Here comes Part III of the weekly peeking into my perfume closet (see Part I and Part II).
The advantage of this series of posts is that I have developed a new sense of pride, rather than shame about my collection. Some people collect stamps or Hummel figurines and they are not judged either, so why should it be so bad to own a few (okay, a good many) bottles of perfume?
But I am preaching to the converted here, am I? You know how it is, you know how happy such a small bottle can make us, let alone a closet full of them.
Speaking of small treasures: the first picture is of my tiny, but powerful bottles of extrait. Not big in size, but big in personality, the lot of them.
EnVoyage Perfumes L'Eau d'Anniversaire, Vero Profumo Onda, Aftelier Secret Garden, Aroma M Amber Rouge, Aftelier Tango;
Reviews of Onda, Tango and Secret Garden are linked here.
Last time we saw the Luxury section of my collection, here comes a photo of my most elegant and luxuirous bottles that also belong to that category, but warranted their own moment in the spotlight. Two brands that offer luxury without compromise – By Kilian and Amouage.
By Kilian Back To Black Travel Spray, By Kilian Rose Oud Travel Spray, By Kilian Sweet Redemption, Amouage Memoir Woman, Amouage Epic Woman
Here are my reviews of Sweet Redemption, Rose Oud, Back To Black as well as Epic and Memoir, in case you want to take a closer look at what is inside those beautiful vessels.
Decants are a great invention, but sometimes the experience of the whole deal is just amazing. I really celebrate applying perfume, when it comes from such a bottle and I cherish them so much more that my decants. I guess I am a very visual type. 🙂
Let’s take a look at the past week again, shall we?
Mine was still a bit turbulent, but Niki is doing very well in the nursery, and I had two, sometimes even three hours in the mornings to myself. That time promptly was dedicated to blogging and catching up on blog reading.
On Thursday, also known as Doomsday from now on, was my older son’s 5th birthday party. Eight five-year olds plus little Niki tore through our apartment, hell bent on destroying whatever came between them and their goal of the moment. Said goal quickly changed from stuffing themselves with cake to trying to decapitate one another while playing pirates to competing in endless races and jumping contests.
After three hours their Moms started to arrive and I very nearly cried with relief. Another year is sorely needed to recuperate.
Did I mention that I find the children of others a bit exasperating? (Okay, to tell the truth, my own are quite exasperating too.)
What was the highlight of your week? Any cake throwing involved? Biting? Hair pulling? Screaming?
Olfactoria's Travels 
I love these views of your collection the best, if I were shopping, I’d say “I’ll take one of everything!”. Small, organized vignettes of fragrance, what a beautiful sight!
The highlights of my week have been a couple of friends receiving perfume gifts from me in the mail, and the shock and awe that ensued. I LIVE for that!
That is a really good feeling! Your friends are lucky to have you, Carrie!
I pulled my own hair for a moment and felt like screaming at work at some point this week – a do it yourself project 😉 The highlight of my week was a laughing fit I shared with a good colleague yesterday. We were both very tired and couldn’t stop laughing about funny episodes we’ve shared recently – I think it got pretty loud at some point. Another highlight was perfume and postal service related 🙂
Some people just love kids in general, I’m not one of those people. I was not one to earn a bit of extra cash babysitting when I was young. I do feel protective of children on principle,, and will take their side anytime, though. Too many children in this world suffer because of the carelessness of adults and that makes me really angry.
The children I care for in this world are the children of very good friends. Having known a child since they were born is a special thing. It also demonstrates the passing of time in an unpleasant manner sometimes 😉
I’m enjoying the guided tours of your perfume collection. The Amouage bottles are impressive. I dream of owning Jubilation 25 at some point. That would be realllllly nice 🙂
I’m glad you had a laugh as well, not only the hair-pulling incident at work.
I wish Jubilation 25 didn’t have so much cumin, it makes it unwearable for me. 😦
I hope you have your bottle one day.
Oooh, beautiful black bottles…. You realise you are going to have to get one of the new big Puredistance ones to keep them company?
Please tell me there will also be a part IV or V featuring your albatrosses? They really ought to have their own 15 minutes of fame, otherwise they will feel even worse than they already do.
It is as much as I can deal with to live with a deaf cat who wails a lot. You know you can always bring your stories of exasperating children to me and find an empathetic ear!
Noooo, that would be really frivolous, although it’ll fit nicely into the picture. 😉
There are a few more parts still to come…
So good to hear you empathize with my children stories! Thank you!
Tara, what a grand idea, pictures of the albatrosses 🙂 yay!
Sorry, Vanessa, thought it was a Tara response, MEA CULPA! I still think it’s a brilliant idea though:-)
Okay, duly noted. Pictures of albatrosses will conclude the series. 🙂
Yay 😀
Birgit, please tell me you have enough bottles for at least several more chapters! 🙂
Are both Memoir and Epic black? For some reason I thought it was dark green.
My week was better than the previous one. Not perfume-related highlights – two meetings with friends: one for a bowling birthday party, another – for a friendly cooking session (ravioli-type food). A perfume-related pleasant moment: I’ve got a new set of decanting supplies.
I do, I do!
Memoir is black, Epic is dark green. It only looks green in the light though.
I’m glad your week was better and I really would like some ravioli-type food now, you made me hungry! 🙂
Undina, tell me you made pel’meni! Yes? No? I need to know!!
I haven’t made them in sooooo long…
I dig the tinies! Thanks for the delight, B.! Especially, and morover, and on top of it, I envy the Onda extrait…Great collection and justification for it, as well! ;0)
Actually, I prefer decants, but there are cases in which I just cannot imagine not having the whole bottle – like Le Baiser du Dragon edp (why, oh, why are they discontinuing it…?).
My daughter’s cake throwing is coming next week, so I guess I should get ready for the invisaged mess. Well, that would be a shift in the pattern since she’s sick all week long, but the pleasant surprise to me is that I found the most inspiring (and healing) doctor, and she’s quickly recovering!
Thank you again for the sweet pleasure of reading your aroma-therapy-blog!
Good that your daughter is getting better! I hope she fully recovers soon! (And in time for the cake throwing, I mean, party.
Onda was a gift, one of the best I ever received. 🙂
Your perfume closet is soooo pretty. I totally agree decants are brilliant but owning the real thing is far better visually.
Your comments about others collecting stamps and not being judged really put my shame of owning so many bottles into perspective, you are of course right in that a collection is something that we should be proud of. My dear BF has I feel reached the end of his tether with my obsession so I have stopped talking to him about it which is a shame as its a big part of my life that he will know nothing about.
Your comments about the birthday party really brought memories back, that feeling of relief when the parents start to arrive to pick them is indescribable. You are also not alone in feeling exasperated by other peoples children, I too feel this way and can barely tolerate one of my daughters friends so you will be glad to know you are not alone and it is perfectly normal.
You will also be glad to know that it does get better as they get older and their friends do become less annoying (my daughters friend being the exception as I still find her hard work)
Thank you, Andrea!
I am really glad to hear that I am not alone and that it’ll get better eventually.
My husband doesn’t really (okay: at all) understand my perfume hobby either, it is sad but there is nothing you can do. 😦 At least you don’t have to pretend to be enthusiastic about cars, fishing or some other hobby he might take up.
We should be proud of our infatuation with this intelligent and beautiful art form!
Nope, I have to pretend to listen to him going on about cars, what I don’t know about all the latest range rovers you could write on a stamp.;-)
Our men would get on famously, Landrovers etc are my husband’s
favorite topic as well. 🙂
You should be proud! Especially when you consider what those silly little figurines cost, when they do nothing to give pleasure except collect dust. At least our collections are put to use daily! 🙂
I cannot believe that the parents left their children! In my own (limited) experience of children’s birthday parties, parents stay on and help supervise. Their leaving their children for you to watch solo was cruel and unusual punishment! I think you deserve some sort of award for surviving it…
Memoir! It warms my heart to see my favorite bottle in your collection ❤
You are right, we should be proud! 🙂
On the other hand I get to leave Pauli too if he is invited somewhere, so I guess we all get away even. 😉 (It seems to be traditional that from the age of five it is kids only, no more parents.)
Memoir is a very important bottle to me for various reasons. 😉
This may well be the greatest series of perfume posts EVER! So pleased to hear there are a couple more parts to come. It is also very considerate of you to do “aeriel” shots as well so we can salivate at all angles 🙂
You did very well to cope with so many boisterous boys in the apartment. It must be a lot easier if you can relegate them to the garden. The highlight of my week was chasing after Mia in the maze at Hampton Court yesterday. Two-and-three -quarter- year-olds can run fast!
Thank you, Tara! 😀
They do run fast and know exactly where they want to go, which is mostly not were you need them to be! 😉
I agree with everyone else that these photo posts are the best, thank you for sharing! The Kilian travel sprays look just gorgeous…
You are welcome! I love those travel sprays, very sturdy, elegant and they have a magnetic closure.
Kids birthday parties are SO HORRIBLE! And I can’t believe I was so ignorant that I had no idea about this until I had kids myself… I totally understand people that rent their local MacDonalds and just slip away from the mess. But now it’s a whole year until next time 🙂
As I’ve moved my 5 y.o. is starting a new kindergarden and we’ve been worrying about if he’ll be hapy in the new place. THe highlight of my week was Friday when he did not want to go home, just go om playing with his new friends. That really warmed up my heart!
You can’t imagine how good it is to hear you say that! I am not the only one finding kid’s parties awful! 😀
It is great that your son loves his new kindergarten and has already made friends. That must be a relief!
The By Killian travel sprays do look gorgeous! I’m about to order their disovery set and then we’ll see if I fall for one of them. And the Amouage Epic bottle! If I would chose one of the Amouage perfumes I’ve tried so far it would definitely be Epic. It won the approval of my lovely sister-in-law who thought it was nice “and so unusual!” She’s the only one of my longsuffering family who I can actually badger into giving an opinion on my perfumes 🙂
SOTD is Onda (in the EPD) and it’s amazing! Since I adore oldfashioned chypres, vetivier and leather maybe it didn’t come as a huge suprise…
The discovery set is such a good investment, I wish all niche lines would do such a set.
Since I started blogging I don’t wear Epic all to often sadly, because it is so long wearing, I wouldn’t get to do all my testing…
Oh, you like Onda! That is great! It is amazing, isn’t it? 🙂
Wow, this is an amazing collection! I am loving the sneak peek series. I agree with you that there is no shame in our hobbies, no matter what they are. People collect all kinds of things, people get joy from all kinds of things, and no one is to tell that one kind of thing is better than the other in principle rather than for a particular person. We choose perfume and it’s infinitely better than stamps for us.
(sigh) sounds like I have a way of saying it, right? That’s because I say it to myself almost every day. You see, my parents monitored my hobbies when I was growing up, and they certainly gave me ideas about “superior” and “inferior” hobbies. But now I know there isn’t such a thing.
I am delighted to see the bottles from Amouage and by Killian actually owned by someone who can appreciate them! I might be joining in pretty soon with a bottle of Gold (which I just adore) and a bottle of Epic (for which my husband fell really hard). How about that? That was the first perfume he really fell for!
Thank you, Warum!
Amouage seems to go down well with husbands. Mine is a great Amouage fan as well! 🙂
Oh, and children. let me not even start on that! I chose not to have children, you see…
A very wise decision, the lack of which I chide myself for every morning at 5.30 am. But thankfully they can be very cute too, it’s what saves their necks time and again… 😉
Wonderful collection, Birgit! I’m falling for the By Kilian line with every new one I try.
And I hear some of the same parental exasperation from my best friend, but his daughter is much younger than either of your boys. Anyway, I hope you have recovered from the party 🙂
Well, I have fallen sick in the meantime, although I hope it is not of exhaustion from the party. 😉
Kilian is a treat for the nose and the eye (the man and the perfumes, lol).