angels

I've made my ultimate fragrance sample order (in the US...already have an Etiket order lined up for when I'm back in Canada opps), so here's my latest batch of impressions for the Saks samples:


L’artisan Parfumeur L’historie d’orange
It’s a orange blossom. This is all.
I think I’m ambivalent about orange blossom as a note. Definitely like it in a blend, but not enough as a soliflore. But the performance on this is pretty good, I was not expecting much since orange blossom is moreso a fleeting note. Projection is good, can easily smell from elbow distance away. The scent is linear, which I believe is the design intent and probably technically difficult to achieve with orange blossom. Also gotta give props to the team for their restraint in not adding any other notes.

...

L’artisan Parfumeur Un Air de Bretagne
I swear I know what the opening smells like, but can’t pinpoint the word. Ah! Like 风油精! Or like the other chinese herbal sauves/oils. It’s a sharp and sparkling, and would definitely cut through the awful humidity in Houston right now. I feel quite ambivalent about this fragrance once this settles and lose its sharpness. If this is a good representation of “aquatics”, then I don’t think its a genre that I’m into. 

It’s interesting that all my scent memories are of times when I’m in China, aka from when I was really young. Maybe that’s why I’m interested in fragrances that feature flowers from my childhood, like peony, lotus, osmanthus, etc.

...

Penhaligon’s Savoy Steam
I really wanted to like this one’s smell. The concept is perfect, the bottle is super cute, and the notes sounded like what I typically enjoy. But alas it didn’t work out :( I love the first 2 minutes of the opening: a burst of light roses, and a quick whiff of the eucalyptus. But then…what I describe as the sulphurous hot spring note emerges and ruins everything for me. Too 闷. As the scent settles, the other nice aromatic notes appear, but always underscored by the awful sulphurous hot spring note. I’m not sure whether this is a unique reaction on my skin, or if its the design intent since the concept is a turkish bath. Luckily the awful note is largely absent at a distance, so this is wearable for me.

...

Penhaligon’s Cousin Flora
Citrus and then musk. I feel pretty ambivalent about it, good performance (projection and longevity) for a citrus tho.

...

Penhaligon’s Cousin Matthew
Citrus, but a green citrus rather than Flora’s pure citrus. It’s more to my liking. The petit grain shows up after about 15mins, and I looooove the smell of petit grain.But I’m having a hard time justifying the price for a “simple” (not really simple I suppose, since making citruses last is a technical feat) scent. Actually scratch that, I must admit that I considered blind buying Perfumer H’s orange leaves just because there’s not many good petit grain centric perfumes (just searched it up, they don’t seem to sell online? darn) It is my favourite citrus out of all my sampling so far, more so than Le Labo’s Bergamote 22.

...

As a bonus, I did a comparison between Penhaligon's Duke and Sohan:

Duke: opens with a blast of fresh rose, which then recedes to make room for the spices. This time I sprayed on warm & slightly damp skin (right after shower) and that really magnified the cumin. So. Much. Cumin. I don’t find it off-putting but it’s definitely not something I want as the primary note. Interestingly the official description doesn’t list cumin as a note. Perhaps its the combination of pepper and leather? After ~5 mins, the spices and rose come into more of a balance. The two notes are blended, but I can still perceive them as distinctive. The rose is sort of sheer…like a jammy rose (so somewhat sweet) that’s been thinned to a glaze consistency. There’s a sharp fresh / green note that returns from the immediate opening. As it settles, the rose begins to be more prominent than the spices, although if I put my nose tight next to it, the cumin is still strong. Actually it seems like the rose and spice alternates in prominence. Overall, this is a cool-weather, uplifting rose for me.

Sohan: it’s a woody rose from the start, more wood than rose. Both note is very smoothly blended into each other and hard to distinguish. It feels somewhat dry. As it settles, the scent gains some transparency, which is more agreeable to me. There’s also some sweetness once it settles, rather than the dry opening. Funny enough, the base is woody with a slight spice tinge. Overall, this is a cool-weather, comforting rose for me, although I don’t like it enough for a full bottle.

it was cold out on the way home

...

The most poignant description of grief I've read. I totally feel the less sad = more sad

grace

This week's salad: the good ol' french lentil

Unfortunately I didn't do a good job of making this iteration:

• Overcooked the lentils. I was being dumb and used my usual timing but didn't account for the fact that I soaked the lentils beforehand. Lesson learned is soaking lentils actually make your life harder. There is a much longer window to achieve the perfect texture when cooking unsoaked lentils. 
• Mushy vegetable texture: this is more situation than my active fault, as I had frozen celery (so already mushy), really old carrots (somewhat mushy), and cooked the onions first while I was chopping the other two (actually my fault). 

The radish was also more pleasant when chopped smaller than what's shown in the photos, although they look better in bigger chunks 😂

ghosts

clasp

I feel fortunate that I'm not really a bag person, since those damages can easily before worse than shoes (maybe). But Celine is the brand that consistently produces bags that I like:

Medium 16 Bag (satiated calfskin, black)

They did discontinue my previous moonshot bag, for which I can only be mildly annoyed about because of how little probability there existed of me ever owning one. I still doubt I'll drop more than 2k on a bag (knock on wood), so this would also be something I won't own.

Also for the price of one of the above, I can almost afford everything I'm interested in from Aspinal:

Aspinal total = $4335, just a tad less than $1000 cheaper than the Celine. Though it feels reasonable to have a complete formal bag wardrobe for around 5k. On second thought...I do think I will end up with about 5k worth of shoes as well, opps.

logan

I've not been very lucky with my selection of fragrance samples from Sephora. Did not enjoy any of the 3 that I chose.

Burberry My Burberry
Opening is fruity and floral, which is pleasant but not really my thing. I get a whiff of green apple, abstract florals, and a fruity sweetness. After a couple of minutes, the floral takes over from the fruits. A floral that is quite sweet.

Hermes Un Jardin Sur le Nil
For some reason all I get is an extremely soapy scent. I don’t recall it smelling like this when I tried it before. But the immediate opening is soapy, after half an hour its the same soapiness. It’s an old fashioned, floral soap. The projection of this is surprisingly good, especially considering what I’ve read about the Jardin series being quite fleeting. So far 2 hours in and it’s still the floral soap. Need to test this again as I'm finding it hard to believe that my memory of this is so different

Hermes Eau Des Merveilles Bleue
It opens with some sparkling citrus and quickly turns into an aquatic note? Not too sure, but then the sparkling texture turns into more of a still water, like a tidal pool? If I smell very closely, there's a plastic note alongside the aquatic plant note. A weird impression. Ah the plastic is probably the amber note, darn! Also noticed the patch of skin that I sprayed this on has turned red, assuming that's an allergic reaction so time to scrub this off and never touch it again.

I did blind buy Commodity Vetiver since the brand is being discontinued and there was only one 10ml spray left in store. This one I like more, although still too sweet overall. The opening smells like honey and black tea...huh. Official notes lists Apple, blackberry and petalia (a floral accord I assume). The scent stays like this for about 3 hours, and then slowly fades. I can somewhat smell the vetiver as it fades, but its definitely not a dominant note. I searched up Petalia and it's suppose to be a peony accord. Didn't get that impression, but I've also solemnly had the chance to smell peonies. 

Been thinking about why I dislike amber, resins and sweet notes and it comes down to 闷. I'm not sure what the best translation for this feeling is. On the more extreme end, it's like suffocating. Maybe stuffy? Like how you feel on a super humid day. Sweet is more like 腻. Google translates that as unctuous, TIL a new word. Both awful feelings. 

#12

yesterday night's looping thoughts and music brought to you by Garamond, such a pretty font! I'm sad that there's no regular opportunities to use all of the nice fonts I've accumulated.

pestle

This week's meals:

 Chili courtesy of BOGO ground beef at Krogers

I wing'd the recipe and it turned out pretty good. Not mind blowing good, but up to expectations considering I only had old chipotle powder (like 3 years old eek) and red bell peppers. Man I didn't experience the difference between fresh and stale spices until I opened my new bag of cumin and bay leaves, just the aroma is miles apart. Also learned that nice aged cheddar doesn't melt...shoulda went with ordinary block cheddar "orz

Zucchini, kale and barley salad with lemony toasted spices vinaigrette 

Back on track with salads! The lemony toasted spices vinaigrette is really good and versatile.

maybe we were magic

Work is looking to be quite busy for the next couple of weeks, so I'm queuing up some music to fill the silence:

fish

Yesterday's shower thoughts: emotional availability is a bogus concept because there's not a fixed quantity of love one can express, which means it's not a zero-sum game where if you love one person at 80% then you are only capable of loving someone else at 20%. Not a novel concept but a visceral realization for me.

Grossmith

I got my hands on some new perfume samples from Sephora and Saks when I dropped by Galleria for Lady M's pop up. So here's my last remaining batch of impressions on Grossmith from my Bloom order.

Grossmiths Hasu no Hana
Lately every perfume has been reminding me of some aspect of my childhood in China. This one evokes the home where I grew up till kindergarten / spent after school at during elementary school. Why, maybe because it smells like this herbal water mosquito repellent (although I’ve continuously used it even after moving from that home). But this smell really does remind me of that mosquito repellent. I liked its scent a lot, and would pour it into other random stuff to make different scents haha. There’s a very fresh/aromatic component of this perfume that’s largely responsible for the resemblance, and perhaps also a background woody note. I did feel like there was some floral in the opening, but its not a dominant accord at this point. he few blogger reviews of this seems all over the place, one highlights the ylang-ylang, one highlights the rose and spice, my impression aligns the most with the accord votes on fragrantica, which says woody > citrus (absent for me) > aromatic. There’s also a significant different between my wrist ½ spray (what the previous text has described) and my inner elbow ½ spray, which is more warm and woody. After about 2 hours, the scent is turning more floral as the aromatics fade. It’s a soft, well blended floral bouquet. Never mind, the aromatics came back and pushed the floral to the background again at about the 3 hour mark.

It’s unfortunate that I really like this and want a full bottle, it’s stupidly expensive (~460CAD at the current exchange rate) ;o; This seems similar enough to Clinique’s Aromatics Elixir, will have to compare side-by-side.
I wore AE the next day and they are different. AE is more earthy, a heavier herbal than the lighter, more sparkling herbal of Hasu no Hana. The florals are also darker and more apparent. While they are both traditional chypre, I do want both on my collection.

...

Grossmith Shem-El-Nessim
The opening is somewhat resinous to me, even tho it’s not a listed note hmm. Possibly the vanilla, galbanum + other base notes? It’s also somewhat sharp. I don’t get the impression of bergamot or neroli. It’s interesting that my wrist dab, after going through a hand wash, smells very nicely of florals. Comparatively, my inner elbow spray is still rather sharp and slightly less resin-y. About an hour in, the sharpness is settling and more florals are coming through.

...

Grossmith Phul-Nana
The opening is vegetal-bitter-ish citrus and floral. Quite light textured. About half hour in and it still feels light. I’m surprised given that this is one of the OG oriental perfumes and I was expecting something very dense. Pleasantly surprised tho, I’m liking the lightness, at least now in the summer. 1 more hour in and the smell is predominately white florals with some spice and wood, but very smoothly blended together. Another hour in and the spice notes feel fresh. Like freshly crushed cinnamon. I keep waiting for the heaviness and density to appear, but 3 hours later its still light. The lightness makes this much more wearable..and modern I suppose. I’m not in love with this like I am with Hasu-no-Hana, but I will use up the sample for sure.

...

Grossmith Saffron Rose
After an initial blast of rose (did not get any cinnamon), the woody notes became front and centre. The rose is still in the background, and I think the saffron is here in a supporting role as well (I’m not too sure how saffron smells like), but it is definitely predominately wood. Smokey wood too (the gaiac wood?), which I’m not a fan of. The scent is quite heavy, good projection too: I can smell is very clearly from an elbow distance. I can see this being a cooler weather fragrance, and I’ll retest it when autumn rolls around since the smokiness has receded somewhat, although it’s still prominent if I put my nose right next to it. More importantly, I don’t smell the amber notes at all, phew.

...

Grossmith Golden Chypre
The opening is very orange, like the flesh of the orange. The spices come in after a couple of minutes, smells like cassia to me, but the notes list cardamon and nutmeg. The orange and spices remind me very much of the winter holidays (thanksgiving to christmas), kind of an unfortunate association with stereotypical potpourri. The texture is like a…pressed and starched cotton poplin. Sharp, but still a fabric. The projection seem moderate, I catch frequent whiffs from an elbow distance. As it settles, I smell the florals coming in. The spices has receded, so the overall feel is softer. The orange also left some of it sweetness behind. Overall I feel quite ambivalent about this.

...

Grossmith Amelia
I finally smell neroli! Or what I think it smells like. Not sure if I can pick out the osmanthus since my only reference is the dried flowers. Cutting the review short since I’ve been laying close to my wrist and consequently feeling a little queasy. Will re-test in the future.

bias

This sort of counts as a salad...but overall I'm not doing very well on that goal. It's a double whammy of me not liking most vegetables raw, and that a lot of salad ingredients (ahem, herbs!) are quite perishable. So I eat a lot of pseudo-salads 😂

warm, spanish style bean salad via Serious Eats

Fun fact, this recipe has languished in my bookmarks for at least...3 years? Let me pay myself on the back for finally making it. Now to stare at the countless other bookmarked recipes that's yet to share the same fate...

P.S. Serious Eat's podcast recently featured Jason Wang of Xi'An Famous Food!! I enjoyed the episode a lot as it focused on the Chinese-immigrant experience. Part 1 & Part 2

19.04 Monthly Review

Let's talk about budgeting :D

I've never imposed a formal budget on myself. Primarily because I never had steady income while studying. During PEY, I had a savings goal which is to pay all of my forth year expenses, but no structural beyond that. Overall it's worked well so far.

I do want to create a more formal, as in more structured, budget now that I'm working full time and have a variety of end-uses for the money that I earn. Currently I'm tracking most of my expenses (minus travel and work) and have come up with a framework based on 3 months of data.

End uses:

• Retirement savings
• Mortgage downpayment savings
• Rent
• Food
• Socializing
• Clothing
• Other appearance related things (skincare, makeup, hair)
• Household consumables
• Household non-consumables (eg. furniture, kitchen gear)
• Travel / hobby purchases savings
• ???

One thing that doesn't work for me is having everything in monthly increments. I get that this is common advice since most expenses get paid monthly, but other spending categories are more volatile and it seems too contrived to fit them into monthly increments. Prime example of this is clothing spending for me. During the months that I buy clothing items, it very much throws off my budget: currently I have a rough $500 monthly spending limit, and in February I got my Jensens for $280, which are up 56%. Example #2 is travel, which isn't even part of that $500. Although I plan my travels down to minute details (to the point of looking up the menu of restaurants that I'm interested in and estimating my meal costs), I don't set a limit for how much the trip will cost. I don't advocate for this approach in general, but it works well for me. All this rambling is to say that I categorize my expenses into different timescales. I also set fixed amounts for things and percentage amounts for other things. All in all, a messy way to do things, but I'll take that over contrived.

Monthly expenses:

• Rent (fixed - max 1.5k, or I go live at home...)
• Groceries & eating out (fixed, right now it's $200, but I suspect it'll be higher back in Toronto)
• Socializing expenses (fixed)
• Savings for mortgage downpayment (% - 30 to 45)
• Savings for retirement (% - goal is 6% RRSP and 10% TSFA)

Annual expenses:

• Clothing (fixed)
• Skincare / makeup / hair (fixed - $800? based on some itemized guesses)

All the remaining non-accounted for end uses...I won't set a limit for. Whatever money I have leftover will be used for those. I've found out that I don't actually have the enthusiasm to fully optimize my finances, so this is my 20% effort for 80% results. 

...

In other resolutions news:

• I was about to fit all of my April non-organic trash (and recyclables sadly) into the bin! The biggest offenders (by volume) is food containers, especially take-out containers. I don't exactly want to bring my own tupperware to restaurants, so here's hoping some legislation will require all take-out containers to be compostable...or reusable like my beloved deli tubs.
• Still on track for my clothing goals: 5/10 new purchases, none fast fashion (well the scarf, fine), and recording wear counts
• My hair is much improved, I now know to focus on hydration since my hair is coarse and thick. Jeff said that the difference is quite drastic.
• Did actually catch up with a bunch of friends in April, although have not been following my guidelines.
• Revising my professional credibility goal to just studying for my law & ethics exam in the latter half of the year
• Been to a couple of networking events, feels awkward af but was enjoyable as well. 

cojita

I made quesadillas for the first time!
Very convenient as a weeknight dinner. The fillings can be made ahead, the tortilla can be stashed in the freezer, and it takes at most 10mins (or 15 if you fry an egg as well) to have food in your mouth.

zucchini & corn / spinach & black bean both via Serious Eats

egg

I've not posted about tea for a while. It's simply because I have no kettle in Houston and Atlanta tap water tastes very bad (and the brewed tea tastes even worse). At least my Houston office has a dedicated tap (off the coffee brewer) for boiling water so that my office tea isn't ruined by leftover coffee either. Been going through the yiwu cake I brought back from Chengdu at a good rate. It's a shame that I still haven't tried Floating Leaves triple roasted dongding with relatively amazing Toronto tap water.

I interrupt the lack of tea programming with this tea wheel by Kyarazen (please click through, I feel bad if I upload it here instead).

It stands out for two reasons:

1. Terminology is like a cross between tea and fragrance...because he dabbles in both.
2. Functions as a chinese-english dictionary for tea and fragrance. My mind was literally blown by 鲜 = umami. Who the fuck translated umami as savoury in English is waaaaaay off (I did double check the definition of savoury, which google roughly puts as not sweet). 

This is all for now. 

I miss my teapots :( 

harvest

NYT also did a special feature on food & sustainability ^^

Main article
Five cuisines that are more sustainable
Seaweed!

My take-away is to learn to cook mollusks. I wasn't really into them aside from scallops, and still can't say with enthusiasm that I like them, but they do grow on me each time I eat them (like at Exmouth).

yeux

Today's post is a continuation of what I've learned about my perfume preferences. Now I get to conceptualize and develop a framework (are those two actions redundant?) my "fragrance wardrobe" (don't really like the term, but it's accurate).

Some guiding principles (or questions, rather)

• Arbitrary categorization: by season? by outdoor temperature? by occasion / activity?
• Is sampling a never ending process? Maybe the end is when I lose interest in this hobby. Maybe I'll know with good enough certainty that I've found the ultimate X scent with more experience
• How many full bottles is too many? What's the limit for analysis paralysis? Do I set a hard number for my entire collection or per category?
• Acquisition method: do I buy from in-store where I can befriend the SA? do I try to find the best deal online?
• Display: how to show off the pretty bottles (which is the only reason why I'm going to pay the price for full bottles that I'll likely never finish instead of being rational and buying decants) while minimizing the amount of time I spent wiping off dust?

So far the wardrobe consists / will consists of:

• Penhaligon lord george (cooler weather / work)
• Arquiste fleur de louis (warm weather / work)
• Parterre a tribute to edith (jammy rose)
• Clinique aromatics elixir (warm weather / work)
• Grossmith hasu no hana (warm weather)

"soon" to be in my hands

Current answers to aforementioned questions:

Creating seasonal wardrobes make sense, since the weather does influence the performance of a perfume and more importantly my preference. Will try a S/S and F/W categorization for now, with a cap of 9 bottles in each. The waterfall of purchasing options is guided by availability, and go from discount sites > in-store > online > travelling to other countries (oh I will do this, in fact I'm definitely waiting on visiting London to get Parterre and Grossmith, getting that VAT deduction will be very helpful). I do want a mirrored tray to display my bottles in, not completely set on it tho, maybe just a clear acrylic tray for now. 

nez

1.5 month and 5 sets of various samples later, I've learned some things about my fragrance preferences.

Vetiver
I don't think vetiver centric fragrances are something I would want to wear. I do still very much like this note in a composition, but was not immediately smitten with either Tom Ford's Grey Vetiver or Guerlain's Vetiver (or Commodity's Vetiver) when I tried them. Will give Guerlain's another go on the skin, and will get a sample of Able's White Vetiver, but moving forward will not go out of my way to try vetiver focused scents.

Citrus
I almost always get a cleaning product association with scents that have citrus lasting past the very opening. The only fragrance that this did not happen with is Le Labo's Bergamote 22, and I don't love it enough to consider it full bottle worthy (though Rui does love it).

Aromatic / Herbal
This is my preferred dominate note for hot weather scents. Feels super refreshing while having more complexity than a citrus focused scent, and also tend to last longer.

Rose
My bae, one of two soliflore that I actively seek out. I like fresh roses, jammy roses, spicy roses and possibly oud-y roses (only data point is Penhaligon's Sohan so far). So far I've found full bottle worthy of both a fresh (Penhaligon's Savoy Steam) and a jammy rose (Parterre A Tribute to Edith) already. Excited to try Amouage's roses for the spice and oud variants.

Iris
The powdery-ness of Iris is very comforting to me. So far I haven't found an iris centric or soliflore that I love, and surprisingly have not come across l'infusion d'iris at any duty free shops. My high hopes for Serge Luten Iris Silver Mist and Van Cleef Bois d'Iris were both ruined by their amber notes. The search continues.

Floral Mix
I initially dismissed florals, due to a mix of thinking it was headache inducing and also faint memories of overpowering jasmine scents (from what I have no clue, I've retried my Guerlain jasmine Aqua Allegoria and it was fine). It took Arquiste Fleur de Louis to completely change my mind. This is my preferred S/S work scent (with Penhaligon's Lord George for F/W). I do want to try more floral mixes, but the desire is somewhat subdued by how much I like Fleur de Louis.

Wood
I do like wood, but less than I thought I would. I thought a good summer fragrance would be a cold, forest-y fragrances (eg. Aesop Hwyl), but just don't feel as much affinity for it. Possibly because they would promise a moss scent, which I'm drawn to from the exquisite temples in Kyoto, but I never smell the moss (do I even know how moss smells like? Do they actually have a smell or is this another one of those conceptual notes?) Out of the individual woods, I can only reliably identify sandalwood, and have a vague impression of what agarwood and gaiac wood is like.

Tea
This is like a get-out-of-jail-free card for me haha. Well sort of. I'm always tempted to try tea scents, and I typically like them, but they never measure up to the aroma of my actual teas, especially the deliciously floral or fruity oolongs.

Leather
I like soft leather / suede as a supporting note in some compositions, but am not a fan of harder or prominent leather scents.

Amber / Resin
This is a definite hate for me. I will actively avoid any fragrance that has a prominent amber note, unless it's super expertly blended into a base that features other heavy scents. As they say in detailing for seismic, it's all about proportioning to achieve the desired performance. Myrrh is about the only resin that I feel positively about, while frankincense I think I'm neutral on (too few data points, will know after Amouage samples).

Smoke / Incense
I don't really like smoke but I'm slightly positive on incense. It's tricky because the smell of incense to me is how Chinese / Buddhist incense smells like (not sure which notes they are, likely wood-y ones), but most perfumes described as incense references the Christian incense smell (resin-y), which I'm ambivalent to dislike on.

Sweet
Stay away, stay far away. Did not like and still do not like, but at least it's not nauseating like amber.

Musk
Having gone through the musk collection from Sylvaine Delacourte, I'd say I'm ambivalent to the clean, white musks. Haven't smelled any dark, animalistic musks, but I doubt it'll be something I like.

Vanilla 
Similarly, having gone though the vanilla collection from Sylvaine Delacourte, I realized that I'm okay with real vanilla. Also I had the chance to smell a real vanilla bean, and the scent is very different than a conceptual vanilla note. The real bean smells very much like rum to me, very spicy and pungent, not cloy or sweet at all. Vanilla is still not a note that I'll look for, but will not turn away from fragrances that use it in a supporting role.

Tonka
This is my preferred alternative to vanilla