More Randomosity

I really miss this show. 

You may or may not know that USPS has increased their shipping prices from January 27, and in the case of international shipping, it’s a massive increase – in some cases almost double. This is a bad, bad thing for those of us who don’t live in the US but buy the majority of our online purchases from there. It’s also a bad, bad thing for little guys on places like Etsy who do a lot of their business internationally (such as indie perfumeries, as we don’t have much of that available to us here), because a lot of us will have to severely limit our purchasing from now on. In short – it’s sucktacular all round.  BOOURNS!

Speaking of perfume, I learned something interesting the other day. Apparently grapeseed oil only has a shelf life of 6-9 months, so beware of buying perfumes that use it as a carrier. Unless you’re someone who is going to use it up in that amount of time, you might find they go off. I have never used a perfume in that time in my life, so it’s certainly something I’ll be watching out for.

And speaking of using makeup (do you like my smooth segueways there?) I have recently had discussions with a few people (Natalie and Jacquie to name two) about our habit of buying beautiful products that we are coveting, and then either not wanting to use them because we don’t want to upset the beauty of it, or saving it for ‘best’ and only using it a couple of times a year. When you think about it, that’s insane. I mean, if you own, say, two lipsticks and you wear one every day and save the other one for special occasions like weddings and parties, then fine. You have a case. But if you’re like us and you have lipsticks in the dozens and you’re saving some of them for special occasions, you’re just wasting all the money you spent to have this beautiful product in the first place. So whether it’s lipsticks, a gorgeous eyeshadow palette, or a bottle of perfume, if you love it, USE IT. Enjoy it and make every day a ‘special occasion’. Eventually whatever it is will go off, and if you’ve barely touched it, then what was the point? So that’s my goal for this year – use all those things I put aside as special. If I use them up and I can’t get another exactly the same, at least I will have had the enjoyment of it while it lasted.

Speaking of goals for this year (oh wow – I’m so good at this), another one of mine is to learn to wear necklaces. As a young’un I always wore necklaces of one kind or another, but as I’ve gotten older (and let’s be real, porkier), I’ve found that I hate wearing anything around my neck – it just feels uncomfortable. I carry my work pass around in my hand because I hate the lanyard thing it hangs from. But I love the look of necklaces, and I own a few of them, so I want to relearn to love wearing them.

I had mentioned I was doing a No Buy for January, and that was going pretty well until I found out about the international shipping increases, at which point I decided to suspend the No Buy and get all the stuff I could manage from my wishlists while I could for a reasonable shipping cost. The No Buy is back on from now until my birthday in May. As a consequence I have  A LOT of little packages on the way to me:

Twyla Perfumes (20% off – how could I not?)

Possets Perfumes

Alchemic Muse

Midnight Gypsy

Solstice Scents

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Various Etsy purchases such as earrings, a necklace, a lip scrub , posters for Noodles and a purse for my mum.

I love acapella. I know it’s cheesy but I really admire people who can do talented things like that. I especially like Matthias Harris and Mike Tompkins.

While you’re checking them out on YouTube, you should also watch this 10 minute documentary about a group of people with a lot of time on their hands at work, who spent it perfecting their strategy in the event of a zombie apocalypse. There are a couple of questionable comments about women, but consider the source, let it slide and enjoy the show. It’s pretty good. 

And finally, a slight whinge – I hate it when people have blogs with no ‘follow’ button on them. If it’s not a private blog, why would you make it difficult for people to follow (and bloglovin’ doesn’t count because that sucks)? Also, captcha on comments – I need new glasses, so trying to read captcha words is REALLY hard. I am sure that 99% of people don’t even realise when they have it on there, so it should be something that you have to opt in to rather than opt out of. Get on to that, Blogger!

Okay, I’m done now. 

Random Things I Have Been Enjoying Lately

1. Coconut Water
Coconut is the buzz word in the world of healthifying these days - everyone and his dog is preaching the miracle properties of coconut water and coconut oil. I'm not sold on the supposed benefits of coconut oil but that's a rant for another day. However, coconut water is my new favourite thing. I've only tried a few brands and this one is really the only one I enjoy so far - the others are tetra paks and have some weird aftertaste. I haven't tried a fresh one as yet - it's on my to do list.

2. Watching Dead podcast
I'm years behind everyone with the podcast thing, for several reasons. Firstly, I absolutely detest radio - it makes me super ragey and one of the things that drives me nuts at work is people who have radios on their desks. IT'S 2012, GET A DAMN IPOD. I have always put podcasts in the same basket as radio and therefore never bothered with them much aside from Ricky Gervais, who can do no wrong. However, lately I've been checking out some movie and TV podcasts. Most of them are kind of crap - it's like radio where no one is getting paid. A couple of people who fancy themselves as comedians sit around cacking themselves at their own crappy jokes. I have a rule of 3 minutes. If it's 3 minutes into the podcast and the hosts are still making stupid jokes and talking random garbage that no one cares about like what what they did on the weekend I'm out.

I stumbled across Watching Dead accidentally when I was just looking for general TV podcasts, and loved it immediately. It's hosted by two guys who like The Walking Dead but are not total fanboys, so they are quite critical of a lot of elements. I don't necessarily agree with all of their criticisms, but I think it's refreshing to hear honest points of view rather than just OMG YOU GUYS THIS SHOW IS SO AWESOME, as is inclined to happen when people who obsessively love a particular show start doing a podcast about it. They are entertaining and quite funny at times, though it's organic rather than the 'how can I squeeze a joke in here?' sort of forced humour. I'm a bit confused though - they talk about being from Indiana but they have Southern accents - one of them in particular quite a heavy one. Isn't Indiana in the mid-West? Or am I showing my complete ignorance of American geography? Anyway, this podcast has inspired me to go back and rewatch The Walking Dead (just in time for when it comes back in a week or so - woo!), and I'm picking up quite a few things I missed the first time around.




3. aLoveTart on YouTube
Mary is rapidly becoming my favourite YouTuber for reviews and comparisons. She is pleasant and easy to listen to, with good lighting so you can see the products clearly, and a confident manner in front of a camera. Unlike some of the more well-known reviewers she isn't snarky or dismissive and doesn't spend the first five minutes banging on about how she came to be in front of a camera that day. Her reviews are really informative and thorough. Well worth checking out if you're the type to be watching beauty vloggers.




4. Ron Swanson
If you've seen Parks and Recreation this needs no eplanation. And if you haven't seen it, you're missing out on comedy gold.

5. Perfume oils
This is an old picture and I no longer have many of these, but I still have enough perfume oils to keep me smelling nice for quite some time. I went off them for a while, preferring the ease of a quick spritz of a commercial fragrance, but I've recently come back to my little brown and green bottles of deliciousness, especially since I finally whittled down my stash to the ones I really liked and got rid of everything else. A lot of these have been sorely neglected so I'm doing a bit of a 'use it or lose it' project with them at the moment.

So that's me. What are you enjoying lately?

Random Update (with random picture just because)

I have a bunch of posts I've been meaning to do but it's too damn hot at the moment so here's a bunch of random things for no reason.

1. I am now on Pinterest. As near as I can gather it's just Tumblr with the ability to organise the pictures, but it gives me somewhere to put all the pretty pictures I see around the interwebs. Especially house ones - I'm always collecting house pictures. I seem to have some invite wotsits too - only a couple, so if you want one let me know and if you're quick enough I'll send you one.

2. After nearly 14 years Noodles has finally learned to ride a bike. I tried to teach her when she was young but she had no interest and since she was a city kid I didn't push it. It's not like she needed a bike to get anywhere. However, her friend R is buying a new one and offered to give Noodles her old one so she had to learn, and now she's super jazzed with herself.

3. Work is annoying me. There's been awkward drama going down and where I sit is SO effing hot. The air conditioning is craptacular and I'm sweating like a weight watcher in a cake shop most days lately. Ugh.

4. My attempt at Frugal Fortnight - ie: not buying a single thing I don't need, as mentioned in last week's fritter post - has not gone well. It was supposed to start on Thursday, but today is the first day so far I have not bought something trivial and unnecessary. And that's only because it's too hot to get dressed and go anywhere.

5. I finally got around to updating my ScentBase, which was about a year out of date. I'm amazed at how much I managed to cull last year - I went from 300ish (mostly samples - I'm not ready for Hoarders just yet) to a much more reasonable 77 (nearly half still samples). I'm also surprised to realise that I bought hardly any commercial fragrances last year. I've really moved away from a lot of those because the ones I want (Frederic Malle Carnal Flower, Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille, etc.) in full sizes are well out of my price range and I've not much interest in all the celebrity junk and cash-in flankers that flood the cheap to mid-range market these days.

6. It's really hot here. Did I mention that? I hate summer. :-(

7. I am currently testing out some perfumes from Sarawen, which I heard about via Suzanne (damn enabler). They're mostly headkicking oriental/gourmand scents, which long time readers will know is right up my alley. It's really a bit hot for those kinds of perfumes at the moment (did I mention it's hot here?), but I don't care. So far I'm loving them - proper review to follow soon. Here's a sneak peek pic.

8. I am also enjoying these cute owl earrings that I got from Ike and Co on Etsy. They're quite large but super light so they're easy to wear. I want some more in
different colours.

9. Finally, this is not really safe for work, but it made me laugh my head off when I saw it so I have to share it.



So, what are you guys up to lately?