This Smells Expensive

Well, this morning was sub-par. I'm not gonna lie. So I tried to lift my spirits the way any american woman age 18-30 would do: I bought something that I didn't need that was too expensive. Today's drug of choice was Kinerase HydraBoost Intensive Treatment. (I'll be 30 in a few days so I'm upping my game in the skin care category)

This evening I just COULD NOT WAIT to wash and moisturize my face. Two pumps later I smoothed the soft blue serum over my so-far wrinkle free face. DE-FREAKING-LICIOUS. I searched frantically for the ingredients to figure out what was gracing my nose's presence. (At first it smelled a little like grape juice, but alas, no ingredients fit the bill)

There is some orange oil, but no... the magic combo is in the orange oil and (tiny drumroll) evodia fruit extract.

Well well well, after a little research, I think evodia extract is going to be my new best friend.

Apparently, it helps with arthritis AND headaches. Good for this almost 30 year old to keep in her back pocket.

Where the hell have YOU been?

I can smell that bitch from down the road!

Spring is in the air....and it's cruel

Yesterday I took myself for a walk in the wet, post snowpocalypse defrost. I could smell spring, I SWEAR! But it is still light years away. This was proven by my giant sleeping bag coat I reluctantly wore today. I hate you february.

Pink Medicine

That's what my parents called it. And as a child it came in liquid form. It had a sweet smell, somewhere between candy and disgusting. Anyways I've been taking antibiotics for a sinus infection and just now smelled it... before I put it all together an image of the folks popped in to my head. Thanks m and d.

Chicago and the Chocolate Factory

The Blommer chocolate factory sits exactly between my apartment and my school. I can never smell the chocolate from home, but I can count on smelling it as I leave school in the evening. I wish I could tell you that the smell of the chocolate fills my soul, warms my heart, etc etc etc. No such luck... the consequence of the chocolate factory in the city, is unfortunately quite opposite. You see, by the time the smell of the semi sweet cocoa hits my nose, the hearty, thick scent that I have come to expect from chocolate has been replaced by a metallic tin-like situation. The scent takes a journey through the city streets, all the while, picking up more undesirable scents on it's way: trash, wet sidewalk, more trash, exhaust. So by the time I can smell it, it no longer offers me the soul filling, heart warming benefits of all-things-that-include-sugar-and-butter. It's like falling asleep knowing there is a snowstorm outside, and by the time you get around to playing in it, it's already dirty with soot and yellow with dog pee.

Cigarettes

Smoking is sexy with the right car/super hunk.

Smoking is sexy with the right outfit.

I could even fit cute package design in to my vintage agenda.

There's one particular spot in my apartment that smells like smoke. It lingers right above the bathroom sink. This means every time I go to do something that is for health purposes, like clean my face or brush my teeth, I have to rectify that this activity, for the next year, will smell unhealthy. I live alone, so, unless my dog has taken up the habit, I can safely say that no one is smoking in my house.

For the record, I smoke occasionally. My first cigarette was with my friend Chris, at a high school dance, sitting in the seat of a backhoe on the high school soccer field. (No, I'm not a red neck, yes I felt like a total bad ass.) My current smoker status is totally sporadic. I will go a year or two without a puff, and then one bad day and BAM! I'm lighting up. What saves me from becoming a real smoker is that i actually get a cigarette hangover. I wish I could say I will never ever smoke one again, but that's another blog all together.

I'll be honest in that there are occasions when I do enjoy the smell of smoke:

1. At a large, festive, outdoor gathering

2. When I'm young and impressionable and have a crush on a boy who happens to smoke (primarily, see years 1995 - uhhhh, present.)

3. When I'm in a foreign country, and the smell of cigarettes add to the, um, foreignness of the experience.

The "good " cigarette smells, are really outweighed by the bad, in my book.

1. When people return from smoking in the rain.

2. When people try to cover up the smell of cigarettes with body spray. (Which I oddly don't mind on my friend Sarah)

3. When I'm sick.

4. The smell of a chain smoker's car.

5. The smell of cigarettes on my clothes after being at a party or bar where a lot of cigarette smoking happened the previous night.

and of course....

when the smell of cigarettes creeps in to the most sacred place in my home, and I'm not even the one smoking.

My nose in Italy, it's not about meatballs.

Annick Goutal's Petit Cherie, the same bottle I bought in 2004.
A teeny car parked in a strange piazza, although I don't remember which one. On the corner of Via del Giglio and Via Faenza I think.

Above: Via Cosimo Ridolfi 2, 50129 Firenze, Toscana, Italy

Six and a half years ago, during the spring semester of my last year in college, I lived in the building above. Thanks for taking me back, google maps. I was 23 in this last semester (I spent 5 years in college, go UMASS!) and was looking forward to living in such a historic city, drinking cappuccinos, and going on "la passegiata" after dinner. I did all this, and more, but to my surprise, I did it mostly alone. Maybe it is because most of the Americans that chose to study abroad that semester were 4 years younger and usually drunk. (Underage in America means bottoms up abroad). All I remember were Uggs, lots of Uggs, hot off the press. And juicy couture sweat suits. (you know you had one) I befriended some Italians but my Italian was...eh.

So I strolled and I shopped, oooh did I shop! One day I decided it was time to purchase a perfume by which to remember Italy. I popped in to a perfume shop with a mission. Because I had never bought a real, grown-up perfume, I put my olfactory fate in the hands of the expert. I asked the shop girl to chose a perfume for me. If I were a perfume, what perfume would I be?

She took one look and decided that I was Petite Chérie by Annick Goutal. The perfumer describes the scent as being "reminiscent of a young girl's cheek that you want to lovingly kiss." Well, I don't know about all that, but... I wore this scent walking around a rainy Florence, writing, taking photographs, and listening to Aphex Twin on my first generation ipod. The time spent alone, in such a beautiful place, was pure indulgence. Smelling Petit Cherie now reminds me of the adventure that the 23 year old me started to madly crave. I guess if I had a signature scent of all time, this would be it. I buy new perfume every so often, but this is the stuff that grounds me, makes me feel like I'm walking on cobblestone streets again.

Petit Cherie Olfactory family: Fruity, floral, musky (pear, peach, musky rose, fresh cut grass, vanilla)