Friday Random Thoughts

Hope it’s a great holiday weekend for everyone! Sunday is supposed to be very hot here — around 100 degrees.

For locals, there’s a 25% off sale this weekend at Cottage Gardens of Petaluma, a nursery with an awesome selection of perennials and grasses. It’s a fun place to browse.

I updated the header on my website to make some improvements. I need to start switching the photos for some of the scents over to the new bottles.

I’ve not been able to do any scent blending in the last week, but I tested a rose CO2 oil that’s very nice. I love the rose absolute that I have, but the CO2 is tempting to add. The combination of the CO2 with the absolute might be beautiful since the absolute lasts a little longer on skin but the CO2 adds some topnote qualities that are different. I’m looking forward to playing with it.

I had a chance to try three of the Xerjoff scents that people have been discussing lately on blogs. I tried Ibitira, Uden, and Oesel, and the pretty iris-based floral Ibitira was easily my favorite. I think it is intended to be unisex because it’s great on a woman but should appeal to men as well since it is not overly sweet or powdery. I’ll have to compare it side by side with Divine L’Homme de Coeur, which is one of my favorite shared iris scents. Ibitira has rose and jasmine as well as iris, but it’s not a heady floral blend at all, and it is grounded with a soft mix of cedar, musk, and vetiver. Uden and Oesel did not work so well for me though. Both were sweeter than I like — Uden went a bit cocoa-like on my skin, and the honeyed acacia richness of Oesel didn’t quite work for me. They do seem like well-made scents, but the prices are high. Ibitira was very pretty to me though and I need to try my tiny sample again.

Happy holiday weekend!