able to reduce the amount of cream I have to slather on them since I began using it. Also, it smells like chocolate! Even Noodle Arms like this stuff - it's amazing seeing her wash her hands vountarily.

1. Terax Crema. I have always had very straight, very fine hair, but until a few years ago, I had quite a lot of it. My hair has thinned considerably in recent years (much to my alarm), and this has made it quite limp and unmanageable, and very much lacking in body. It had never occurred to me to use Terax Crema before - I'd always considered it a product for people with thick and/or curly hair - but I received a free sample with an online order from Adore Beauty and fell instantly in love with it. It's expensive, but I only need a small amount so it lasts a long time. It makes my hair soft and shiny, and even better, it's still soft and shiny the following day, so I don't have to wash it daily, and that makes it last even longer. This is possibly my favourite product of all for the year (maybe even all time) - I just love it to death.

Tomorrow - fragrances. I am struggling to narrow that list down to five, let me tell you.

Tea and pudding: A review of The Garden Bath

I hadn't intended to play with any of the perfume oils from The Garden Bath yet, as I am still working my way through the samples from Wiggle Perfume. However, I stupidly dropped the little bag that had my two free samples in it, and realised hours and hours later when the kitchen smelled like someone had been making sticky date pudding and no one had (still waiting for that one The Photographer bought all the ingredients for about four months ago) that one of them had broken. I had no choice but to smother myself in what was left of Butter Rum Cafe.

The notes from the site say:

Imagine a warm, frothy mug of sweet, creamy cappuccino with a generous splash (or two) of deliciously smooth buttered rum. A delightful, rich buttery coffee fragrance that's perfect for the cold days of winter!

However, my first thought was not coffee, but pudding. It made me think of those Winter puddings that pile on the kilos but make you feel so good on a cold rainy night - sticky date, caramel, butterscotch, etc. It's definitely a Winter comfort scent. A few years ago I had a Demeter cologne called Sticky Toffee Pudding, and that's what this one reminded me of.

I'm a fan of warm food smells, so I liked this one very much.

I hate tea, but it's one of those things I have always wished I could get a taste for, because I love the accessories and ceremony of tea. I want an excuse to own lots of pretty floral teacups, and collect teapots, and knit quirky tea cosies. I want one of those little squeezy things that look like flies' eyes. I love going into tea shops and seeing the range they have. Every six months or so I buy some green tea, because it's meant to be one of the super foods, and after forcing myself to drink a couple of cups I realise that I really do hate it, and on the shelf it goes. Then a few months later I think, "I'm going to make myself acquire a taste for green tea", and the circle of life continues.

The second free sample I was sent was Jade Gardens. The first thing I thought of when I smelled it was tea, and when I looked up the site and checked the notes, it mentions "soft wood, tea, honey...". This is a fragrance I would never have bought for myself based on the description - none of those scents generally are of any interest to me. However, I am really glad that Donna sent it to me to try, because I love it. And now I finally have a way to enjoy tea. I wonder if that means I can legitimately start buying teapots now...