Two successful blind buys

So sad. My Mac had a complete hard drive failure. I was backed up with Time Machine and found some software to get back my important documents but where are my photographs? I expect they are there but I can't find software to extract them onto my laptop. I could just cry. But crying is no use so I had better do something more productive, like buy some perfume.

Did that. Still feel like crying. I guess perfume doesn't fix everything.

Ah!
Rasasi!
What am I going to do?
Your bottles are enticing
Liquid inside them too.

Unboxing an adventure
I take on every day
to apply the golden liquid
inside my whalebone stays

Ah!
Rasasi!
What am I going to wear?
A different one on each arm?
That would make the people stare.

Smoothing over my skin
(I do it every day)
Spread the perfumed liquid
Through my hair that's gray.

Ah!
Rasasi!
A new one every week!
Well, I'm really not that gready
But would certainly like a peak.

Instead of the Grossmith I was going to buy I bought some textbooks for my son and Amber Oud and Romance (oils) for me.

Opening the box with Amber Oud was a little disconcerting. There was a definite waft of cumin. I asked my son. Cumin. But that was the last I smelt of a powerful cumin note so I guess it must have seaped through the bottle lid and accumulated.

The bottle is cute. The base and top (coloured gold) are metal with a soft semi-matte pale gold finish - like 9 ct English gold in colour rather than the rich Indian gold. The liquid is a soft egg yolk yellow/gold (depending on the eggs one buys). There is a little green, pale emerald green, stone in the top probably made of some sort of plastic or resin but it could be glass as it feels a little cool to the touch. The glass of the bottle itself is softly frosted. The glass dipper in the lid comes two thirds of the way down inside the container so won't be of much use the last third of a bottle. As I said, very cute.

The first thing that struck me when I applied Amber Oud was a thick raw soap smell similar to Saat Safa and although smoother, less harsh than that Al Rehab I did feel I had made a mistake with my blind buy.

However, that feeling was gone by day two and I have worn Amber Oud every day for about a week. I now smell past that raw soap and appreciate the complexity of Amber Oud; in fact it is one of my favourite perfumes. The smell surrounding the bottle on my table (quite warm) imparts a lovely sweet tobacco scent.

The Romance bottle is a very pretty dark green. The base and top are plastic. There is no dipper inside the lid. There is a plastic plug in the top of the bottle which can be replaced with the metal roller ball insert that comes with the perfume. The metal roller ball works well and doesn't dispense too much liquid all in one go. It's such a pretty bottle that when I have finished the perfume I will clean it out and use it for the face oil I put together for myself.

Romance is a beautiful springtime floral with hyacinth and lashings of ylang ylang. On my skin there is a very pronounced sandalwood in the late dry down. Lovely. I might do a more in depth review when I have lived with it a bit more but at the moment I can't resist another swipe of Amber Oud.

Both of these perfumes layer beautifully under the latest version of Aromatics Elixis, particularly the Romance which amps up the greeness of Aromatics and blissfully hides the rather dischordant super sweet rose note that I get.

Here is a springtime floral - French Bluebells. These French Bluebells are self sown everywhere in my area, in fact my mum's garden lawn is now completely bluebells - so pretty, such a lovely smell. Note to self, must buy some English Bluebells to make a nice display next year and hopefully push out some of the garlic bells (I don't know what they are but they look like bluebells, are white, and intense garlic when the leaves are crushed - yikes! when I walk on them).

Photographs taken by my son when he was a child. Drat that hard drive failure leaving me with just a few of his photographs on this old laptop.