fresh

Happy Valentine’s Day!(Carnal Flower)

Posted on by elemonated

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you have as lovely a one as I will with someone special!

First of all, it’s freezing where I’m writing this. Mr. Chokkattu’s new landlord sounds like a cheap bastard from all I’ve heard of him and seems to be illegally turning off the heat wherever he feels it would save him money. This is coming from a household that tries to keep the heating and cooling to a minimum, and regularly has to turn up the heat or up the air conditioning for guests; what I am experiencing is worse. I had my feet on a radiator for a while and that radiator has been shut off for god knows why.

Anyway, all this to say that this is not the optimal temperature for Carnal Flower, and I know this, so while I’m going to write my reactions based off of how I feel now, I’ve had Carnal Flower for a while and I know it’s an entirely different beast when allowed to bloom in say, 80 degree weather when driving to the beach, as I have worn it in the past.

Frederic Malle Carnal Flower, for those who may not know, was composed by Dominique Ropion. Mr. Ropion has concocted other potions for Frederic Malle, as well as Alexander McQueen, Burberry, Calvin Klein, Dior, Armani, Givenchy, Gucci, JLo, Kenzo, a regular crap-ton for Lancome, YSL, and the creator of Thierry Mugler’s Alien and Viktor & Rolf’s Flowerbomb. His career has been a pretty veritable success, and I’m sure if we measured perfumers the way we measure musicians, he would have hit platinum or double platinum or whatever the distinction above that is by now. Read More

Scent Trunk Box Review!

Posted on by elemonated

A fellow smelly had done a review of what they got from the baby company (May 2014!) Scent Trunk in a Youtube video a few weeks back, so I decided I’d try it out! I’m a sucker for the niche and the indie, and I was excited when the box got here so quickly after only about a week’s time. My referral code is 8522, or you can click here to sign up.

I did have a few technical difficulties regarding the site, but their customer service (aka Will Yin, who is also CEO; love that entrepreneurship) cleaned that up quickly, and I can see that they’re still going through a few design transitions, which doesn’t bother me at all. I kind of feel like they sent me the regular starter pack though; two of the fragrances sent to me were on their back-to-school blog post, and while that is admittedly my demographic, it’s not as though this was my first foray into niche fragrance. (I’m about to get to reviewing the glut of Imaginary Authors samples I have by the way!) But I mean, it’s not as if they knew that, and I haven’t tried any of the brands they sent, so that’s definitely a plus.

They did send Mr. Chokkattu almost explicitly feminine and floral scents though he ordered unisex and I helped him move his sliders to where we thought we’d get something in his ballpark of woody and oriental, so that was rather strange.

However, I’m holding on until the next box at least! Hopefully it works out a little better. On to the reviews!

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Ineke A-H: After My Own Heart

Posted on by elemonated

I usually put poems here, but I think I’ll do music this time.

Robert Starer’s Pink, by Dr. Jason Sifford

After My Own Heart

Wet: lilac, Dove soap, magnolia
Dry: lilac, jasmine, musk, flower stalk

This reminds me of a gift soap shaped in the form of a bouquet of purple flowers of all shapes that my family was once given. I loved that soap because it was purple (and not pink) and it smelled like flowers, which I had a vested interest in from a young age. I used to format huge guides of flowers, their pictures, and their meanings and print them out on our home printer. This is a nice memory of those times, but the musk makes this stay rather soapy on me, and I unfortunately can’t see myself wearing it. For those who don’t mind the soap however, it’s a really fresh lilac fragrance, a little creamy, not too sweet, and because of the soap, really quite clean.

Fresh Off the Boat

Posted on by elemonated

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/01/the-terrible-questions-journalists-have-been-asking-the-cast-of-fresh-off-the-boat/384666/

I found this article which better describes some of the stuff I put in my last post, except in a much nicer, neater, non-emotionally charged way. I’m with a lot of the comments I’ve seen from fellow immigrant-Americans, and Nahnatchka Khan herself:

“When I read his memoir, the specifics were different to my growing up experience, being Persian American and him being Taiwanese American, but what I related to was the immigrant experience of the show, being first generation and having parents who weren’t born here. And that, to me, was my access point. When you take something from the source material that’s such a strong voice and make it into an 8 p.m. family sitcom on broadcast TV, you need a lot of access points.”

Some people criticized the story for being all about that 拉面 and not so much about 냉면 or ラーメン or even like, Maggi. And I understand that how that must feel, truly. But I also agree that the slippery slope is real; if this is accepted into media, and it doesn’t even have to be embraced, but if it gets, say, two seasons, then introducing other perspectives and other cultures and making them the heroes and the protagonists instead of the sidekicks and villains becomes one hundred percent plausible. If the networks see the money, then there’s a huge potential to expand into.

Yes, I’m biased because Fresh Off the Boat reflects my experience as an ABC (haha, ABC, get it? Because the network…It’s really early in the morning…) but I want to see all of my minority friends get their own on the screen without producers having to resort to placing everyone back in their respective countries (or fantasy countries; I’m looking at you, Disney) and their historical timelines that aren’t here and now. If this goes better than All-American Girl, we might actually get somewhere meaningful.

With this show I get to cheer on little Eddie Huang as my little brother if my little brother was awesome (just kidding, my actual little brother is pretty cool too) and as an extension of myself as I lived (R&B and hip-hop, Asian underachiever, strict parents, realization that I might not be worst off), not some random sword-wielding girl I can’t love like a younger OR older sister because she doesn’t exist as far as my reality schema goes.

You know who actually exists? Sophia and Louisa Chua-Rubenfield! The Fung Brothers! Joe Jo! David So! Bart Kwan! Olivia Thai! Ryan Higa! Freddie Wong! Anna Akana! Eddie Huang! David Chang! Ming Tsai! Dale Talde! Hung Huynh! Anita Lo! (if you recognize all or most of these names, we should be friends. Also, I present to you basically all the media I digest regularly. And literally.)

And ME! I EXIST!

Maybe it’s just because it’s really early in the morning, I still haven’t gotten anything done, and I’d really like to sleep, but I swear if ABC takes it off the air too soon, I’m going to send so many passive aggressive tweets, you won’t even recognize my Twitter feed.