Fragrance

Let’s not even go there about how hard it is to *not* look like your hands are actually T. rex claws in pics.

(It’s hard.)

Tried a few different fragrances this week, two of which are new, and all of which are new to me. Two of them really took me back. Like, waaay back…

Urban Decay Go Naked Perfume Oil ($24 for 0.16 oz)

I had this on my wrists for about two hours before I was able to place where I’d smelled something similar before, but first, a UD fragrance?! I know! They’ve been chock full of surprises these days.

Go Naked is their new perfume oil, and it’s limited-edition and $24. It arrives June 3rd at Sephora and sephora.com (for VIB Rouge members only), then June 7th to the Urban Decay website, June 30th at Urban Decay free-standing stores and July 13th at Sephora and sephora.com.

It’s definitely a long-lasting fragrance. I put it on early Wednesday morning and caught a whiff while I was blotting away a waterfall of sweat in HIIT class that night. So that’s like 12 hours.

Man, the scent takes me back too! It smells exactly like Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Cologne, and if you were a Filipino child growing up in the ’80s, you probably know what I’m talking about. It was a light citrus, musky scent in a little blue plastic bottle, and you could find it in almost every Filipino house back in the day.

It wasn’t really a perfume that got widespread use among infants, though, because the only people I knew who wore it were adults. Ha! The first time I remember smelling it was on my Lola Em-Em (“Lola” is Tagalog for “grandma,” and Em-Em was my nickname for my grandma’s sister) when she came to visit us from the Philippines. We always had a bottle in our bathroom, usually a gift from a visiting relative.

Official fragrance notes
Italian Bergamot, Petitgrain, Mandarin, Lemon, Orange Blossom, Neroli, Lavender, Jasmine and Musk.

Unofficial fragrance notes
Hugs from my Lola Em-Em, balikbayan boxes and the summer of third grade.

Malin + Goetz Dark Rum Eau de Parfum ($165 for 3.4 oz)

A post shared by Space NK USA (@spacenkusa) on May 10, 2017 at 12:48pm PDT

I got a small sample vial of Malin + Goetz Dark Rum Eau de Parfum at the SpaceNK meetup last Saturday, and the first thing I thought before I tried it was, “I don’t want to smell like a tropical booze cruise.”

But there’s no danger of that! With this you will not smell like you’ve had one too many piña coladas, because it smells like freshly washed laundry instead.

That’s right! — LAUNDRY. It’s gloriously clean and fresh.

Official fragrance notes
Bergamot, Plum, Rum, Leather, Amber, Patchouli and Milk.

Unofficial fragrance notes
The most comfortable bed ever with the world’s softest sheets!

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This is probably going to sound weird, but because we’re friends, I’m just going to say it… I’m getting set in my ways, you know? I’m not as adventurous as I used to be, and it’s kinda scaring me a little.

I mean, I think it’s a natural part of getting older, and a lot has happened over the past few years. I turned 40, got pregnant (and that took a while), had the baby, got thrown into motherhood, and maybe all of that weakened my adventurous resolve. Now I get intimidated by big changes more often.

On a trivial level, I really haven’t changed my hair in years…whereas before that, I would seriously, like, change it every five seconds! I was always growing it out, chopping it off or coloring it, but I haven’t done much with it in a long time.

I think it’s a reflection of where I’m at in life… I haven’t been able to handle too many little changes on top of the big ones.

But I think it’s getting better… I’m starting to want to try new things again.

I’m taking baby steps, though, like with perfume. 🙂

I’ve basically been wearing Byredo Gypsy Water and CLEAN Vevlet Flora for two or three years. Sure, I’ve dabbled with other scents here and there, but nine out of 10 times (OK, 10 out of 10), when I’ve gone out and wanted to wear perfume, I’ve picked one of those two.

Then, about a month ago, I was about to spritz some perfume before going out to dinner with a friend, and I thought, “Why am I wearing these two scents over and over when there’s a whole wide world of perfumes out there to explore?”

That was my long-winded way of saying that I’ve been trying new perfumes again, and I’m excited about it.

CLEAN Reserve Sel Santal and CLEAN Reserve Citron Fig

CLEAN Reserve makes one of the two scents I’ve been wearing for these two years. They have something of a unisex vibe, so their scents (and the bottles) aren’t overly frilly, but they aren’t super masculine, either. I think they really do smell clean.

Both Sel Santal and Citron Fig have forward-facing citrus notes, but they aren’t sharp, you know what I mean? Like, how sometimes you’ll be opening an orange and the peel will smell almost sour? These don’t have those sharp citrus notes.

I like that I put either one on in the morning and smell them all day long.

CLEAN Reserve Citron Fig official fragrance notes
Fig, Ginger, Lemon Oil, Cardamom, Mandarin, Mint, Copaiba, Sandalwood, Cedar Wood, Musk.

Unofficial fragrance notes
Snuggling with your little one on a lazy Sunday with the windows open. You’re the big spoon, and she’s the little spoon. As you breathe in the scent of your baby’s hair, you catch a whiff of clean sheets, and of flowers from the orange tree outside.

CLEAN Reserve Sel Santal official fragrance notes
Mandarin Leaves, Bergamot, Nutmeg Tonic, Iris, Salted Fig, Violet, Hazelnut Cream, Sandalwood, Decadent Amber, Styrax, Rose Musk.

Unofficial fragrance notes
An Italian adventure in Positano on a moped with a handsome stranger (a game of Truth or Dare was involved).

Both Sel Santal and Citron Fig are available now at Sephora for $95 for a 3.4-oz. bottle.

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The whole idea of fragrance commercials on TV is totally weird.

Isn’t it?

Companies desperately trying to get us interested in a scent through a medium where we can’t actually smell the perfume. There we are just eating our morning oatmeal while a supermodel rolls around on a beach for 30 seconds whispering about “Seduction happens on the sand…”

I guess it’s supposed to be metaphorical, you know, to capture the essence of what it feels like to wear the scent, and maybe then we’ll stop by the fragrance counter on our next trip to a department store, but I dunno…

It’s kind of like what’s happening with this blog post right now. 🙂

I suppose that I could just list the fragrance notes in this $115 bottle of McQueen Eau de Parfum, the pricey new fragrance by fancy fashion house Alexander McQueen (night-blooming flowers, sambac jasmine, tuberose and ylang ylang).

That would probably be more useful than these pictures…

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