The 2013 perfumes in my collection!

There have been so many fantastic fragrances released in 2013.
Here are 13 that I have added to my collection.

I bought the 3 DKNY Be Delicious Art editions. I love the design on the bottles.

Escada Cherry In The Air also comes in a cute bottle with a cute bow around the neck. It also has a lovely design on the box. It is a lovely summer fragrance.

Jimmy Choo Flash is my favourite perfume. I love the bottle and the scent is so unique. I love it. I can't wait for the new version, which is due for release on 3rd February 2014.

Jimmy Choo Exotic is a delicious scent that I wanted for months before I finally got my hands on it.

Miss Dior released their scent as an eau de toilette early this year. I got this for Christmas from my other half this year.

Cacharel Amor Amor is a lovely limited edition of the original Amor Amor.

L'eau Jolie is a lovely fresh, clean scent that smells very similar to DKNY Fresh Blossom Art, but it comes in an even nicer apple-shaped bottle.

I was mega excited to see the release of Vera Wang's latest addition to the Princess range and this is a lovely sparkling scent, well represented by its bottle.

Marc Jacobs Sunshine Editions were supposedly released in 2012, but they certainly didn't turn up in my local Boots until February 2013:

Marc Jacobs Daisy Sunshine is an amazing scent. I absolutely adore it. I hate the fact that this was a limited edition.

Oh Lola Sunsheer is delicious. I find it so difficult to say which of this Marc Jacobs range is my favourite as they are all amazing.

Marc Jacobs Daisy Eau So Fresh Sunshine was the first scent that I purchased from this range and I ended up going back to Boots the same day to buy Daisy Sunshine. These three are joint second favourites after Jimmy Choo Flash!


2013 also saw the release of Chanel Chance, Chanel Chance Eau Tendre and Chanel Chance Eau Fraiche in large 150ml bottles. They were previously only available in smaller bottles; 100ml and 50ml.
I bought Chanel Chance and Chanel Chance Eau Fraiche in 150ml bottles, but I already had a nearly full 100ml bottle of Chanel Chance Eau Tendre and I didn't have another £80.00 to spare.

Disappointing sales shopping and my few bargains!

I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas and were as spoilt as I was. As well as lots of lovely presents I got plenty of money to spend in the sales as well.
I haven't actually headed to the shops yet as I'm trying to be good, but I have done plenty of browsing on the web.

I haven't been impressed at all.
My current obsession, in case you haven't noticed, is perfume and all over the net perfume retailers are pretending their perfume is on sale, but the prices have not gone down.

On allbeauty.com they list the RRP and the current price rather than the price they were selling it for before and since the beginning of their 'sale'!

On theperfumeshop.co.uk there are just 20 items in their sale 'for her', 10 of them being gift sets, most of which have 30ml fragrances in, some of them have 50ml, but nothing larger than this.

Three of the individual fragrances are celebrity perfumes. J-Lo Glow and J-Lo Live, which now both cost £19.99 for the 100ml bottles are on sale reduced from the laughable recommended retail price of £48.00 each. There is also Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely 100ml, which they are selling at the sale price of £24.99. Its recommended retail price is £42.00.

I only have two celebrity fragrances although there are more that I want. I have J-Lo Glow, which was passed on from my sister and Beyonce Midnight Heat, which I received a sample of and liked it so my fiance kindly bought it for me.

I don't like J-Lo Glow to be honest - it is unbelievable how well advertised it was considering it doesn't smell very good.
I have never tried Live by Jennifer Lopez, but it seems to be quite popular.
One of her other fragrances, Deseo seems to be quite popular as well and I've heard people rave about it so I want to try that one. I also want Glowing despite having never tried it. I saw it on a youtube video in someone's perfume collection and the larger 50ml and 75ml bottles light up when you spray it so that's it pretty much sold to me. Haha! I know that's sad. It does sound nice from description as well. It is supposed to be a clean and earthy scent with a dark, woody element to it.

I have a rule never to pay more than £20.00 for 100ml of a celebrity fragrance as the price always comes down to less than £20.00 eventually even if it is a higher price when it first comes out.
I think paying £48.00 for 100ml of a Jennifer Lopez fragrance would be outrageous and I've never actually seen one selling for that price.

I did manage to find some bargains on Christmas Eve when all of the sales started online.
On tescodirect.com I managed to find a 100ml bottle of  Alexander McQueen My Queen for £17.50. I think it has now been discontinued and it is quite difficult to find, but the recommended retail price is around £60.00.
It occasionally comes up on allbeauty.com for around £30.00.

It is said to have four layers rather than three like most perfumes, but I think that is nonsense.
It opens with the sweet and powdery scent of violets, which is really uplifting and summery and it dries down to a lovely warming, woody scent with the subtle scent of violets still drifting through it. There is little in between. It is a lovely scent with contrasting top and base notes, but it doesn't smell expensive as the supposed four layers might suggest.
The supposed four layers are composed of violet and almond, which open up the fragrance. They then slowly turn into the pure scent of orange, white musk, heliotrope and white flowers. The third layer promises patchouli, cedar and vetiver and then the final layer has notes of iris and vanilla.

I also bought Nina Ricci's Love In Paris. It is a fragrance I've wanted for a while. Although I'd never tried it prior to purchasing it I had read some really good reviews. I also like the bottle and it is quite inexpensive.
It is available on allbeauty.com in a 30ml bottle for £16.65 (RRP £26.00) or a 50ml bottle for £24.85 (RRP £35.00).
I managed to get the 30ml bottle on tescodirect.com for just £11.10.
The bottle design is slightly different for the 30ml and 50ml bottles.
I prefer the 30ml bottle with the little heart after the words, 'Love in Paris' and 'Nina Ricci' in small lettering underneath rather than the word, 'Nina' in large letters across the bottom of the bottle. I also like the shape of the bottle and the lid.

The fragrance is really pleasant. It is quite a green scent. It is also quite mature. It has notes of bergamot, green violet, rose, star anise, jasmine, apricot, sensual woods and vanilla.

My final purchase from tescodirect.com was a gift set I spotted with a 100ml fragrance and a 75ml body spray for just £3.30! It was Revlon's Charlie Red. I haven't used the eau de toilette or the body spray since I was about 13 and I kept meaning to buy a Charlie Red body spray so that I could remember the scent.
When it came it was not exactly what it said it was. The website had said it was an Eau de Toilette, but it is actually the Eau Fraiche Natural Spray. I didn't notice this until after I'd opened it though, but I have emailed Tesco to tell them.
It is still the same scent. It isn't too bad, but it isn't as nice as what I'd remembered. It reminds me of sun screen and holidays.
The top notes are orange blossom, gardenia, plum, blackcurrant, violet and peach.
The middle notes are carnation, tuberose, orchid, jasmine, ylang-ylang, lily-of-the-valley and rose.
The base notes are honey, sandalwood, amber, musk and cedar.
I wouldn't hurry to buy it again.

bergamot, green violet, rose, star anise, jasmine, apricot and leads on to seductive and subtle warmth of sensual woods and vanilla
Read more at http://www.tesco.com/direct/nina-ricci-love-in-paris-edt-spray-30ml/470-4867.prd#0mdxolhP3HMWqDof.99

You can see from the picture that the fragrance box says 'Eau Fraiche Natural Spray' rather than 'Eau de Toilette', but Tesco had listed it as an Eau de Toilette. I notice that they are selling Charlie Red Eau Fraiche 100ml for £3.70 so you can pay 40p more for no body spray or outer packaging, but they do seem to have ran out of these gift sets now.

That's all my bargains for the moment. I'll keep you updated with any more fantastic finds.

New releases for 2014!

So 2014 is fast approaching and in my mind I have already spent hundreds of pounds on 2014 new release perfumes that I am already desperate to get my hands on.

I was going to mention in my previous post that Nina Ricci will be releasing La Tentation de Nina early next year. The bottle is quite cool. It has a golden bite out of it, which makes it a different shape from the other Nina Ricci releases. The bottle isn't my favourite shade of pink, but it will be a welcome addition to my collection.
The fragrance promises top notes of bergamot, heart notes of Nina macaron (raspberry, almond, Bulgarian rose, lemon) and a base of vanilla, sandalwood and musk.

I also fancy the new Marc Jacobs duo.
Marc Jacobs Daisy Delight and Marc Jacobs Daisy Eau So Fresh Delight are also due for release early next year.

I absolutely adored the Daisy Sunshine and Daisy Eau So Fresh Sunshine Editions, which I bought early this year. Both scents are gorgeous so I hope that these new releases will not disappoint.

Jimmy Choo's Flash was my favourite perfume of 2013 so I am super excited about Flash London Club. I'm not a massive fan of the name, but the bottle is quite exciting with a frosty textured bottom half.
According to Jimmy Choo's press release, "It is said to embody the spirit of the London party scene, night clubs and entertainment, since London is one of the focal points of electronic music."
It has top notes of bergamot and lychee, a heart of tuberose and base notes of blonde woods and musk. I can't wait to try it out.

I'm sure there'll be plenty more newly released perfumes added to my want list in the new year.

Naughty December spending - all for me!

I can't stop shopping this week. Every day there is an inbox full of emails from dozens of retailers desperate to persuade you to part with your cash in their shops or on their websites!

I put a large order in for some fragrances yesterday at www.allbeauty.com. Their stock changes slightly every day. I have noticed because I go on the website every day! I'm addicted!
I noticed that they have restocked some of the older fragrances, which have become quite difficult to find elsewhere so I ordered Truly Pink (100ml for £32.95 RRP £52.00), Sheer Veil (100ml for £36.95 RRP £59.00) and Anniversary (100ml for £36.50 RRP £75.00).

I love the shape of the bottles and I love Vera Wang's fragrances as you may have guessed by my blog name.

The original Vera Wang by Vera Wang is gorgeous.

Lolita Lempicka's Eau Jolie is currently on special offer on allbeauty.com. The 50ml bottle is £21.95 (RRP £40.00) and it is the only apple shaped Lolita Lempicka bottle on their site that I don't have.
I love the bottles. They are gorgeous.
I do prefer the scent of Lolita Lempicka's midnight fragrances, but this one is still lovely.
Also this may sound a bit sad, but I haven't seen any of these Lolita Lempicka apple shaped bottles in the 50ml size. I have a 30ml bottle and an 80ml and a few 100ml bottles, but I haven't seen the size of the 50ml bottles so I am looking forward to 'trying this out for size'!
They are also selling the 30ml bottle on allbeauty.com for £18.95 so the 50ml bottle is a really good deal.

I love the original Gucci Flora, but I don't yet own a bottle.
Recently the Flora by Gucci Garden Collection has overtaken the original Gucci Flora on my want list. The two that stand out to me are the Gorgeous Gardenia and the Glorious Mandarin so I started my collection off with the Gorgeous Gardenia, which was just £37.85 for 50ml (RRP £49.00).
Also in the collection there is Genourous Violet, Glamourous Magnolia and Gracious Tuberose.

I prefer the smaller 50ml bottles as I think they're really cute. I love the shape of them and the black bow around the neck of the bottle is a nice touch as well.

Another purchase I made was John Galliano by John Galliano. I recently watched a youtube video where someone was showing their perfume collection and said that this scent was one that had to be tried and I was intrigued.
The eau de parfum was recommended, but allbeauty.com only had the eau de toilette so I thought it couldn't be too dissimilar.
You can buy the eau de parfum at www.fragrancedirect.com for £36.50 for a 40ml bottle (RRP £43.00), but my 40ml eau de toilette from allbeauty.com was only £14.50 (RRP £36.00), which I thought was very reasonable especially since it was a blind buy.
Larger bottles of this fragrance are quite hard to come by.
I do prefer the colour of the bottle for the eau de parfum.

I also ordered Nina Ricci's Nina Elixir, which cost £31.75 for 80ml (RRP £55.15 apparently). I mentioned in a previous post that I suddenly decided that I want every Nina Ricci fragrance ever released and I do love this one and it is very reasonably priced.

Later on last night I started looking at the other Nina Ricci fragrances in the lovely apple shaped bottle and I managed to track down Pretty Nina, which is quite difficult to find now.
I bought it for £45.00 for 50ml from www.freemans.com, which is the website for the British catalogue clothing retailer so I expect it to be the real deal.
The bottle is really pretty, but I do think these 50ml apple shaped bottles look rather small. I'd love to see one of the 30ml bottles. They must be tiny!
On the subject of size I love the fragrance poster campaign with this oversized bottle in it. I would love to own a giant bottle of perfume!

... Anyway back to my allbeauty.com order.. After my purchase last night, this morning I logged in to one of my old email accounts, which I used to use to order from allbeauty.com (when it was cheapsmells.com) and what do I find in my email inbox? An email from allbeauty.com, which they sent me yesterday morning saying, 'We miss you' and when I opened it up:

I was rather irritated by this. Us loyal customers receiving no such email, when I could have saved £20.00 with two separate orders and these codes to hand as I'd spent £85.00 twice over.
I thought about cancelling my order and reordering, but there is no cancellation button like there is on some websites and it would mean emailing customer services and the codes expire today so it seemed like a lot of hassle.

I didn't want to miss out though, so you won't believe what I did.. I put in another order!

I ordered the other Gucci fragrance that I wanted; Flora Glorious Mandarin is currently on offer for £44.95 (RRP £53.00).

Nina Ricci's Ricci Ricci Reflets Mysterieux is another that I can't wait to receive. I love the original Ricci Ricci so will be pleased to welcome this to my collection. It cost £39.62 (RRP £55.00).

With less than £1.00 needed to make up the £85.00 and with a rapidly decreasing bank balance my third purchase was just £3.49 (so I got my £10 discount).

It is strange because I was just looking at really old fragrances this morning on www.fragrantica.com, the online perfume encyclopedia and this one came up: 4711 Original

The fragrance was originally launched in 1792 and it is unisex.
My £3.49 gets me a 25ml 'watch bottle' of the eau de cologne.