Beauty Review : Burberry Body Perfume

I have a history with Burberry perfumes.  Once I doused myself in so much Brit that traces of it lingered in a friend’s apartment for days.  (It was also the night I learned to moderate application.  Notes of pear and almond, while lovely to smell, are not nearly as lovely to taste on someone’s lips if those ingredients weren't involved at dinner prior.)  The Beat I wore one reckless summer when, over screenplays and water fights, I really got to know the man who became my husband.  I still have trace drops left in the bottle, which automatically transports me to my unstable and very fun twentieth year.

Now the house of trench and plaid has a new scent, and I do believe I love this one most of all.  The fact that a semi-naked Rosie Huntington-Whiteley figures prominently in their advertising only accounts for a slight percentage of my admiration...

...Perhaps a slightly higher percentage, now that I think about it. I believe any woman, on some level, would gladly go to bed with her.  The line forms behind me.

Burberry describes their latest as "a warm and feminine fragrance enriched with an eclectic combination of sensual ingredients."  They wanted a fragrance with the classic appeal of their trench coats and the enveloping sexuality of bare skin, most likely seen by candlelight (how I'm choosing to see it, anyway).  Sephora simplifies that into a "fruity chypre," and Now Smell This categorizes it as "floral woody amber," which strikes me as infinitely more accurate.  Peach, freesia, rose, absinthe, sandalwood, and vanilla make up the majority of the notes.

My first impression, upon smelling the tester, was a cessation of brain activity replaced only by the desire to apply this all over my body.  Even now, I am compulsively smelling my wrist.  Just writing that sentence made me want to smell myself again.  Et encore!  It is indeed everything Burberry promised me: warm, sensual, luxurious.  As soon as I clutch my addicted fingers 'round a bottle I plan to pull a Marilyn and wear it to bed, in fact.  It smells exactly the way you wish your skin would smell naturally.  Clean, soft, suggestively sweet.  It invites you closer, whispers double entendres as if by accident, envelops you in a heady promise of tangled sheets, a trench coat torn free and tossed carelessly to the floor.

Burberry Body merits husband approval both after the initial test and later after the top notes subsided.  He even asked what it was, which I thought a particularly positive sign.  (The only other perfume he did this with was Chanel's Chance, yeeears ago.)

Be warned: as with all perfume, personal chemistry will d r a s t i c a l l y (did I emphasize that enough?  DRASTICALLY) affect the way this translates to your skin.  Test it on a single pulse point before buying a bottle.  As much as I think this is the greatest olfactory invention ever, there are scores of poor unfortunate (and infinitely misguided -- kidding) people out there who did not care for this.  Which is fine by me, because it means more bottles for me to hoard.  And hoard I shall.

Where In the World?

Photo from Very Very Beautiful

My friends, it has been too long.

It seems I go through spurts of writing, then life throws something at me that requires I retreat into the internet Void to contemplate or otherwise deal with.  The past few months haven't been easy, but I've made it through to the other side just in time for the world to end in December.  (Well, you know...)

To give you a quick rundown just so you can feel abandoned for a reason : one of my friends (whose birthday is a week from mine) passed away two days after I turned 24.  Then there was a medical scare, followed by three weeks of depression to the point I barely remember that time.  Then someone's dad died.  Then someone else stopped living for about a minute (but, thankfully, pulled a Lazarus out of their hat).  Then a friend was shot at in his home.  Then another friend was robbed in my own front yard.  Then there was another medical scare that's still somewhat unresolved.  Oh, and girls be bitches.  Then the holidays!  I've never been so happy for one year to end.  Seriously, November/December makes the Mayan prophecy look awfully appealing.

I tried to find a photo to elegantly portray the above sentiments, but none of them were nearly as amazing as this one, which was entitled "Depression Spaghetti" (linguine in actuality) and, in my world, far more appropriate.  Recipe here.

It hasn't all been doom and gloom.  My husband gave me a kitten for my birthday, a tiny black ball of fur and purring who got a rough start in life, and is the softest, happiest, sweetest little creature during the three minutes a day he's not being a holy terror.  (Apparently my maternal instincts aren't extinct, just species-selective.)

Picture unavailable due to marked inability of the subject to hold still.

He also threw me a really lovely wine and cheese party for my birthday, with many lovely people as well.

Photo from Camille Styles

One of my best friends since teendom has since moved back from grad school which, while not the brightest star in his sky, is something I'm taking full advantage of while he's in town to be abused.

More or less how we "roll."

I have also rediscovered my spirituality, something that has lain dormant for... Um... About a decade, actually.  I've never been one of those religiously-minded individuals.  (This kid faked sick to escape Sunday school.)  All-encompassing spirituality is more meaningful to me.  My brand is an unofficial combination of mantras, meditation circles, and heathen feast days with lots of wine and friends.  Just equate it to herding cats and you'll be close to accurate.

Not precisely thematic, but this is how I'm choosing to view the astral at the moment: full of flowers and tulle.

Oh!  I'm finally on IMDB, and the film responsible was listed on Hammer to Nail as one of four indie shorts to watch this year.  (This is very, very good.  Apparently a lot of festivals refer to this site.)

And this is how I like to envision it all going down.

Where does that leave me in 2012?  Hopeful, incredibly hopeful.  2011, while full of progress, was also an extremely passive year for me.  When you look back at what I've previously described in this post, you'll note it's all about things that happened to me, not necessarily things I did.  There was a lot to deal with, a lot to process, and a lot of change that I wasn't necessarily ready for at all.  (Oh well...)  However, simply spectating is no longer acceptable -- nay, no longer tolerable.  This year I plan to break down a lot of psychological aspects that no longer serve me, to take control, to grow, to learn, and maybe even kick some ass while I'm doing it.  I want to transform my very spirit and break the ties -- self-imposed or otherwise -- that have held me back since I can remember.  The past three years have been incredibly dark, and this year exceptionally so.  (Some know why, most do not.)  Yet only after we have passed through the darkness can we begin to move toward the light, and it is only after weathering significant shit-storms that we can fearlessly move toward our freedom.

Photo from classicgirls.blog88

Sealed with a Kiss

[Photo credit.]

This touches me...

Sealed with a Kiss

Happy Halloween! [Photo credit.]

Meet Penhaligon's of London

Most know I'm a fragrance geek.  In fact, there is currently a bottle of Thierry Mugler in my car's centre console for that last minute pre-party spritz.  (It's cold; I can get away with this.)  Ever since I was ten years old and utterly enchanted by Dior's Hypnotic Poison, perfume has pulled viscerally on my emotions.

Ergo, you can imagine my delight to discover Penhaligon's, a company that understands the raw emotional power behind fragrance.  It can make us feel clean, powerful, sexy, young, dangerous, or giddy.  When we find a signature scent, it's like discovering a mirror into ourselves and we guard it jealously.  Their online fragrance profiling leads you through every olfactory memory you may have, from current fragrances to any scent in the world you enjoy such as old books, coffee, and saddle leather.  Two professional profilers analyse your answers and return a custom recommendation list to you within ten days.  (I won't dare tell you my results, but one scent is described as "excessively decadent, sumptuous, with an elusiveness that steals your heart!")

Their fragrances are not cheap, at $140 for a standard 3.5 ounce flask.  Part of the cost derives from its exclusivity, much of it is due to the exquisite quality of ingredients used.  Their jasmine must also be capable of bestowing three wishes -- or something equally improbable -- as they boast it's cost at double that of gold.  But you truly do get what you pay for in the fragrance world, as quality ingredients cannot help but smell exquisite.  Take one English pedigree, throw in the finest ingredients in the world with a dash of rarity and the innate satisfaction of wearing something you will never smell on another girl at the party, and you have Penhaligon's.

For your own couture fragrance recommendations from a Penhaligon's expert, go here.  It's loads of fun, especially after a few glasses of wine.

Snaps from the EXPRESS Fashion Show at Mai Nashville

Well, the EXPRESS show at Mai was a night to remember for a multitude of reasons, from good to bad to ugly.  From scoring front row, to drunken idiots with an inflated opinion of their own wit spilling their drink on my tush (and later accosting the photographer beside me to the point I was scanning for a security detail), to an amazing concert by The Features and even more incredible show, it was an evening of extremes to be sure.  But the chance to support some of my fellow models -- and the pictures thereof -- made it all worthwhile.

Side note: I love my job.  Wink, wink.

The Changeling's Lament

Alexander McQueen Oyster Dress

This really raises some interesting questions on the nature of modern beauty, and what many claim is expected of women.  Either way, it's haunting and lovely, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The Changeling's Lament, by Shira Lipkin

I have studied so hard
to pass as one of you.
I've spent a lifetime on it.

I have tells.
Blisters, tremors, bruises,
all the signs that I was not meant for your world,
was not meant to be contained
in your clothes,
your shoes.
I have this terribly inconvenient allergy
to cold iron.
Hives, really.
Welts.
I stand out.

When I was little,
I asked my alleged mother,
what's a girl?

She said
you,
you're a girl,
and she laced me into dresses
(that I tore off in the school parking lot,
in line for the bus).
Laced me into ballet shoes
that left blisters
and bloodied my feet
until I had calluses.
Which she had filed off,
beauticians pinning me down,
because it's not beauty
if you don't bleed.

My dancing was different.
My dancing was swaying treelike,
or launching myself across the room,
spinning madly,
but that is not what girls do,
not human girls,
not ladylike,
not contained.

And everything
is about containment
is about being delicate
and pretty
laced into corsets
whalebone stays digging into your ribs
because it's not beauty
if it doesn't hurt.

But I studied.
I pretended.
I hid the bruises
and the tics.
I hid the big dark parts of me.
I tamed my hair.
I watched my mouth.
I hid my magic.
I did not speak of such things
because we do not speak of such things –
not anger,
not homesickness,
not longing.
Not this sense
that I don't know what the hell
a human girl is
and I can tell, I can,
that everyone knows I don't belong here.
I laugh too loud;
I am too fast or slow to laugh.
I am an anthropologist in the field of girl.
I study
but none of it
ever comes
naturally.

None of it is in my nature.

I am something larger,
more fluid,
less constrained.
But I am stranded in this place.
I have had to learn how to live here.
I have tried.
So hard.

Sealed with a Kiss

[Photo credit.]

Easy Pop Culture Halloween Costumes with Items You (Probably) Have In Your Closet

Amy Winehouse

Audrey Hepburn / Holly Golightly

Kate Middleton

Anna Wintour

What will you be for Halloween this year?  I'm torn between:
1.  Lady Gaga's Born This Way costume (complete with latex prosthetics),
2.  Christine Daae (left over from DragonCon),
3.  Or -- I confess -- Amy Winehouse (because I love big hair and self-destructive tendencies).

It really all boils down to my amount of spare time in the ensuing weeks.

What do you have in mind?

Sealed with a Kiss

Photo credit.