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.

styling my hair... not!

I tried blowdrying my hair straight today. Just for a more groomed appearance because none of the styling products I own seem to be able to do anything with my currently wavy and frizzy hair.

I lost patience after 5 minutes. Straightening hair takes too long! Hee. I am so impatient.

In other news, I bought Coty's Sand and Sable perfume. A big bottle of summery gardenia. But there's something about the coconut? mixed with gardenia that I don't quite like. I prefer The Body Shop Indian Gardenia over it. I guess I'll just break Sand and Sable up into little samples for my friends to mess around with.

I also found Le Feu D'Issey Light at the duty free shop in Narita Airport, and because it smelled interesting and has been discontinued and is in the absolute cleverest little red rubber casing (you rotate the bottle inside it's case until the nozzle is higher than the rubber casing, then you can spray it; rotate it back for normal storage). I still can't decide whether to resell it or open it up :D. I want it, but it's pure materialism speaking.

I finally (finally!) got to try Yves Saint Laurent's In Love Again. The sample atomizer is kind of poorly designed and dribbles after you spray it, although the logo is cute. The scent is rather nice but a little duller than I hoped for. I wonder if the sample had gone bad? No fresh grapefruit tang. Pretty weak sillage too. Ah well. I need to try 4711. Maybe that'll give me a nice grapefruit.

I also spotted Flower by Kenzo Oriental in the Chicago airport, but they didn't have a tester so I couldn't justify buying it. They did have a tester for the recently discontinued Carolina Herrera Chic, which didn't impress me at first but the drydown was nice and rather chic (harhar). Not addictive though, so I am safe from that lemming.

packing

I've only packed gifts and my suitcase is almost full. I hereby will stop hoarding gifts for people. Even though it's fun. At least I've stopped sending packages to people (for the most part; I still take requests).

I have a long list of things (mostly beauty products) that are recommended and I would like to try. This list is pretty much just an invitation to consumerism, so I'm really tempted to throw away the list. That way I'll only buy the things that I can recall from the list. However, if I were to throw away the list, I would probably regret it later and be forced to reassemble it by trolling all my favorite websites. Which would be a waste of time. So I keep the list. I've stopped updating the perfume list though. Now I just read perfume reviews and think "How lovely!" and go back to work.

I had my Japanese teacher sniff my Une Zeste de Rose. She seemed to like it quite a lot, even though she's fairly anti-perfume. She only wears 4711 and finds everything else too strong. Despite not being a perfume fan, she apparently receives presents of perfume quite frequently. I am encouraging her to give out little decants of the perfumes, as she never wears them herself. One way to get rid of them :D Perfume should be used and enjoyed, after all.

I bet English teachers read blogs like this and cry about the declining education level in America. Yes, yes, I will proofread and brush up on my punctuation.

In an unrelated note, have you read Shirley Manson's blog (of the group Garbage)? She sounds super cool.

toilet paper from recycled pulp

All of the toilet paper that is made from 100% recycled wood pulp seems to be pretty flat and unfluffy. I guess the recycled paper just doesn't have any elasticity left?

Listening to:
DT8 Project - 'Hold Me' (Mondo)
Andy Galea vs Soulshaker - 'Unknown' (White Label)
Peetu S - 'Bigger Palace' (Altitude Netherlands )
Memoir - 'Listen To The Release' (White Label)
Chocolate Puma - 'Always And Forever' (Positiva)

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.

fragrance spritzes

GF Ferre for Her - floral, simple, pretty. It's ok. Thumbs sideways.

GF Ferre for Him - darker, more woodsy? Reminds me of a fragrance that I can't talk about yet. Would like to smell it on a guy, but I think Omnia is more interesting. Thumbs sideways.

L'Eau par Kenzo for Women - light, methinks these are ozone notes. Not bad. Thumbs sideways.

Flower by Kenzo - what the heck? It smells... like some common chemical that escapes me at the moment. All I can come up with is fragrant nail polish, but that's not it. Household detergent? Ajax? Laf. I don't know what, but it's a very straightforward smell. Laf. Flower?!? Thumbs down, although it's not bad or boring; it just doesn't smell good on me.

And that was all the real estate I had available to test with.