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Portia
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Hey there APJ Crew,
Wedding is done & dusted. We have had many adventures, guests are leaving and I’m BUSHED! We still have Jin’s nice & nephew but basically life is back to normal.

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Portia
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Hey there APJ Crew,
Wedding is done & dusted. We have had many adventures, guests are leaving and I’m BUSHED! We still have Jin’s nice & nephew but basically life is back to normal.

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Portia
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Hey there APJ Crew,
You have no idea how crazy this week has been. Family, friends and all sorts from all over the world arriving and needing special attention. The fun, laughter, tears and tantrums which culminated in a wedding. HEAVEN!

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Portia
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Hey there APJ Crew,
It’s Mardi Gras Parade week here in Sydney. Though I’ve kept a pretty low profile Sydney has been bursting at the seams with International Visitors here to enjoy the last week of our Mardi Gras Season. The weather has been perfect for everything and I’m hearing reports of a super year. Saturday nights parade was my Big Event this year, hosting the Sideshow Glam Stands. An excellent week, now I’m bushed!
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Portia
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Hey there APJ Crew,
Mardi Gras season is in full swing this week. I only attended a couple of events but my FaceBook feed is chock full of exciting moments happening across Sydney. There were also a bunch of fragrant adventures and LOADS of perfume was sniffed, spritzed, sampled and savoured. Friends old and new dropped in, Art happened, Roller Derby and a slew of other fun stuff.
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Portia
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Hey there APJ Crew,
This week has been full on. Every day has been filled with friends and fragrance. We’ve had guests to stay, guests to eat, guests to work. It’s Mardi Gras season, Winter Olympics and Lunar New Year. In between I’ve managed to get some serious TV time watching GRIMM.
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Portia
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Hey there APJ Crew,
It freaking hot here. Loads of fun and adventure this week with friends and a few fragrances. What I really want to do in this heat is take off my flesh and lie under the fan just in my bones.
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Portia
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Hey there APJ Crew,
This week turned out to be all about fragrance and friends. We also got the go-ahead to buy a new townhouse so VERY excited about that too. Life has been very generous with us and we are grateful in the extreme.
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Portia
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Hiya APJ,
Back into the daily glamour grind. I love returning from holidays relaxed a refreshed, ready to jump on all the exciting developments since I left. This time there have been loads of those but I’ll tell you when it all comes to fruition. What has been wonderful after a week of very slim but awesome pickings is to have my whole collection of fragrance again to choose from.
So bloody bummer. Wake up this morning about Explorer of the Seas and I’m sick as a dog. Nose running like crazy, coughing phlegm, hard to breathe properly and temperature slightly elevated. So I have a very hot shower and spritz myself lavishly with vintage Miss Dior parfum. It takes 6 sprays before I can even smell it. I go eat breakfast by myself so as not to infect my crew and then hit the hay. I read almost the whole third Divergent book Allegiant in a day. I rise from the bed for lunch and dinner, both eaten alone to avoid contamination. It has been a beautifully peaceful day, except for the coughing and nose blowing.
Coffee, tea and cookies for pep through the day.
HOME!! Wearing vintage Miss Dior parfum and it is gorgeous. I can barely smell it through my sick but still I wanted to smell special.
Through Sydney Heads at dawn, docked in cool grey weather. Said my goodbyes to the wonderful cruising crew and headed off to help Jin fix the exhaust fans at BFF Kath’s apartment before heading home to bed. Still unwell but feeling a bit better. My nose is so raw that blowing it has become a problem.
The most excited person to see me is Paris. O M G! You have no idea how excited he is. So cute. He gives the best hello licks ever.
Sleep with my Valentine. I need to feel better for work tonight and Jin has a ten hour night shift ahead..
Wazamba by Parfum d’Empire tonight for work. Its spicy, resinous incense is exactly what this sick little duck needs to wake up and get going. MMMMMMM. It was so good I wore it to bed as well. This is the new bottle too, still potent and expansive, the whole room smells of it.
Up and at ’em early today. This is my only free day till next Tuesday so everything that needs doing will be done today. Poudre de Riz Huitieme Art Parfums with its spicy rice powder and surprising sweet undercurrent, like a fragrant version of rice pudding drizzled in honey and sprinkled with brown sugar. Pierre Guillaume is a genius at understated sweetness. Yes, it’s the original bottle that so many people hated. I love it. Feels wonderful and expensive in my hand, that it’s mainly light blocking and has the tiny front glass window to see fill line. Everyone asks for innovation then bitches when they get it.
Calling people, paying bills, calling more people, organising, hectic but happy. It’s quite hard to keep perspective with this bloody cold, like trying to think while wrapped in wool underwater.
I decided while walking the dogs that I needed Chinese food and a movie so around the corner from our apartment is a sensational Chinese restaurant. I stood at the door with the two dogs and ordered dinner. Walked the dogs for another 10 minutes, grabbed the food and skedaddled home to watch Matrix and half of Matrix Reloaded before I snoozed off. Dinner was YUM! Sweet & Sour Pork, Crispy Skin Boneless Lemon Chicken, King Prawn Omelette and Egg Fried Rice. In my hurry I forgot to order a vegetable dish, oops!
Tonight because of Anne-Marie’s Eau de Sud by Annick Goutal post on APJ I double spritzed. BLISS, off to bed. Goodnight.
Oooh! It’s really sticky outside today. I just asked the dogs at 9am and by the time I got home I felt like I was living in the tropics. Hermes Monsieur Li this morning. Easy and breezy, my skin is throwing the smells of sweet citrus and the shade under trees.
Jin & I went and had a late Valentine’s lunch at his favourite Yum Cha. It was totally yummy and we got to do some catching up after the cruise. I took a pic but we both look half asleep so I’m not adding it in.
For work tonight I slathered myself in Silences PdT by Jacomo. Galbanum and stuff. Cool, refined and elegant. I felt the goddess within stir all night.
After work I opened a package that arrived. It had a vintage 1000 EdT by Jean Patou. OMG! This is my favourite version of it. So much brighter and with a lift that’s missing from the parfum. The roses are more fun, the osmanthus and violet give a waxy old-style make up vibe. This 1000 smells like the feel of applying YSL lipsticks in the 1990s in their square gold cases that looked uber glam, do you remember those? Do they still make them?
Sorry not much of a post today. Was doing a Marriage Equality Trivia Fundraiser and Nightclub gig in a town 3 hours south. Left early and got home really late. Here are a couple of photos from the Trivia event, which was a complete Sell Out! I wore my new vintage 1000 EdT by Patou. That powdery, rosy beauty was a perfect fit even though it was so hot & humid that I nearly expired.
Woke up groggy and not quite with it. Travelling home so late last night I stopped at a Petrol Station, had a 15 minute nap and bought strawberry milk and some lolly snakes to keep me awake for the drive. So this morning I awoke with a sugar hang over, and a slightly sore back from sitting badly in the car. Feeling a bit sorry for myself actually so I spritzed Amouage Opus III. Gorgeous waxy flowers and stuff.
Tonight I had a gig for a mates 21st birthday party. He had no idea that his Mum had booked me to do a couple of numbers & officiate the event. It was so fun and he was totally sweet and thrilled, and embarrassed. The speeches were funny and heartfelt. He had a cake shaped as BOOBS! Yes, you read it, boobs. Bloody hilarious.
Now it’s late and I’ve spritzed Parfums DelRae Coup de Foudre. Now I’m going to bed is a haze of it. MMMMMMM
Today on Aussie Fragrance Network at FaceBook we started a week of Wear Your Designer Fragrances so there’ll be LOADS of the designer stuff in next weeks Scent Diary.
I got the week started with my vintage Miss Dior EdT, the one with the crappy lid. Yeah, it looks like shit but smells perfect. Miss Dior is fast becoming one of my all time favourite scents.
Poor Jinx, Jin’s dog, has broken his bed. When I went out to see them this morning he was so embarrassed that he couldn’t even look at me. Such a cutie. When the possums come around at night the dogs jump out of their beds so fast it must be quite an impact as it hits the wall. We have stopped them barking though, now they just stare. It’s a win.
Tonight for work I’ll be rocking Burberry Brit woman parfum. I love the little bottle and hardly ever get it out. Glad we are looking at designer Fragrances this week on AFN, hopefully I will grab out a bunch that have lain lost, loved but neglected.
How was your week? Did you do anything interesting? Buy or try any new fragrances?
Portia xx
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Portia
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Hey Crew,
So it’s Monday and I just realised last night I’m going on a cruise on Saturday. By the time you read this I’ll be deep in the South Pacific living it up. It was a mad scramble, as always, so the posts will be scarce. Not empty but less full definitely.
Woke up this morning in a panic. I’m leaving on Saturday for the South Pacific Cruise and NOTHING is organised for my trip. I have to write 3 weeks of Trivia Q&A and get the blog set so you all have something to read while I’m off. It’s sample week so I did a huge 12 spritz of Atelier Cologne Camelia Intrepide. Very pretty floral tea scent, a creamy tea. Super fresh but comforting and with enough bells and whistles that I’m kept interested while writing Q&A. I spent so long at the computer my eyes went googly.
Then, because I was at the end of my tether, Kath, Alice, Jin & I went and tried a new pizza place that wins prizes in Napoli. The food was really good but it was just too hot to have any fun. I thought Jin was going to expire.
Having just had the most fabulous cold Lolita Lempicka bubble bath I decided to spritz Annick Goutal Les Colognes Neroli. About 2ml of it. Pithy orange peel and maybe cardamom?
One downer is that I’ll probably only get one more bubble bath from the LL.
More Trivia Q&A and off to bed in another glorious cloud of Annick Goutal Les Colognes Neroli, and that’s my 5ml done.
OMG! So freaking hot. We let the dogs sleep inside with us last night. They’re well behaved and quiet on their inside beds. I took a couple of pics for Undina from Undina’s Looking Glass, hope you like them. BTW It’s Undina’s 6th blog-versary. Drop on over and say hi, you’ll get to meet her handsome owner Rusty.
Jinx (Jin’s dog) is the top shot and he’s saying, “Leave me to sleep please Daddy.”
Paris (my baby) is already awake and chewing his newest rope toy. Few things make him so happy as a new toy.
Jin surprised me with pancakes for breakfast, made from scratch and served with brown sugar and lemon juice. MY FAVOURITE!!! This is the Sunday dinner Mum used to make us when she ran out of money. We never knew and thought it was the biggest treat ever, still do. Look how pleased Jin is at making such a surprise. He’s having Maple Syrup on his.
I had to go get my sea sick pills, sleeping tablets, sunscreen and ginger tablets for the cruise. While I was there I grabbed a tetanus injection too, just in case. He took my heart rate and was so surprised at how perfect it was and then asked me to weigh myself which was only 113KGs. I was expecting 125KGs. So though I’m no skinny Minnie it felt like a real win. Anyway, as I was waiting for my script to be filled I noticed this Elizabeth Arden Cherry Blossom Green Tea tester and as I was scent naked proceeded to give myself 6 big blasts. Punching well above its $10/50ml price tag I found it a lovely dry floral tea. It gives me the same ache in the back of my throat that a cuppa of Green Tea does and smells quietly creamy and refreshing. Sadly it was gone after an hour but for that money…. NOPE. I did not purchase.
Tonight for work emptied a sample vial of Emeraude Agar by Atelier Cologne on my arms & chest. Opening very pepper & bro-woods generic, dry down is lovely salty driftwood and creamy sandalwood. I can’t believe it has ended up so gorgeous. Review to follow. 6 hours later I’m still gorgeously fragrant.
Sending off a sample of Oriza Legrand Reve d’Ossian and while making up the pack gave myself a spritz. Perfectly posed Catholic liturgical incense BOMB! Love it. Why didn’t this beauty get more love?
Today is all about getting stuff done. All the invoices, postage, tidying the house and doing the laundry pre-holiday. All of it today. This morning I’m wearing Black Afghan by Mad et Len, a pepper rich, woodsy oudh. It came in a LuckyScent Sample Pack. Review to follow.
In the afternoon I decided something cooler was in order and recently I had an Amouage Opus III arrive. When these beauties first came out I found them less than thrilling. In a full 180 degree turn I now I seem to have suddenly realised their magic, since falling so heavily for IX & X. IX being a full retail purchase last year, couldn’t wait because I loved it so much. Opus III is a chunky violet/waxy/lipstick, smoke and hairspray fragrance and a fair whack of green/resinous animalics.
Duck dinner with TinaG & Alice (A F Beauty) because I’m cruising on Saturday. We had soups, a whole duck as pancakes and then San Choy Bow, desserts. Excellent farewell. Jin has officially stolen my L‘Occitane Cedrat L’Homme and it smells terrific on him. An aquatic wood, yum.
Cleaned the house, washed the linen and some last minute clothes, blogged and organised and did stuff that took forever but feels like I’ve only slightly dented the list. Have worn so much fragrance today for blogging purposes and now at 4pm I’m sitting in the middle of a fog of Surrender, the Dominique Durban creation for Surrender To Chance. BLOODY HELL! It’s the thickest, most chewy jasmine I ever smelled, unbelievable petrochemical opening that becomes this incredible jasmine soliflore. You MUST get some.
FINISHED all posts for APJ while I’m gone by 10am, that’s about 5 hours ahead of my planned schedule. BIG relief.
Fragrantly I’m wearing Spiritus/Land by Miller & Bertaux. Ginger, pepper, incense and woods. It’s beautiful. This crew is woefully unrecognised for their lovely work.
Now some minor cleaning, packing and organising. Tonight Jin & I are going to wander down the road to town and get some dinner, maybe have a wine, come back here and snuggle on the couch watching TV.
Here are my Travel Fragrances for the cruise….
Back:Mohur EdP, Divine EdP, Mitsouko EdT, Vaninger, Stash, Miss Dior parfum, Niki de Saint Phalle EdT, Bombay Bling EdP
Front: Epice Marine, Cuir d’Ange
You’ll notice every one of these is a manufacturer travel size of 30ml or less. Please take note perfume creators. If you make it small, I will buy it. 15 – 30ml is perfect for travel, respritzing and having handily in handbag or backpack.