May 17

Anna Sui Flight of Fancy

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So Sephora is carrying the Anna Sui line again! And this time, the perfume bottles aren’t shaped like creepy doll heads! This could be a positive or a negative, depending on your feelings about creepy doll heads. I am anti-creepy doll head, personally. They are terrifying.

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I find Anna Sui’s goth cat lady aesthetic delightful; unfortunately, her new perfumes are much less interesting.

Flight of Fancy is a discernibly lychee fragrance. It is sheer and very smooth, with none of the sharpness too often found in less successful fruity scents. There is really very little in the way of a dry down. Flight of Fancy is a perfectly nice fruity fragrance, although it does strike me as more than a little Bath & Body Works. The packaging looks cheap (the font is freaking Papyrus), but Anna Sui does offer an $18 rollerball, which is always welcome. I don’t predict much success for Flight of Fancy, but I will say that it is a pleasant and reasonably-priced fragrance. Warning: two different reviewers mention on the Sephora website that their sample of Flight of Fancy was very different from the full bottle. I am also testing from a sample.

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May 15

Done!

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Y’ALL. After two exams and fifty pages of essays, I am somehow finished with my very last set of college finals EVER EVER EVER. I so don’t have a full post in me today, but I just had to check in and see how everyone’s doing! What are the haps? What’s the best new (or new to you!) perfume you’ve tried recently? Any fun recent purchases? What perfumes are you looking forward to trying? As for me, I’ve been buying more nail polish than perfume recently, including the very festive Nails Inc. Sweets Away. Tom Ford Sahara Noir is my biggest must-try ever since Bois de Jasmin described it as ”incense and amber to the power of ten”.

Apr 25

Vicarious Perfume Shopping

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I don’t even know myself anymore. I bought five things in the Sephora VIB sale last week, and not one of them was perfume. I could redeem myself with one of the killer perfume sales going on right now, but I currently have no money because I am the world’s best daughter and spent all of it on my mom’s birthday present. (Who could say no to that face??)

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Well, I might as well share the online perfume deals I’ve noticed lately with y’all so that I can get my vicarious perfume shop on!

Parfum1 is currently having a 20% off sale! If you’ve ever purchased from them before, you should have gotten a coupon email, but if not, I’m happy to send my code to the first person who asks for it. The sale ends on the 28th.

FragranceNet is doing 15% off until the 26th. The code is on the site’s front page.

Sephora is offering a perfume mini with every fragrance purchase over $25! I might actually participate in this one, because it’s just too tempting. I’m thinking the $25 Atelier Cologne Orange Sanguine rollerball and then choose the 7 ml Narcisco Rodriguez EDT mini. The code is “TOPSCENTS”.

So will you be getting anything good? Or have you had any exciting recent perfume shopping exploits? Tell us in the comments!

P.S. Please note that the above links are not affiliate links. I don’t exactly know what affiliate links are, but they’re just regular old links.

P.S.S. The lipstick in the picture of my VIB sale haul is Clinique Black Honey. I usually avoid “cult” makeup products (like the hilariously unflattering NARS Orgasm blush), but I really like this berry color. I think I’m going to return the Fresh Rosé lip balm- it’s so much less moisturizing than the original!

Apr 18

Frederic Malle Dries van Noten

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I have two reviews for Frederic Malle Dries van Noten. The first review is the matter-of-fact one. Frederic Malle has stated that he wanted this perfume to capture Flemish desserts, and perfumer Bruno Jovanovic’s interpretation is remarkably literal. Think Jeux de Peau, Serge Lutens’s danish with apricot jam. Dries van Noten is a more polished pastry, a crepe drizzled with lemon juice and sugar. I like Dries van Noten best at the beginning, when the bite of saffron and the lemon note temper those very sweet waffles. The sandalwood dry down is pretty, but no matter how many times Frederic Malle says “Mysore sandalwood”, I find it a little scratchy and thin.

Dries van Noten is $180 for 50 ml. There are very few perfumes that are actually worth $180 for 50 ml, and I personally do not feel that Dries van Noten is one of them. If it had more saffron and creamier sandalwood, I might consider $150. But it’s probably worth noting that I can’t think of any particularly similar fragrances that would be cheaper substitutes.

Now the second review.

I wore Dries van Noten when Drew was visiting from London this past week. It was the right perfume for the polka-dotted dress I wore to impress him on his first day back. It was the right perfume for our sunny walks with the cat stroller under the magnolia and dogwood trees. And it was the right perfume for my inevitable endless crying on his last day, when everything was a last; the last time he would hold the cat that he helped me choose, the last time we would go to a favorite restaurant together, the last time I could reach for his hand and feel him squeeze back.

Frederic Malle writes that Dries van Noten is supposed to convey “the sober warmth” of Belgium, and I really and truly sense that. For such a sweet perfume, Dries van Noten is not particularly light-hearted. Seriousness is a rare quality in modern perfumes, which are more likely to be marketed as “playful” or “flirty!” Drew’s visit was wonderful, but it was also incredibly sad, and Dries van Noten felt somehow respectful of both of those aspects of our time together.

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I’m still not paying $180 for it.

Mar 27

The Final Push

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My beloved readers,

I am graduating on May 23! Maybe!

Passing all of my classes this semester is going to take everything I have, so I will not be able to post until May 17th, the date of my last final. If you do not already follow me on Twitter, please do; I will continue to be active over there.

As always, it is an honor and a pleasure to have you as readers. I will really miss you while I am away.