Current staples

It can take a while to work out whether I like a product or not. They're often more complex than immediately apparent.

My current favorites are

• Lipgloss: Bloom lip gloss is my undisputed favorite at the moment. Giorgio Armani lipshimmer is prettier (it sparkles!), but Bloom feels better.
• Mascara: Opera MyLash; a lot of Japanese mascaras are wonderfully smudge-free and MyLash is a moderately priced (about 1000 yen) non-fiber mascara with good lengthening and darkening properties, and some ability to thicken lashes. The formula is pretty light and not watery or goopy.
• Nail polish: Mavala Ottoman; a shimmery bright red. Not a true red, it has a bit of a fuschia tinge with one coat, but two coats gives a lovely, bright, rich red. Reds and burgundies look fantastic on my toes. I don't wear anything on my fingernails because my nails feel like they can't breathe with nailpolish. My toenails don't have any objections. I love the tiny 5ml size. I've never used up a polish in my life, so with Mavala and mini Bourjois, I can stick to small sizes from now on. Ettusais has a charming summer collection of small polishes too.
• Eye shadow: Inoui ID and Majolica Majorca eye shadow; wonderful texture and fun, wearable colors. My brown Kate quad is lovely but the colors just aren't very exciting. My taupe Shu Uemura shadow has the most beautiful texture and shimmer but the color closely approximates shadows on my skin. Not the most flattering effect on me; I'll have to try mixing it up with some other colors.
• Lipstick: I still love my Armanisilk, Dior Addict 2, and Shiseido lipsticks, but I get bored of lipstick colors pretty quickly. I have to change it up more than once a week.
• Eyebrow color: Inoui ID eyebrow pencil. I need nothing more than this. Canmake's eyebrow powder duo is also very nice and creates a natural look.
  

I can live without everything else, although I wouldn't want to. I suppose I shouldn't buy makeup again for a year or two. Maybe even three years.

Jean Patou's Sublime is rather a comforting scent on me. Warm and close to the skin. It's rather similar to Ungaro's Desnuda on me. I wonder which I like better. At the moment I'm leaning towards Desnuda.

Elizabeth Arden's Iced Green Tea turns into something akin to astringent herbs on my skin. Not a particularly pleasant smell. Rather medicinal.

I love the hit of grapefruit in the opening of YSL In Love; the perfect slightly bitter scent of a cut grapefruit. It's pretty addictive. Too bad it's only the top notes of a limited edition fragrance. I no longer buy limited editions; at least not for personal use.

On Saturday I bought a nice rugged nylon bag for work - about messenger bag size, with a zip pocket and two magnetic snap enclosure pockets in front, a zip pocket on the back, and one zip pocket plus two open pockets inside. The color is not very exciting, an olive brown, but very functional and appropriately muted for work. Large enough to fit my textbooks and any documents I may be carrying around.

So, having just bought this bag (and retiring a similarly sized corduroy bag), I have zero need for another bag. However! Before I went on vacation I had been eyeing a sky blue nylon Mandarina Duck bag. It was sold out when I went to look again on Saturday, so I ended up buying the olive brown bag instead. The coveted blue bag is now back in stock so I'm going to take a look at it this weekend. In terms of shape, my brown bag is nicer, but the sky blue color and futuristic design of the Mandarina Duck bag make me covet it also. I will probably buy it, because I can't think of a reason not to. I've been looking for large bags for more than a year, so I buy them if I find them.

Ugh. I need to go donate some money. My materialism has been out of control this year! At least I'm sick of shopping right now.

use up my perfume

Having a surfeit of perfume, I've resolved to put on perfume everyday (at night, as I never seem to remember in the morning) and give away the perfume that I don't particularly like.

* A little square pendant of stuff - definitely a candidate to give away. Don't particularly like it. It's either Calvin Klein Eternity Summer or the local perfume shop's homemade Green Tea fragrance.
* A sample of Curve; definitely, as I already have a bottle thanks to Brooke.
* Lanvin Eclat d'Arpege - nice but I just don't reach for it. I'll keep a little sample but give away the rest.
* debating about Crazylibellule and the Poppies Tout Oublier solid perfume. It's nice, and I haven't gotten sick of it like other perfumes I own. But it's not really me. It's rather colder than I'm usually in the mood for, although I quite like it. It's very easy to wear though. We'll see. It's handy to carry around so I am using it quite a bit.

Everything else I'll rotate through. I should only own 5 ml or less of any particular perfume. Anything more is really excessive considering how much I use it. I have yet to open my Chanel No. 5 or Le Feu d'Issey light. I might open Le Feu as a treat after taking my Java exam. I'm going to wait till my nose progresses a bit more before opening No. 5. Have to be able to appreciate it fully, although I'm making progress on that front.

That mystery perfume that Amy gave me is quite nice, I have to ask her what it is. I may be Michael Kors.

You know you have too much stuff when the thought of getting rid of it is exciting. I like a lot of the stuff, but I just want to focus on the stuff I love. I'm planning to do the same thing with my clothing. At least only 2 items in my closet are unworn.

Because making lists is fun, I will list my collection (minus that little square pendant of perfume):

1. agnes b. le petit b.b.
2. Amy's mystery perfume
3. Bvlgari Omnia Amethyste
4. Caron Farnesiana
5. Chanel No. 5
6. Crazylibellule and the Poppies Tout Oublier solid perfume
7. Givenchy Oblique
8. Emanuel Ungaro Desnuda
9. Etude House Bijou Pure White solid perfume
10. Fragonard Eau du Bonheur solid perfume
11. Hermes Eau de Cologne (wonder if I'll grow to like this)
12. Issey Miyake L'eau d'Issey
13. Issey Miyake Le Feu d'Issey light
14. Jean Patou Sublime
15. Lanvin Eclat d'Arpege
16. Laura Biagiotti Roma (wonder if I'll grow to like this)
17. Laurent Le Guernec's perfume mod
18. Les Parfums de Rosine Un Zest de Rose
19. Liz Clairborne Curve
20. Missha
21. Muelhens 4711 original cologne
22. The Body Shop Indian Gardenia
23. Yves Saint Laurent With Love

Gee, seems like I have a ton of stuff. Most of these are little sample vials though. Quite a random collection, don't you think?

In other perfume "news," I finally got a chance to try ElisabethW's perfumes in Kichijoji a while back. Everything was really nice, but the Sweet Tea was too sweet (imagine that). A pity. Very nice fragrances though. I need to go back and sniff again. They appear to have discontinued 6 of their scents though; what a pity. Violet, Woods, Redwoods, and Blue Sage sounded very nice.

Marina's new fragrance mods are out!

The newest versions of Marina's Holy Grail fragrance are out! Marina has posted on Made By Blog about her impressions of the two versions created by perfumer Clement Gavarry of International Flavors & Fragrances Inc.

I made a comment about my impressions too.

In other news, Scentzilla has an extremely well-written post about blogging and ethics.

About me, I am cleaning house! I won't be buying any more makeup or perfume for myself for the rest of the year. Other than one good concealer. I'm just going to run around sampling fragrances for the rest of 2007. Maybe I'll finally get through my list of fragrances-to-sniff. Isetan department store is going to be sick of me soon, haha.

having computer issues, but in the meantime, my current faves

My computer is having issues (lost the will to live on its first birthday?), but I feel like advertising my current favorite products.

Also, some new purchases:
petit b.b. by agnes b.: found in a little store in Shimokitazawa; a bit of sweet citrus? Disappears in an instant; I think this is a perfume for children as it is labelled eau de scenteur. Anyway, I found the 10 seconds addictive and the 60% off difficult to resist. They also had Petit Guerlain and an array of perfumes I've never heard of. I had the impression that Petit Guerlain was hard to find, but perhaps I am mistaken. I liked the top notes of quite a few of the perfumes, but they all seemed to remind me of Farnesiana. As I have a large decant of Farnesiana (will I ever use it up?) it was easy to say no to the other perfumes.

I also bought Tout Oublier from the Les Divines Alcoves Perfume Collection by Crazylibellule and The Poppies. I can't wait to use this cool, quiet perfume, but I feel a bit guilty about all the things I've been buying lately, so I'm thinking of making it a gift for someone.

Anyway, my current favorite cosmetics and toiletries:

* 4711: addictive citrusy cologne. Lasts half an hour but it's cheap to buy lots.

* Giorgio Armani ArmaniSilk #27: a beautiful beige lipstick with a silky finish. It's not matte, it's not glossy, but it's lovely. And has great lasting power. Too bad it's ludicrously expensive. It's a good thing that it'll probably go bad before I use it up. This stuff is practically pure pigment. I can't wait for the ArmaniReds collection to come to Japan, but my wallet quails.

* Giorgio Armani Lipshimmer #22: a beautiful, peachy nude with sparkle. Not frosty or shimmery or glittery, but sparkly. I stare at my lips when I wear this with the ArmaniSilk. It's so pretty! Again, I'm flabbergasted by the price, but this is a beautiful, lightweight, scentless lipgloss with good lasting power. I can also see the amount of product decrease, so it's not going to hold out nearly as long as the lipstick will.

* Visee Aqua Shining Eyes BE 300: a pretty, glittery pale yellow/gold cream eyeshadow. It's long lasting and looks gorgeous. Visee is sometimes on sale at department stores so it's possible to get it for about 1400 yen ($12 or so). It's a pity glitter doesn't quite work for weekdays.

* Majolica Majorca Majolook eyeshadow palette: longlasting, silky eyeshadows in a terribly cute palette. I want to collect them all!

* Opera MyLash mascara: nice amount of volume and lengthening; no clumpiness, and best of all, doesn't smear at all. Trumps Dejavu Fiberwig as MyLash is quite a bit cheaper.

* Inoui ID eyebrow pencil: natural effect, terribly easy to use, and beautiful packaging. It's really a pity that Shiseido discontinued this brand.

Shu, JAR, Fresh, grass

I picked up my first Shu Uemura eyeshadow from a duty free shop in Taipei. Love! It's a metallic brown color with a surprising hint of pink in it. Dark but quite wearable, and wow does it last a long time. It even prevents my eye liner from smudging. That has never happened before. I can hardly believe it. Brilliant! I will have to get other colors.

In my whirlwind (albeit longest ever since childhood) tour of NYC, I ventured into Bergdorf Goodman and sought out the fabled JAR boutique. I'd imagined a sheltered cave, but it was more like a dark little alcove with dark velvet. An unmanned dark little alcove, with people flitting in and out of the secret room on the side, and no one giving me a second glance as I peered into the alcove.

I wandered in and out, hoping someone would appear to stand duty over the JARs, but no one did. So eventually I just waltzed into the alcove and peered at the bottles lying in a velvet tray. The bolt of lightening insignia in lieu of any words is rather spiffy. Since no one materialized to assist me, I thought about just picking up a bottle and trying it on, but I wasn't in the mood to talk to security that day. And what if I dropped it?! No new debts needed for the new year. So, that was my experience, or lack of, with JAR.

In lieu of that, I sniffed a bunch of the Carons and Annick Goutals in the perfume area next to the alcove while two sales people ignored me. I tried on the ETRO with almond on it (very nice). I dabbed on one of CB I Hate Perfume's products, a black tea if I remember correctly. Very interesting! I asked around for the Slatkins perfumes and got to try one on; lovely. The lady on duty there was very friendly; we chatted about the unavailability of the perfume in Japan. As I left the store, I slid past a group seeking a restroom being denied entry because closing time had been reached.

In Saks a friendly Bond No. 9 saleslady showed me the most recent Bond perfume; I can see why this line is popular. In Bloomingdales I finally ran across Hanae Mori Butterfly; I'd like to get a sample of this to try on longer. I was impressed that my NY friend had almost used up a bottle of Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely.

At the Fresh store in Soho, a friendly saleslady let us try on Fresh's Sugar lip balm. The scent is pretty but it didn't seem all that spectacular. An hour or two later though, I noticed how pretty the balm looked on my lips. At the end of the day my lips were still soft and moisturized. I can see why this is their top seller; I'm tempted to buy it in spite of the exorbitant price tag.

The nice thing about my trip to NY and Taiwan was the realization that my "the grass is always greener" thinking has been in effect for a long time during my residence in Japan. But other than a few items (shoes in my size), there isn't a lot that I can't get for reasonable prices in Japan. Pretty much the only difference is that certain foods can be a lot cheaper and better outside of Japan (say Chinese food), but there's a heck of a lot of good food in Japan. So now I'll stop thinking "I could get this way cheaper in the U.S." and just focus on whether I like it or not.

I really like my T'estimo metallicolor liner, and I'm still addicted to the smell of Beauty Credit Pomegranate Emulsion. And I have no desire to shop for a long, long time. Which is good because I need to exercise and do some volunteer work.

I still need more shoes though.

2nd impressions of the secret gardenia

I can't think of a good name for the Laurent Le Guernec creation sent to me by Made By Blog, so for now I'll call it Secret Gardenia. Although that sounds a little silly. Whatever.

At first, the utter creaminess of this fragrance rather overpowered me, but now I'm getting quite used to it and find it rather comforting. A single spritz quickly and softly envelopes me. I like this sensation. It has a pleasant dash of sweetness but isn't over the top. I wouldn't call it simple but rather uncomplicated. Easy to enjoy but interesting although I can't tell you what I find interesting about it! It's certainly nothing like the new stuff in the department stores!

Have you smelled Nina Ricci's new scent? Geez, that stuff is sweet.

In a semi-related note, I have so far been able to test Armani Code (leading to an unmeditated purchase of Origins underwear for lips; I lay all blame on the Armani salesguy) and Bulgari Au Parfumee The Rouge. Now Smell This also has a lovely review of The Rouge.

Armani Code for Women is very interesting; I can't describe it at all. I don't get the orange or ginger that Now Smell This describes; perhaps it's too well blended for me to pick out. It's very nice, but I liked the drydown better than the opening for some reason. Maybe the opening has too much going on for me. This is the second time I've tried it. The first time, my 6 year old friend preferred it over Hermes Ambre Narguile on me :)

In contrast, I lurvve the opening to Bulgari Au Parfumee The Rouge. On skin, I get a n opening blast of dark, slightly bitter tea. Glorious, really. Haha. I love that opening. After a while it morphs into smelling like The Vert, which is nice, but not quite my cup of tea. Har. Um, yeah. The friendly saleslady at Takashimaya Shinjuku described the drydown as powdery. I don't really think of powder when I smell it; it seems more soft than anything.

I'm very happy to have met a friendly perfume saleslady though! It's a first.

Unrelated, but because the Inoui ID saleslady on Thursday was unhelpful, I ended up buying expensive concealer from Covermark. Yikes, there goes my budget! If only the nice lady from Tuesday had been there :(

Prizes have arrived!

My prizes from Made by Blog and PerfumeCritic.com arrived this week! I am rich in perfumes these days.

I'm currently testing both the Laurent Le Guernec creation that Made by Blog sent me, and the Missha travel size perfume from Perfume Critic.

First impressions of my MBB prize: creeammmy! Like butter.
I wrote up some thoughts on it, but as I take notes, I think "geez, Katie and Marina would never write anything so bland and inexpressive." But life is what it is so I will just put down what I think. MBB sent me a great big bottle allowing me to test this fragrance with abandon. I get lots and lots of gardenia, and a bit of almond at the beginning. Imagine a big creamy gardenia blossom the size of a canteloupe melon. The scent stays pretty close to the skin but I can still smell it 10 hours later. I wouldn't characterize the fragrance as sweet, although the creaminess makes any sweetness very evident, akin to how a white canvas makes colors stand out.

Missha: It's hard to categorize, because I'm not familiar with anything like it. I'm guessing it's a greenish perfume; that's the impression I get. Biting raw sap kind of effect, although the fragrance is not that sharp. I don't have any olfactory experience here :)

Perfume and Rap

No actual correllation between the two in my post, but the title does neatly sum up this entry.

Rapper/singer Akon doesn't always say what I would like to hear, but he has some catchy songs.

15 minutes into Trevor Nelson's show, you can hear his new song. Although if you go directly to his website, you can hear "Smack That" immediately. "Mr. Lonely" and "Locked up" are other classics. Apparently his native language is French. It'd be cool if he used French lyrics sometime. He already has, for all I know.

For catchy but less edgy music, you can check out Cassie.

Perfume Posse poses an interesting question: what 3 perfumes you would get if money were no object?

My choices:
Hermes Hermessence Discovery Set
Frederic Malle Test Kit
Shiseido White Rose

I've only tested White Rose and Hermessence Ambre Narguile once, so these aren't purchases I would actually make, but if I had money to burn, I'd want them.

In the meantime: Vera Wang, Monotheme White tea

I am currently searching for the perfumes recommended by the Director of Fragrance Development at IFF. As sneaky department stores do not like to list on their websites which brands of perfumes that they carry, I have to physically go and search. I didn't realize Armani was so hard to find; so far Odakyu and Keio do not carry it. Today I will visit Seibu and Tobu.

I never noticed that Vera Wang was available at Odakyu though; I tried it out yesterday. Floral, sweet, rich. A bit too strong somehow for me. It's pretty though; I can see why it is popular. But Fracas is nicer. Fracas lovers would probably freak out at that understatement, haha. Thumbs up for Vera Wang.

Odakyu has a nice layout for their fragrance area. It's spread out and low key; usually the sales people leave you alone to browse through.

In contrast, the Keio fragrance area has fragrances all packed together four shelves high in a little corner, so it's bewildering to browse, not to mention guarded by a garrulous but not terribly helpful salesperson.

They have a new tester at Odakyu's Makeup Solutions area (which carries a lot of foreign brands including Too Faced, Bloom, and Hard Candy): Monotheme White Tea. It's quite nice. A simple sweet tea scent. On the light side, and lasting power seems moderate, but it's a quiet scent with little sillage from what I can tell, and not much development that I noticed. I've only tested it twice. It's quite pleasant, but I'm not enamored enough to buy it. It would be easy to wear, but perhaps a little dull. Anyway, a thumbs up from me (I like tea).

I am currently purging unneeded clothing from my wardrobe. My friend B helped me out a lot the last time she visited, but there's still quite a bit of stuff that I don't need. It's funny how difficult it is to get rid of clothing that I wear rarely but actually like. And clothing that I find inadequate for my purposes, but I use occasionally. And clothing that I don't really like but use a lot. All reasons that I have a lot of unnecessary clothing.
I found some excellent articles on minimizing:

• Simplify Your Wardrobe and Closet
  
  
• What's in Your Purse?
  
  

a new take on attractive perfume

Found via NowSmellThis: an excellent article from Luca Turin is available at the Sunday Times.

a prize for me

Hee, sorry about the self-centered title.

If you're curious, there's a post at Made by blog regarding the perfume recommendations that Ms. Ferval of IFF made for me, and the perfume prize that she picked out. If this post doesn't make any sense, go read Nobi's post, as he explains it all nicely.

Perfumers

Made by Blog is some fascinating stuff.

I really enjoy the glimpses into perfumery and what various perfumers are like. And Katie and Marina and Nobi's comments are always marvelous.

I gush, but it's true! (Whenever I say "It's true", I always think of Calvin and Hobbes and Calvin-the-alien saying "It twoo!" when he asserts that Calvin-the-boy has taken his space ship and stranded him. Anyone else get that? Anyway, Calvin and Hobbes is genius)

where to buy atomizers?

Having too many bottles sitting around, I'd like to decant them. But buying atomizers from the local drugstores is getting old. Where's a good place to buy plastic or glass atomizer bottles?

4711 Cologne

I am currently addicted to 4711 Original Eau de Cologne but it disappears within 30 minutes. A pity. I guess I just have to carry it around if I want to be able to detect it.

While in Yokohama I ran across Fragonard's store in Minatomirai, and picked up a charming case of Eau du Bonheur solid perfume. It's quite bright and cheerful so far.

And Emanual Ungaro's Desnuda is very nice. I want a bigger decant. It doesn't seem readily available in Japan, but I will have to look around.

shopping issues, luca turin can sell anything

I identify a lot with this post from High Fashion Girl.

Have you read Luca Turin's September column at NZZ Folio? I don't even like most lavenders, but promptly after reading the column, I was off and searching the web to find places to buy Caldey Island Lavender Water. Turin's descriptions are simply entrancing. I'm looking forward to his book "Secret of Scent" which will be out in Nov. in the U.S. I think it's already been published in Europe and available in Japan, which makes me wonder why the U.S. publisher is so slow.

mini reviews: Fruits & Passion, Caswell Massey, L'Occitane

- Fruits & Passion Fruity Deodorant in Pear-Linden: The pear linden smell is lovely, but I'm finding the deodorant to be a little too heavily perfumed. I catch whiffs of it at work. It's not quite complex enough to want to perfume myself with it. I sampled Solstis deodorant in the Manila store, and that smells lovely! Light and interesting and summery. I may buy that next.

I have not yet opened my little pot of Monoi Hand Butter but the gardenia scent is luxurious. I look forward to using it in winter. The jasmine lotions also smelled divine; that may be a future purchase if I ever get tired of gardenia and almond. Current objects of desire (and greed):
* Body Care Gift Set in Monoi
* Refreshing Ritual
(Fruits & Passion have a Canadian site too.)

- Caswell Massey Almond sampler kit: Not bad. The unscented lip balm is very moisturizing so I enjoy using it at night. A little too greasy for a repurchase though. The shower lotion and hand lotion are very nice, but a little too sweet like marzipan for my taste. Haven't tried the almond shampoo or bar soap yet. Someday I hope to find Crawford & Williams hand soap for sale somewhere! That is a perfect almond scent. L'Occitane's almond line is nice, but way too pricy in Japan for me to stomach buying.

- L'Occitane Almond shea butter soap: Meh. Not much of any scent, not to mention almond. But the soap itself seems like a very nice, high quality soap. I was annoyed when one saleslady in Omotesando told me that L'Occitane doesn't make almond soap, even though I knew they sold it in the Shinjuku shop. I guess they're no longer producing it, as I could only find a link to the milk and verbena scents.

I would like to try the Almond Shower oil sometime; now it comes in a nice travel size.

mini u.k. street poll on celebrity perfumes

One of the reporters on Trevor Nelson's weekend radio show (BBC radio) went out and had three teenagers sample three celebrity perfumes and rank them. The reporter remarked on the booming celebrity fragrance trend. The sampled perfumes were JLo Love at First Glow, Sean John's Unforgivable, and Britney Spears' Curious.

The final ranking:
3. JLo - comments about the bottle: "It's quite stylish, I think a lot of girls our age would like it." About the scent, "Um, It's not my favorite but it's ok. Um, it's for like older peo... older teens." (LOL at the definition of age).
2. Sean John - "Smells quite nice, a bit fruity." "slightly fe-mi-nine smell, it's not very manly..."
and ....
1. Britney Spears "It smells quite young, like fresh and fruity. Quite good for our age group, I think. Smells how it looks, you know what I mean."

The kids seemed to really like the fruity juice: "It smells really good." Trevor Nelson would only say that Curious smells "really young" to him. And he tried Unforgivable, which was "not bad." Very amusing segment.

The perfume section of Trevor Nelson's Saturday show is at about 10:46 (an hour and 46 minutes into the show) so if you hit the skip 15min button 6 times and the skip 5 min button 3 times, you'll be right at the interview clip. I don't know how long that weekend's show will be up though.

desnuda by emanuel ungaro, The Emperor of Scent

I may be a fan! It smells soft and refined. A bit on the delicate side but interesting. Something a bit spicy and lightly sweet.

I can't remember who recommended this, but it's quite lovely so far. Not quite me, but not bad.

Chandler Burr's book The Emperor of Scent is excellent. The intelligent, clear writing is a relief to read after scanning through too many poorly written best sellers and I really enjoyed his highly accessible treatment of the science described. Luca Turin sounds absolutely fascinating. Very readable. My father enjoyed it too.

Les Parfums de Rosine: Un Zest de Rose

I stopped by a little shop in Jiyugaoka where they supposedly carry 1300 perfumes. They had an impressive display of perfumes though I don't think I saw 1300. Probably they keep a lot in back. I noticed that they carry Hermes Amazone which perfumecritic bought on his trip to the shop Jasina in Singapore. They seem to have lots of Carons also. The lady in the tiny shop had me sniff Perry Ellis F and Les Parfums de Rosine Un Zest de Rose. I liked both scents but the tea in Un Zest de Rose really appealed to me, so I bought the sampler size that she offered. Sigh, looking at fragrances is dangerous. I need to stick to trying stuff on skin, then getting a small sample. No purchasing allowed on first sniff!

update 2006-07-22: The perfume is lovely but doesn't really smell like me. I like smelling it though. I wonder if my mother would like it.

update 2006-08-14: fixed the name of Un Zest de Rose, and typos. Spelling check is my friend.

waiting for Mille et une Roses

I swung by the Lancome counter at Keio Department store to inquire about it. Apparently it will hit stores in Japan in August. So about a month left before I can try it out. I've heard very good things about it.

Since they don't have it yet, I decided to test out Estee Lauder's Azuree Body Oil spray. I was amused to notice that most of the items in the new Azuree collection are sold out at Keio. Guess it's popular! Anyway, I sprayed on a dash of the body oil and in the process splattered a bit on the counter. Ah well, that's what you get when you spray oil! I'm not so sure a body oil spray is a good idea. Seems to be asking for a mess. The scent itself is nice. Coconut and beachy, but wasn't addictive or anything, so I'll be able to survive the sold out state of things.

I ran across some scrumptious soaps in gardenia and lily, but I am still holding out for an almond soap.