Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Friday, September 3, and it is the start of the Labor Day weekend here in the US! I was remiss last week in not posting the usual Chat Room — my apologies! Our neighborhood is in the middle of a zoning battle and I’ve been dragged into it against my better judgment, which has taken up time. When I realized last weekend that I had missed my Friday post, I decided to just wait until this week and the start of a new month.
It’s amazing how the weather has changed! On September 1 and 2, we suddenly had blue skies and much lower humidity, which has continued today. That has revived my fragrance mojo a bit — the very hot, sticky weather had left me stuck in a rut with just a few fragrances I was enjoying in the heat.
I’ll be looking out for any good Labor Day sales — how about you?
Serenity Now Scents and Sensibilities 
I wish I was just looking for sales 😉 Yesterday I already placed an order at Beautylish: they have rare 30% off sale on some of cosmetics, and I went for several items that I wanted to eventually buy, which I know usually don’t get that much discount elsewhere. Did I need those? Not right now, but it’s hard to pass on a good sale. Now I need to look for a couple of household items that I actually need – to counteract my frivolous makeup purchase.
With your zoning fights, what are you fighting for/against? Close to where I live they are going to build and/or rebuild something. It just started, so we can’t figure out yet what it’ll be (it just started happening 2-3 days ago), and it bothers us. Need to find out.
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I live in a historic city neighborhood, and the city planning department is trying to ram through zoning changes that would let developers tear down even more old houses and buildings than they already have. It’s so infuriating and discouraging.
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I hope you’ll be able to resist! I hate when greed and nearsightedness push for the decisions that cannot be undone.
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Thankfully our weather got better and we have sun now for the next day. Time to wear Batucada and then Beachy. We have no labor day here, so just normal working days. But I finally finished sewing a swimsuit for our holiday in Italy next week. Hope to get into the sea soon.
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I’m so impressed that you’ve made a swimsuit! I hope you have a wonderful time in Italy, in and out of the sea. Will you bring home any fragrant souvenirs? Or gourmet ingredients for your cooking?
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I think I will look out for traditional scents if we go to Siena. We will alway take home some olive oil, cheese and salami back home.
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Sounds wonderful!
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Sorry to read about your zoning dramas OH. Bloody greedy councils! GRR!
We are currently in the perfect calm before the heat of summer hits. The weather is gorgeous today, we had a couple of days of softly insistent rain and the nights are cool enough to still wear amber and smoky woods.
Still in hard lockdown.
I did go over to my BFFs Dad’s place for Father’s Day today. He has nominated me as his lockdown buddy. We live in the same local government area so I can visit him without the $5000 fine for crossing borders. I made us some scones and we had Jin’s home made mandarin marmalade and heavy, thick cream with coffees in the sunshine of the back yard. I wrapped up a bunch of small, Dad specific presents: Socks, a DVD on our indigenous artists, a packet mix of butter chicken that he can easily make by himself (since Mum died he has been experimenting with new meals and flavours) and a bottle of Acqua di Selva by Visconti di Modrone. The fragrance has a history and I know that he’ll really enjoy looking into that and having a new item of conversation with his friends.
So, small things but a lovely time to be alive.
Portia xx
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Sounds like you had a lovely time with your friend’s dad. Fresh scones and mandarin marmalade. Yummm. A lot of people grow satsumas here and I get satsuma marmalade from my favorite seller at the local farmer’s market. It’s divine. Do Meyer lemons grow in Australia? They are prolific in Florida too, big, more sweet lemons. They made wonderful lemonade and nice tart marmalade as well. it’s really good mixed with plain yogurt.
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Hey RR,
I think we can grow meyer lemons here but I’ve not seen them particularly. I will keep my eyes peeled.
Home made jam is such a game changer. Jin is amazing at this stuff, me, I just like to eat it.
Portia xx
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Do you ever make lemon curd? My English mother used to make it sometimes — OMG, so good!
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I’m sorry to hear of your zoning troubles. It’s always sad when cities try to tear down old historic buildings to build some new ugly thing or other. Keep fighting!! Our local neighborhood homeowners’ groups have successfully fought some ugly proposed developments in our city and won.
However, unfortunately, some developments went forward and destroyed the lovely view that we used to have from our nice mid-city park. It’s still a nice park, and the new buildings aren’t hideous or anything, but the only view now is high rises on all sides. Sigh! There used to be a view straight through to the state capitol and the horizon. It was so pretty at night.
It’s been so hot and sticky here I’ve been wearing mostly tea fragrances and citruses. I’m loving Bergamotto from Laboratorio Olfattivo by Jean-Claude Ellena. He also did a beautiful mandarin fragrance for LO, called Mandarino. These are very light EDT’s so I’m using Malin & Goetz’s Vitamin B5 body lotion with it. It has a lovely bergamot scent that is very close to the scent profile of the perfume so I feel very fresh and citrusy! Also wearing my beloved Nishane Wu Long Cha. It makes me so happy! Does anyone else have fragrances that always make you smile and feel happy no matter what else is going on in your life?
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oh dear, I wrote too much again and my prior comment got sent to spam. Sorry!
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Got it!
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