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Post by Val the Cookie Queen
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Hi APJ
All in all 2015 has been quite a perfumed year. I went to the Esxence in Milan and had a seriously fun perfume extravaganza trip through the USA. I have deepened my friendship with several perfumista bloggers (you know exactly who you are) and am incredibly thankful for that. It has enriched my my life.
I have tried quite a number of new perfumes although nowhere near the amount that proper perfumistas do! I am as fussy as ever. I fell in love with Geisha Noire from aroma M and have recently discovered that Neela Vermeire´s Pichola is fabulous in the cold weather.
All my favorite blogs have wonderful lists of what to buy for Christmas, the top ten favourites of the year, not to mention gift buying guides. I can only refer you to them, as I am not capable of coming up with anything that detailed!
As is well known, I mostly wear Vero Profumo and 2015 saw no change in that. I am über-excited at the upcoming launch of the new VP fragrance, have been lucky enough to try it and can only say if you love leather, tobacco and a dash of red apple you are in for a serious treat. And that is just the EdP.
Val CQ’s Christmas GIVEAWAY 2015
Hermès + Vero Profumo
Photo Donated Val
I want to share what I love this year. Proper decants out of my own bottles. I have chosen Mito EdP from Vero Profumo and Cuir d’Ange from Hermés. (I used up three travel sizes of it before I got a full bottle from my husband for my birthday.) It is such a soft and intimate leather.
January is going to be fabulous this year. Portia and I and our various friends and many others will be meeting up for the
Perfume Lovers London event at the end of the month. I will also be visiting with my own family, aunt and uncle, cousins and my brother. It will be a chance to meet perfume people that I have online friendships with too. And yes of course I know what perfume I am gonna be wearing.
Photo Stolen Flickr
“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.” Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
So let us don our gay apparel.
Bussis and strength for 2016.
CQ
Photo Stolen manoneileen
CQ Xmas GIVEAWAY!
WHAT CAN YOU WIN?
This week we will have one winner who will receive:
1 each decants Mito and Cuir d’Ange (from Val’s bottles)
P&H Worldwide
HOW DO YOU WIN?
Yes, you can start following to enter, in fact it’s encouraged. Open to everyone worldwide who follows AustralianPerfumeJunkies via eMail, WordPress, Bloglovin or RSS. Please leave how you follow in the comments to be eligible. I must be able to check that you follow so if you have an email address on your gravatar that’s different to your follow address then please email me (portia underscore turbo @ yahoo dot com dot au) so I know.
You must tell me how you follow APJ
and
Tell us any favorite quotes or Christmas carols? Mito or Cuir d’Ange?
HOUSEKEEPING
Entries Close Thursday 24th December 2015 10pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winners will be chosen by random.org
The winner will have till Monday 28th December 2015 to get in touch (portia underscore turbo at yahoo dot com dot au) with their address or the prize will go to someone else.
No responsibility taken for lost or damaged goods in transit.
Australian Perfume Junkies 
Both Mito and Cuir d’Ange sound luscious! One of my favourite carols is the Carol of the Bells. Merry Christmas perfumistas! Follow by email. 🙂
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An exquisite piece of music. Hi Jaybee, Merry Christmas to you too. xxxx
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How wonderful that your hubby got you a FB of Cuir d’Ange for your birthday. It’s so very you.
I feel lucky I got to meet up with you 3 times this year and no doubt PLL will be here before we know it. That will get me through the January blues.
I bet Mito is good in winter as well as Pichola. Didn’t you do a great snowy bottle pic last winter?
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It was a total surprise. I was in the shop doing cookie work and he sent me a text which said – look in the drawer in my workshop where I keep the inner tubes. There is an orange bag there. It`s for you. See you soon dearest! xxx
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I stalk via WordPress.
Favorite Christmas carol? There are lots actually but on a serious note I’ll pick O Holy Night. For something more lighthearted I’ll say RuPaul’s entire Christmas album.
I would totally pick Mito over any Hermes.
Merry Christmas!
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I also stalk via WP + Twittter and IG 🙂
One of my highlights of the year was finally meeting you in person and getting to hand out with you and your family! Thank you for the fun! Looking forward to the next time!
And as for favorite quote of Christmas carol? Not sure if I have a quote or a carol … but I enjoy any song that is Muppet-related! Have also never smelled Cuir d’Ange, can you believe it?
Thank you for the generous giveaway, Val! And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
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Hi my favourite Daisy. Nice to see you here, I love a stalker or two. How can you ever get around to smelling everything? Your name will be in my dead armadillo. Hugs. xxxxx
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There are so many gorgeous renditions Oh Holy Night. That is THE American carol in my books, and reminds me of my childhood. I understand picking Mito of Hermès, obviously. But in-between Vero I wear a lot of the Cuir d`Ange. Divisive but I love it.
Have a chilled and relaxed Christmas season dearest Poodle, I am sure I won´t. 🙂 Bussis xxxxx
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Comment under this. Somewhere, ❤
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Heya Val,
DNEM but I love Little Drummer Boy and Do You Hear What I Hear as my Christmas carols, though White Christmas has been my bath song this season.
I love Cuir d’Ange and need to spend some serious mito time.
Merry Christmas.
Portia xx
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Indeed. 🙂
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When I was a kid I remember having a record, 33rpm of carols which our family liked to play at 45 speed, endless hours of singing fun…but faster!
I have not discovered Vero yet, but do like the Hermes.
Follow by email, and Merry Christmas to all perfumistas!
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Hi Jackie b. Hahahaha. Hilarious. I wish I still had all the Veros to discover , in a way! Get onto it. xxx
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I follow on email.
Cuir because it is leather!
I did a tradition Friday that I haven’t done for a long time. Mom and I baked Christmas cookies. She is 68. Difference from when I was a kid? We had some mixed drinks while we did it. 🙂
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Hello Gina. Taking time to bake cookies together is lovely. It is so easy to leave it to our Mums to do everything. Have a peaceful season. xxxx
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Hi Val, hope you are well. I was thinking i might get to the London Perfume event but unsure how it will work out for me at this point.
I’m not a great Christmas Carol person but if pushed i would have to say Silent Night as it reminds me of Christmas as a child.
Not having tried either Mito or Cuir d’Ange, i would be happy to receive either, should i win.
Finally, i follow APJ both by email and by FB.
Have a wonderful Christmas one and all. xox
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Pats! Book a ticket for PLL. It is gonna be the event of the year – and that in January!!
xxxxx
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My favorite Christmas carol is Carol of the Bells ❤
I would love to try Cuir d’Ange because notes of leather and hawthorn are one of my favorites.
Thanks for the giveaway!
P.S.: I follow by email
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Merry Christmas Elizabeth! A gorgeous choice of music. Hawthorn is such an interesting smell/note. I love it. xxxxx
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Hallo Val,
I sincerely hope 2016 will be the year we finally meet 🙂
My favourite Xmas carol is Tochter Zion, and I would like to try the Cuir d’Ange.
I follow via email.
Frohe Weihnachten, my dear.
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Sabine my dear, it will be. I do believe we are booked into the same event in January?
Tochter Zion is my favorite German carol, it is so uplifting. Unlike some of the other ones. 😉
I will bring some CdA with me. In case. Bussis. xxxx
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*** Work like you don’t need the money
*** Love like you have never been hurt before
*** Dance like nobody is watching
I follow via Bloglovin
Seasons Greetings to All xx
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Maybe we should have those quotes group tattooed. Merry Christmas, you are in the basket, deceased armadillo. xxxxx
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A favorite quote? “There are as many ways as there are hearts of men.” DNEM this time around, Val. Best wishes to everyone at your house for the most wonderful Christmas and the happiest of New Years.
Azar xx
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Thanks dearest Azar. You too. Love to all the PNW Crew. Bussis and hugs. xxxxx
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Hmmm… picking a favorite of good things is hard. I adore Pentatonix’s rendition of O come O come Emmanuel (on youtube http://tinyurl.com/jp8p8gw )
and also the cover by The Civil Wars
Mito is the one I know more about, so I’m more excited to try it, but Cuir d’Ange sounds heavenly! Thank you
I follow by email
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Hey thanks so much for the link. That makes life nice and easy. Yep – both are lovely. Completely and utterly different but top favorites of mine. Have a Cool Yule. xxxxx
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I follow you by email. The first Christmas quote that popped into my head was, “God Bless Us, Everyone.” Thanks for the holiday give-away, I am dying to try Mito.
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Hey Gara. You must. One way or another. Yep – little blessing won´t go amiss.
Hugs. xxxxx
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It’s time to wish you Happy Holidays, my dearest APJ! Following as usual: mail, WordPress, RSS, FB, twitter.I agree about Pichola. Neela’s newest perfume brings its additional charm, beauty and splendor in the cold days. I haven’t tried Cuir d’Ange, but I’m sure it is a wonderful perfume. My favorites from Hermés are Bel Ami and Equipage (in their vintage formulations). I like Rocabar, too.
I love all the Vero Profumo perfumes I have tried. Vero Kern shows us the olfactory art with its best perspectives and virtues. These perfumes are stunning reflections of a unique view of art. Furthermore, Vero Kern’s reflections become art itself.
Since I was a child, I adore Silent Night or, better said, Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.
As I said once, I love Kiki and Onda, but I’m a Mito guy. 🙂
Have a wonderful holidays, all of you!
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Damir! The epic sharer of all things fragrant. You are a marvel. Yes – Mito EdP is marvelous on a man. Silent Night is so much more moving in the original German. It is beautiful and moves me to tears. Merry Christmas to you and your lovely family. And thank you for all you do. xxxxx
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What a fabulous giveaway, Val!! But DENM for this, I won a fantastic draw from you last year and I’m still enjoying them all; I’d like another lucky winner to enjoy this. 😉
Can’t wait to see you in spring. 😉 Merry Christmas to all!!
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I CANNOT WAIT til March and will be booking the hotel next week. It is going to be the best Milan yet. Merry Christmas. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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I follow via email. I’ve not tried ANY Vero Kern’s perfumes (omg!!) I’m super excited about the new release, but I’ve got to try the old ones first, don’t I?
I have no favorite Christmas carol and I hope your request for quotes is not just “Christmas-y” ones. Here’s mine, from T.S.Eliot’s “Burnt Norton:”
“What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.”
Happy Holidays!
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I am not familiar with that quote. Excellent. You have time for the others in Vero`s collection as I don´t believe the new one will be launched until the end of the summer. Watch this space. Peaceful holidays to you. xxxx
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I follow by email. “God bless us, everyone.” With all the strife in the world, Dickens said it best. I’m not familiar with either fragrance, so thank you for the Giveaway and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.
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Dickens really did. Should be mandatory for all to read. Ellen, Merry Christmas and thanks for dropping by. You are in of course. xxx
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Follow via email.
My church choir recently sang O holy night and it was so beautiful. Love it.
I would love to try mito!
Thank you
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I’m an e-mail follower, and would love to try Cuir d’Ange as an Hermes lover with a fondness for leather scents. Thank you.
Once in Royal David’s City gives me chills. At the start of the Christmas Eve service, with the lights low, a single pure voice sings the first verse. My boy sang it at the Cathedral once, many, many years ago, and I get chills when I think of it still.
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It really invites the Spirit of Christmas in doesn’t it? I hope you find that chance to try Mito one way or another. Lots of love, Val xxxx
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DNEM. I hope everyone has lovely holidays. Silent Night – my mother had a beautiful singing voice and would sing it in German. Makes me teary-eyed even now. You’re right Val,it’s more beautiful in German than English. Then there is a Christmas song, not a carol, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer – so funny.
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I know Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. 🙂
You know, Silent Night is Austrian. Most people do not sing it here until Christmas Eve, and consider it very incorrect to sing it before. We sing it around the Christmas tree with my in-laws and it chokes us all up. Even my young adult children.
Joyful and Triumphant days to you dearest Maya. Hugs.
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Thank you, Val. I can do Joyful and Triumphant. Right back at you! 🙂 I do know the lovely story about where and why Silent Night was composed. I didn’t know about waiting to sing it until Christmas Eve though it is rather appropriate, isn’t it. Wishing you all the best, now and always.
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I follow APJ via my gmail address. Whoo-hoo!
Those Hermes travel sprays are like bon-bons for fragrance lovers – delicious and gone before you can blink. Your tall bottle of Cuir d’Ange made me smile. 🙂
My favorite Christmas carol has always been Hark, the Herald Angels Sing. I had an uncle who insisted the words were “Hark, our Harold Angel Sings” and told me wild stories about Harold.
Each year between Christmas and New Year’s Day I enjoy reading W. H. Auden’s Christmas Oratorio which begins
“Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes —
Some have got broken — and carrying them up to the attic.”
Later on the poem reminds me that “the kitchen table exists because I scrub it” in case I’ve forgotten. It is for me wonderful poetry, desolate and hopeful at the same time.
Happy holidays and a fragrant new year to everyone! I’ve enjoyed reading your words here.
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I follow via e-mail. I am curious about all Vero’s perfumes, and hope I will manage to try at least Rubj and Mito next year.
I didn’t know it is incorrect to sing Silent Night before Christmas Eve (obviously we have another text here in Norway). it is one of my favourites. I remember we sang it during German lessons at school many years ago, and now I own an excellent recording of it by the Hassler Consort: Heiligste Nacht Christmas Music.
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I love Christmas carols because they put me in mind of many happy childhood Christmas’s. Three of my favourites are the beautiful, gentle ‘Silent Night,’ the triumphal ‘O Come All Ye Faithful,’ and the Dickensian ‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen’.
I would love to sample Mito (I remember the video interview with her when it first debuted), and I haven’t as yet smelled the Cuir d’Ange.
Sounds like the Perfume Lovers event will be a great deal of fun.
Thanks for your generosity.
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Woops! Forgot to tell you I follow by email.
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I follow via email.
I have been wanting to try mito for ages. I love Kiki but haven’t had a chance to try any other vero perfume.
My favourite Christmas carol is the little drummer boy.
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and new year and looking to reading more perfume reviews next year!
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my favorite Christmas Carol is “Twas the night before Christmas”. I would choose Mito since I already have a decant of Cuir D’Ange. thanks for the generous draw. I am in the US and follow APJ through email.
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cuir de ange
i follow with wordpress by email
i like chesnuts roasting on an open fire by nat king cole and not sure of the title .
silent night
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What a generous offer to share some of your favourites of the year. I’d love to try Cuir d’Ange.
“In the bleak midwinter” is absolutely my favourite carol. (Though I have a sneaky fondness for the naughty playground rewriting of “We Three Kings”–so fantastic, no elastic, not very safe to wear…)
I follow by email
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Hi Val – I follow via e-mail. Mito of course, always and forever, even though I only know the VdeE. My favorite carols are somber ones – Greensleeves and We Three Kings (I always liked the verse about myrrh best. I think I was a morbid child.) I also love O Come, All Ye Faithful, especially in Latin. You would be surprised to know how often being a Latin teacher does not come in handy, so at least I know what I’m singing at Christmas …
My current favorite quotes are:
Useful: When you’re putting up with them, they’re putting up with you.
Rationalization: What, after all, is a halo? It’s only one more thing to keep clean.
Profound: This thought is as a death, which cannot choose/But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
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i follow by email.thanks for the giveaway.the carols i have had in my head the past couple of days are corpus christi carol as sung by jeff buckley and o christmas tree.the christmas tree one is so cute : ).i love cuir d’ange but would always chose mito as vero is a genius in my book and i have only had the privilege to smell two of her fragrances.imagine how i would feel if i could smell them all : )
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I think I would pick Silver Bells as my carol as it focuses on the simple joys of friends and the world around you.
You know I am a serious Vero fan, but I have never tried the Cuir, so I will be brave and vote for that one.
I enjoy following by email, and want to wish you a very merry Christmas.
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Just dropping in to say Happy Christmas and how great it was to see you in April and October. You were totally the roadie with the mostest in Ebensee and a certain band will be forever in your debt…
I am not entering the draw but my favourite carol is In the Bleak Mid-Winter, as I love mournful stuff in a minor key.
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i follow by newsletter and Facebook .
My favourite carol is well , poem/story is ” twas the night before xmas ”
I remember having to learn it by heart as a child for a christmas play and it still holds a lovely feeling when I recite it. That childish excitement is just wonderful, if it only could be bottled.
I haven’t tried either perfume but through your description I would choose Vero .
Merry Christmas to all and safe New Year xx
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Thank you Val you’re your generosity I hope your’re 2016 is just as much fun for you.
My favourite Christmas carol is Fairy Tale of New York. A wonderful little story full of bitterness, yet with a hopeful ending. It never fails to give me goose bumps.
I’ve tried Mito and love it. The Hermes would have to be pretty good to beat it, but that would be my choice, for the sake of trying something new.
I follow via email.
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I follow via email and favourite carol is We Three Kings. Would love to try Cuir d’Ange and thank you for your generosity.
Here’s wishing all Merry Christmas!
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Hey Everyone! I have read every comment and am sorry not to comment on all of them individually, I am rotating at home. It is my daughter´s birthday today, and Christmas Eve and I am turning in circles doing nothing. Each name is in the basket – random armadillo.org and Hannah is gonna pick one. Wishing you all a great Christmas and not too many curve balls.
Misteltoe bussis. Val CQ xxxxxxxxx
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