ah yes, the fragrance department. i must say my favorite part of department stores, but for the hard-selling. pushy salespersons aside, i love hanging around fragrance counters, testing new smells until i give rise to a veritable mount everest of tester strips in my bag. scents will never lose their fascination for me.

scents are such amazing things. some can get you refreshed and make you relax. some can energize and even seduce. so what are so many women still doing waiting for special occasions to wear fragrance? any day is a perfect day to smell good!

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wanting is my least favorite feeling. that is, if you call that a feeling. otherwise, wanting is my least favorite action. because in order to satisfy it, one needs money. and if one is not willing to part with money, the feeling has to be suppressed. or the action has to be corrected, if you consider it that. whichever way one wishes to deal with wanting, it’s not a very pleasant business.

as for me, whenever i feel a strong sense of wanting things, i write about them. it gives me a feeling of accommodation… a very misplaced security, but security nonetheless. as if by committing images of these things in my blog makes them mine in a very existential sense. ok, it’s a very perverted view of consumerism, but it sure beats the hell out of overspending. besides, i’d probably end up actually purchasing one or two of the things in consideration (especially if they are on sale; in which circumstance, i can blame marketing for ruining my budget). then i can move on with my life.

chloe eau de parfum. chloe’s concoction bearing its signature represents the unfettered me.

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first there was daisy…

i have always loved marc jacobs’ daisy. i have very predictable taste in fragrance and daisy is something my friends have figured i would love from the start.

launched in 2007, daisy was the subject of a widespread marketing campaign that drew a wave of mj fans and fragrance junkies to the counters to see what all the fuss was about. the first line of business, as it happened, was to see if the bottle was indeed as pretty in reality as it was on the ads. given how ads typically exaggerate the qualities of a product, the bottle is, surprisingly, just as pretty when you see it with your own eyes. what i do find strange is that it is called “daisy” when daisies don’t smell anything like it. daisies smell like nothing at all, as a matter of fact, fragrance-free like plastic. i guess it’s the thought of daisies they want to evoke. buttery blooms that dot rolling meadows on a bright, sunny day. and that’s just the feeling you get when you wear it.

though i am way past the target market of late teens-early twenties, the bracket doesn’t stop me from appreciating its youthfulness. it’s sweet but not cloying, it has a translucent nature to it that does not overpower your senses. it is fresh and quite bubbly, comfortable enough for all day, everyday wear. it has nothing to thrill anyone about, nothing specifically different, to the point of perhaps being unoriginal, but i guess that’s also why i am drawn to it. i have never been extremely daring with my fragrance choices, sticking mostly to smells that wouldn’t put anyone off even if i know it is unlikely that someone will single me out with a compliment. daisy, to me, simply has stability to it. it’s something that won’t let me down. as it turns out though, people still do tell me i smell nice despite its lack of uniqueness. it is just too pleasant to ignore. i’d say it has the same merits as dolce & gabbana light blue. that is, you’d probably smell similar to many other women but it doesn’t bother you because it’s just too nice. it’s like the perfume equivalent of a very refreshing soda drink: very effervescent and attractive, but not alluringly sexy and serious like champagne. it’s good as a first designer fragrance for young girls as well as a reliable staple for an old-timer like me. i could imagine giving the fragrance to my daughter when she comes of age and i could imagine myself using it during retirement. that’s how universally appealing it is.

i got a bottle of it as a christmas present last month. eau de toilette comes in 50ml and 100ml. there was also a limited edition edp, a variant i would have preferred since edt doesn’t last too long, but we missed the very last stock here by a day or two. i like the edt bottle better though, it’s a throwback into the 70′s flower power which i like. i don’t find black and gold fitting for its sunny vibe. not even the exclusive silver one.

at any rate, daisy edt did rake in most of the fragrance awards in 2008. i guess even the award-giving bodies were smitten by the bottle.

from sephora: Enter the world of Daisy: fresh and feminine with a playful innocence. At the heart of Daisy is a floral with vintage edge: violet. Sophisticated, with a touch of whimsy, violet captures the eclectic, vintage flavor of Marc Jacobs’ feminine, edgy designs.

then came lola…

right, i am a sap for delectable ads. that’s why i trooped to the department store as soon as i saw lola in the papers last year.

why, of course the bottle looks bizarrely over-the-top, that’s the whole point! what is marc jacobs if not a fire-starter? like daisy, lola in person does justice to its photos, from the voluminous vinyl petals to the gold rope detail. the moment i saw it, i wanted to get it for the very superficial reason that it would look fantastic on our antique dresser. since the whole idea isn’t the visual appeal, i tried to maintain a more or less unaffected perspective when i zoned in to smell the perfume.

marketed as daisy’s “slightly vampy older sister”, one doesn’t have to be a fragrance connoisseur to tell that it is indeed what it positions itself to be. i should say that since i am more into the fresh, clean scents, i was a little whacked taking a sniff off the bat. but the initial power doesn’t drench you as it mellows into its sweetness. it is darker and headier than daisy, its musk and vanilla notes more pronounced. the depth makes it perfect for more formal occasions, though i wouldn’t discount it from everyday wear — if you are in a more temperate climate or if you work daily in a centralized environment. where i live, tropical fiji, i couldn’t think of any daytime outdoor occasion i am to attend for which this may be appropriate. maybe the melbourne cup or a garden wedding in a renaissance mansion, but i am only wishing these would happen to me. on the other hand, i would love to wear such a scent to the resorts or the port when we go there for cocktails or dinner. it is sensually whimsical, as exquisite as the drinks they serve with a lot of pomp (like the bottle!). it is definitely a very contemporary fragrance for evening and i could foresee this sell almost as much as its little sister, daisy.

from sephora: The long-lasting, day-and-night scent opens with pink peppercorn, pear, and ruby red grapefruit. Blooming midnotes of rose, fuschia peony, and geranium make a feminine statement. Layers of vanilla, warm tonka bean, and creamy musk create a sensous drydown.

christmas has never tarnished its childlike charm to me. and i always go into the season with the same feeling of wonder and excitement as when i was just waist-high and struggling to read the gift cards. now that i have been participating in the actual buying of gifts (and have been doing so for over ten years), it is even double the merriment that i am able to both open my gifts and watch people open the gifts i wrapped.

some females choose to post their wishlist online probably hoping some of them will materialize (meaning some friends and family will read the entry and buy the stuff) like a bridal registry. i have done it myself before here, and none of the things happened to cross my hands (well, i did get a pair of stella lunas after i wrote the entry, but they’re a different pair. so that doesn’t count). of course, i may have been shooting over my head there even with just three hundred thousand pesos (php300,000.00), but i could have at least bought robyn more books for her leap pad.

today, i am still hankering for a trip to japan and rimowa luggages to travel there with, but i’ll take my return ticket to the philippines and my cheap ass generic brand luggage if it means i can visit home and eat danggit again. nevertheless, i came into the christmas season with a mental wishlist much simpler, more tailor-fit to my current situation and more accessible than my imagination would warrant. but they by all means give the same sense of satisfaction, coupled with the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with being able to take part in another season of exchanging gifts. cheesy? you bet.

i chose not to post any sort of wishlist, despite my fascination with assembling lists. however, i will post some of the stuff i received. because these are some of the things that make up my wishlist and i’m happy-dappy like a little kid.

my favorite scent, 2008′s most awarded fragrance, daisy by marc jacobs. moderately old in designer fragrance years, but still my favorite. too bad i missed the limited edition edp (which strangely cost the same as the edt) by about three days from the when the last bottle was sold, but i’m very happy with it no less. i know fragrance is such a cliche gift, but i don’t think i will ever get tired of receiving them.

a woven raffia roxy fedora with shell, grosgrain ribbon and chain embellishments and…

…a black pinstripe quiksilver “mob” fedora with embroidered crest and same-fabric sash. i started to regain my thing for hats when we had to wait in the sydney airport for nearly seven hours en route to nadi last september. my husband bought me a white-and-black hat that looks like eva longoria‘s and then i remembered how i once really liked hats but the philippines just isn’t a country that exactly embraces the accessory whole-heartedly (unless you are a musician or an artist. which i neither am). now i’m back to liking and collecting them.

coincidentally, i wrote “toothbrush” in our grocery list, and look what i found under the tree! we’ve always meant to buy the oral b electronic toothbrush but thought it too expensive to clean teeth with, so i’m happy someone gave me and my husband a pair of these things.

books from two of my favorite humorists. when you are engulfed in flames by david sedaris and mere anarchy by woody allen. i believe all the hype. yes, they are all that.

ok, i don’t have the least liking for robert greene’s machiavellian laws on leadership and how many of my previous managers so full of themselves live by his books like religious fanatics, but i admit that i read them all the time. yeah, i do, so kill me for being cliche yet again. the very same way i read so many other political philosophies i heavily disagreed with but intensely admired for the thinking behind them (like hitler’s, for instance). collaborating with 50 cent, greene comes up with another set of leadership principles in the 50th law for me to read with intense pleasure then disagree with during discussions. because i’m silly like i just enjoy insecure guys defend their peer-pressured beliefs like they are defending themselves against murder.

the advanced 32-stitch electronic singer sewing machine! with a users guide that reads more like a computer textbook than a home ec training manual. while trying to prioritize things and making ends meet, my husband and i started talking about getting one and we’ve been playing around with figures like how much we have to pay every week or how much we should negotiate for a second-hand one (especially since all of a sudden one day i found that we have to pay every week for a new tv and stereo system on top of basic needs and utilities from a single-income household with an applying immigrant who hates cooking… me, in other words). then lo! i get a sewing machine as a christmas present from the folks! doesn’t the world just work in mysterious ways?

reviews on some of the items later.

hope everybody had a wonderful christmas!