Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Coming up Roses

The perfect scent is one of the most personal aspects of a person's toilette. When it comes to choosing a scent, it is important to drown out outside opinions. There are dozens of celebrity perfumes, mostly by people who do not seem like they would smell particularly lovely (I will not name names but you know who I am referring to...). There are the scents that have cult followings. Marilyn Monroe allegedly slept in nothing but Chanel No. 5. Estee Lauder's Youth Dew, Clinique's Happy and various Ralph Lauren scents all have a loyal fan base.



Babies always smell deliciously of Johnson's Baby Lotion & Baby Powder. My first perfume was Baby Soft, a powdery smelling drugstore fragrance designed for little girls. As I grew older, I experimented with popular fragrances of the moment: Davidoff Cool Water & Ralph Lauren Romance. When I was fifteen, I discovered my first scent that I identified as truly mine: Michael Kors. The scent avoided those overly floral, sweet notes that had dominated my perfume selections up to that point. My sisters liked the scent so much that they both purchased it as well. To make it more uniquely my own, I stopped at a lotion/perfume boutique in Martha's Vineyard one summer and had them mix the scent of Hanae Mori (another cult perfume) into a body lotion. The smell of the Hanae Mori diluted in the lotion mixed with the Michael Kors was divine. However, once I ran out of the lotion and was far from Martha's Vineyard, I could not seem to get the same ratio of the two scents by other means (even through the Sephora-bought actual Hanae Mori lotion).




Around the same time, I was on vacation at the Breakers in Palm Beach with my family (I always seem to have my olfactory senses heightened on vacation) and smelled something amazing in one of the stores on the grounds: Acqua di Parma Blue Mediterraneo in Mirto di Panarea. It was light, not too flowery but still so memorable that over the next few days my mind kept wandering back to that smell. I purchased it on the last day and nearly four years later I wear it still. I am not certain if the Acqua di Parma scent is "the one", the scent for me for a lifetime. Some days I cannot smell it at all but people say that is the sign of a good perfume. Nonetheless, for now, it belongs to me and when my bottle runs dry later this month I will rush out to reclaim it as my own.


Oh Sandy: How you were Almost my Grinch

There are only two things I could think of the past two days:

  1. The song from the movie Grease "Oh Sandy..." that Danny Zuko sings. and
  2. My Christmas Tree



In reference to number one: yes, there was a period in my life where I watched this incredibly cliched movie on repeat and made the children who lived next door dress up as Grease characters and sing along to the soundtrack with me. The Grease-obsessed phase of my childhood (I was eleven or twelve) is not something I often like to relive.

A part of my childhood I DO like to relive is my tendency to begin the celebration of Christmas in October. When I was younger (college-aged and below), I began to decorate around October 1st. As a semi-adult, I decorate around...well, now.

I put up my Christmas tree two days before Hurricane Sandy arrived and was scared the entire time that the window would be demolished and all of my ornaments would break (Nutcracker themed...with the exception of my Wizard of Oz ruby slippers ornament....2 other obsessions/remnants from childhood). Now that I can confidently report the survival of my tree AND its accoutrements, it is time to continue the Christmas decorating with the perfect holiday wreath...preferably something clean, traditional and modern to counterbalance the slight kitsch factor of having a themed tree.



 













Monday, October 22, 2012

In Honor of Abandoned Blogs and Buildings

My last blog post was over a month ago...how tragic! I hope you have not all left this domain name forever. In the spirit of the holiday season (and in returning to an abandoned place), I am including in this post a few costume ideas inspired by some of my favorite films. I will begin with Rocky Horror Picture Show (hence, the abandoned place reference) and end somewhere a little brighter to reflect the positive things to come:

First & foremost, couples costumes I have always wanted to try:

 Brad & Janet 
Rocky Horror Picture Show

Miss Piggy & Kermit
Assorted Films
 

And if you are going solo:


 Melanie Daniels
The Birds


Eliza Doolittle
My Fair Lady 

Or with a group of friends:


Troop Beverly Hills
Troop Beverly Hills
 
 
The Tennenbaum Family
The Royal Tennenbaums