SOTD: Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint, and Laziness

This was a busy week, given that it was supposed to be a vacation. Unexpected house issues combined with normal pre-holiday cleaning and cooking. Busy busy.

But not today. Today, I got up at half past noon, took a bubble bath with Jo Malone bath oil until half past one, and have spent most of the remainder of the day in my den, on the Internet, doing nothing useful. There was also twenty minutes spent walking up to the coffee shop for hot chocolate. Later, Himself and I may move to the living room and continue to do nothing useful.

White Jasmine & Mint, usually the scent of hard useful work, was today the scent of idleness. I like the redefinition.

Now I'll write some words for NaNoWriMo. If I feel like it.

Image: By Miserlou. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTDays: Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint, and Serge Lutens Chergui

The weather is changing. It's getting cooler, wetter, and cloudier. Summer might be over - or it might just be another funny joke. It's been that kind of weather year.

But yesterday was lacking in summer, so I put on Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint, out of a longing for the sweet and leafy, and it was perfect. The rather dense base that can be too solid in sticky summer was just right in the cooler weather, and the sweet and leafy was amply supplied. It was perfect.

Today I went the other way, with an ample dose of Serge Lutens Chergui - a wintery tobacco smoke honey spice cookie scent. I've always been a bit doubtful about this. The spices generally skate a middle ground between comfy-sweet and overdone, and I rarely like middle grounds. But today it's just perfect, and I'm fairly confident that this isn't a quirk. I think that I've finally acquired the taste.

Review Roundup: For White Jasmine & Mint is here.
Review Roundup: For Chergui is here.

Image: By Muller. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint

Sparkly.

This one doesn't seem to be any less enjoyable in August than it was earlier in the summer.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Vassil. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint

It's interesting to see how quickly a scent can develop new associations. I'd been using ElizabethW Rose bath oil and "Cranky Baby" (really, California Baby Overtired & Cranky) bubble bath as my combined bath scent for a long time, so that combined scent developed an association of leisure and relaxation, over a period of at least two years. And I think that it took at least a few months for it to develop the initial association.

But when I ran out of the Rose, I decided that I'd better start going through some of my other bath potions. So for only five or ten baths, it's been Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint bath oil and Cranky Baby. And that combined scent has already developed a relaxation vibe that seems as strong as the one that Cranky Baby/ElizabethW spent so long earning. I'm guessing that the Cranky Baby half of the association was enough to give full credentials to the White Jasmine & Mint in such a short time.

And now the White Jasmine & Mint perfume, which is substantially different from the bath oil, also seems to have a new relaxation association.

Interesting. Anyway, I enjoyed it. And I wonder if there's any chance of California Baby coming out with a Cranky Baby perfume? I want all the comfort scents I can get.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Doug Coldwell. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint

I first wore this scent while moving a bazillion boxes on a hot, hot day, with Himself. I had a sample, and I kept re-spraying myself, to keep my morale up. I wore it again a few months later when we were doing a similar task - maybe cleaning out the garage? - on, again, a hot, hot day. As a result, I associate at it with doing things with Himself. (And with heat, boxes, and dust, but I'm ignoring that part.) So I put it on tonight, before we went to a concert by (woohoo!) Bare Naked Ladies.

Now, it's a little odd to own a scent essentially dedicated to a person who doesn't like perfume. But I like perfume, and I like Himself, and therefore I need a perfume to celebrate doing things together, so there it is.

And, by the way, it's a beautiful scent. It's a clean sparkly jasmine, very informal, and the mint adds to both the sparkle and the informality. There are other notes, about two dozen of them, but all I can tease out is the jasmine, the very low-key mint, and that Jo Malone almost-edible-but-not-quite base, grounding the other notes and keeping them from being pure carbonated froth. I've mentioned a strong but pleasant soapy aspect to the bath oil, but I don't get more than the faintest hint of that soap in the perfume.

For me, this is a happy scent, suitable for jeans and sneakers or sundresses and bare feet. But I think that it would stand up just fine to a far more formal situation.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and Basenotes and Perfume-Smellin' Things and The Scented Salamander and Perfume Posse and Fragrantica and Opalescent and Perfume-Smellin' Things.

SOTD: Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint Bath Oil (And Vacation)

I'm on vacaaaaaation!

The idleness started today. Saturday was party prep. And Sunday was party. (Fried chicken was involved. Of course.) So today is the first day of serious idleness. Park. Books. Dinner. Cocktail. And now I blog, in a rambling manner perhaps slightly influenced by said cocktail. (Lemon drop. Mmmmmm.)

I spent the day largely unscented, except for the above-mentioned Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint Bath Oil. I'm tragically out of ElizabethW Rose, and I decided that I really ought to use up some of my backlog of bath potions before ordering any more.

It's an odd scent - as a perfume, it smells like, well, jasmine and mint, with maybe a faint trace of soapy sparkle. But in bath water, it smells like soap. Specifically, like really nice laundry detergent, the kind that you imagine when watching people blissfully bury their faces in snowy white towels in television commercials for detergents, rather than the dreadful white musk that the laundry detergent usually really smells like. I like it, but I'm puzzled about the drastic difference.

And now the laziness will resume.

Image: By Alpha du centaure. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint

I love this one. It deserves a proper discussion and review and Review Roundup, but the day is getting away from me. So all I will say is that it's lovely, it's happy, it's perfect for really hot weather, and now I've confirmed that it's also quite nice in vaguely warm weather like today.

Photo: By Kham Tran. Wikimedia Commons.