Monday, May 22, 2006

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz…

After weeks and weeks of mostly cool and rainy weather, spring finally hit Atlanta this weekend. Actually, it was more like summer hit Atlanta this weekend. Highs were in the low 90s. Because temperatures have mostly been in the upper 60s or low 70s, this was refreshing. I was ready for skirts and shorts.

A few things about this weekend:

Yesterday I got the new Allure with Audrey Tautou on the cover. Gamine! Finally, after months of actresses with flat-ironed hair and smoky eyes, we get this lovely, refreshing face! Her hair is so adorable, it makes me want to chop all mine off tout de suite. Alas, I approach 37 in July, so I think my gamine days are firmly behind me. Still, if I were 27, I wouldn’t be writing this, because I’d be sitting in my stylist’s chair getting that cute crop. Er, except it’s Monday and my stylist doesn’t work on Mondays. But you get the picture. Her makeup is also very nice and fresh for summer. And all Chanel. I would post a picture of the cover, but they still have flat-ironed, smoky-eyed Meg Ryan up on their Web site.

Because it was so hot this weekend, I didn’t sample any new fragrances. When I first started my fragrance adventure a couple of months ago, I spent a lot of time just reading the perfume blogs, and I came across this post on Scentzilla. Katie was “traipsing through Target” and looking for old and new drugstore favorites, looking for a fragrance I wore back in high school, Coty Exclamation. I had an aunt and uncle I saw only a couple of times a year, but they were very sweet and always got me something for Christmas, and one year they bought me a bottle. (I think it was the first “grown up” gift they ever gave me—you know how older relatives continue to think you are still eleven years old even when you are about to enter college.)

I decided to head over to Target and see if I could find some. I couldn’t even remember what it smelled like, but I had to have it! Target didn’t carry it, but I did nab the Sonia Kashuk Gardenia & Black Vetiver perfume palette for my mom (Katie mentioned a Gardenia spray, but I haven’t been able to find it). By then I was on a mission, so I headed over to Eckerds, where I found not only Coty Exclamation, but also Jovan’s Pink Musk, another scent Katie mentioned. Pink Musk is sweet and refreshing, not cloying, not fancy. It’s a perfect scent to wear on a hot day when you’re running errands, in and out of a hot car. I wore it all weekend, and it’s just a pretty, soft scent. And it’s super cheap—I think I paid $9 for my bottle.

And today’s fragrance news:

Today I am wearing Hermes Hiris. I love this scent, but it fades so quickly. I am not one to carry fragrance around with me, so I can’t refresh. *Sigh* Fading iris. I went to TJ Maxx on my lunch break. I was supposed to be going to the pet store to get a snail to keep my office Betta fish, Napoleon, company. But TJ Maxx is just right there, so I thought I would drop in for just a second, and of course I ended up spending my entire lunch break ogling stuff. The TJ Maxx here is nothing like the magical fairyland TJ Maxx where Annie and Cavewoman from Blogdorf Goodman shop. Instead, we generally get fairyland’s final clearance items. Only once have I had good luck in a TJ Maxx store in Atlanta, when I scored a pair of flats for $35 that I had almost bought at Nordstrom for $85. The TJ Maxx stores in Dallas are much, much better.

Enough bellyaching. Today I actually had a little luck. I bought a small EDT spray of Guerlain Mitsuoko. I know it’s not quite as good as the EDP, but it was $20, and still smells quite nice. I also found a gift for my mom, but I can’t say what it is in case she reads this. Ha! I also got some cute blank notebooks for $3 apiece. I love blank books. I love paper. It’s going to make me crazy trying to decide which one to use first.

Enough rambling. I hope to return tomorrow with a review of MAC’s ProLash mascara, and also maybe a line or two about Diptyque’s Eau de Lierre.