Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

I’ve been a bit neglectful of the whole olfactory pleasures of late…

And naturally, I’m up after having slept some weird hours, so thought I would test my ‘I Smell Good’ decants. I don’t really know much about this company, but thought I’d give the decants a shot because someone was running a circle for them.
Continue Reading »

I’m actually revelling in the fact that I have nothing to do on a Saturday night and just spent most of the day in bed being lulled to sleep by Anner Bylsma’s recording of the complete Bach cello suites…oh my god, can you spell bliss? I need to add more of my classical music to our home server. I specifically ripped the cello suites for Rob (he’s a cellist) as we were having a discussion about the different recordings available (he likes Pablo Casals’ version which I’ve only heard bits and pieces of).
Continue Reading »

It’s about ten to two in the morning, on Tuesday and I’m up listening to music (at the moment, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is playing - great artist), reading Frank Beddor’s Seeing Redd, the second in ‘The Looking Glass Wars’ trilogy, and testing various BPAL fragrances from the Poe collection (fragrances all based on a short story by Poe).

(NB. I did try to shorten this so you had to click on ‘read more’ because the entry is so long, but it’s not working for some reason - my apologies)

The weekend was really nice - my friend from Ballarat came down to visit and we did a spot of shopping before we came back to my place. We went to one of Melbourne’s favourite boutique tea shops - she bought Marrakech tea (Moroccan mint tea) and I bought Turkish cherry tisane, which I am now drinking, yum! We then bought sushi and doughnuts (I know, an unlikely combination!) for lunch and afters, then returned to my place to watch The Tudors, getting through two episodes before she had to leave. I don’t get to see C often, and it was nice to be able to enjoy her company properly. We giggled and made history nerd comments all throughout The Tudors (though I’m a lit nerd, and she’s a history nerd proper, having done her Honours in history).

Then on Sunday, I got to watch my housemate Rob brew two different types of beer. He put on a stellar demonstration for any member of the Engineering Music Society at Melbourne Uni (of which he is a member) to come and watch. It was big fun. Naturally we got to drink a lot of beer (there is a brown ale, and an amber ale on tap at present). The brews he made were a Monteith Black clone, and a Munich dunkel. For lunch we ate awesome gourmet burgers, and for dinner some pizza. Healthy, hee hee. It was a great day, it’s always fun to watch Rob brewing these concoctions in these big-arse pots, haha.

Then today, not so much. Spent the whole day sleeping pretty much, ran out of medication (whoops. That’s bad, the withdrawal on this stuff is supposed to be bad). But did wake up to a nice surprise - Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab has two new acts for its Carnaval Diabolique! The Carnaval is a limited edition run, and will be disappearing at the end of Sept 2008. The only one that really jumped out at me was Tabula Smaragdina though Pickled Imp also sounds awesome. I may get The Grindhouse and Dionysia too. There were perhaps 2-3 ‘maybes’ but they had notes that sort of sounded like they would not work on me. I’ll be interested to hear what The Fragrant Elf thinks of this massive BPAL update - by the way, welcome home dear! Sorry about your car, though *growls at errant driver*.

It’s been eons since I did a beauty-related post, probably because I haven’t cared that much about it lately (you should see my hair, it’s all matted at the back because I haven’t brushed it for a few days. I just don’t care at the moment).

But I’m inspired by my friend The Fragrant Elf to do a brief fragrance diary entry, especially as that’s all that’s kept me from being super-sad the last few weeks, just testing these little sample vial-beauties.

And in case you’re wondering, I’m drinking a Cooper’s Pale Ale clone which is just divine in this heat. Such a thirst quencher.

Arcana Layering Note in Chocolate - this smells exactly like high-grade melted dark chocolate, absolutely delicious! The throw is amazing, as is the staying power. Might need a bottle of this stuff.

Arcana Layering Note in Patchouli - smells exactly like freshly turned earth, not really my sort of thing but very interesting nevertheless. I’m quite surprised because patchouli doesn’t usually smell like that. Doesn’t have that typical hippy incense smell most people would be familiar with.

Arcana Layering Note in Smoked Vanilla - oh my gosh, this is really sexy. It’s a stronger version of The Body Shop’s Vanilla perfume oil they used to do ages ago, not sure if they still do it.

Arcana Layering Note in Sandalwood - this is a gentle, subdued sandalwood, smells very true and not spicy like sandalwood incense, it actually smells like the wood. I wish this were a bit stronger and had more throw. Very, very nice, and would be quite suitable on a male too. In fact, I imagine it would smell really nice on a bloke.

Arcana Layering Note in Egyptian Sandalwood - a completely different beast altogether from the above, it smells like sandalwood mixed with lemon and rose-flavoured Turkish delight. Yum! It’s a much fresher, less woody version of sandalwood proper.

Enough Arcana, let’s move on to Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab and some from the Hallowe’en collection…

BPAL The Chilling Cellar - this is supposed to smell of wine about to turn into vinegar and I don’t really get that so much because it’s too sweet which I don’t mind because I rather like sweet wine but not sure that was what the perfumer had in mind when she made the fragrance?

BPAL The Perilous Parlour - so I spell it the British way…this is supposed to be vanilla and pear. It’s very, very foody, smelling of white cake vanilla and juicy, nearly overripe pears. Very girlie! I’m actually surprised I loved it because I tend to prefer floral blends.

BPAL White Phoenix - finally I get my floral fix! This is supposed to have magnolia and frangipani but to be honest I don’t really detect either of those, just nice soapy clean florals. It could be the white sandalwood that is making it seem so clean not heady floral like frangipani and magnolia usually are (I am all for the heady florals! Actually, I call them the sex florals!)

BPAL The Lurid Library - smells like a mild male cologne. At first I didn’t really like this because of that, but it did end up smelling all old-world refined, very difficult to explain, but reminded me of aromatic candlewax and old books. I don’t get the incense tinge this is supposed to have. I wouldn’t wear this as a fragrance.

I guess that’s enough prattling on about fragrances, though I should do posts like this more often I think.

Yea, people have started tagging me back in regards to the quiz thingy I had up the other day.

Only one more entry of NaBloPoMo now!

Yes, I’ve run out of steam, could be to do with the fact that when I got home from work I was greeted by a lady and her screaming baby. Lucky I finished work early today (though they did ask me to stay back again…but must think of my health even if the money is tempting). Speaking of work, I got my first paycheck and wow, I’m richer than I’ve ever been in a loooooong time.

I started testing fragrances at work and discovered one that is absolutely divine - it’s actually one I’ve tested before (I have a pouch of imps (that’s what BPAL call samples, short for ‘imp’s ears’) that need retesting and I take them along with me wherever I go, particularly my parents’ place).

Anyway, the one I tried that really tickled my fancy was Alice. Description as follows:

Milk and honey with rose, carnation and bergamot.

In case you’re wondering, it’s named after Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I need a bottle desperately! Am thinking it will be a nice sleep blend (I have a few I rotate wearing to bed because they’re so relaxing and as well as helping me sleep they make me smell nice! Win-win sitch, innit?).

Someone pinched part of my blog post for this day and posted it here. Well, kind of pinched and kind of credited. It looks like a spam blog. I don’t get why they would want to do that…bizarre. As far as I can see the blog isn’t about food but just indexes posts that mention certain types of food. Weird.

Have almost finished The Scent Trail by Celia Lyttelton. Am up to the ambergris chapter and I have to say, ambergris sounds gross. Especially when it has squid beaks floating around in it (I didn’t even know squids have beaks!). Apparently, sperm whales swallow squid whole because they’re so soft but often end up throwing up the beak (!) encased in some yucky viscous semi-solid thing called ambergris. The beak is extremely sharp and doesn’t break down in the sperm whale’s belly. Usually ambergris washes up on the beach but it can be obtained by (perish the thought) harpooning the poor beast. Ambergris is still fairly rare and smells like musk or something, though apparently it isn’t nice by itself and augments other smells in fragrances, I believe it’s used as a fixative. It looks like pumice stone too. This is all information I got from Lyttelton’s book, but you can read more about ambergris on (where else?!) beloved Wikipedia.

Lyttelton also talked about civet cats and how their anal glands used to be milked for musk (ugh, poor things!) which is now thankfully outlawed. Even worse, the cats where first enraged because they produced more of the substance! God, humans are a cruel lot for vanity’s sake.

View my profile on NaBloPoMo

Such a nothing day yesterday, though I finished watching the rest of Believe Nothing (highly recommended) and then watched Dr Strangelove for the first time. It wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be.

I also tested another fragrance called Smut. Let me rustle around for a description…

What a great freakin’ word. BPAL LOVES TEH SMUT! Three swarthy, smutty musks sweetened with sugar and woozy with dark booze notes.

According to the housie, I smelt like musk sticks, you know the yummy pink confectionery? But it’s much nicer than that.

Not much else to report on this end, though I think I might have forgotten to take my happy pill yesterday. Whoops.

View my profile on NaBloPoMo

Not much has happened since I last blogged, gosh and it’s only day 7 of NaBloPoMo. Going to be a loooooong month.

Today I tried the BPAL fragrance Siren. It’s very strong, I think it might be a love oil. It reminds me of a specifically sweet-spicy scent I’ve detected at Indian grocers - it’s really pleasant but just a bit too heady for me I think. Here’s the description:

Bewitching, tantalizing and dangerously seductive. A thrilling, exotic blend — deceptively sweet, but spiked with malice. White ginger, jasmine, and a touch of vanilla.

I don’t really know what white ginger smells like but I definitely get the jasmine and vanilla - and oh how I heart jasmine. Anyway, it started off really wonderfully but now smells like…like crayons. Yes, crayons. I kid you not. A capital shame the vanilla and jasmine didn’t stick around the whole time, sigh.

Still reading The Night Watch and am hoping to finish it this week. I signed up for a 50-book challenge on aNobii. Here’s my list of books read so far. Man, I’m running out of time…

1. Sena Jeter Naslund, Abundance
2. Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, Stardust
3. Charles Vess, Book of Ballads
4. Evan Bates ed. Japanese Love Poems
5. Thorsten Veblen, Conspicuous Consumption
6. Naoko Amemiya & Aoi Hiiragi, Baron: The Cat Returns
7. Terry Jones & Alan Ereira, Medieval Lives
8. John Hollander, Rhyme’s Reason
9. Kevin Brophy, Portrait in Skin
10. Margaret Atwood, The Penelopeiad
11. Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell, Murder Mysteries
12. Peter Lyssiotis, The Bird, The Belltower
13. Professor Solomon, Japan in a Nutshell
14. Eric Shanowar, Age of Bronze: A Thousand Ships
15. Bill Willingham et al, Fables vol 8
16. Dorothy Porter, Wild Surmise
17. Robert Fagles trans. The Iliad
18. Edgar Allen Poe, Selected Tales (Oxford University Press edn)
19. Carol Ann Duffy, The World’s Wife
20. Edward Lear, Complete Nonsense
21. Art Spiegelman, Maus I & II
22. L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
23. Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
24. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
25. Yann Martel, Life of Pi
26. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
27. John Betjemen: Poems selected by Hugo Williams
28. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese
29. Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
30. Tom Standage, A History of the World in Six Glasses
31. Ella Holcombe, Welcome/No Vacancy
32. The Great Gatsby: A graphic novel adaptation by Nicki Greenberg of the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald
33. Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes
34. Mike Carey & John Bolton, God Save the Queen
35. Christopher Paolini, Eragon
36. Bill Willingham et al, Fables: Sons of Empire
37. Neil Gaiman et al. The Sandman: A Doll’s House

Wish me luck getting to 50!

View my profile on NaBloPoMo

My poor, poor pusscat. He was in a fight with another evil neighbourhood kitty and now has an infected wound as a result of his labours. So today poor puss had to get packed off in a cat carrier with no breakfast and is at the vet’s to have an operation to have his abscess removed…!!! Ugh, that evil cat that gave him a wound - apparently canines (as in the teeth, not dogs!) are very dirty and that was what put a hole in my poor kitten. I’m peeved to say the least.

I went out yesterday to a fabled dumpling house in Melbourne town with one of my oldest mates and we stuffed ourselves stupid. Had fried pork dumplings, mushroom and vegetable dumplings, spring onion pancake, and finally steamed miniature pork buns. Afterwards we took a trip to a local music shop and bought soooo much stuff (as a result of it being about 25 bucks for the two of us to have lunch, we felt we had money to burn, hehe).

I bought Blur’s Leisure, Gang of Four’s Entertainment, The Knife’s Silent Shout, the Tiga DJ Kicks compilation, and The Good The Bad and The Queen’s self-titled album. I almost bought Joy Division’s Permanent 1995 but put it back seeing as I have Substance. ‘Twas a hard decision though!

That’s not all. During the week at work I ended up buying The Postal Service’s Give Up and Radiohead’s Hail To The Thief (can you believe I haven’t had a copy since now?! Insanity!) and mclusky’s mclusky Do Dallas.

I also had a bout of depression haulage…ordered some lovely fragrances from the fabled Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab - descriptions are as follows - The Candy Butcher: dark chocolate with a heavy cream undertone; The Parliament of Monsters: dust, incense, wet tobacco, and a curl of opium smoke; Eat Me: three white cakes, vanilla, and red and black currants; Bordello: bawdy plum with amaretto, burgundy wine and black currant.

I ventured out today for the first time since I’ve moved house to go to the doctor - this druggie needs her fix, alas. It was quite a long walk - all up I spent an hour walking which was great (take note Katie!).

I noticed something that struck me as peculiar when I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription: at the front of the counter was a product display for yet another lip plumping product.

Lip plumpers seem to be all the rage these days which is funny because I remember a time when I was derided for my self-confessed bee stung pout. Can’t do anything about it - I have fat lips (or should that be ‘phat’, haha).

Of course it was back in high school, and I was a young nerdy band student (a flute player too which drew even more attention to my lips, groan) and I remember someone calling me fish lips. Apparently, having fat lips wasn’t in. It was just another one of many things I was picked on for. Funny how years later, things have changed so that no one in their right mind would hope for thin lips (no offence to those that have them - what nature has given you is beautiful, remember that! Truly!). I wouldn’t trade my fat arse pout for them, I confess. It’s been a long, long time since anyone ever remarked upon my lips being too fat. Actually, quite the opposite! Woo hoo!

So I’m still feeling like crap not really able to do too much about it…except…take a bath. I should have done it sooner! I’m such an idiot! What I’d like to know is what is it that is so wonderful about throwing oneself into a tub of gloriously warm water? Would Freud have something to say about it, does it signal our wanting to return to the womb or something? Who knows.

Taking a bath - if you’re going to do it, you have to do it properly. You can’t do it half-arsed, or at least I don’t think you should. Should go all-out. I chuck in some things to make the bath bubble like mad and also bath melty-type things that make the water soft and encase the body in beautiful oils that also soften and scent. A body scrub is a must - something like a salt scrub to get rid of all the dead skin on your body, making you extremely silky to the touch. Use a loofah when scrubbing up with your choice of shower gel (or soap, I tend not to use soaps as they seem to be more drying on my skin).

Ah then afterwards, slather yourself with a rich, scented body cream and I swear you will feel like you have baby’s skin. Maybe not quite so delicate but as soft!

Right now, I’m sitting in front of the computer (still waiting for those damned World of Warcraft updates to install), with a blue-grey face mask, waiting for it to dry and do its thing. God I feel so much better! Hopefully ready to kick some serious World-of-Warcraft arse…

If you feel so inclined, you can also take drinks into the bath with you. I just had a cup of tea but usually I prefer alcoholic drinks - chocolate soy milk with Kahlua (and gosh, lots of it, you hear?), pink grapefruit juice with Campari (gustatory bliss!), or Baileys on ice (simple, but still luverly).

I can tell you I was a far cry from Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady screaming “Ah’m a good girl I am!” when they shove her in the bath as she begins her Pygmalionesque transformation. Throw me in, I tell you, throw me in! Why did people back then have such an aversion to bathing? I’m thinking of Louis the Sun King and how they basically had to beg to get him into water for his annual bath, ugh.

I love baths, can you guess? Gosh, they are so deliriously therapeutic too.

It’s Saturday afternoon, quarter to four, and I’m already in my pyjamas. My family is away with their respective significant others and I’m at home, all alone.

It was time for a big fat soak.

I used some lavender bath hearts a dear friend gave me. Then a big blue bath fizzie that smelled very fresh and aquatic. Then some Cake Beauty Dream Puff (lavender and marzipan scented) bubble bath. Then a nice scrubby sugar scrub to make me soft all over. Ahh, bliss. Half an hour later, I’m sitting in front of the computer in my night clothes wearing a face mask. It seems someone threw out the one I had in my freezer, and I’m not impressed: it was made of blueberries, which are supposed to be very good for the skin.

It’s been ages since I had a soak despite being something of a bath maven once upon a time. The bathroom is always too busy, and it’s simply too noisy in the house. I was just about shoving my parents out the door for their weekend away - only wish they did it more often.

I was supposed to be reviewing a burlesque act tonight, but I cancelled as my energy levels have been down somewhat of late…might have had something to do with the fact that I seem to be going out an awful lot and drinking. Given the amount of medication I’m on, this isn’t such a good idea as I found out the day before yesterday when dining at a friend’s place. I still seem to have a touch of a headache - can’t quite figure out if this is from the drinking or what. When you’re five foot nothing, about 40kg and on a ton of meds, I don’t recommend drinking a bottle of red wine by oneself - or mixing that with sparkling. Yeah, smart me.

I was also supposed to have a guest over who ditched me…for the cricket. Granted it’s the world cup finals…but still. I’m sure I’ll find it amusing when I stop being so damn exasperated over it. Stupid cricket! It also means I’ll be dining by myself…on prawn and pork dumplings, yum.

Well, time for me to be off and take my mask off and then maybe take a nap or curl up and read a good book. Ah, if only all weekends could be like this!

A friend (cheers ralenth!) recently told me about Last.fm and seeing as I seem to be in the mood to listen to music (I have a certain suspicion that this may have to do with a certain fellow I know who I discovered quite likes Britpop…enough to wear desert boots like Damon Albarn…drool…) and the fact that I went to an electronic music gig the other night, I decided to sign up and have been obsessed ever since. I’ve been listening to some minimal techno and artists similar to Pulp - ‘egads, Jarvis is married, has a kid and lives in Paris (I’m genuinely heartbroken but maybe it’s for the best - he’s extremely tall and I ain’t. Might be hard to make whoopee).

It’s a bit glitchy in spots, the radio service - sometimes it has a bit of a delay when my connection is running slow but seriously, last night I was just enraptured listening to music for hours. I guess I should link to my profile, shouldn’t I? Edited to add actual chart…

Another service I was trialling the other day was MediaMaster - this service allows you to upload all the music on your computer to their server so that you can theoretically listen to it from absolutely anywhere provided you have access to an internet connection. Again, it seemed to take ages to upload tracks and it wasn’t always fuss-free (it seemed to have an aversion to uploading ‘Stereotypes’ from Blur’s The Great Escape, to my infinite horror). It is a pretty cool service worth checking out, I think I might have found out about it from Lifehack as usual.

Last thing! I read about this on a friend’s LiveJournal - Basenotes have this cool thing called a fragrance wardrobe. Here’s the link to my Basenotes fragrance wardrobe - you can see what fragrances I currently own (that are listed in their database), what fragrances I’ve tested, what I’ve owned previously and even what ones I wish I had! Quite voyeristic, really. Gosh, if only I could list what Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab ones I have! Alas no, doesn’t seem to give that option - yet.

Yesterday, I finished paying off my first piece of grown-up jewellery. I’ve never bought anything not-fake before except for this beautiful freshwater pearl and garnet necklace I found at Portobello Market in London - and that was just a fluke find really.

This is me actually wearing it…

And then this is the locket in all its shiny glory. It’s not a locket per se as it doesn’t open. Incidentally, the stone is a garnet. I’m wearing it today, with BPAL Snake Oil. I was proudly showing my parents and my father jokingly warned me not to get all high on it, chortle.

I’m pleased as punch with it! It smells delicious too!

My mother let me place an order with Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab for my birthday, and the order arrived at the beginning of this week! Woo hoo! Some more fragrant fancies!

Continue Reading »

I have a pal who is heavily into fragrance. She’s pretty damn knowledgeable about it too. She recently let me piggyback on a purchase of hers and I ended up with some samples from a company called Ava Luxe which I of course wouldn’t have known about if it weren’t for her fragrant expertise!
Continue Reading »