It’s the weekend — plus Hanukkah starts at sundown on Sunday, Chag Sameach! — and we’re repeating a poll we’ve done for the past few years around this time. As always, answer as few or as many as you like, or just talk about something else.
1. What fragrance are you wearing today?
2. What’s your favorite holiday (any holiday) food, OR, what’s the best thing you cooked in 2025? (Feel free to share or link to a recipe!)
3. Did you make any perfume-related resolutions for 2025, and if so, did you stick to them?
4. Possibly related to #3, what’s the next fragrance you are itching to buy?
5. Share something wonderful with us! It can be anything — something delicious you ate, a great movie you saw recently, the last good book you read, any fabulous news you recently received — really, anything…
Note: top image is Christmas Succulent [cropped] by Sheila Sund at flickr; some rights reserved.
Happy weekend everyone!
1. Bvlgari Baciami, delicious vanilla with soft white floral.
2. Favourite food has got to be stuffing. I even think that might be the real reason why we have turkey.
3. Try not to buy blind no matter how tempted. I think I stuck to this and saved some coins!
4. Dior Tobacolor.
5. I loved Wicked: For Good! I will admit Part 1 was better but it was still a great movie. Loved all the songs! I am going to see the new Avatar next week and I am excited! It’s 3 hrs long so you bet I’ll buy some popcorn.
LesLiesse, some blue-reds I’d recommend are the classic MAC Russian Red, Dior’s iconic 999 (they do this in various finishes) and Lisa Eldridge’s Velvet Ribbon. Hope they are what you are looking for!
Thank you H888C!
1 Sampling Lutens DeProfundis. What a beauty this is. I’m not all that keen on floral fragrances, but my skin amps the frankincense in this one beautifully. Thanks to the generous NSTer who did a lovely sample swap with me.
2 – I love turkey and use any holiday as an excuse to roast one. Husband loves it too so we eat turkey and turkey sandwiches for a week, then I make a turkey vegetable barley soup and eat that for another week. Sometimes I freeze some of the bones for future soup. I do not mind repetition in my diet, clearly. The best thing I cooked this year was a new to me was kalinte, a Moroccan chickpea flour savory bread akin to soca, the flat chickpea flour pancake of Nice and Genoa. It uses chickpea flour, cumin, salt, milk, harissa and is easy peasy to make.
3 – I don’t make resolutions.
4 – There are several perfumes I’m itching to buy, but I will be patient and stalk them on the online sites. I like partial bottles since I hardly ever use anything up, so will wait for those, as they’re cheaper.
5 – You and NST is wonderful, Robin. What a generous bunch of folks. I especially loved reading about everybody’s passions and hobbies and interests. Thanks to this site, I now know what a Galileo thermometer is, and I’m going to check out more recent Rosalia music. I’ve also gotten wonderful book recommendations here and I appreciate all the samples and decants that people have generously shared with me and the wonderful swaps.
You smell profoundly lovely💕
Thank you allo. For many things.
DH, you’re reading my mind on how utterly uplifting and delightful yesterday’s CP was!
It was so much fun to read all the posts, LesLiesse, I agree. And I would like an invite if your auto museum ever does a joint “car culture aromas/perfumes” exhibit. You can curate it. It could be one of those joint mash-ups (cars & scent) that would draw a unique audience and Scent Bar could provide the fragrances. I thought of another perfume that smells like ‘new car’ to me – Cuir de Lancome. But like the seats, not like gasoline.
I’ll pass the idea along to our chief curator and our chief historian!
This truly is a generous and kind group…and I learn something new here almost every day 🙂
Kilian Enchanted Goddess, a gift from a dear friend.
Favorite holiday is Easter.
No perfume resolutions.
Not itching to buy anything, perfume or otherwise.
Something wonderful is my children are well and employed, the fur babies celebrate their birthdays this month ( the ladies are 13, the crazy boy is 7) and I’m still adhering to my healthy lifestyle changes since the summer. I walked five miles this morning in 17F degrees and saw my horse friends, dear friends, a black cat and made a new dog friend!!!
https://www.instagram.com/chocolatemarzipan8/p/DSNeD3bkWpr/
Five miles in 17F weather! 🤯 Impressive! And what a cute new friend!
VERY impressive! I salute you, chocolatemarzipan.
I don’t want to lose my momentum so I just keep going!
She was so adorable!!! Wouldn’t stand still for a photo though!!!
I need to follow your exercise example and “Just Do It!”
Something wonderful: it’s that time of year again, when we can peruse with longing the beautiful, hilarious, weird, and even eerie ornaments offered by Choosing Keeping:
https://choosingkeeping.com/collections/ornaments
I did, in fact, order one of the expensive spun cotton ornaments last year, and it was every bit as wonderful as I had envisioned, plus they send you a nostalgically colored news print catalogue.
I was deeply disappointed this year that by the time I decided to order this Krampus, it was already sold out 😿
https://choosingkeeping.com/products/christmas-ornament-spun-cotton-santa
Be sure to click on the History tab!
The mushrooms!!!!!! Wow!!! I like the black cat as well but it’s sold out.
I KNOW! I want a tree decorated entirely in mushrooms!
Be sure to check out the spun cotton ornaments of ladies carrying mushrooms or wearing mushroom hats. Apparently, those red mushrooms with the white spots are traditional good luck charms.
I saw that 🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄
I have those mushrooms on my lawn
So envious — I’ve never even seen one IRL!
https://www.instagram.com/chocolatemarzipan8/p/DQPWyrfkQ5D/
The ornaments are gorgeous! (And very expensive!)
The bats! So many of these are so good.
Love those ornaments-thanks for sharing this. 😸
Fun link!!
1. Clinique Wrappings.
2. Spanish Flan.
3. I stopped making perfume-related resolutions long time ago.
4. I am not itching to buy any fragrance right now.
5. I am meeting with friends at a restaurant tonight for Christmas dinner. Looking forward to it eagerly!
Happy weekend! 🌻
Enjoy your dinner!
Thank you! 😻
Oh, Wrappings is so good! Like a supernova you can smell instead of see. I can’t believe they discontinued it.
That’s one of the wonderful, favorite perfumes I regret not getting a backup bottle. I will miss it greatly when my bottle is finished.
Any special restaurant y’all frequent for a tradition?
We usually go to our favorite Persian restaurant. The food there is excellent and we always have a great time together!
I miss Persian food! There’s an amazing restaurant in Morristown NJ that serves it.
I think I’ve been there. We sat by one of the windows although the place was so tiny it felt like we were all by the window!
I miss Wrappings.
I miss Wrappings.
I hit reply twice. I don’t miss Wrappings so much that I felt compelled to say it twice, haha.
I hope they bring it back some day!
Did you ever try the Wrappings lotion/body smoother? It smelled exactly like the perfume.
1. Discontinued Givenchy Néroli Original
2. Currently making homemade clotted cream and attempting my first batch of scones. I am attempting to throw a proper English tea party. Help!
3. I don’t understand the question
4. Something straight out of a Jilly Cooper novel — bold, glamorous, slightly excessive. I’m forever chasing that 80s energy where florals were fearless and nobody worried about being “too much.”
5. On the horizon: skiing, holiday parties, and a bit of travel. Taking a much needed break from my docent work. I’m deep into the Jilly Cooper universe, reading the series completely out of order 🙂
The 80s was definitely my favorite perfume decade and I wore those fragrances with reckless abandon when they weren’t vintage and top notes were intact! IMHO, the best decade for perfume!
And your favorite?
Honestly, couldn’t pick a favorite but I’ll tell you what I remember wearing in the 80s ( some might be 70s perfumes)….Chloe,Oscar de la Renta, Obsession, Poison, Nocturnes de Caron, Calyx, Giorgio, Victoria, Beautiful, Byblos, numerous Body Shop oils, Tatiana, Gloria Vanderbilt, Coco and many many more that I’m forgetting at the moment.
Giorgio was the most vivid in my mind because my senior year in high school at Professional Children’s School in Manhattan one of my classmates was a professional model and she wore Giorgio before anyone had even heard of it. I ran to Bloomingdale’s to purchase it because they had the exclusive selling rights at that time. For a brief moment my model schoolmate and I were the only ones wearing it lol
And boy oh boy, I sprayed them all with abandon!
Me too!! Me too!!! (Although I still spray with abandon 😂)
Oooh tea party, how fun! I love them. I am sure you don’t need this but this site gave me so much help when I prepared mine. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/how-throw-afternoon-tea-party
Thank you! 🙏
LTSG, bravo on the homemade scones! Hope they’re delicious for your tea! Where are you going skiing?
LTSG-#3 is if you made any New Year’s resolutions regarding perfume. For example, did you make a resolution that you would not blind buy any perfume this year and then if you did or didn’t keep that resolution. Hope that explains it for you.
I understood the question perfectly and was only being facetious.
I thought that might be the case but wasn’t sure.
How did your tea party go?
Christmas is always the time for fresh cherries and raspberries. In fact, picking raspberries at the farm ( and also new peas) was often part and parcel of preparing for Christmas dinner. The fruit was warm from the summer heat, and so juicy- staining your fingers. One of my favourite foods was gooseberry pie. Top and tailing gooseberries was so tedious as a kid but the tart pie was so delicious. Same with blackcurrants. I don’t know anyone who grows gooseberries now and I miss them. They used to be a staple, along with rhubarb and blackcurrants in most 1960s gardens. Something wonderful: the grand old lime trees are in flower. There’s one in the botanic gardens across from the supermarket and if you do your shopping at 7.30am ( when the shop opens) you can smell wafts of its scent as you load your groceries and return the trundler ( the cart). Wearing JM French lime blossom.
I never tire of marveling at what a completely different experience Christmas is in the Southern Hemisphere. Yours sounds wonderful!
I’ve read there is a small town in the coldest (high elevation) part of South Africa that celebrates a traditional European-style Christmas in July.
Your berries sound amazing
Kanuka, thank you again for suggesting yesterday’s CP! Your berry picking sounds idyllic! The flowering lime blossoms sound heavenly and you’re perfectly scented for them!
We grow gooseberries! My late neighbor shared her plants with us years ago and now we have several shrubs. The berries are delicious! The problem is, the birds think so, too, and no matter how difficult we try to make their access, they often get them before we do.
Your comment just made a connection for me about a neighbor’s comment from years ago. She was born in Australia. A rental house in our Midwestern US neighbor had a marvelously productive pie cherry tree that no renter ever seemed to care about so she and her husband would pick the fruit. I commented on how glad I was that that they could enjoy the cherrys. I was struck by the look of joy which came over her face as she said “yes, and we will have cherry pie at Christmas!”
Oh I had the most wonderful sleep last night.
SOTD will be day three of PdE Madagascar Balm Vanille.
It’s so balmy, almost creamy. I am so happy I purchased this one.
I have stuck to my 2025 purchasing plan. I did purchase the new Shalimar and Deixis and turned around and sold them as they were not loves.
Stuffing rocks but it has to be eaten with mashed potatoes.
I bought a new dutch oven and have been going down the list of NYT best recipes.
Scentimental Value was a wonderful movie. I loved it.
Have a good and safe day all!
I probably should try that PdE!
I miss stuffing, and agree it needs mashed potato, even more than it needs gravy.
1. I needed something with a golden glow to it before I headed out on this cold morning (not as cold as yesterday — the wind was savage), so I easily settled on L’Artisan Safran Troublant. It makes me so happy.
2. Well, this is probably horrible but I don’t care: the thing I love most about holiday dinners is the stuffing. The boxed kind. I don’t need fancy recipes with four kinds of artisanal bread, I don’t even need turkey or cranberry sauce or any of it: I just want that stuffing.
3. I didn’t really make any resolutions except “Try not to buy anything,” and for the most part I stuck to it except I bought a whole bunch of REALLY cheap fun things on vacation in April for maybe $50 total and then ordered a half dozen proper seventies & eighties vintage fragrances in September. Next year I think I’ll have an easier time not buying anything: I ordered a lot of decanting vials and have done a deep dive into my collection so I can wear some treasured things more often and bring them with me.
4. Nothing, most likely, though I might get a few vintage CSP backup bottles while they still exist: my dealer still has the old Vanille Abricot in the metal canister and I do own a wee glass bottle of the newer stuff but it’s not as good, not really.
5. Kurzgesagt is a reliable source of amazement and their most recent video is about what happens inside your body on a microscopic level when you get a tattoo removed. It is ASTONISHING. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4KMQuyxH_Y (An earlier video on what happens when you get that tattoo in the first place is equally staggering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGggU-Cxhv0)
Stuffing is awesome. It would be deeply unbalanced, but a holiday meal of stuffing, roast potatoes and a mince tart would be just fine by me.
Splashing out $50 for cheapies sounds really fun!
Which vintage ones did you buy?
Weil de Weil and Weil Antilope, both identifiably from the seventies; Choc de Cardin from 1981; and, from some indeterminate time probably in the 2000s and not as vintage as I had hoped but still good, Jean Couturier Coriandre and Jil Sander No. 4. Neither of the Weils is actually beautiful, but they’re both fascinating, and sometimes that’s even better. (Someone on here posted to say that they were meant to be worn with a fur coat, and I can see that.) The Coriandre has been reformulated, I can tell, to be a green floral but it’s still nice. The Cardin was my initial favourite since it comes the closest to being a true chypre — I ordered things that had, or promised to have, lots of oakmoss in them — but as I’ve worn them I’ve realized that the Jil Sander is a real treasure, the last gasp of those massive eighties orientals touched by oakmoss, and I’ve put it in heavy rotation: it’s perfect for winter.
Count me in your stuffing squad! Great time to carb load.
My favorite stuffing was always the James Beard basic (so old I can’t find it online): stale white bread, celery, onion, chicken broth and poultry seasoning. It was easy and delicious and I was always disappointed with fancier stuffings. Somewhere I have it written down on a recipe card, ha…I have not used a recipe card in so long I do not remember where the box is.
That sounds very close to what my Mom used to make. But she never knew about James Beard.
My perfume resolution is the same every year, and it applies to many things – try for some restraint and commonsense! Results vary 🙂 .
I’m thinking hard about a bottle of Guerlain’s Encens Mythique. The reviews suggest that it’s very similar to Encens Mythique D’Orient, which bought about 10 years ago. That’s getting well down, but I also know that it will probably take another 10 years to thunk it. Do I really need another bottle???
Yes, it’s discontinued so you should get it
Yes, both are close aka lovely, so good to get a bottle while they’re around
Also cheap on discounter sights
Well I just learned there’s a difference between Encens Mythique snd EM D’Orient. I thought EM was just the shortened title.
They are different, but I believe they smell almost the same and are by the same perfumer. Someone correct me if I am wrong. I believe the original EM was much more expensive.
Encens Mythique was probably one of my best buys this year from a discounter.
It’s not really the holidays without panettone! I have already bought one, as well as a mini, just in case I’m tempted to dig in right away.
I had vaguely resolved to make a dent in my decant collection, and have made some progress. For new items I’m slaking that thirst with a swap, which I’m really looking forward to.
Watching “Mysteries from Above” and other than the narrators’ inclination to be Overly Dramatic it’s an enjoyable show going around the globe covering both archaeology and the natural world.
I think I vaguely resolved to do that last year too, and made ZERO progress.
The Gone Forever aspect of some of them was surprisingly tough
Yeah, I bet.
I’m with you on the panettone! I’ve already bought 2 – full size!😊
I don’t normally buy panettone and I decided to venture out this year. The Trader Joe’s chocolate chip ones (the biggest one) came highly recommended. I taste-tested it to oblivion and now I have to go back and buy another one. At $14.95 a pop, it’s a no brainer, unless they’ve run out!
Sotd is SL Arabie from a very generous NSTer sample. It’s delicious!
My favorite holiday is Christmas and I love Swedish Christmas Cookies/Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes/Snowballs. By any name they taste as sweet! 😋
I didn’t this year but I am resolved in 2026 to wear my collection with abandon and I need you all as my accountability group🧐
Due to some recent fragrant purchases, the only thing I’d snap up in a heartbeat is if a bottle of Roberto Greco Oeilleres fell into my lap (Christmas miracle required)
My little sister has been trying to have a baby for the past couple of years and the ups and downs have been really rough on her. She just told me that she’s 7 weeks and 5 days pregnant, farther along than she’s ever been. It’s early of course but her doctors are hopeful. Nothing would make her and her husband (and our entire family) as happy as to have a new little member of our crazy clan. Cautiously optimistic💕
We called them Mexican Wedding Balls and made them every year, for years and years and years. I can taste them in my head right now 🙂
VERY best wishes to your sister!
Thank you, Robin😊
Another name! And yes, the taste is so particular, so memorable and so addictive!
Best wishes and fervent prayers on behalf of your sister and b-i-l!
Merci, LesLiesse. C’est très gentil de ta part💕
I will keep my best wishes cautiously low key and optimistic as well but no less heartfelt.
Thank you, DeniseH💕
Adding my cautious 🤞for your sister to the others’.
Thank you, Laila🤞
Crossing fingers and paws here for your sister and BIL!
Thank you, Jalapeno and Teflon Kitty!🐾
1. BBW Vanilla Bean Noel body wash and body cream with Shalimar MJ perfume. The jasmine seems to keep getting stronger.
2. Definitely stuffing that my father taught me how to make when I was a little girl. I just use the herb seasoned stuffing cubes and then add sauteed celery, onions, mushrooms and water chestnuts. I also add the cooked turkey giblets and chicken broth. Pretty easy but always good.
3. I may have made a resolution but do not remember what it would be except maybe to quit blind buying. I don’t have a huge collection of fragrances (maybe 30), but I want to get rid of a few and start wearing ones I really like rather than ones I find mediocre. Not sure when the next swapmeet is so may just give them away to people that would like them.
4. Nothing.
5. I am loving this book I mentioned the other day about the bespoke perfume. Again, the book is Full Bloom.
Kris, what additional note makes it go from Vanilla Bean to VB Noel?
I don’t think anything. It’s just that BBW only brings it out during the holiday months. It is not carried all year round.
Happy Weekend! And happy 100th birthday to Dick Van Dyke! Again, thank you Kanuka and Robin for a marvelous CP yesterday!!!
1. Sotd Clinique Happy Heart inspired by DvD in Bye Bye Birdie singing Put on a Happy Face.
https://youtu.be/I_CE7GqqrvY?si=3hU6LeE_S97dgpXd
2. Favorite holiday food: my 3-layer Christmas trifle, after marrying the flavors for 24 hrs before serving.
3. I made two 2025 fragrance-related resolutions. First: stop lurking and join NST which I did last January 1st and received a very warm welcome. It was awesome to mark off as completed a resolution on 1/1. Second: wear fragrance every single day and notate it so I can “Spotify wrap” what I wore. That will be completed on 12/31. I did miss days where I went commando for medical or grief reasons, but thus far I only missed 10 days during a trying year.
4. The next fragrance I’m itching to buy is BDK Impadia. I’ll be wearing my sample for Edith Piaf Week as part of my La Vie en Rose celebration.
5. A lovely experience to relate tomorrow.
Well done on the resolutions!
Thank you AnnieA! Like so many resolutions it’s the doing that ends of being so rewarding rather than the completion!
Did you try the Impadia? It does sound good.
DIVINE! Deeee-VINE! I want to sample in the store since I got a wee bit burned on my Desertland sample where the bottle smelled distinctly of less juniper. I think I tracked down a place and will try prior to purchasing if at all possible.
Wearing this morning: Dior Cuir Cannage. Love love love. I probably have enough in decant form to last long enough, but …
Favorite holiday food: it’s probably only “holiday” in my mind, and I don’t decorate it with anything, festive or otherwise, but it’s the traditional shortbread recipe in a very vintage cookbook I bought a few decades ago called the Women’s Home Companion. I think it might have been printed before I was born, so no linking available. However, the best thing I made this year, repeatedly, is this super simple peasant bread: https://alexandracooks.com/2012/11/07/my-mothers-peasant-bread-the-best-easiest-bread-you-will-ever-make/
Resolution(s): Always made, never kept. Last year’s was “enjoy what you already own”, and then I went and bought/swapped/etc the most I ever have since falling down the rabbit hole.
Itching to buy: See Cuir Cannage above. 🙂
Wonderfulness: Well, is there anything more wonderful than having gotten through covid with one’s sense of smell intact, not accidentally having given it to one’s almost-90-year-old dad, and not having murdered one’s spouse out of sheer irritation at everything? Aside from not having contracted the stupid plague in the first place, of course.
I hear you and second you SG! Twice I gave Mom and Aunt Marion covid, including over Mom’s and my birthdays last spring. Fortunately I had gotten them boosters from the LAFD Mobile Vaccine Unit last winter which was shutdown shortly thereafter. They were completely asymptomatic whereas I was horribly sick, not having been boosted in over a year. And given my aunt was about to enter hospice I’m so grateful I didn’t unwittingly end her life early. 🙏
Oh my — so glad your “victims” were asymptomatic! I’m almost 70 and have been boosted annually without fail, but now I’m wondering if I have to get boosted more often. Aging is annoying — in my head I’m like 29. Maybe 39. But definitely NOT 70! Yeesh.
I think the newest strain of Covid is nicknamed razor blade throat, so I will definitely get boosted this winter!
Glad you and your household were relatively unscathed by your bout of COVID.
1. Yatagan
2. I like making turkey pho and then turkey tortilla soup with the leftover turkey (can’t decide which I like more).
3. I recently dined at a restaurant that featured a 5-course “Perfume Dinner!” Each course was built around a different perfume family and started with smelling a representative perfume and then having food matched to that perfume.
There was an optional wine pairing, matched to the food and perfume.
It was a really amazing special occasion meal. (Husband’s milestone birthday.)
Gosh, Liza can we get more deets on that amazing dinner? And happy milestone birthday to Mr Liza!
Thanks, LesLiesse, MossyBerry, and Jalapeno, for the nice comments (and Mr Liza says thanks for the birthday wishes)!
The perfumes were:
Appetizer Course, Fruit: Yves Saint Laurent, Luscious Fig
matched with Beet and Fig Gazpacho, a Ham and Lychee “Bonbon,” and two additional amuse bouches, one involving pineapple and the other involving naranjilla
Without going into details about most of the food, the perfumes for the other courses were:
Wood branches, Hermes, H24 Herbes Vives (pairing included pea/pear basmati and a eucalyptus tapenade)
Citrus, Dior Addict
Amber/Spicy, Creed, Oud Zarian
Floral, Narciso Rodriguez, Safron Musc (paired with saffron ice cream, rose water pannacotta, and strawberry rose petal jam).
I don’t think those are the perfumes I would have chosen as representative of those families, but the food and wine fit perfectly with the ones they used (I skipped the wine pairing but tasted Mr Liza’s).
All in all, it was among the top five most memorable meals I’ve had in my life.
Wow Liza! How deeply fascinating! It sounds like something Grant Achatz would do at Alinéa near Chicago. If I can ask one more question: what was your favorite food course and, aw heck, two questions – which food &!fragrance pairing was the most spot on?
ALL of the pairings were spot on!!!
As far as my favorite course–probably course 2, which involved cedar-planked halibut, as well as the basmati and the eucalyptus tapenade. Although, really, everything was great and the saffron ice cream might have been the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted.
What LesLiesse said! Happy Birthday to your husband and that sounds like a very fun evening.
🙂
Your “Perfume Dinner” sounded fantastic!
🙂
🙂
Happy Sunday! Sotd my new and early arrived LV City of Stars, which is 🩷🩷🩷 to me.
5. My happy story. You may recall I had a heck of a time (not the NSFW exclamations used at the time) locating a tester in person of Shalimar L’Essence. The worst experience I had was at Neiman Marcus. There was a display set up but no L’Essence. I tried to get help and it was an impolite and frustrating experience. I kept my cool, but was 😡 inside. Having worked retail, I was trained to treat everyone with respect and good manners. Back to LV, I had signed up for a text when and if restocking occurred. I got the text back in early November and called the 800 number. A darling Gwendolyn helped me but said the delivery date would be 12/23 for in-store and may well be 12/26.
It arrived a month early, before Thanksgiving and I picked it up after my foot swelling went down as a Get Well gift as well as Christmas. The experience was 180-degrees different from Needless Markup. Three people waited on me. Unlike NM, they were falling over each other. Would I like champagne, a latte, bottled water sparkling or still? I joked that I was only picking one full bottle of fragrance not 10. The main gentleman gave me his card, so in the future I can text him rather than use the LV app for an appt.
I had asked for it to gift-wrapped. Well, make that GIFT-WRAPPED X 3. There are unboxing videos of the LV holidays gifts and they are a work of art. Someone (so sorry to have forgotten who) asked for a sample of Phantasmagory. Sorry they were out of that, but they gave me four samples including my requested SunSong and Afternoon Swim.
The scent? Sooo beautiful! Notes: Top notes are Lime, Blood Orange, Blood Mandarin, Lemon and Bergamot; middle note is Tiare Flower; base notes are Powdery Notes, Musk and Sandalwood. Ever since I visited Hawaii I’ve adore tiare. I don’t associate it with LA, but I 🩷. TBH, I would associate hibiscus with LA because it grows wild in so many places.
The bottle? Well, feel free to rename me LesTypeA. Every year in addition to my New Years Resolutions, I pick two colors and a theme for the year for my Resolutions notebook. And this ombré bottle is in this year’s colors of pink and lavender. I just feel like this is challenging my Courreges L’eau de Liesse as my scent mothership.
So kicking off Edith’s week of my homage to La Vie en Rose, which is French for pink, by basking & basking in my pink & lavender bottle of CoS!
Last part. I dictated a preprinted Christmas note to myself to be included. “Hang in there. 2026 will be better!” I wish that for all of our NST community!
So happy to hear about your wonderful experience at LV, that is as it should be, and the ombre bottle I’m sure is a bonus. Congrats on the new bottle and may you wear it in happiness and good health!
Thank you Robin! Am I in the running for the annual DL;DR post? Because it didn’t seem that long when I read it over, but is surely a big ass post! 😆😉. I appreciate your having the fortitude to wade thru it. Also, we’re on news blackout on weekends, so I don’t think I could have written it or anything like it if I had known more about what was happening in the Real World.
Ha, I doubt it. It’s always a surprise when the comment posts!
I’m on a news blackout much of the time, or at least, I mostly just read headlines these days. Details are frankly too much…
It’s always worthwhile hearing about excellent customer service!
1. YSL Nu edp. Woke up this a.m. to -2 degrees, real-feel temps of -20 to -25. Needed something heavy, heavy duty. It’s all of 8 degrees now.
2. My favorite holiday food is the traditional meatless Polish Christmas Eve supper I grew up with and make each year with some deli purchases and some homemade: including lots of pierogi, mushroom barley soup, beets, rye broad, perch, herring, poppy seed roll, and Polish 🍺. And most important of all, the opłatke wafer.
3. Only resolution was to use up more of the body products I have accumulated, like always taking the time to put on body lotion before my SOTD, etc.
4. No wants at this time.
5. Last night we went to see Lady A’s Chicago stop on their first Christmas concert tour in the nearly 2 decades they’ve been together as a band 🎶. I have long been a fan and this is the first time I’ve seen them and it was a thrill! The show was fantastic, interactive and family friendly, a nice blend of traditional Christmas music (but performed with that Lady A touch) and some of their original compositions, many of their hits, and a great background band. It made it worthwhile to go out in yesterday’s frigid temps- a high of 10.🥶
Staying warm inside all day 🔥and sending ☮️ and ❤️ to all.
Yum to your holiday food!!! I’m inviting myself over 😂
I’ll be tagging along! That sounds so good Laila.
It’s a super crazy working weekend for me.
Yesterday I wore Coco edt, and today I am wearing D&G Devotion. I managed to get to the BBW on my way to work. They were sold out of so much already. I did get my daughter the Milk lip scrub and mask, and the Cereal Milk shimmer body spray and body wash. I used my coupons, and got all 4 for 15 dollars. I’m hoping to read comments and answer the questions tomorrow.
I’m late so it’s Monday, hope you made it through the weekend in one piece lillyjo!
Tropical scent on a cold snowy morning
https://www.instagram.com/chocolatemarzipan8/p/DSR7KCykQs_/
I am taking advantage of all the snow we got by pairing perfume with the snow and posting daily shots. It is so pretty outside!!!
That’s a great picture!
It is a lovely shot!
Great composition in your pic!
I can say that I have to say at this point, I am truly done with Christmas shopping. When my Ulta package of Lush body products, the Rose Jam body wash had leaked all over because the cap wasn’t screwed on as it should have been. So I have a replacement shipment on the way. So I will used the messed up stuff.
Currently I am in no 5 edp and haven’t showered yet. But I am going to switch to Epic when I take my shower.
Oh no…that must have been a smelly messy package! Glad they will make it right.
Wait, ULTA sells LUSH stuff??
But, wow, what a mess!
They sell some of it but not all.
In Jo Malone Myrrh & Tonka.
Happy Monday! 🌻
Happy Monday (rather late in the day) pl67!
Even later than Robin! You smell wonderful PL67!
Good morning! I’m wearing Meraki from Fort and Manle. It just leapt to mind this morning, it’s a lovely osmanthus.
Yum then. I do love osmanthus.
1. I’m in Balmain Ivoire today. Yesterday I was in Shalimar l’essence.
2. My favorite holiday food (savory) is cabbage rolls; for sweet I’d have to say Toblerone shortbread.
3. I tried to maintain a low-buy this year. I did participate in a few swaps which was very fun. Overall I was fairly successful
4. I’m wanting to buy La Curie Ossuary. I had a sample from a lovely NST’er awhile back. It’s such a beautiful fragrance.
5. I’m looking forward to spending Christmas with my sister and her family this year. We’ll be baking shortbread for everyone. Plus there’s lots of arts and crafts planned such as alcohol inks and and jewelry finds for earrings etc!
.
I love cabbage rolls! I’m the only one though, so I don’t eat them often. My Grandma made them all the time when I was a kid.
They’re so good! I have my mom’s recipe jotted down so I’m hoping my sister and I can try to possibly make them when I’m there. (They’re made with sour cabbage, rice and bacon).
It’s been years since I’ve had them. My grandma made them too. We’d go there for Christmas dinner; cabbage rolls were always the highlight for me.
I likewise love cabbage rolls and nearly never get any.
And congrats on maintaining your low-buy!
There might be a couple of restaurants out here that have cabbage rolls on the menu. I didn’t grow up with them, just sauerkraut.
No one I know had the kind I grew up with. Everyone else seemed to have the plain cabbage ones with hamburger and tomato sauce.
That’s awesome if restaurants have them on the menu.
Gosh I adored my Grandma Jenny’s stuffed cabbage rolls. Love you could eat!
Stopping by to waft Safari. We are in the bitter cold zone of the Midwest and I have been working mostly inside although I don’t mind cold too much. We got a good snow cover, and I always enjoy how the light reflects off snow into our house which is a bit shaded most of the year. Hope everyone’s week is off to a good start😸❄️
You smell wonderful!!!!
It is cold here and I do NOT love snow…but I managed to drag myself to yoga anyway so my week has started just fine 🙂
Thanks for wafting a bit our way!
I wish I had some of your snow! The bitter cold, not so much.
Not quite as cold today with a bit of 🌞 , tomorrow starts a real warmup for several days – getting near 50 degrees on Thursday. I’m so ready!
SOTD is VS Dark Angel, a gift from a friend, a good one for a cold winter day with a prominent caramel note I love. Its name also seems strangely appropriate for my mood today. The horrific news about the Rob Reiner murders and their aftermath has affected me deeply and troubles me on so many levels. Think I’ll go back to the beginning of these posts and read everyone’s response to question 5 to end the day on a positive note reading about ‘something wonderful’!
Sending ☮️ and ❤️ and🤞to all.
Laila, I am also deeply troubled over this loss. I can’t stop thinking about him and his wife and what they must have gone through.
It’s just a horrid story…such a tragedy.
Hugs Laila.
The heartbreaking story is so wrenching plus all the other bad news from around the world. We need to hold onto the light and love wherever we find it.
Saddened by the news about Rob Reiner and his wife. I’ll leave it at that.
It’s absurdly warm here, roughly 20 – 25 degrees above average right now. Denver got up to almost 70 today. No rain or snow in the forecast, alas. Under a Fire Weather Watch until Wednesday evening.
Posting quite late since I had an early evening Costco run with my brother. We go thru the store in completely different ways.
Poll answers!
1. SOTD? Back in Love’s Baby Soft Body Spray. It’s perfect for the weather.
2. Favorite holiday food? My Mom’s onion, celery, and sage stuffing with giblets. I’ve toyed with the basic recipe over the years.
3. No perfume related resolutions for 2025.
4. Not really Jonesing for any new to me perfume atm.
5. Something wonderful? I got a Xmas card from one of my cousins last week saying how much she has enjoyed our lunchtime get togethers and that she wants to continue doing so in 2026. I am all for that!
I share your sadness and also your happiness at your wonderful Christmas card.
So glad that I have reconnected with her!