Post with delay.

Sometimes I have wait up to two months on letters from across the Atlantic, but they´ve all arrived eventually. This far only one tiny letter have been lost somewhere on it´s way to me, and the letters I´ve posted haave all reached there directions.

Since I get about 2-3 letters/week from abroad I think it´s kind of nice statistics.

Last wednesday I´ve got a advise of delivery, my letter could be collected at the local grocery store aka post office the same day after 4 pm. Half past 4 I was there, curious as usual, since I wasn´t sure wich letter it was, waiting for 3 different one´s from foreign senders (the sender was Post Import!?). My letter wasn´t there, something was wrong.

I return the day after, now it must surely be on the right place, but no. Started to feel a little irritated, but it wasn´t the staff at the store, it was the postal system that has sorted my letter wrong. It was at a grocery store in the other end of town.

Back again on friday, looking for my letter, but no! It had been send back to the sorting terminal in Örebro (a city 150 km from here), and then it will be send from there to the wrong store again, everything is automatised nowadays and when the parcel reach the wrong store again someone there must change the wrong zip code to the correct one (I sure hope they manage to do that!).

So, you think I can get my letter today. No, today it´s arrive to the wrong store, and they send it to the right one so at best I can get it tomorrow!

Imagine that sometimes letters has reach me in just two days from US or Canada, but a letter sorted wrong within the country just goes back and forth between the wrong directions for days! It´s hard to belive that a letter within the same town can´t just be handed to the right direction at once!

I am still not sure wich letter it is that has goes back and forth for almost a week now, but I am sure curious. Do you have any postal failures to tell about?

My mother belive that the post man and the post workers at the store belive that I am in to some kind of international drug buisness ( I think I´ve got my vivid imagination from my mum!). Do you think your post worker made stories up about all the letters you recive (I belive that many readers of the blog get´s a lot of strange letters) from all over the world? Maybe, thanks to us, they don´t have such a boring work...

My Parfuem - Design Your Perfume

I don´t drink much alcohol, but of course I think it´s good with a glass of wine or a coupple of cool beer a hot summer night, but most of all I like cocktails. I love to mix cocktails, and that´s my only party trick. Usually it´s appriciated, and I´ve got the honour to be "bartender" when some good friends get married last summer. And well, my effort as a bartender was a succes. ;)

I think a lot of perfumistas dream about there very own, personal perfume. In our dreams it might be Olivia Giacobetti, Christopher Sheldrake, Maurice Roucel or Jean-Claude Ellena that guide us in the hunt for our perfect personal perfume. Most of us can only dream about it, to get a bespoken perfume is pricier than we can afford.

Therefor I think it´s so much fun that the german site http://www.myparfuem.com/ offers a cheaper option.

I first read about them at www.fragrantica.com and immediatly become curoius. The site is easy to understand and you can chose between a female or male perfume, what base you prefer and then it´s just to start put in notes. For ladies there is four bases to chose among, floral, fresh, fruity floral and oriental. You can chose among a lot fo different notes, flowers, fruits, fresh notes, spices, woods and animalic notes. At most 3 parts of each note can be used and every perfume can contain maximum 30 notes.

Before ordering my own perfume, I had created a lot of perfumes in my imagination. Before you start, there is preferable to know what notes you usually like in perfume and what notes that are suitable together, When start blending your own perfume, there isn´t much guiding, you have creative freedom and have to feel, play and guess. Wich I like, but some others may not like.

The price is 29 euro, wich isn´t that much for 30 ml, most people can afford a bottle. There is a money back guarantee, but I don´t know how it works.

I decides to create a perfume with oriental base and few and liked notes. 1 X tangerine, 2 X bergamott, 3 X vanilla and 3 X musk. That can´t be that bad!? I named my perfume to Nude Skin Poetry (ok, I am a bit pretencious), and there was two, kind of ugly, bottles to chose from, I took the one with pink swirls on!

And then I just waited for my perfume to arrive. I´ve got it in juts a coupple of days. Oh, how much fun! I sprayed it on at once, my brotjer that was at our house then say that he think it´s smelled like mosquito reppelant at first. Well, he have no olfactory scense. I think of the first spray as bubbly citrus soda.

Well, Nude Skin Poetry, smells really nice. It´s an energic, sweet and warm vanilla-musk scent. It smells really good, but not that memorable or special, still it not remind me of any other perfume I´ve tried either. The sillage is good, but not disturbingly good, and the longvity is aslo good, at least about four hours on me. I can smell the citrus all way trough, and the vanilla is discrete and bring some sweetness but not that much vanilla character, the musk is comfy, warm and not the dirty kind, but not the cleanest either. My own perfumes is a nice, comfy and casual kind of perfume. That is of course the problem for me, I wish it would be a little more personal, but then again I would have chose a little more exciting notes.

Mu own perfume become so good, that I very well can create some more, after all it´s very funny, easy and affordable. In my imagination I´ve allready created perfumes for the whole family, to give them in birthdaypresents.

What isn´t so good about it? Well, I think one could have the possibility to chose more then 3 parts of each note, I could easily put in more than the doubble amount of both musc and vanilla without being to much. The oreintal base is kind of discrete, but I would have prefered it any more in the background.

There are allready lots of notes to chose from, but I miss some. Violets, lilacs, apple, some gourmand notes and maybe also, some smokey notes.

The bottles should be possible to get without pink swirls, green leaves or red hearts, they look kind of cheap to me.

But overall I am really satisfied with my experience. It is so much fun to create my own perfume and I really recommend every curoius person to give it a try!

A trip to Stockholm with my youngest daughter.

Me and my youngest daughter took a little trip to Stockholm yesterday. She´s about to be 12 years old, and she wished for a shopping spree in Stockholm in birthday present and I was eager to give her that.

The weather was really closed to rain when we entered the train. I had planned to go to Stockholm in pretty summer clothes, but have to count that out. Well, in Stockholm, there wasn´t hardly any rain after all.

My daughter had no troubble what so ever to shop up her money, and she seem to be very content. I hadn´t no real shopping plans, but still not get home empty handed.

Finally I manage to visit the perfume shop Cow, and it was a special feeling to see all the bottles and hold them in my hand, and even test some of them on paper. I didn´t plan to buy any perfume, as every perfumista know, most perfumes are to be found for much better prices on the net, than in a shop on "high street"... on the other hand, if the sales person have been a little more helpful, maybe just asked if we needed some help, I could as well have leave the shop with a bottle of perfume for about 100 euro (hey! I am a perfume nerd after all!), rather than a bottle of massage oil for 25, wich I buy only because I feel a bit guilty, just to have entered the store.

After that I bought some bath bombs on Lush and a coupple of t-shirts to my husband and then we took the train back home again.

Serge Lutens - Ambre Sultan

I have never seen bellydancing live, only on tv, but I hope I will have the opportunity to see a real bellydance show sometime. I am usually a big admirer of people that have talents that I don´t have. And aren´t dancers worth to admire, there is something almost more than human to have such control over one´s body, a feeling for the rhytm and motions. But also, a lot of dancers start traing at the ages of 3-4 years!

Some dances I like more then others, tango is brutaly sensual, flamenco is intense, people that are good in jitterbugg take my breath away when they swing each other around, a prima ballerina looks like she´s made of glass, but is actually very strong, street dance is cool and moodlifting, swedish polska is suggestiv and belly dancing is beautiful, magnetic and utterly feminin.

Ambre Sultan by Serge Luten´s could very well been created with a beautiful belly dancer in mind. As readers of the blog know, I wasn´t that immediatly drawn to Ambre Sultan. We where closing in to each other with some slowlyness. When writing this, I can´t understand how I could miss Ambre Sultan´s glowing, sensual and spellbinding beauty at first.

As you might know, I use to like strong and powerful perfumes, and Ambre Sultan IS strong and powerfull, yet also discrete, soft and reluctant in a fascinating way. Now I find Ambre Sultan to be so good, that I think of it as a kind of golden essence of everything that is good within oriental perfumes. Different from a lot of my other oriental perfumes, Ambre Sultan is even suitable to wear during summer. It´s pretty warm now, and Ambre Sultan is really pleasant to wear. I can´t think of many more sensual perfume to wear a warm, comfortable summer evening. Wich of course doesn´t make Ambre Sultan to a less better winter perfume. It´s suitabel all year round in my opinion, but maybe not during the most crispy time of spring.

Ambre Sultans is filled with something bubbly and glowing. When wearing it, it feels like the perfume itself is lighted from inside. Filled of sweetness and body, but there are also something brisk in it, that makes it unique and personal. Ambre Sultan make me very comfortable, it´s like having an excellent dinner in a cozy restaurant in a far away exotic city. After the meal you feel really comfy and a little hot from the spices, you lay back and watch the belly dancer perform on stage. Candles, soft fabrics and scented oils create a special atmosphere. After a while you don´t know if it´s you, the belly dancer or the entire restaurant that smells so good.

The sillage in Ambre Sultan is great, but not to much, and it´s really longlasting and only gets better and better... It´s like a reaction with the skin chemistry that keep deepening it and make it glow.

Ambre Sultan is a perfume for beautiful belly dancers, a perfume that smells of oriental jewellry, saturated oils and aromatic, brisk and unknown herbs. Yet another masterpiece from serge Lutens, created by the very talented perfumer Christopher Sheldrake.

Are you getting married soon?

Soon we enter the season when most people get married, at least in Sweden, the summer. No matter what time of year it is, there is something very special about weddings and wedding parties, not only for the one´s getting married. There is something very romantic to be a guest at a wedding I think.

I get married with my beloved husband in december, during the 80'ies last month. I would have published our wedding photo here, but I don´t have any at the computer and our scanner isn´t that co-operative. But at least, both me and the husband was very young, very pretty and very (very!) thin. One may think I should remember what perfume I weared, but honestly, I don´t have a clue. I have thought about it, and maybe it was YSL`s Opium (even tough it feels like my time with that was over by then). Or something from Yves Rocher (in that case, probably Ispahan), I can also have borrowed something from my mum, maybe YSL´s Champagne (that was the name of Yvresse at that time I think). That my husband had any perfume at all I doubt.

You undertand, that this was a time when perfumes wasn´t that important to me. But if I get married again I would chose perfume carefully and make sure my husband did as well (of course I would marry the same man!). It has become popular to renew the vows, so maybe we will some day.

Well, what perfume is suitable for a wedding? I think it´s a question that isn´t that important for most people getting married, unfortunatly. Scents is what we remember best and a really good perfume would make the wedding more memorable than without. We will all get older (hopefully) and what if we become senile and the only thing making us remember our wedding was the smell of the perfume? Therefore to chose perfume for the wedding, IS important!

Chose a special perfume, and there after only wear it on your wedding days, I am sure your partner will not forget about them if you smell like you smelled on the wedding!

But wich one? It´s of course very individual, but I have some suggestions.

The classic bride: Perles de Lalique by Lalique, a shiny, understated and elegant perfume. Sensual and white, discrete but very beautiful.

Chanel No 5, this i a genuine classic, perfect for a wedding. If the original seem to strong for you, maybe Chanel No 5 Eau de Premiere is a good alternative, maybe for the younger bride or if you prefer something a little lighter.

The romantic bride: Iris Poudre by Frederic Malle, creamy powdery white perfection, utterly soft and romantic.

Almost Innocent by Vive Maria, as the name suggest, innocent but below the surface... sexy.

The fresh bride: La Chasse Aux Papillons by L'Artisan, uplifting, summery, tart and playful.

Esprit de Fleurs by Frapin, wonderful, floral, light and very fresh.

The sensual bride: Nude Musk by Ava Luxe, creamy, close to skin, comforting and warm.

Songes by Annick Goutal, beautiful flowers surrounded by airy, light incensy smoke.

The sexy bride: Carnal Flower by Frederic Malle, irresistible and with a magnetic attraction force.

Musc Koublai Khan y Serge Lutens, why save all the fun for the wedding night? With this on, things may happen already during the wedding ceremony! A few drops of MKK added to any perfume will sex it up a lot, not together with Carnal Flower tough, it´s sexy enough already.

The bride with a rose bouquet: Brulure de Rose by Parfumerie Generale, de most romantic, delicious pink gourmand roses there is.

Une Rose av Fredeic Malle, red roses at it best, and still not over-powering. Just enough!

A little more rose, Sa Majeste la Rose av Serge Lutens, splendid and strong rose.

The alternative bride: Patchouli 24, do not overdose. Two sprays will last all night long and until the next morning! Suitable if you´re getting married in black. Otherwise Serge Lutens Serge Noir is a good option.

Maybe you´re a hippie romantic? Try Intrigant Patchouli bu Parfumerie General, the sexiest patchouli arround.

Punk? Does punkrockers getting married? Appearantly, try anything from Etat Libre d'Orange, maybe even Secretions Magnifique?

Fetisch? Well what about Histoire de parfums 1740 Marquis de Sade? Stiff, black leather. Or Serge Lutens Daim Blond, soft suede.

Rubber? Oud 27 by Le Labo (lots of rubber) or Bvlgari Black (rubber, but not as much).

Genderneutral? Josef Statkus by Josef Statkus, sodt, warm woody perfection, a little androgyn. Bandit by Robert Piquet, strict letaher and herby greenery. Musc Ravegeur by Frederic Malle, magnetic on right skin chemistry no matter if you´re man or women. Same goes for Bond No 9 Silver Factory.

Wich perfume did you wear when you got married? Or what perfume do you want to wear when you´re getting married?

Star Sign Perfumes - It´s Me!

Wich star sign are you born in? No matter if you´re uninterested or skeptic to astrology, most people (in west) know what star sign they belong to. It´s almost as certain as to know in wich month you´re born. Even tough we don´t belive in astrology we can discuss differences between different star signs during coffebreak at work. Astrology, but in different shapes, is common in a lot of cultures and have looked in different ways in different times.

In China it´s the year of birth that is the most important. In ancient cultures astrology was used, not only to predict the faith of persons, but for entire countries. For instant, the aztec astrological observations predict the arrival of the european conquistadors, but unfortuntaly they belived the new comers to be red haired gods.

When it comes to astrology, I am a skeptic, like I am with most things related to belive. But I am curious, not condemning. I even know in wich signs I´ve got the moon an the acsendant.

Of course I become curious when I found the homepage of CnR Create Star Sign Perfumes! Curious, but also a little skeptic, but as usual my curiousity wins and now I sit here and smell of It´s Me! Virgo. I have also some Gemini and Cancer on.

The first time I tried It´s Me! Virgo I was skeptic and critical. Why should this perfume suit me? Or thousands of other women around the world that happened to be born in late august and within september? Well, I dabbed on some Virgo and it smelled nice, fine, a little flowery and a little spicy. Comfortable, but maybe not that unique. Decent sillage and good longvity tough. The topnotes wasn´t that prominent and I wasn´t convinced about Virgos exellence. But without thinking of it I start sniffing my wrist over and over again as the basenotes starts to develop. Well, now it´s become really, really pleasant! Not something I would chose for myself maybe, but without doubt approved. The base on Virgo is creamy, lush, with hints of spices and at the same time with some minty freshness. And I like it! The skeptic within keep protesting. Of course I will like Cancer and Gemini as well. All the perfumes will prove to be comfortable, nice and approved.

The next day I try Gemini. The top notes are more floralfruity than in Virgo, and soon there is a soapy note I don´t really like. Honestly I realise after a coupple of hours I don´t like Gemini at all! It´s absolutly not a scrubber, but it´s not interesting at all. The I try Cancer. No, no and no! Maybe slightly better than Gemini? No. Kind of boring, but still smells good. Manage to forget about both Cancer and gemini before they stop smelling on my skin.

My daughter that is born in Gemini, of course like the Gemini perfume best! She is eleven years old and don´t care much about perfume or star signs. Strange placebo-effekt the skeptic in me yells. Well, I hope you all know that Virgo is a very critical star sign, and I dont fell easily for anything!

Well, no matter what it depends on, Virgo is my big favourite among the Star Sign-perfumes. Not really in the top, among my most loved perfumes, but still good enough to be remembered and cared for. Virgo is really comfy, moodlofting and still calming, and while writing this I sniff my wrist a lot of times. Gemini and Cancer on my other arm are totally forgotten.

Virgo would be a perfect perfume for casual wear, but also one of the first I would think of I was going on a job interview. How strange it may sound, it makes me feel balanced.

CnR Create´s perfumes are made in Grasse, but the company is situated in Wienna and of course they´ve got a homepage: http://www.cnrcreate.com/wbc.php?sid=21175c6b89&tpl=start.html

The notes in Virgo is clove, nutmeg, pear and citron. I do think the base is creamy woody, maybe with notes of sandal wood or rose wood, two notes I usually like in perfume. The notes in Gemini is jasmin, mimosa, orchid and tangerine, Gemini is fast dissapearing on me, after half an hour I can only smell a weak perfume scent. In Cancer there is notes of iris, palmarosa, acacia and green apple. Cancer has better longvity than Gemini on me, but after a while all I can smell is green apple.

No matter what you think of astrology I think that CnR Create offers a really fun alternative within perfumery, a bottle of It´s Me! would be a really great gift for someone that like perfumes and also are interested in astrology. The company also guarantee that the bottles are filled during full moon, probably it makes the perfumes more powerfull. Even tough I like Virgo, it isn´t the most complex perfume I´ve run in to, but it smells so good and comfy that it manage to make it to my list of favourite comfort-perfumes. The quality of the notes in it seem to be high. There isn´t anything bland or lack of longvity in Virgo.

I do recommend you to check this perfume up, maybe you know of someone wich birthday is coming up soon? Unfortunatly they don´t offer perfumes for men, but maybe they will later?

PS. I come to think of that the creamy notes in Virgo can have hints of coconut, but it´s the creamy kind not the suntan-lotion kind. But I think it´s also consistis of sandel-or rosewood. Well, it smells good anyway. :)

PPS. If you just know how much fun I have to look forward to when it come to perfumes and other good smelling things. There can be no better "profession" than to be a perfume writer!

Creativity and perfumes.

Most kids got a living creativity in many areas and it´s very fun to watch kids create free. All children can paint, dance, sing, sculpture, build and experiment. I´ve worked at pre-school and school earlier and while almost all kids are very creative during pre-school, they seem to lost it or it being diminished during the years in school. Why shouldn´t a fifthteen years old be as creative as a five year old? Of different reasons our creativity having trouble finding it´s way out when we´re getting older.

A lot of grown-ups state they can´t dance, paint, sing or sculpture. I do belive everybody can, we have just being influenced by the environment, and what is supposed to be beautiful, fine, serious, interesting and worth something to others. I´m sure you´re familiar with the expression "Dance like nobody´s watching" and I think that goes for all creative expressions. Maybe all of us would be very creative, if we´re paying less attention to what everybody else thinks.

And... what has this to do with perfumes? Much, I think. A lot of people that love perfumes, no matter if they are perfumistas, perfumers or producers are quite creative. Either as a creator or as a consumer, there´s a creative urge and joys of discovery among perfume lovers. Not seldom a perfume lover also appriciate good music, litterature, food, wine, travelling and other things that make life good and interesting.

When looking for perfumes and seraching information about different perfumes, perfume houses, indie perfumers, perfume oils or other things that are close to perfumes I can´t miss the fact that this is a area filled with creativity.

The big perfume houses with also big budgets shows classic taste, confidence and elegans. Their perfumes can take years to develop and all about them are high culture, money and the best of the best. The perfumes are beautiful, but a little held back and strict. The bottles as well. As a "poor" perfumista the closeste I´ve got to these perfumes are often a little sample vial, it´s like haute cotoure or expensive designer furniture, to be admired from a distant.

The top ten-perfumes are to be found in every perfume department in any small town, are all about the current trends and fashions. Scents that are easy to like, but not always that memorable, maybe not even last the whole summer. It´s like buying a cd with Summer Hits 2009, how will listen on that the summer of 2010? Well, it still was fun and good the summer before. The bottle design is often fun, easy and very trendy, maybe a little girly, but never odd in any strange way.

Well, the niche I admire almost most is the one with indie perfumers. Here you´re sure to find the creative urge and joy of discoveries. Perfume with billygoat extract? Of course there is. Perfume boxes that can be planted in the garden becuase they´re made of recyled plantmaterials with flowers seeds in? Yes that too! Perfumes inspired by fairy tales, travelling, adventures, magic, subcultures, vampires, pinups, nature or poetry? Yes, you might find that as well. A perfume made for your star sign? Yes, there is. You´ve got the possibility to chose the notes of your very own perfume without getting ruined? Yes, that´s possible. A lot of indie perfumers also offer their perfumes in smaller bottles. That´s smart. A perfumista that find the perfume really good and interesting, would easily by five or more bottles, if they´re available in 5-10 ml bottles. If they´re only available in 100 ml bottle, we might not by a single one, cause we cant afford it! Maybe it´s depend on that some indie perfumers started as perfumistas?

Do you have any creative interests other than perfume?