Fragrance

Mother’s Day Gift Ideas: 5 Fantastic Fragrances

May 3rd, 2016 by Karen 15 Comments

From the left: Gucci Bamboo, Tom Ford Neroli Portofino Acqua, Clean Reserve Velvet Flora, Maison Martin Margiela Replica Lipstick On and Tocca Emelia

There’s something so comforting about hugging mom and getting a good whiff of her scent.

Why is that? Maybe it’s some primal leftover from childhood that never quite leaves you? Hmm, deep thoughts…

Mother’s Day is this weekend! If you’re looking for a gift, here are a few of my favorite mom-friendly scents.

For the sophisticated mom — Gucci Bamboo

Gucci Bamboo is like a perfect pair of nude pumps or a tan trench that goes with everything. For moms with a classic style.

Official notes: Italian bergamot, Casablanca lily, ylang ylang and Comoros sandalwood.

Unofficial notes: A great day at a job you love, cocktails with good friends after a long week, and looking at yourself in the mirror and totally feelin’ your current outfit.

$92 for a 1.6-oz. bottle, available now at Sephora.

For the fun-lovin’ mom — Tom Ford Neroli Portofino Acqua

This playful perfume smells like summers on the beach. If your mom’s a water baby, I bet she’ll love it.

Official notes: Citrus and amber

Unofficial notes: Sand between your toes, saltwater on your skin and endless summer days that lead to sultry summer nights…

$150 for a 1.7-oz. bottle, available at Sephora.

For the no-nosense mom — Reserve Velvet Flora, by Clean

For moms who like their scents on the not-so-sweet side, Reserve Velvet Flora could almost pass for a men’s cologne.

Official notes: Green bergamot, jasmine lily, saffron flower, cedarwood, moss, musk, amber and patchouli.

Unofficial notes: Old books, Sunday brunch on a crisp spring morning, and standing next to your current boy crush and catching a whiff of his cologne.

$90 for a 3.4-oz. bottle, available at Sephora.

For the flirty mom — Lipstick On, by Maison Martin Margiela

A girly-girl scent for moms who never leave home without a tube of red lipstick.

Official notes: Bergamot oil, heliotrope accord, neroli oil, orange flower absolute, orris concrete, galbanum oil, tonka bean absolute, vanilla bourbon extract and patchouli oil.

Unofficial notes: Matte red lips, black cat eyeliner and a single strand of pearls. *meow*

$125 for a 3.4-oz. bottle, available at Sephora.

For the easygoing mom — Tocca Emelia

I think this is a scent for almost anyone of any age. You’ll be tempted to “borrow” this fresh, easygoing scent from mom to wear it for yourself.

Official notes: Watery clementine, loquat fruit, bucchu leaves, fig leaf, geranium coeur, magnolia tree leaf, amaryllis, Kadota fig, maté absolute Paraguay, bison gross, florentine orris, praline, ambrette seed absolute and coconut water.

Unofficial notes: Chatting on the phone with your best friend and laughing at all of your inside jokes, long walks in the afternoon on a sunny spring day, and your favorite maxi dress.

$68 for a 1.7-oz. bottle, available now at Sephora.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Happy Tuesday, friend. 🙂

MAC Air of Style: A Fabulous New Floral Fragrance for Any Occasion

March 31st, 2016 by Marcella Yakalis 6 Comments

MAC Air of Style Rollerball ($22), a lush, sensual floral scent

I don’t know if I mentioned this in my last fragrance review, but floral scents are some of my favorites. Rose, in particular, but jasmine and gardenia also rank way up there in my tops, so when I got the chance to sniff the new MAC Air of Style, I took a deep breath and jumped at the chance.

First? The layers. I love the different layers.

New for spring 2016 and available now in the MAC permanent line, Air of Style is a slightly heady, luxurious mix just mellow enough for everyday wear.

The description from MAC makes me feel a little dreamy…

“Contemporary top notes of red dates and wild peonies set the tone for your can’t-be-tamed attitude, heightened with an infusion of white pepper. A bouquet of absolute tuberose, orange blossom, and jasmine at the heart gets the pulse racing and feels unabashedly bold with the opulence of ylang ylang and orris. The appeal is magnified by a background of leather blended with rare woods and vetiver — all juxtaposed with creamy hints of tonka beans and golden drops of amber crystals, leaving a lasting sensation of warm intimacy.”

That’s quite a mouthful, but they’re not wrong! “Warm intimacy” is a perfect way to describe this powerful potion.

A little of this goes quite a long way... — A little of this goes quite a long way…

I’ve been wearing it consistently over the past week, and it seems to have blended into my skin in the most fabulous way. I wore a shirt to bed that I’d worn all day after applying the rollerball, and waking up to the diluted but still present scent still on my clothes was exactly as MAC described it: warm and intimate.

Even with intense allergy eyes, this perfume makes me feel put together. — Even with intense allergy eyes, MAC Air of Style makes me feel put together…

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Vera Bradley Shakes Things Up With New Scents in the Mini Eau de Toilette Spray Set in Multi 2016

March 21st, 2016 by Marcella Yakalis 7 Comments

The Vera Bradley Mini Eau de Toilette Spray Set in Multi 2016 ($48)

As I was going through my products before my recent move, I realized something.

I am a serious hoarder!

I had a lot of expired products, and even for the ones that didn’t have an expiration date, I still knew they were due to be discarded.

This was further proven when boyfriend was putting away the kitchen items and found, and I quote, “Tea from 2007. 2007 BABE!”

I just hate throwing things out, guys. Like the authentic Chinese black tea from my old neighbor who invited me over for a traditional tea and chit-chat after I asked to borrow a screwdriver to put together my roommate’s shoddy Ikea bed? That was only two years ago. Who cares if the box says 2007 on it!

Tea aside, I really needed to go through my products before this move, and when I got to my perfumes, I noticed that I had almost completely full bottles of Victoria Secret Body Mist, something I had been into for a while, circa 2009.

I was an especially loyal fan of Fresh & Clean, with the matching body lotion.

I knew they were old, but I wasn’t sure just how old until I opened them and detected something quite unlike the apples and lilies described on the label. Instead…they smelled mostly like alcohol. I hadn’t kept them in the best places. They were often housed on windowsills where they were exposed to sunlight.

So away they went, along with an old bottle of Calvin Klein for women that had also seen better days.

Despite the fact that, nowadays, I prefer body oils and lighter perfumes, I don’t turn my nose up at unique sets from established companies, which is why I was curious about the new Spring Mini Eau de Toilette Spray Set ($48) from Vera Bradley.

vera bradley, perfume, Eau de Toilette, perfume set, — From L-R: Appleberry Champagne, Cotton Flower, Macaroon Rose, and Vanilla Sea Salt.

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The Day in Beauty, Vol. 3: Modern Love, Viktor & Rolf V-Day Sets, Baby Names, and Weird Belly Bands

January 28th, 2016 by Karen 27 Comments

One of the more unusual things on my bucket list — and I’d say it’s right up there with wanting to learn how to play the accordion — is to go to a concert, or any really big event, and have thousands of balloons rain down from the ceiling/sky, and I blame this on David Bowie’s Modern Love video.

Have you seen it? There’s a giant crescent moon thingy suspended over the crowd, and all of a sudden it starts pouring out thousands of shiny gold foil balloons.

I thought this was extremely amazing where I was a kid (and still do).

The song, by the way, LOVE. IT. And thanks to YouTube for finally clearing something up for me. In the song, I always thought that David Bowie was singing, “It’s not really work; it’s just the power to talk,” but he’s not really saying that, OMG! He’s actually saying, “It’s not really work; it’s just the power to charm.”

Who freaking knew? I would be so lost without you, Interwebz…

Speaking of modern love, Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching, which also means that Valentine’s Day gift sets are coming, too.

If you like lovely scents, here are two new sets by Viktor & Rolf.

The first is the Valentine’s Day Flowerbomb gift set for $120…

And the other is the $115 Spicebomb set for the dudes.

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Make Your Own Commodity Fragrance Cocktail

December 15th, 2015 by Karen 21 Comments

I haven’t had a cocktail since my birthday trip to New Orleans last June.

Mind you, I think I had enough of them at the time to last me through quite a few months. 🙂

(I only have to make it to early/mid March.)

I’m not a big drinker to start with anyway, so I don’t miss it much, but I do have to say…I kinda miss making friends with strangers at the bar. And, weirdly, I miss the smell of cocktails.

I know; weird. But I’ve always liked to do that — sniff drinks — because some of them smell really interesting, and I bet that my super-duper pregnancy nose, which is like my normally heightened sense of smell turned up, would pick up all kinds of complex cocktail fragrance layers.

Where am I going with this…?

Excellent question, LOL! Here we go: Commodity Fragrance. They’re a niche fragrance line, and my nose steered me toward their display recently at Sephora.

They have an interesting cocktail fragrance theme — but no, not literal cocktails, as in you’re walking to the mailbox smelling like a mojito. What you do is layer their individual scents together to create your own fragrance cocktails.

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Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb Turns 10 With a New Birthday Set

November 5th, 2015 by Karen 16 Comments

Here’s a floral bombshell for ya: Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb is 10 years old.

Can you believe that…? It came out a decade ago, and I remember that, too. I remember my perfume junkie friends basically losing their sh*t, LOL!

So many scents have come and gone since then, but Flowerbomb stood the test of time. It’s a floral oriental with notes of jasmine, rose, orchid and patchouli.

I wore it regularly for a while after it came out, and man! — good memories. El Hub was still El Boyfriend back then… I don’t even think we’d moved in together yet. This was back when El Hub lived in a small one-bedroom apartment in the town of Tiburon, California, back before we knew Sir Tabs. The only cat in our life was the pint-sized black cat who lived with the people next door. She stopped by a lot to say hello, so we named her Sugar…even though that wasn’t her real name. 🙂

I wonder if she’s still around…

Anywho! I put Flowerbomb on my wrists this morning for the first time in years, and it smells just as warm, cozy and ladylike as I remember. If you like Chanel Coco Mademoiselle and Stella, I bet you’ll like it.

To commemorate Flowerbomb’s tenth anniversary, Viktor & Rolf released a special limited edition keepsake boxed set with 10 small 0.24-oz. bottles of Flowerbomb eau de parfum ($130, available now at Viktor & Rolf counters and online).

The inside design kinda looks like sparkly spinning fireworks, doesn’t it?
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5 Things I’ve Been Loving Lately

September 2nd, 2015 by Karen 15 Comments

1. Pears

Mmm… Sweet green, juicy pears. I love them so much right meow! I got a huge bag of organic pears at Trader Joe’s last Sunday, and most of them have already managed to find their way into my tum. 🙂 I might be on the verge of a full-on pear obsession.

I get that way sometimes about certain foods, where I ravenously crave them every day, over and over for weeks or months, and it’s starting to happen with pears.

I still haven’t succumbed to the temptation to “borrow” any from the huge pear tree I pass every day on my walk, but today may be the day… We’ll know by around 7 o’clock tonight.

2. Tocca scents

I keep a bunch of perfumes on this cake stand display on top of my dresser, but the only one I’ve been wearing lately is Byredo Gypsy Water, and I’ve been wearing it for months.

Hmm… This might be a good time to try a different scent every day with a scent of the day series on Instagram! That might be fun.

In the process of sniffing some of these today I discovered that a couple of them had gone sour. 🙁 The ancient bottle of Estée Lauder Private Collection perfume I’ve had forever smelled like moonshine, OMG!

It broke my heart to ditch it because it was a gift, but in the process of test sniffing these, I rediscovered some old faves, like, basically, EVERYTHING from Tocca.

Why did I ever stop wearing Tocca?? Their scents, while delicate, still have such presence, and whenever I wear one I just feel…chipper and glad. And, hello! — they last all day long too.

Today I’m wearing Violette, which I really like (but I like Bianca and Graciella even more).

3. Aveda Clove Color Conditioner

I have caramel highlights in my hair from about the mid-shaft to the ends, and I’ve been using and LOVING this Aveda Clove Color Conditioner ($21) to keep ’em looking vibrant and fresh.

All I do is wash my hair, then use Clove instead of my regular conditioner, and I leave it in for a few minutes before rinsing it out. I think it makes my highlights much richer (Clove in place of my regular conditioner once a week is enough to keep the highlights poppin’), and it has a fresh, very Aveda-esque herbal scent that I like. The only thing is…it’s kind of pain to keep the shower stall clean when you use it because it’s pigmented, so it’ll leave a stain in the tub if you’re not careful.

That’s why I bring a scrub brush with me into the shower, and after I rinse my hair, I’ll quickly scrub the shower walls to remove any spots or smears.
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Estee Lauder Modern Muse Le Rouge: A Feminine Fragrance for Chicks Who Get Sh*t Done

June 19th, 2015 by Karen 17 Comments

GIRL. If there’s one thing Estee Lauder does better than well it’s the fragrant stuff. They’re scent-sational. I’ve been wearing them for most of my adult life — Pleasures, Sensuous, Private Collection, Bronze Goddess and Modern Muse.

They have so many light and easy-to-wear fragrances! They don’t give me headaches (which happens sometimes with heavier fragrances), don’t overpower the room, and whenever I wear an Estee Lauder scent, inevitably, someone will ask me or comment about it.

Estee Lauder recently came out with an updated version of their already marvelous Modern Muse. It’s called Modern Muse Le Rouge, and mmm! *sniffs wrist* — I can’t get enough of it.

Modern Muse Le Rouge is a fruity floral oriental — feminine, full and daring, but still approachable. In other words, it doesn’t aggressively get up in your grill.
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