you’ll become a hallucination,

lyrics

Honestly this album takes most of the credit for getting me through last week, and especially this song for getting me through the evening a week ago.

tonka

I've been down in the rabbit hole of perfume blogs (currently in the archives of Bois de Jasmin, previously The Perfume Shrine), and to say that I feel overwhelmed is an understatement. This is a familiar feeling, like when I was digging through MarshalN on pu-er.

(Short interlude, David recommended this MTG color personality framework and I was initially unsure what I am. However, this post, and I think myself in general, is quite blue/white. Although certain situations I act in more green or black ways).

So I've come up with two rules to guide my exploration:

• Sample by brand: read about its philosophy / history and get a discovery set of samples. Ideally it's a locally available brand and I can visit their counter and chat with SAs (and hopefully score free samples). I'm arbitrarily limiting this activity to once a year, for both the sake of having a fuller wallet and also it'll probably take that long to use up the samples.
• Buy the full bottle if and only if: (1) brand aligns with me, (2) bottle design is to my preference, and (3) I like the scent and it doesn't induce a headache*

The theme are slowly and methodically-ish. In fact, I see very strong parallels between how I approach tea and perfume. The generally accepted strategy is sample widely and be very choosy about buying the full size. I'm surprised that the tea community haven't adopted an equivalent term for full bottle worthy (although there is the reverse of "a cake is the sample").

I'm not yet setting a limit on full bottle purchases, and am not against owning multiples of the same scent family (I already envision myself with many vetiver-centric perfumes). I'm also undecided on whether I want to develop slots for seasonality or activities (equivalent of assessing your wardrobe for "holes" and then shopping to fill those in). That said, I am brainstorming a good scent for humid summers, something like Jo Malone's Wood Sage and Sea Salt. Maybe I should just get that...but will need to test for longevity.

Ah, that's another of my important criteria, I want my scents to last. Have small projection (or to use the proper term, sillage), but last a very long time. It's nice to catch a sniff of the scent throughout the day. I'm quite happy that both Lord George and Jasminora actually lasts until the next day, even after my long hot showers.

Lastly, I want to be less precious with what I own. I have the same problem with my tea stash, saving my nicer wu-yi and pu-er for when I can sit down for an uninterrupted session. Well, that was rare and will be exceedingly rare now that I've finally started full time work. I'll still obviously save my best teas (eg. W2T's white whale, which is sold out), but I've started drinking a ~10 y.o. yiwu that I took from China grandpa style at work. Am I realizing the tea's full potential? Of course not, but not drinking the tea at all is literally infinitely worse. What this translate to my fragrance collection currently is using my Aveda Chakra 3 as a home scent, on towels, beddings, etc. Perhaps with enough use I'll Pavlov-dog myself into associating it with home and unwinding.



*I'm starting to question my assumption that it's the scent that's inducing a headache, it could also be dehydration, since in both times when this happened (that I remember clearly), I've been out for a while and did not drink enough water. So I'm revising my theory to be that scents are a trigger but dehydration is the underlaying cause.

wishing upon the night sky / but who would listen?

Click through to lyrics, my way of showing some support to the translator.

Also sad that there's no official audio up yet :(

Buffalo Bayou

A rare day in Houston where the weather is appropriate for being outdoors, hurray!

...

My neighbourhood is also in bloom!

rose

I bought Lord George over the weekend and thus began my descent down the rabbit hole:

I made an internal pact with myself that I wouldn't buy any perfume until I got my hands on Ford George, as a pre-emptive control on my spending since perfumes are stupidly expensive. So now the gates have opened... Although I did develop a minor headache, so gonna pause until I'm sure this hobby won't be a health hazard "orz

The Saks at Galleria (otherwise quite underwhelming) has an amazing selection of perfumes, especially the popular niche brands. I spent a long time in store with the SA for L'artisan parfumeur and Penhaligon sampling these two brands. She was very patient and gave me a whole bunch of take-home samples before I even bought the full bottle. Glad she got commission from my purchase, worth the extra $20 in price difference between Saks in store (Lord George isn't on their website for some reason) and Penhaligon's official US site. Will hold off more purchases (really liked Sohan) until I make it to the duty free in Heathrow ;_;

L'artisan parfumeur samples:

• Venenum
• Tenebrae
• Mirabilis
• Passage d'enfer
• L'eau d'ambre extreme
• Timbuku
• Mandarina corsica

and 3 samples of Penhaligon: Iris Prima, The Duke, and Sohan

...

Actually I lied. Before buying Lord George, I was at Aveda buying hair products and bought their Chakra 3, which is a fragrance product. It smells pretty darn close to their dry remedy line, which I love the herbal-y scent of. Surprisingly the actual ingredients are lemon balm and lavender, which totally doesn't match my impression xD  

sleepless

I was so excited for the Epic High's new album to drop on Monday...but work got busy and I didn't listen to it until today. I knew I was gonna like it from its title (so relatable), but I didn't except to like  every song. The tunes are slightly electronic-y and jazz-y, while the lyrics are super relatable and clever. This is literally the first album I've bought as a whole (on iTunes, I've bought physical albums back in the days haha).

Let's listen in order:



Do you have trouble sleeping
Do you have nightmares
Are you heartbroken
Do you feel down
depressed, hopeless
Do you miss someone
Do you find that things
you once enjoyed
no longer interest you
Are you lonely

Are you always
sleepless
I dare you to tell me that you don't relate, and that this doesn't make you want to continue listening

lyrics via Epik High Translations, the always reliable tumblr, I am super thankful for its existence

carton

Some random brainstorming for my resolution #7: leading a low waste lifestyle, sparked by a new podcast I'm listening to called Green Dreams. It's a rare positive prespective on sustainability (part of the tagline is "thriving in every sense of the word"), which I desperately need cause I feel super apathetic about us ending a mostly livable planet in 30 years :D

Back on topic:

So far I've decided to stop buying body wash and use soap instead.
Now this is super low effort, and also super low impact because I don't use much body wash...so it's a cute starting point but that's about it.

The next step, also small, is to reduce my sheet mask usage. This resolution has been brought up many times on /r/asianbeauty and it decently adopted by the community. I'll phase it in 3 parts:

1. Stop buying new sheet mask until I've used up my stash
2. Only buy masks that I really really like, which at this point is L'herboflore because the fit is perfect, and the essence absorbs nicely
3. Not buy any at all

To be honest...I don't think I want to completely quit sheet masking because it does wonders giving emergency hydration to my skin. I can drastically cut down on its usage (not that I go through them very fast currently), but am unlikely to abstain from them. As the aforementioned podcast says, to live sustainably in the current society is to live inconveniently because on a high level capitalism values selfish actions.

Other ideas for cosmetics:

• Buy the largest size possible (eg. shampoo / conditioner)
• Choose products with refill packs. Honestly I don't get why Muji haven't jumped on offering refills for their skincare items in store when you can bring in an empty product bottle.

and that's about all I can think of. Well there's buying things in recyclable packaging, but my top priority is using effective products, and I'm not willing to compromise that to reduce waste. At this point you may wonder why a low waste lifestyle is even a goal since it doesn't seem that I care / am committing all that much. My answer would be to hit all the low hanging fruits and see how much impact that makes. Most blogs on this topic tends to be quite hardcore, so I'd like to go the mvp route. Maybe I'll get into it (and convince people that I live with also to get into it), or maybe it'll just be these little things.

...

On low waste in other areas of life:

• My food waste...is probably below average but not as low as it can be. Eg. I don't save all my veg scraps to make stock. But I also don't generate much waste to begin with since I buy mostly produce and not too much packaged food items.
• I'm half-heartedly trying to online shop less, although I've read mixed opinions on whether online shopping is more environmentally friendly, but at least I personally have less packing material waste to deal with by reducing online shopping. 
• A big win is all the pads that I no longer use now with the IUD. Saves money & waste :D
• A small win is always bringing a reusable bag to grocery shopping, and using less of the clear plastic bags for individual produce
• Need to be more vocal about declining plastic straws / utensils / bags / other freebies

For the months I'm in Houston, my goal is to empty my main trash bin only once a month.