the truth: too much perfume

the currents - these are out at the moment and in regular rotation

i've been posting a "scent of the day" on facebook for a couple of weeks now. it was a kind of reaction to some facebook friends who post the song that's in their head when they wake up in the morning and i thought it would be funny. i've written before about my perfume collection but i never really owned up to how much perfume i really have. in fact, until i thought about this whole truth-telling thing, i never dared to count it. but now, i have. and it's not pretty. 47 different kinds.  on the bright side i will never have to buy perfume again as long as i live.

a peek in the perfume box

it took a decade to build up this collection, but bear in mind, i spent a few years passing regularly through an airport duty free. all of it is bought in duty free. not because the prices are better (i think they're pretty similar), but because they have the best selection - at least the good ones do. it's funny, i can pass by a department store perfume counter without even being tempted, but let me loose in the duty free in copenhagen or singapore and watch out!

the large majority of this collection was acquired before i began striving for a simpler, less consumer-oriented life and i'm proud to say that 2011 is almost over and i haven't bought any perfume at all. plus, i only bought one in 2010, so i have improved. i would actually donate some of it, but i'm not sure that the second-hand shops would take partial bottles.

as those of you who are friends with me on facebook know from the daily updates, i actually use perfume on a daily basis - and i don't tend to the wear the same one for two days running. i keep an ever-rotating collection out on the shelf in the bathroom and on the shelf in the bedroom - 5-6 each place - something to suit the season and any potential mood.

there are romantic scents, power scents for difficult meetings, feminine ones and unisex ones. there are ones which are bonded inextricably with memories of certain times and places. there really are only 1 or 2 that i don't ever use...jill sander sensations and calvin klein contradiction. both of those went weird on me when i was pregnant with sabin and i haven't been able to stand them since.

i recognize that this is probably a symptom of a larger disease of the soul, but i feel it's one that's in my past. and the daily enjoyment of my previous obsessive collecting actually lives on in a positive way, so although it was pretty excessive (wasn't everything in the naughties?), it wasn't all bad.

now it's your turn...what are you a little bit obsessive about collecting?

on collecting I: perfume

transitioning to fall

as regular readers of this blog are aware, i have long been struggling with trying to pare down and live a simpler life. i'd like to be less of a consumer or at the very least a more conscious one. but i struggle, because i worship at the altar of apple and i am an avid collector of many things...perfume, fabric, stamps, pretty paper, locks...i could go on.

and the rest of the week, i will go on. because i want to explore my need for collecting, what it is i like about it and hope to get to the bottom of what it is that drives me (or any of us, really) to collect. of course, this isn't the first time i've pondered this, but i want to do it again in the hope that i will begin to be more conscious about it and maybe also to remind me to actively enjoy these things i've so obsessively carefully chosen.

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so to start this off, i got out my rather shockingly large box of perfume (to which, i am proud to say, i have not added any new ones during 2011) and changed out the summery scents for a selection of late summer/early autumn scents. i think that scent definitely can help you transition the seasons, so i chose some with darker, heavier undertones to carry me into fall.

i also kept a couple of the summer scents out (sarah jessica parker's lovely and the michael kors island) because i'm expecting that since we've had such a rotten sunless summer, we will actually get some sunny days here in august (so far, that's but a pipe dream).  for example, chanel no. 5 eau premiere is a great transition fragrance - a lighter version of the heavy, serious no. 5, it's perfect for these windy, changeable days where fall and even a few leaves are definitely in the air.  and for the truly blustery, autumn days where there's no hint of summer left, i'm ready with paul smith woman and the tom ford white patchouli.

even if i don't put on other makeup or do my hair, perfume is a part of my everyday. i keep several bottles on the shelf in the bathroom and several in the bedroom. i use scent to lift my mood or to underline it if i want to keep it dark. scent can trigger memories or just give flashes of a feeling you had when you wore it. i wear perfume every day - it's as essential as my glasses. sometimes i wear the same one for a week straight, but more often, a different one - one that somehow matches how i'm feeling or how i want to feel on that particular day.

aside:  what's interesting is that husband also wears cologne every day - he calls it "smell-good," which i find charming despite being dubbed that by a long-ago girlfriend. the difference is that he uses up a bottle before starting a new one, so he's content to wear the same one for several months at a time. he doesn't have the same need i do to collect a wide variety, tho' he doesn't buy the same one over and over again, when one bottle is gone, he buys something new.

but i suppose the moment i enjoyed most of all with my seasonal switch today was that the sun had come out all gloriously golden in the early evening sky and the perfumes looked just gorgeous all lined up on my scale in the evening sunlight.  enjoying the collection, in all its aspects - whether using it or just looking at it - is a big part of what collecting is about.

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more collections coming soon...

yes, i'm a brand hound

on the plane i was reading the hopelessly out-of-touch berlingske sunday lifestyle magazine MS (which strangely doesn't seem to have its own pages on berlingske's website). as i've written previously, my impression is that they keep the editorial staff of the very posh sunday magazine somewhere in an underground bunker where they have no access to the rest of news staff and as such have no idea whatsoever that there's a financial crisis raging.

but to distract myself from the fact that the plane was completely packed and the guy next to me had his elbow firmly planted on my side of the seat (damn those short flight small planes), i lost myself in a one-page article on all of the gorgeous new perfume bottles being designed by industrial designers like ross lovegrove (the new narciso rodriguez essence) and karim rashid (the new kenzo amour) and a must-have clear glass dildo designed by jean nouvel for yves st. laurent last year (see, i said they were out of touch).

and in thinking about the out-of-touchness, i thought briefly guiltily about my pass through the duty free. wherein i bought a new yves st. laurent mascara (the one that makes your real lashes look like fakes (thanks for the recommendation tangobaby)) and a new mac paint pot in painterly (love that name) and looked in vain for the wonderful new prada infusion de fleur d'oranger. i was a little shocked not to find it, as the duty free in CPH is generally one of the better-stocked i've visited (and i've visited a lot of them). so i had to content myself with a couple of spritzes of the sisley 1 and 2 (there's also a #3, but i didn't have enough arms) (#1 and #2 are wonderful and expensive (600DKK/$115 for 100ml), but are now on my covet list (especially #2), which just smelled better and better the longer it was on me.

i found the prada when i got to oslo (which is where i'd seen it in the first place) and because it's a small (read: travelable) 50ml size, i got it and some origins shampoo and conditioner (since that girl failed to pack any).

now that's an awful lot of brands. generally speaking, all of my skin care is origins--youthtopia, a perfect world, make a difference, checks and balances, modern friction--i'm a sucker for those clever names and all of them have scents that i can stand (as in not much scent at all to compete with all the perfume i've got goin' on).  i'm not loyal to one particular brand of perfume, as we well know, tho' i do think i have every scent ralph lauren makes, so that's the closest i come to brand loyalty on fragrance.

i'm a faithful user of estée lauder futurist age-resisting foundation (i love that age-resisting thing). the nail polish i have is overwhelmingly chanel with the occasional mac for the more wacky colors. chanel totally got me hooked way back in the mid-90s with vamp. i adored that color. eyeshadow is all mac at the moment, tho' i do a bit of bobby brown and the occasional dior. eyeliner goes between mac and estée lauder. lipstick is all mac at the moment, but there have been times when it was all estée lauder. (i think it's the same company behind both, so it probably doesn't really matter).

but the fact is that they are all brands, brands, brands. and i've been like this as long as i can remember making my own brand choices. but why is that? i no longer buy women's magazines and the only time i see ads for such things is the odd copy of vanity fair or when i page through the glossy mags at the hairdresser or when i read berlingske's infernal sunday magazine. so what makes me so loyal to the brand names?

i've actually tried with both foundation and eyeliner to go to more off-the-shelf sorts..max factor or l'oreal or the like, but honestly didn't like them as well as i like the futurist--it just goes on better and looks better and feels better (you get that? better.). and as for the eyeliner, many eyeliners will make your eyes water, which just kinda defeats the purpose.  i was a faithful l'oreal mascara user for years until i discovered the yves st. laurent and actually only went looking for it when i could no longer find the l'oreal one i liked (i think they stopped making it).

and i'd like to think that my faithful long-term use of good skin care products has helped me have less wrinkles than many people my age. (nothing to do with living in a place where the sun doesn't shine that much or the fact that i've never smoked. nope. gotta be the youthtopia.)

but am i just a victim of years of advertising and societal pressure which makes me think i need all that product in the first place. or is it just because i would rather douse myself in perfume than shower on a regular basis? or are the brands really better?

what brands are you loyal to and why?