Yes, yes, there’s a giveaway. But first, I want to talk about what you have given me.
This is an unforgivably blurry picture of the perfumes that you have sent me in the last year. They have come in gloriously overstuffed packages from Australia, England, California, Tennessee. You didn’t want payment. You just wanted to share them with me. I have also received three handmade cat toys (long since lovingly destroyed by Zelda) and funding for a cat stroller.
I’m trying not to get my sap on, but this blog has honestly given me so much. You have made me stronger, happier, more sure of myself. Thank you so much for all of it.
So today is the actual date of my 21st birthday, and I have a rather exciting party favor for y’all! In keeping with the whole 21st theme, I will be giving away samples of 21 of my favorite fragrances. These include L’Artisan Safran Troublant, Serge Lutens Un Bois Vanille, Etat Libre d’Orange Bijou Romantique, Frederic Malle Lipstick Rose, Ormonde Jayne Woman, Kai, Lolita Lempicka, L de Lolita Lempicka, Bond No. 9 New Haarlem, Guerlain L’Heure Bleue, Guerlain Après l’Ondée, Comptoir Sud Pacifique Vanille Mokha, Jo Malone Black Vetyver Cafe, and eight others that I haven’t thought of yet because 21 is actually a pretty big number when you really think about it.
To be eligible for this giveaway, you must be an email subscriber or a Twitter follower. (Sorry, y’all, it’s my Blogging and Online Writing class homework!) If you are not already a subscriber or follower, please scroll down to the bottom of the blog and click either follow button. (Or maybe both?)
To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment telling us how you celebrated your 21st birthday!
The giveaway will be open until 8 AM Monday morning. Good luck, y’all!
SCENTS OF SELF 
Happy birthday! 🙂
I would love to answer your question but I honestly don’t remember – it was quite a while ago that I celebrated my 21st birthday. 🙂
Thank you, Ines! We will just have to assume that you had such a crazy 21st that you have no memory of it! 😉
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
I had 3 surprise parties organised by family and 2 sets of friends. I really didn’t want anything but enjoyed all of them immensely. Mum was especially sneaky, engineering a fight so I’d be with someone else arriving at the Harbour Cruise she organised so she could get on with the stuff that needed doing. It was pretty special.
Portia xx
Oh man, the classic fake-fight-for-a-surprise-party maneuver! Nicely done, Portia’s mom/mum!
My 21st birthday was just a year ago. I remember I had delicious chocolate-cherry cake and I got a jumper as a gift. Oh, and I also gifted myself with a bottle of perfume.
Om nom nom!
Haha 🙂 Yes, I was exactly like that with this cake! 😀
Happy birthday!
I spent my 21st going to my first dance club, and meeting someone who I would actually wind up marrying. 🙂
Cuuuute, Eileen! I met Drew under similar circumstances, at a very grody frat party 😉 Haven’t been back to that frat (or any other) since!
Happy birthday Ari! I celebrated my 21st bday the way many Americans do – getting way too drunk with a whole bunch of friends and having to pull over as my friend drove me home to throw up! I did have lots of fun before the shots started. Thankfully, in the many years since then, I’ve figured out the right and wrong ways to drink, and shots are no longer involved!
(I am following you on twitter – jasouza9)
Thank you, odonata! Your poor, hilarious 21-year-old self! I will heed your hard-earned wisdom and stay away from shots tonight.
Done – I am delighted to follow your blog! As for my 21st birthday, that was quite a while ago, and hard to remember. There is photographic evidence (taken by my uncle) of me drinking my first beer at my birthday party – I think it was my 21st (or was it the 18th? The drinking laws in New Jersey have gone back and forth over the years). I’ll say it was my 21st birthday – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
And I am delighted to have you as a follower, Patty! I used to be very grumpy about the drinking age having been pushed back to 21, but after three years at a college with an active Greek scene, I’ve actually come to believe that we would have a much higher rate of alcohol-related fatalities if the drinking age was 18.
Happy birthday again!! I was in Houston for my 21st birthday; there was a really shady dive bar near Rice that people seemingly only went to on their 21st birthdays, and that’s where I went too. Followed that up with a super-luxurious dinner at Mark’s — still one of the best meals I’ve ever had. It was pretty fun, but I definitely drank too much!
Thank you again!! 😀 There you go again, rubbing your amazing Rice experiences in my face… 😉
My 21st is EVERY DAY! Yes, every day my family is healthy, happy, thriving is my 21st. We will celebrate my 21st today with a few random hugs in passing, saying I love you as one walks out the door or as we are ending a conversation. Someone here will voluntarily, without thinking, ask someone if there is anything they can do for them and mean it! You get the idea. Every day I will touch base, via email, facebook, phone with one of my very loving friends. We will order out and pick up or I may find something in the refridg to cook. My 21st will look like a normal day to everyone else, but at the end of it, as we all settle down and rest for the next day, and the house becomes quiet, I will smile and say to my self, I thank the spirits above for this day, and for my 21st tomorrow! Corny but absolutely true. Ari, you are pure delight! I am an email follower and very, very happy to have found you!
Thank you so much, judith! I am so happy to have you here! Your policy is wonderful and wise. I wish you a happy 21st, today and every day!
Happy Birthday! Hope you have a wonderful day!
Honestly, like Ines, I can’t remember what I did for my 21st birthday – yikes! Now I feel old. 😉
(I began following you on twitter after Alyssa’s suggestion and linked to your blog from your tweet. Will that help with your homework?)
Thank you so much, Lauren Alicia! And thank you for sharing your path here, that’s definitely helpful for class. I know pretty much nothing about the technical side of blogging, so I badly needed this course!
Happy birthday, Ari
I can’t remember exactly how I celebrated my 21 birthday ( long, long time ago) but I’m pretty sure it was a tete-a-tete with my first big love ( I remember perfectly my 20th aniversary though-with him and a couple of close friends, discussing important matters and drinking good wine)
kisses
Thank you so much, Irina! Your 20th birthday sounds perfect. I love smaller parties- and everything seems like an important matter over good wine!
I celebrated my 18th birthday at a bar in my college town, taking shots and getting plastered with my sorority sisters and my then-boyfriend. It was a pretty small group because my birthday inevitably ended up falling right before exams or over Thanksgiving break – it may have actually been after my real birthday that we had the party. Ending up puking in a trashcan on the street after! It sounds weird, but it’s a very happy memory. One of the last “good times” with that boyfriend before our relationship descended into a horrible dysfunctional/abusive abyss.
Yessss, another puking story! Give me more!! MOAAAARRRR!
Er, I wrote 18th and totally meant 21st. LOL
Happy birthday!! I was far far away from my Scottish homeland on my long ago 21st birthday, visiting my in laws to be in Denver Colorado.
It was strange to encounter the fact that I couldn’t legally drink in a Denver bar until my actual birthday, having been downing bucketloads of wine, gin, whisky you name it since well before my 18th birthday here in the UK.
So my 21st dawned and we all went out for pizza and beer. Lo and behold I was asked for my ID – and did not have it…. Made up for it later in another bar following a visit to collect the required paperwork – so much so that the bartender was refusing to serve us at the end of the evening..
Thank you, scentandshinythings! Do you still live in Scotland? How’s the perfume shopping over there??
I’m so glad to be following you now – I check this blog weekly, so it’s about time!
I have not yet reached my 21st birthday, but I spent my *last* birthday eating birthday pie (november birthdays… it’s a curse) and watching “Elf” with my best friend in the world. And honestly, my 21st will proabably look about the same, with maybe a glass of wine. Because that’s just how exciting my life is!
Thank you so much for the giveaway, Ari! And happy birthday!
And I’m so glad to have you as a follower, anawondering! Thank you! I think you may be underestimating the appeal of Birthday Pie. May I refer you to this post? http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/03/pie-verus-cake-scientific-approach.html
I think I like pie better than cake, but have to disagree with miss hyperbole on the specifics – the frosting is the worst part of the cake in most cases and the crust is the best part of the pie!
wow, this is truly amazing gieaway – since some of the brands you mentioned are not available locally (and even nationally – i am from Ukraine). I do hope that the giveaway is open internaitonally. I do remember my 21st birthday – it was a huge party for my friends and relatives, i did nothing like this afterwords. Thanks, Radmila, rada76@Mail.ru
The giveaway is totally open to international readers, Radmila! My grandfather was also Ukranian (or Czech, depending on the frequently shifting borders!)
Happy Birthday!
As an American, I too remember reveling in my first legal alcohol purchase. I remember that they didn’t check my ID — which kind of made that first purchase a little anticlimactic!
Thank you, baconbiscuit! I don’t think that they’ll ever stop checking my ID, unless I somehow luck into a late-life growth spurt.
It’s a good thing to always get asked for ID to make sure you’re old enough. Take it from me: it’s sad when they stop!
To one of my favorite bloggers: Happy birthday.
Kisses from Croatia!
Thank you so much, Bellatrix! I hope you’ve been well!
Happy birthday to a fantastic blogger! My 21st was silly. I was in college and had a lateish class, so I wasn’t going to do anything at first. I ended up meeting my friend at a taco place before class and we were supposed to “split” a pitcher of margaritas for a mini celebration. This split turned out very uneven, so I went to class a little hazy. I was spacing out during lecture and I remember the prof kept saying SATAN all of a sudden. Still can’t recall why, but it was very jarring. Then we had a pop attendance essay thing about civil rights. I wrote sooooo much because I had no filter and was just ~feelin it~. Then I peaced out. The prof never handed those essays back. I really wanted to see my handwriting, but maybe it’s for the best. So short version, I spent my 21st drunkenly saluting the Civil Rights Movement.
On my 21st birthday I sat moping in my studentroom with a fever and influensa, feeling sorry for myself. In the afternoon I finally thought I might manage to eat something and tottered out to our shared kitchen. One of my fellow student generously fed me some of her delicious salad and somewhat more cheerful I tottered back to my room.
Only a moment after I closed the door to my room there was knocking on my door and outside was all my fellow students from the corridor/dorm with a big birthday cake!
We went back to the kitchen and gorged ourselves.
Aferwards I went back to my room and disovered that my friends had snuck in and decorated the whole room with balloons and an appropriate stolen roadsign…
On the pictures from that day I look feverish but happy!
On my 21st birthday I went out for drinks with my sister, my brother in law and a couple of friends. A few too many drinks later I went home and drank a large glass of water and took some vitamin C. I had an early test the next day. I don’t remember how I did on the test. Happy Birthday to you Ari. I hope you have a great time. I enjoy following you via email – I don’t do Twitter.
I got 21 pitchers at a bar in Iowa City for my 21st birthday, but it was a Sunday, so only a few people got crazy. The best thing about my 21st was my outfit: I wore a cheetah-print strapless dress. Make sure you wear something fabulous for your 21st birthday Ari! Happy Birthday and thanks for the giveaway!
Jenn
What a great idea!!!
Happy Birthday, Ari!
I’m one step further: not only I follow you on Twitter and subscribe by e-mail, but I’m also getting your RSS feed 😉
My 21st birthday was too long ago to remember especially taking into the account that it wasn’t such a special milestone in the country where I lived then: we were considered adults with complete rights (including drinking 😉 ) at 18. I can guess that I had a small party at my apartment (since we were always selebrating all the birthdays back then), with my vSO and 6-8 friends.
On my 21st,I was raising 2 small children…how DID I do that???…college came at age 27…the perfumista came out from hiding,and life was good again…the samples are to die for11…LOVE THE CAT STROLLER…you are so fun!!…HAPPY 21st!
Again, Happy birthday dear! I´m sorry, but I really don´t remember how I celebrated my 21st birthday… I guess I had a small party and then I went to a bar =D Ps.OMG those samples sounds interesting! Wow.
Happy Birthday, Ari!
My 21st birthday? It was so long ago the details are sketchy. I remember a bar in Ann Arbor. Couldn’t tell you the name, but I remember where it was in relationship to the Greek house I was living in. We once counted the number of steps from the front door of this establishment to the front door of our house. And it involved tequila, limes and salt. Nuff said.
Wishing you the best fragrant year ever!
Ari, happy, happy birthday. I can’t believe you are 21!! How did the time pass by so quickly?
Let’s definitely schedule a late-but-great b’day celebration when Julisa gets home, okay? In the meantime, I’ll follow you on twitter and read every blog you write. Thank you for giving so much of your time, talent, wit and funny insights and observations to all of your fans. You are AMAZING and we (I) love you!
Happy 21st, Ari! Have a stellar year!!
Happy birthday Ari! Love your blog, and now I am all “hip with it” doin’ the subscriber thing. Please let us know how your day was! I went so all out (rager, house-destroying, air-raid-blackout, friendship/relationship-testing) for my twentieth birthday and was still scarred from the experience so I did not to advertise my 21st and took it very easy.
Happy 21st Ari! I’ve no clue what I did on my 21st birthday as it was 26 years ago. Oh I’m feeling OLD…
I do remember, though, being thrilled that I was of legal age to buy alcohol!
I’ve only just found your blog, and so glad I did – it brings me a smile each time I read it. Thanks for the giveaway!
On a kayaking trip with my parents canoeing club……
Happy actual birthday, Ari. Hope you’ve been having a memorable time.
Okey, dokey since it’s for your class I have just become an email follower and not just a regular reader. I don’t do the Twitter thing although I have in the past clicked on your link and I have to say I was surprised, nay shocked, to see you holding a DOG! (Admittedly a very cute dog.) This may be why Zelda is destroying toys/toes.
I too do not specifically remember my decades-ago 21st. Probably because, while I was patiently waiting for 21, the legal age changed to 19 when I was already 20. So anti-climactic. Meanwhile when I was at university first year I was taking a seminar class on Friday afternoons that was populated mostly by third-years. So one afternoon the TA says “I think we should re-locate this discussion to the pub.” Whence I pathetically offered that I was 4 years under the magic 21 and they did check ID. His answer: “Don’t worry, we’ll get you milk and cookies.” I still cringe.
As for puking stories, I have one piece of advice: Do NOT drink Southern Comfort while indulging in hash brownies.
Thinking about blog technicalities, I wonder if you could put back some simple way to access your archives. I love the simplicity and impact of your current header and page format, but there’s no handy way to get to old blogger interviews, etc.
Happy happy b’day you fantastic blogger. My 21st was rather sedate with around 15 close friends at a Vietnamese restaurant but as the rest of my life involved getting trashed, dancing to great music, playing D&D and snogging boys it was a great break in the routine!
Happy Birthday! 🙂
I didn’t do anything for my 21st birthday. I’ve never been much of a birthday celebrator.
(I’m an email subscriber.)
Happy Birthday for yesterday Ari! I hope you had a wonderful time.
No need to enter me in the draw 😀
Hope you have a great 21st. I spent my 21st in Las Vegas. The trip was a birthday trip from my parents. and it was back in the Dark Ages when dinasaurs walked the earth. lol
Happy Birthday! ^_^
I celebrated my 21st in Sicily with a couple of girlfriends: September is rather hot there, in more ways than one (ahem!)… This was pretty much the last time I got really tanned (for my pale standards) and spoke Italian on a daily basis…long gone are the days.
Enjoy your youth, if you can: it is all so fleeting!
I just went out to eat and had a cake.
2dogs5catscrew@att.net
Happy Birthday, Ari. 🙂 I have to think back for a minute… My 21st was more of a mild one, because my parents were there (and their friends). We had it at a nice restaurant, and my first drink was a God-awful sour apple martini. I kept thinking that that was how it was supposed to taste. haha I found out later that one of the guests was an alcoholic, and I had no idea at the time. He kept asking me if my martini was good.
Can I still enter even though I’m not 21 yet? Heehee, I’d LOVEE to try so many of your favourite perfumes~ \^^/ Tomorrow’s my 19th birthday actually and my final exams are just around the corner so I doubt I’ll be doing anything too crazy. Probably just a day spent with people I love most. I’m more excited for it than I should be but oh wellll =D
I can’t remember how I celebrated my 21st! I wasn’t excited about being of legal drinking age. I’m sure I did something with my then-boyfriend, now husband of 18 years : ) HAPPY BIRTHDAY and thank you for the draw!
Happy Bday! I spent my 21st with my family we had a small dinner and cake. It was nice and simple.
Happy birthday! Let us know what birthday perfume you decided on. I haven’t actually hit 21 yet, but I’m sure the birthday celebration will include friends and family and whiskey.
So sorry I am late with my birthday greetings, but I haven’t been online much in recent weeks – I hope you had a great day!
I do recall my 21st, as I was living alone in the South of France, left behind to clean up the villa I had been sharing with two other British girls, who had already gone home. I packed a picnic, mopedded to Monte Carlo, and attempted to gain access to the casino, for which the minimum age to enter was 21. However, I was turned away by the doormen, who said I looked too young. Even when I presented my passport I had had the foresight to bring along with me, they still wouldn’t let me in because they thought it was a date two days earlier. When some passing tourists put them straight on this point they burst into song to wish me happy birthday and finally allowed me into the casino – just to have a look around you understand.