bedroom smells

the problem is that i'm almost as cheap as my mom about some things, so instead of buying my own bed, i hauled one of her disgusting twin beds up here and stuck it in my room. in the late summer i was bringing tuberoses home every week from the farmers' market and buying up new perfumes like nobody's business, spraying them on scarves that hung on the back of the door, so the room was smelling pretty good.

tuberoses are gone now, and this room is pretty close quarters as it turns out, and that bed is starting to assert itself olfactively, let's say. that's a hideous thing for a person writing a perfume blog to admit. but i'm cheap in that way; there's a bed that is available to me, it's fairly comfortable, i'm not going to waste money on a new one.

i'm going to waste money on incense!

esteban incense

my favorite is the pivoine imperiale--peony. it smells like reading old books in a secret garden in a dry late-fall.

oh, and a delightful tjmaxx fragrance experience: i bought bal a versailles for $7.99, for pete's sake! ohh, that's a good one. old-school musk, ambery and assy. honeyed. my sister likes to say that honey smells like a bee's butt. probably only wear this if you're actually going to a ball at versailles, or maybe to an art-house film or to the roller derby.

and then there was a box of one called benghal by lancome. i had never, ever heard of it; it was obviously a new one, some special line. it's the collection voyage. i had a cartful of stuff and i was feeling guilty, so i was trying to winnow my haul. i had decided to cast this fragrance aside. after all, i hadn't even opened this fragrance, had no idea what it was about; just the box which said "benghal is the new destination of the collection voyage by lancome fragrances. this floral fruity fragrance [warning! warning!] evokes the gardens of an indian palace where notes of jasmine [hmm], apricot [oh yeah?] and ginger [mm-hmm] blend together."

so i thought i'd just slide the plastic off and sniff it before casting it aside. i sprayed it on my wrist; yeah, it's a fruity floral. i put it down. almonds; apricot; saffron?? holy crap. i had to have it. anyway, it was only $19.99. my male roommate, who is very olfactively wired, practically made out with my wrist. it's a good one. snap it up if you see it and want to smell delicious and acceptable to all and sundry.