Random Product Review: Perfumes Perfumes Perfumes!!

It's been a while! Lots of stuff happened over my hiatus... parents, friends, and roomates were met, New York city was invaded, conferences were attended, massive truckloads of cosmetics and duty-free liquor (2 litres of vodka! Party at my house!!!) were purchased... and all by lil' ol me!

Yup, I went to a conference in NYC! How great is that?!?! Even cooler was the rare-ish opportunity to stock up on products that we can't get in Canada. I bought 2 of those Neutrogena Honey Lipbalms I was raving about, and managd to pick up some uncoated aspirin too. FYI, the uncoated aspirins work a bajillion times better for making a mask, because you don't have to do any crushing. You pop a few aspirin into your palm, trickle a bit of water in, and watch as it magically dissolves! Entertainment AND skincare! What a deal.

But enough about stuff I've already talked about. On with the show!

The most impressive thing I got in New York was no doubt my 50mL bottle of the new GUESS perfume. I'd been lusting after this EDT ever since before Christmas. I know, I know, it's all frou-frou fruit and flowers, all "pink" this, and "green apple" that. And I know it's just yet another variation on a boring and predictable trend.




But I don't care! I LOVE it. It smells so yummily awesome that I contort myself into ridiculous positions trying to catch some siliage. It starts out with the sweet but sharpish fruit burst, and then the florals peek out a bit. On me, the fragrance remains largely fruit-driven, even through the dry down. I know there are musks and freesia in there, but I can't tell my peonies from my muguets, so I couldn't really comment intelligently on that. I can say though, that there remains a slightly... I don't know, bitter (?) note that keeps it all from getting all Aquolina sweet on me. Bitter is most definitely the wrong word, actually, but it's the closest thing I can find. It reminds me of the slight kick of citrus peels, and gives all that fruitiness a bit of hard edge. It feels like a hard floral soap, if that makes any sense.

By now, it should be clear that I am the least qualified person on the face of the planet to review a fragrance. Not only do I love mundane pedestrian scents, I can't even talk about them properly! Anyway, I do really like this scent. It's the closest thing I've found that even comes close to approximating my beloved Lancome O Oui. If Oui was a perfect 10 (which it is), then this GUESS one is a 9 or a 9.5. The staying power of it is fairly good too... I can still catch a lingering whiff at the end of the day. Interestingly, I can never find that whiff, it just comes up and waves every once in a while. Fortunately, if I start to really miss it, I can just spray more, since the whole bottle only cost me $20 USD!*

Oh, but exciting news! I won was runner up [whoops, got too excited there. I *felt* like winner! :D] in a comment contest about a month ago on Scenteur 7, the perfume blog of the ever gracious Marlen Harrison. The prize (along with a bunch of other samples I purchased) got here today! Hurray!!! I'll have to wait until later to talk about them, but out of the bottle, I am predicting that Zestes de Rose, Venezia, and Scicily are going to be my favourites.

Ooooh, and I must not forget to review Demeter's Laundromat when I get a chance. I got that recently too, along with a couple other Demeter scents, courtesy of Ebay.

AND, after that, I'll have to try out the various cosmeticky things I brought back from the States. And THEN, I'll have to sell some internal organs to help placate the Visa people. But for now, I am totally lovin' the GUESS edt!

* Yes, I did buy this in some sketchy perfume shop in Chinatown. Yes, it is 100% authentic. Yes, I realize it probably fell off the back of a truck, I'm an acessory to crime and the general deterioration of society, and that I'm going to hell for this. And yes, I'd do it all over again if I could. I would do it 9 times.