Megan has moved away to a dream house in the Blue Ridge mountains with a man who is now her fiance, which is very exciting, of course, but also very sad. Her internet connection is not the best, so we mostly communicate via text message these days. However, the love of perfume and costume dramas has not waned for either of us, as evidenced by our text messaging correspondence from yesterday:

Kerry: Suddenly bored with my old lineup except for [ Miss Dior Cherie ].  I ran out of [ Chanel Chance ] Eau Fraiche this morning and was bummed out. Trying out [ Chanel Chance ] Eau Tendre,  [ Paco Rabbone ] Lady Million and [ Versace ] Versense to see if I want them in my rotation.

Megan: ( In [ the style of ] costume drama letter from a loved one being read by protagonist but narrated aloud ) I am happy to report I'm still wildly in love with Versace. But let me state the particular name of my interest so that I make plain my meaning; it is Bright Crystal – could it have been another? At another time or place perhaps, another was in my favor, but at present I can scarce remember a single scent beyond my brightest gem, full of sparkle, yet delicate & modest.

I am happily surprised at our reuniting in the country when the city had seen our love in ruins. Oh, I am the happiest of perfume wearers!

Kerry: Dearest Megan – I can't tell you how satisfied I am to hear this wonderful news! I have always been of the opinion that your Crystal quite suited you and was, myself, nearly ill when I heard of how the dirt and depression of industry had affected it so. Perhaps some of my former suitors could do with a bit of country air themselves!

Megan: Indeed, goodly done & LOL heartily!

Perfume Boxing Day is nothing like regular Boxing Day, mostly in the sense that "Boxing Day" is an actual holiday and "Perfume Boxing Day" is something I just made up a few hours ago.  Perfume Boxing Day is the day I've decided that the season specific scents that have been in my current rotation are no longer relevant, so they are stored away until they are, once again, seasonally appropriate.

The activities that take place on Perfume Boxing Day are not to be confused with the activities that take place when a perfume of mine has been "Permanently Boxed." A Permanently Boxed perfume has underwhelmed, disappointed or disgusted me to the point of being stashed inside a giant box in my closet, where it patiently awaits its fate, a fate that is very much akin to that of a boxed Cylon or a Dollhouse Active that's been sent to the Attic. Perfume Boxing Day is not nearly so grim. It's fun and temporary! It's like wintering in the islands or going on the lam until the statute of limitations for your crime finally runs out!

Today I celebrated Perfume Boxing Day, bid farewell to my summer scents, pulled out the fall/winter perfumes that have been waiting patiently in their storage drawers, and made a list of the gaps in this season's collection that must be filled.

Perfumes that were boxed for the season include:

• Estee Lauder Brasil Dream EDT

• Estee Lauder Pleasures Bloom EDP

• Escada Ocean Lounge EDT

• Beyonce Heat EDP

• Escada Moon Sparkle EDT

• D&G L'Imperatrice EDT

Perfumes that weren't boxed, but won't be repurchased in the near future:

• Gucci by Gucci EDP

• Elizabeth Arden Mediterranien EDP

• L'Occitine Notre Flore Myrte EDP

• Annick Goutal Mandragore EDT

Perfumes that made the trans-seasonal cut:

• Christian Dior Miss Dior Cherie EDP

• John Varvatos for Women EDP

• Moschino Glamour EDP

• Every single one of my Wiggle Perfume Oils

• Every single one of my Alkemia Oils

• Bath and Body Works Japanese Cherry Blossom EDT

• Bath and Body Works Raspberry Vanilla EDT

• Stella McCartney Rose Absolute EDP

• Stella by Stella McCartney EDP

• Stella McCartney Stella in Two: Amber Perfume Solid

• Stella McCartney Stella in Two: Peony EDT (Just barely)

Perfumes that have been (or will soon be) reintegrated from last year's fall/winter wardrobe:

• Thierry Mugler Innocent EDP

• Badgley Mischka by Badgley Mischka EDP

• Versace Signature EDP

• Burberry London EDP

• Guerlain Mitsouko EDP (or pure parfum if I play my cards right)

• Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur EDP

• Tom Ford Private Blend Champaca Absolute EDP

• Tom Ford Private Blend Amber Absolute EDP

Newcomers:

• Thierry Mugler Angel EDP ( It's been in retirement long enough to be considered "new")

• Queen Latifah Queen EDP

• Queen Latifah Queen of Hearts EDP

• Bath and Body Works Dark Kiss EDT

• Tom Ford Black Orchid EDP

• Guerlain L'heure Bleue (or pure parfum if I play my cards right)

• Givenchy Ange Ou Demon Le Secret EDP

Do you swap your perfumes when the seasons change? What didn't make the cut? What will you bring back from next year? Most importantly, what new perfumes will you be adding this cold season? Spill.

( Also, a quick reminder, September's Giveaway ends in 3 days and once again: not many entries, so your chances of winning? REALLY EFFIN' GOOD! Enter now! )
 

Once again it's a hot, humid day with no chance of rain here in my corner of the globe, but I am optimistic that global warming has not yet progressed to the point where autumn no longer exists, and am therefore waiting for the arrival of fall with a mixture of longing and enthusiasm. To help speed things along (in my mind, anyway) , I've already started making a list of perfumes from last fall's fragrance wardrobe that will definitely make the cut as well as auditioning new fragrances.

Rather than go to the mall and cram my pockets full of perfumed pieces of card stock and douse myself in one or more of the new perfume contenders, I've instituted a much better perfume auditioning system that allows me to sample things at my leisure, get an accurate picture of a what a particular fragrance smells like on its own (as opposed to mixed with the 10 other perfumes I've just inhaled), AND actually know the name of what I'm smelling ( instead of guessing which perfumed card I'm holding up to my nose).

It's quite simple really: I obtain samples.

However, contrary to popular belief, not every store that carries perfumes, not even (and sometimes especially) department stores, has samples on hand to give you. No, those ladies at the fragrance counters aren't being stingy bitches and hording the samples for themselves. It's that the actual fragrance companies just don't disseminate those little sample vials the way they used to. So where does one get samples these days?

1. SEPHORA

Truth be told, I hate the customer service at Sephora, but the fact is, if you can manage to flag down a salesperson, they will, at no cost, make and label a sample vial of whatever perfume(s) you're interested in trying. Drawbacks are that Sephora is often crowded, sales associates don't seem to enjoy making perfume samples, and you are limited to sampling from whatever that particular store's offering is. However, Sephoras are everywhere and you don't have to do this every day, so if you wake up one day feeling less like an ax murderer than usual, it's worth a jaunt. Just make sure you get at least 3 samples out of the whole fiasco.

2. NORDSTROM

Nordstrom, though known for its customer service, suffers from many of the same drawbacks as Sephora.  Nordstrom stores are also few and far between comparatively speaking, so depending on where you live, this may not be a realistic option for you. However, they do have a larger selection than Sephora in most cases, and if you become exasperated after collecting your perfume samples here, there's a shoe department to look forward to. Yeah, that's right. I just talked about perfume and shoes in the same paragraph. So what?  I have a period! I like flowers! Sometimes I purposely watch movies that I know will make me cry!  If you're judging me, you can stop right now, get your ass in the kitchen, and make me a cup of herbal tea.

3. THE INTERNET

Aaah. The internet.  My favorite! The internet's drawbacks is that the samples aren't free and you don't get any immediate gratification. However, you DO get to look forward to getting something exciting in the mail, and your choices are TOTALLY UNLIMITED!

Here are some sites to get you started:

LuckyScent

The thing I love about LuckyScent is that they have a niche, and that niche happens to be niche – niche fragrances, that is. LuckyScent is a website that peddles very expensive and hard to find perfumes. The coolest part? SAMPLES. Even if you never plan on buying a $135 bottle of Citizen Queen by Juliette Has a Gun, you can treat yourself to a $3 sample vial, no problem. They have a huge selection, and their sample prices range from $2-$10, all contingent upon how expensive the mother bottle is.

The Perfumed Court

You can literally get samples of whatever you want, in whatever size you want, and as many as you want from this web-based business specializing in samples and decants of rare, vintage, and exclusive fragrances – including perfumes that are otherwise only available outside of the U.S.! It's a small operation run by three fragrance enthusiasts born from a labor of love. Added bonus? They even have themed sample packs for those who want to experiment with a particular note, fragrance house, scent family, or any other category you can imagine, without having to do the research yourself. These ladies have done the research for you already. Prices range from $3 – $150+ depending on what you're in the market for.  Want a well-researched sampler pack containing 50 historical classics that span an entire century? Well, they have that.  Just need a vial of Guerlain's L'Heure Bleue? They have that too. 

Scented Monkey

The Scented Monkey website is your run-of-the mill, online store that sells discounted mainstream perfumes, but the difference is that you can get a sample of just about anything they sell for $2.99. 

3. ETSY

I'm giving Etsy it's own category for a reason: it's a storefront for a vast array of small and home perfumers that make amazing fragrances, most of which are cruelty-free, many of which are organic.  Their perfumes tend to be made in small batches, use quality ingredients, and reduce your chances of running into an evil smell twin by about a trillion. However, my favorite thing about all the Etsy perfumers is that they're EXTREMELY affordable, even though the oils and sprays offered are almost always made with better quality ingredients.

Some of my personal favorites are:

Wiggle Perfume

Complex, sexy perfumed oils with hard-to-resist vintage packaging are only part of why I love this shop so much. This girl is not afraid to experiment, and she also understands something that's extremely important to me: I usually wear perfume for sex appeal. You can sample any of her perfume oils for $1.50 a pop. My personal favorites are Sakura and Penelope, but I've got 10 more samples on the way to my house right now so that could change by next week.

Alkemia Apothecary and Perfumery

This perfumer offers an ever rotating selection of unique fragrance oils inspired by foods, spices, herbs, flowers and incense. If you're into earthier smells, you're bound to find something you love here. You can get a 3 pack of samples for $10, but if you buy a bottle of her oil for $12, she usually throws a few samples in anyway, so you might as well spring for something that sounds good. It's worth the risk. My favorites have been Seduction Cacao and Vert sur le Vert ( it's exactly what you'd smell if you took a deep breath after a faceplant in the middle of a dewy meadow), but again, I've got new ones en route, so who knows what my favorites will be in a few days?

Wylde Ivy

Affordable, huge selection, a smell for almost every olfactory itch you can think of, and for $15 you can get 10 sample vials of your choice. She currently has a separate category for fall-inspired scents, which I only just noticed this very moment and now I'm going to wrap up this very long blog entry so I can go obtain some of those.

Go forth and obtain samples, and by go forth, I really just mean go to a different website that has perfume samples to offer you!

( Oh, one more thing: don't forget about the September Giveaway. So far no one has entered so it's like shooting fish in a barrel at this point. That's how that euphemism goes, right? Shooting fish in a barrel? That's weird, huh? )

That was long hiatus, right? Was your life ruined? My life was ruined. Well, not ruined-ruined, but not having a full-fledged public outlet for all my thoughts, notes, observations, hopes, fears, love and loathing for all things fragrance was, in it's own way, a hell for a perfume-loving, moderately attention seeking writer like myself.

But here's the thing. This site is FIXED. The archives work and are organized in a fashion that's actually usable, the pagination on the homepage is no longer broken, and I got rid of the links to blogs I only read sporadically but felt obliged to list because they were perfume related and replaced them with links to things I actually, genuinely love. Are you disappointed? Were you actually here looking for links to other perfume blogs? Awesome! That's what Google's for!

The nature of How to Smell a Whale's content is the same: this is a perfume blog written for non-pretentious perfume lovers and for people who are not really that into perfume…yet.

I have a lot of shit I've been wanting to write about, so you'll be getting a brain-full over the coming days and weeks, including interviews with my favorite home perfumers ,truths, myths, and opinions about perfume toxicity and its sudden, frequent visibility in the media, as well as information about new releases and cruelty free perfumes for those who'd rather not melt the eyes out of bunnies' heads in the name of fragrance.

OH. One more thing. My comment section is, for the moment, SPAM-proof and you do NOT have to register to comment. YAAAAY!  Do you have a topic you'd like to see more of or a perfume-related question you'd like answered but would rather not put the energy into searching for it on the Internet yourself? PERFECT! Leave a comment. Go ahead. Do it! I'm your perfume writing genie! MAKE A DAMN WISH, ALREADY!

Kendall Hart Slater
Kendall Hart Slater is not a real person, and although she is not the first fictional character to get her own fragrance, she is the first character from a soap opera to get her name slapped on a perfume. Kendall Hart Slater is the product of Erica Kane's traumatic rape on the soap opera, All My Children. It's called "Charm!" and it features notes of bergamot, black currant, orchid, Virginia cedar, and sugar. Fun fact: Kendall was portrayed by Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame from 1993-1995.

Jenna Jameson
Considering the size of this porn star's current empire, this shouldn't come as a surprise, but I thought Traci Lords would have beat Jenna to the the punch. I was wrong. Traci has Lords of Acid, Jenna has "Heartbreaker", which apparently smells like rose petals and raspberry champagne, not lube and latex. That's good, I guess.

Carlos Santana
Yes, Carlos has a men's and a women's fragrance, both of which are simply named after himself. I wish Robert Plant had a perfume instead, and that it was called "Valhalla."

Jade Goody
Remember that British reality star that died of cancer last year? Well, she has her own fragrance. It's called "Shh!" and apparently smells like citrus, a whole bunch of flowers and sandalwood. Aside from dying very publicly, Jane's only claim to fame was that she was a runner up on a reality show in 2002. This fragrance reportedly flew off the shelves for months after its 2006 release. Weeeeeeeird.

Danielle Steele
Finding out that Danielle Steele has a perfume on the market was a surprise, but not as much of a surprise as it was to discover that "Danielle" smells exactly like a Budweiser that was opened and left in the sun for two days. Here's a direct quote from Megan about this fragrance:

"It smells like my uncle."

1.  Use it as an air freshener.
2.  Regift it to someone you never hang out with.
3.  Give it to a hobo.
4.  Swap it on Makeup Alley.
5.  Deodorize your shoes.
6.  Sell it on Ebay or Craigslist.
7.  Include them as "extras" with other perfume swaps & sales.
8.  Spray it in the eyes of a mugger or rapist.
9.  Wear it while on a bad date or in a hostile work environment.
10. Return it.

One time I was out shopping for a new suit because I had a big presentation coming up for work and I wanted to look more important than usual. For some reason, this proved to be a nearly impossible task.  After visiting about 10 stores that did not carry ladies' suits at all, I went to a mall department store that will remain unnamed ( it rhymes with "Budson Helk") , and was offered assistance by the single saleswoman working the ladies department, a woman who was at the very least 80 years old.

It's important to know that even when I look my worst (which isn't often because I'm vain and therefore extremely vigilant about that sort of thing) I still look like I am in my mid 20s even though I am a few years older than that.  After explaining my need for a knock-out executive suit for an upcoming presentation, this woman proceeded to take me around the ladies department and show me a bunch of suits that were TOTALLY PERFECT for someone attending their 40-year-old daughter's second wedding.  Budson Helk did not make a sale that day.

The point of this anecdote is to illustrate how much I generally despise things that are age-inappropriate.  Sometimes, such as the case in the aforementioned suit incident, the inappropriateness stems from something being far too old and matronly for the wearer, but in a majority of cases, things that are age-inappropriate are such because they are far too young for someone. Examples include:

• a woman in her late 40s wearing a halter top and daisy dukes ( this is not really appropriate for anyone) 
• a 32 year old wearing black lipstick to work and making everyone call her "Raven" even though her actual name is "Mandy" and she works as a file clerk, not as a Hot Topic cashier
• everything Bret Michaels ever wears (although I do greatly admire his ability to calm a bitch down)

Perfume, like clothing, can also be age-inappropriate (See: Moon Sparkle).  Not so long ago I was a real stickler about age-inappropriate fragrances, but something inside me has dramatically changed in the past couple of weeks, and now I am not only obsessed with them, but I also have an urgent, insatiable need to own as many of them as possible before summer arrives. 

It's not that I'm some kind of wet blanket when I'm wearing a fine, well-constructed, adult fragrance. One friend of mine has even said that hanging out with me is like "having a stick of fun shoved up your ass and lighting it on fire," which is the best compliment I've ever received and also 100% accurate. However, a sophisticated fragrance, even if it's sexy, will not give me the same shamelessness needed to make the most of a summer night out that J-Lo's "Glow After Dark" might give me.

As a result of these life changing epiphanies, as the weather gets warmer, my fragrance collection will be expanding with perfumes no one ever expected to see on my dresser. They will be fruity, boozy, sweet, sticky, and plastered with the names of pop stars. When I'm out and someone asks me what I'm wearing, my answer might be "Beyonce Heat."  If it is, there's a good chance that they will make snarky remarks about my fragrance choice just as soon as I'm out of earshot, but I'm okay with that.  We'll see who's laughing when I'm having a pineapple-scented, 3-way-dance-floor-make-out party and spilling a Tequila Sunrise all over my dress and they're waiting in line for the bathroom so they can pull their ill-fitting Spanx out of their ass.

Not long ago I asked everyone what fragrance smells like the 80s to them and got a whole bunch of really fantastic answers, including some really obvious ones that I had completely forgotten existed. After a lot of agonizing decision making and lost sleep, the many scents of the 80s were reduced to 5, mostly because I just needed the number to correspond with the number of days in the work week.

There was an overwhelming number of you that named Electric Youth as a quintessential 80s smell and I could not agree with you more.  I distinctly remember dousing myself with that fruity, watery fragrance at a friend's house (I never had a bottle of my own) and feeling like I needed to go to the mall immediately so that everyone could smell me and know exactly how totally awesome I was. Plus, I'm pretty sure I was wearing my denim skirt with the cut-out heart backed with white lace that day, and that's the sort of thing that needs to be seen by as many people as possible.

Anyway, many years later (last week, actually), I found that what little Electric Youth remains on planet earth is $15-$30 plus shipping, which is way too much money for some really old, and almost definitely underwhelming cologne spray. I am also positive that every hot pink coil in every bottle has long been faded and now just looks like a really long, stiff, pig's tail floating around in a bottle of urine.

In spite of all of this, there is no way I could leave Electric Youth off the list because then this list would be a lie. Instead I decided we could relive those magical years by simply watching the Electric Youth video and allowing it to transport us to another time and place, even if only for a few, precious moments.

Electric Youth was not exactly Debbie Gibson's best song even when it was new, and I highly suspected that it didn't hold up well over the past couple of decades. It became crystal clear to me very early in my viewing of this video that this song is a real shitstorm, and what's worse, it's a really catchy shitstorm, so I woke up the following morning with this turd of a tune stubbornly stuck in my head. I tried all kinds of songs to get it out of there, and nothing worked until I tried Waterloo by Abba, which I am still humming to myself, even now. However, even with all the risks involved, you absolutely cannot NOT watch this video, if for no other reason than the choreographic horror that begins at 2:16. 

DID YOU SEE IT? DID YOU?! Who the hell signed off on that? How many takes do you think they did of little Debbie doing that move before deciding the one you just watched was the perfect one? Yeah. I may not have obtained any actual Electric Youth perfume, but having viewed the evidence at hand, I feel with an immovable certainty that the perfume was infinitely better than its corresponding song and video.

Normally I write my content way ahead of time and schedule it to post at 7am every morning, which could give one the impression that I am up and writing about perfume at 6am like a crazy person. I am not, but if someone did believe that I was I would be completely flattered that someone on earth thought I was capable of doing anything coherent at 6am.

Anyway, today's post was not written ahead of time. I had every intention of posting something this morning instead, but I thought that it would be better if I went out first for a quick perfume smelling expedition, which morphed into an all-day event that included Megan and Megan's mom (who's in town for the week), and being a stereotype of my gender, I also bought some shoes because they were on crazy sale.

But look, I'm home now! And here it is – my final review for the Amazing and Obscenely Affordable Vol.1 review series:

PERFUME NAME:
Moon Sparkle

PERFUME HOUSE:
Escada

PERFUMER:
?

YEAR:
2007

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
Fruity. They claim Floral Fruity, but the Floral is a lie.

DESCRIPTION:
Its top notes are strawberry, black current, citrus and red fruits. Heart notes include freesia and sweet pea, and questionably, jasmine and rose. The base notes are raspberry, sandalwood, musk and amber.

CONCENTRATION:
Eau de Toilette

MY EXPERIENCE:

The first thing you need to know is that there is absolutely nothing classy, elegant, or refined about Moon Sparkle. If you are looking for something to wear to the symphony or your grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary, this is definitely not the perfume for you.  If you are looking for something you can wear to work, this is also not for you unless you're a sex worker, a candy store cashier, or depending on the venue, a bartender. It's low brow, it's for teenagers, it instantly makes me think of floozies, and frankly, it's a smell that should have been born a body spray.

Now I need to tell you that I FUCKING LOVE MOON SPARKLE. This fragrance, which smells like really sugary berries and passionfruit in a way that makes me crave Jolly Ranchers, is a guilty, age-inappropriate pleasure that falls into a category of perfumes that transport me to some time and place where I am a different person and I am club hopping on a really hot, humid, summer night. When I smell it it's as if I've already had about four cocktails and a couple of shooters and my girl posse and I are on our way to our 3rd club. My strapless mini dress is out of sorts and I am drunkenly trying to fix it in time to smile at an oncoming group of dudes that I am SO sure ALL want me and holy shit, where the hell did I put my lip gloss? OMG, seriously, where the FUCK is it?!! Can I borrow yours?! HURRY UP!!!!

If you are over the age of 23, this fragrance can only be pulled off with any trace of dignity in the summertime, when the smell of sugary fruit is a more than welcome alternative to the body odor of passers-by.  I would not attempt to wear this at ALL, EVER, with anything that remotely resembles office wear, not even business casual. Don't you worry, though. You'll have plenty of places to wear this stuff. You can easily pull off Moon Sparkle at:
 

• A tropical resort
• Someone's crazy house party
• A rave
• The club
• The bar
• Disney World
• Home, by yourself

Now, if you think you can handle the demanding conditions to which you must vigilantly adhere in order to enjoy Moon Sparkle without consequence, make sure you go big. Get the 3.3 oz. bottle, and when you spray it on, spray it on with reckless abandon. Treat it as though it were mosquito repellent and you're lost in Southeast Asia; leave no bare skin uncovered.

You can go to the store and pay retail for the 3.3 ounce bottle which would be $70 and really silly, or you can poke around online and find it for around $30.

Oh, and don't forget to tune in next week for Perfume Time Machine: Scents of the 80s!

PERFUME NAME:
L (According to Stefani, the "L" stands for "Love")

PERFUME HOUSE:
Gwen Stefani / L.A.M.B.

PERFUMER:
Firmenich
( Also the perfumer behind Gucci Flora, Kenzo Flower, Kenzo Amour, and about a billion other fragrances you know and possibly love. )

YEAR:
2007

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
Aquatic Floral

DESCRIPTION:
Top notes are said to be leafy green hyacinth, fresh pear, violet leaves, white freesia, and "sparkling green freshness", whatever that is. Heart notes are jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, sweet pea and orange blossom, and the base notes are comprised of peach skin, frangipani (also known as "plumeria" for any old school Bath and Body Works fans out there), heliotrope & sensual musk.

CONCENTRATION:
Eau de Parfum

MY EXPERIENCE:
L is not only the first perfume to be reviewed in the Amazing and Obscenely Affordable review series — it is also the first celebrity fragrance in my adult life that I have liked enough to actually purchase. Sure, that purchase was marked down to the point of being practically free, but I'd do it all over again if I had the chance, and I would definitely plunk down the extra $10 for the gift set.

Although I often claim that I am not a total elitist when it comes to perfumes, there is a part of me that naturally assumes that any celebrity fragrance is either going to be made out of ingredients so cheap I can smell the discount the second the cap comes off, or that it's going to be completely age inappropriate. Occasionally I will pick one up at random and smell it in passing as I'm walking through the mall, after which I often forget who made it or that I'd ever even smelled it at all.

Despite being 40 years old ( that's actually her real age ), Stefani has quite a following of teens & early 20-somethings when it comes to her music and her clothing line, so I assumed that her fragrance would be aimed at that same audience and ignored it for a few years. Those were L's "expensive" years, when she debuted as a Nordstrom exclusive, then quickly began slutting it up with all the other mall department stores — Dillard's, Belk, Macy's, Sephora —  until finally one day, L had been around the block one too many times and started giving herself to discount outlets and online gray market resellers.

It was around that time that I realized that L was in stock at every single TJ Maxx* I visited, even after Valentine's Day when the perfume sections had been torn apart by savage boyfriends and panicked husbands. The packaging was admittedly very appealing to me, which was perhaps the first clue that I was the target audience for this fragrance and not Miley Cyrus. At some point I looked up all the notes online and also read that it was a floral aquatic, an olfactive family I am particularly fond of, and that's when I decided to throw caution to the wind, take off my bathrobe, put on my jacket, drive the 3.2 miles to TJ Maxx, and put a wager of $14.99 plus tax that I was going to like this shit. Low and behold, it smelled fantastic.

In the same way that every single Miss America contestant looks like she is exactly 30 years old regardless of her actual age, this perfume smells exactly like it was made for women in their late 20s through mid 30s. This fragrance is sweet, but in no way a gourmand, and I don't get many of the fruit notes from it even though they comprise a good chunk of the concoction. There is always a point just after spraying it on when the top notes trick me into thinking this is going to turn into something sickeningly saccharin and possibly headache inducing, but it never quite gets there. Instead it pulls back at the last second to make way for a slightly creamy, white heart that eases its way into an alluring dry down of softly sweet plumeria with a distant echo of rose.

I can see how this perfume could go terribly wrong on an unfortunate few, and I sincerely hope that none of you are included in that group, but for the lucky and the brave this is a fantastic spring scent that is flirtatious enough for a date, but tame enough for the office.

I like to think of L as a fallen woman; perhaps she started out as a Baroness, but she lost her fortune because of her wayward ways and subsequently became my maid. She has the education, mannerisms and style of a well-bred, properly raised lady, but now she is always at my beck and call.

*L is also available all over the internet for a song in case you don't feel like changing out of your bathrobe off long enough to drive to TJ Maxx.