A Spring-Summer Recap

Just to get into blogging again I have decided to do a post with mostly pictures. I have a whole heap of outfit pictures from spring and early summer that I need to post now or never... I especially love my eclectic spring outfits but I was too busy to write blog posts this spring so this here will be a recap.

I love this red jacket! It is one of my favorites for spring! I'll have to stay slim if I want to wear it for all eternity though, it's a thight one! This jacket is a vintage find from Beyond Retro (my favorite place for shopping strange vintage clothing!).

Sorry for the picture quality here. I can't even blame the dusty mirror for this one. This outfit was the one I wore when I had just turned in my paper and wanted to celebrate that milestone! Both the jacket and the dress here are actually from H&M!

This dress is another Beyond retro find! I absolutely adore the dark teal color of it but that color is absolutely impossible to capture on camera, even in natural light... The mirror is extremely dusty here so I guess you can't really see the dress anyway. Trust me, it is dark teal velvet and gorgeous!

On my birthday I visited Stockholm one last time before my big move. I went on a big perfume sniffing spree and to a couple of Second Hand stores. I fell in love with Les Nombred d'Or Cuir by Mona di Orio and at Beyond Retro I bought this dress. I never thought that I would ever fall for floral clothing, but I did! It is the perfect summer dress, a thin, machine washable cotton with a lace up back!

This is an outfit for colder days. The tunic is one of my favorite pieces, wide sleeves, lace, tight around the wrists... All this AND machine washable! Just perfect!! I bought it at H&M a number of years ago and it remains one of the most unique pieces in my wardrobe!

Here is another of my favorite pieces from my wardrobe, my black velvet dress, previously seen in at least one other outfit. I love how versatile it is, it can be dressed up or down, made morbid or romantic...I bought it at Weekday a couple of years ago. Here it is paired with my dark floral tights.

And now we get to my absolute favorite outfit of all time.I just had to include more than one picture of this outfit! I wear it again and again and I never tire of it! All of these pieces just fell together one day and became this outfit without any premeditation on my part! My black velvet dress is the base, together with my golden party skirt. The skirt was bought second hand, the absolutely gorgeous jacket is from H&M, the necklace is from LeBoudoirNoir and the slippers were a gift from a friend.

Hope you have enjoyed this little exposé. It will unfortunately be my last outfit post for a while... I don't have a full lenght mirror here yet. I didn't bring the old narrow (and perpetually dusty) one back to Finland with me and I have no idea where to find the wall space for a wider one in my room, not to mention the money to buy one...

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In other news, from real life, my summer job has ended. Since Midsummer I have worked as a library assistant in a small local library. I have had that little library all to myself for a whole month! I LOVED it! Working there full time is my dream for the future, but I guess I'll have to wait...

My room is also taking shape. All of my books have by some miracle managed to fit in my book shelves and all of my clothes in my wardrobe. I had doubts about both! There is even some space for more books (this is the real miracle, I have been cramming for years)!! Now I only have a few more boxes of assorted nick-nacks to unpack.

My post about my herbal teas will be up sooner or later, whenever I can find the inspiration to write a long text... I have soo many photos of herbal tea now that I'm thinking that I might have to split the post up into several parts... We'll see...

I also have A LOT of new perfumes in my life! An Alkemia haul or two, some giveaway packages, some full sizes from Darling Clandestine, some samples from Wild Hybrid and even my first real niche purchase,a small bottle of above mentioned Les Nombres d'Or Cuir from Mona di Orio. I smell good!!

A very nice day + outfit!

Last night I sent my almost finished Bachelor's paper to my supervisor so I took the day off today and ventured outside for the first time in almost two weeks... It seems that spring has arrived while I was working on my paper. I finally got to use something else than my winter coat. Don't get me wrong, I love my coat, but it gets a bit boring with only one option. But when it comes to jackets I have a multitude of options! This is what I wore today. It is an outfit that you have pretty much seen before, but I'm posting new pictures anyway. I do love this outfit!! It is such a shocker, this jacket! Oh, and the perfume of choice today was The Voice of Reason by Lush.

(Note to self: DUST THAT MIRROR!! Or even better, get a new, wider, mirror!)

The weather was gorgeous today, warm and sunny! I had a few things to take care of in town first but then I took the time to enjoy some things I usually do every spring. I had an ice cream by the river that runs through  Uppsala. One scoop of licorice and one of pecan ice cream. Then I walked through the beautiful old parts of town up to the university to return a book to the library. On the way back I took a stroll through the cemetary. I love cemetaries, they are so... gothic I guess! After that I visited the huge Uppsala cathedral. I'm not christian, but I enjoy the beautiful architecture and the wonderful feeling of history in this beautiful cathedral! Google it, it is a wonderful place! Lots of old kings and queens of Sweden are buried there along with other famous people, like Carl Linnaeus and Emanuel Swedenborg.

Back in the center of town I bought a salad and some strawberries, just for that luxurious spring feeling! On the way back to my bike I was accosted by a few people from one of the national TV networks.  I saw one of the TV people point me out to the others when I was still a fair distance from them, I guess they though I would look interesting on camera. You would be surprised how often that kind of thing happens when you dress like me. Anyway, they wanted to film me while they asked a few questions... Guess what the questions where about! They where about sex! I was happy to answer their questions just to spread the word about asexuality! So, apparently I'll be on Swedish television this autumn, on a show about sex. Oh the irony!

Oh, and I just have to say some words about my bike! It is such a piece of junk! It has no reflectors anymore, no handbrakes, no working bell, one of the baskets is fastened with a shoelace, a hairband and a piece of metal wire...  But I love my bike! It looks, and sounds, like junk but works like a charm! And this last weekend it finally got its just rewards for seven years of loyal service. My friend Blomma, who is an artist and an art teacher, painted it! It now looks like pretty junk instead of ugly junk! Here it is!

Now I'm going to just relax, watch something on netflix, eat my salad and my strawberries... Later I'll prepare those packages of perfume that I want to send to some fine people! Perhaps I'll write some perfume reviews too...

Outfit - Basic black semi-steampunk!

The last Tuesday of every month I meet up with a gang of geeks at a student pub. These guys (yes, mostly guys) are originally members of a fantasy community, but that community is mostly dead, and these meet-ups have nothing to do with fantasy nowadays. These guys also share a passion for beer, and they have infected me with it. I´m not a geek yet, but I have definitely aquired a taste for strong Belgian beers, especially Trappist beers! (Though a new favorite, that I tried this Tuesday, is a Dutch beer, Bommen & Granaten by Brouwerij De Molen! It instantly replaced the La Trappe Quadruple that has been my favorite for a while.) I used to hate beer. I still hate most beer but I now know that beer can be so many things, some awesome, some awful... Beer is rather like perfume actually!

Anyway, geekery aside, I wore this outfit! Mostly previously featured staples from my wardrobe. I don´t think I have raved about these fake leather pants though! They fit like they were painted on, but are still comfortable! I feel kind of sexy when I wear them! The black shirt is the only clothing item I found during the weekend's Beyond Retro raid. It is a rather simple black shirt but beautifully pleated. And the sleeves are    huge, just like I want them. The knee high boots are also a new addition to my wardrobe. I bought them this autumn, when I realised that last winter's boots are falling to pieces... I loved those boots so it was rather sad. These boots were the best I could find for less than 50€, which was my budget at the time.  I would have a better picture of them, but my camera battery died... Suffice to say thay have a two inch heel, a decorative sipper down the outside and a couple of decorative buttons. I wanted them as simple as possible and they just don´t make any nice plain boots anymore, they all have all kinds of frills and buckles and whatnot... The necklace is one I have made myself from a key that I bought cheaply at a flea market.

This look is very me as some of you might note. I have made the vest and the large sleeves my trademark... and the hat of course. I feel very comfortable in this kind of semi-steampunk everyday outfit! What kind of outfits do you feel most comfortable in? What are your trademarks? (Any beer geeks out there?)

Price tag: about 80€, excluding the hat.

Wish list: same old, same old!

P.S. Maybe I should move my Egon Schiele prints around a bit so I don´t have that (admittedly nice-looking) butt in every outfit picture... Just a thought.

Outfit - New romantic bohemian skirt

I got the skirt in this outfit from my friend Blomma today. She said she doesn´t use it so she gave it to me.  It is not really my style, much cuter/more romantic than what I usually wear. But I am a sucker for skirts with a bit of volume, and the colors are right up my alley! It was hard to find matching pieces in my wardrobe though... This crushed velvet dress was about the only thing that really worked. I bought it at a sale at Weekday and I love how versatile it is! The crushed black velvet is a material that is quintessentially gothic to me, but at the same time this dress is simple and stylish and does not succumb to the gothic cliché. I usually wear it with a skirt underneath, because I am rather prudish... The necklace is a simple coiled snake made from thick copper wire, I bought this one in a small craft shop here in Uppsala. I love copper tone jewelry!!  

Price tag: Meh, who cares... about 30 € maybe.

Wish list: More basic and versatile clothes, like this dress, that still have that gothic/steampunk/anything strange wibe!

Outfit - Gothic Aristocrat?

Wore this the other day to a birthday party. The pictures are quite terrible, now that I really look at them... The outfit looks better than that, but you can get an idea. In my mind this looks a bit gothic aristocrat. The large sleeves and the long vest make me think of 18th century men's fashion. With a wig, breeches and stockings it would almost be spot on! ;)

I love the blouse I´m wearing here! The sleeves are gigantic! I love blouses and shirts with wide sleeves! You might not be able to see it but this blouse also has huge shoulder pads, I love them too! I found the blouse at some charity shop or other, probably cost me next to nothing. I didn´t use it for quite a while because it was too big for me, but after moving a few buttons it looks good, at least with a vest or something over it. 

The vest type garment here has a rather interesting story. It came to me in a very strange way. A former employer of my father (my father is in the construction business) owned a large apartment. A woman and her adult son were supposed to move in, they were moving from Abu Dhabi or Dubai or somewhere like that. All their stuff arrived, but they never did. My father stored these items for his former employer and as the owners never showed up and could not be tracked down they split the stuff between them (I guess that is allowed after a few years have passed). The woman had the same size shoes and clothes as I have, so I ended up with some of those, a handbag and a few odds and ends, among them this vest. She had quite expensive tastes too, the shoes and handbag are italian, the clothing mostly french, no mainstream brands here! Sometimes I wonder what happened to the woman and her son, where they disappeared to...

Price tag: About 40 € for the lot, excluding the hat.

Wish list: More wide sleeved shirts and blouses! More vests! I can never get enough! 

My Crafts - New dragonfly brooch

Just made a wire dragonfly brooch. The body is black (as with all my dragonflies) but wings/tail/eyes are golden. I bought this brass wire recently, but it was very hard to work with, so I don´t know if I want to use it again. I was hoping that it would work out, because colored wire does have a tendency to loose its color quite easily... enough for it to be an annoyance at least. The dragonfly turned out allright, but not perfect, and I don´t feel it to be of good enough quality to sell in my Etsy shop. 

These dragonflies are my bestsellers, too bad they are so boring to make... And I mean really, really, really, I would reather be reading a paper about information retrieval, booooring! But I guess they are pretty! And I especially like black and gold together, so I might keep this one for myself... But I need to get a different golden wire so I can make more without the effort this one took. I would also love some dark blue wire, uncolored copper wire and perhaps turquoise/teal wire... and olive green, and dark dark red, and plum and....... I´ll stop there.

P.S. I do have one dragonfly in the shop right now, you can find it here.

Etsy Treasury - Of A Dark Nature

I made this treasury today, as a part of the NonTeam Treasury Challenge. As the title implies it does contain quite a few items of a dark nature! Do check them out! I´m especially fond of Luminoddities, RedSofa and fellow Finn-In-Exile Marleena Pontynen at Taitaya.

Outfit - Victorian with a Modern Twist

Wore this today! My hat is my constant companion, and this outfit does go well with it. Feels like a mishmash of styles, the shoes and the hat are of course rather victorian, but the rest... I don´t know...

The blouse is probably silk and such a beautiful orange-brown color! I bought it cheaply at a charity shop. Only later, when i got home and really looked at it did I realize that it is apparently made in the costume studio at the Dramaten theater in Stockholm. Where there usually is a necklable on any ordinary clothing, there is a Dramaten tag on this one, noted on this tag is the play that this blouse was used in and the actress who wore it. I think that is pretty neat!! And I do get to be sure that this is a completely unique piece!

The skirt is fake leather and wider than it looks in these photos (curse my tiny mirror!). I bough it at an H&M sale about a year ago and it has been a great addition to my wardrobe. I love fake leather, I love the color (it never is quite black, but rather dark dark grey) and the texture! I love to use contrasting textures together, like here between the silk and the fake leather, one soft and one harsh!

The shoes are my trusty high heeled lace up ankle boots, invaluable for a victorian look!

Last but definitely not least is the fabulous black raven skull necklace! I bought this a couple of weeks ago from the fabulous Etsy shop Skeletos, that specializes in cast metal bird and bone jewelry! Do visit that shop, it is affordable, the service was great and the skull is absolutely perfect!!

Price tag: about 70 €, excluding the hat (that hat cost me another 70 € at Beyond Retro).

Wish list: I do wish there were more blouses of this same style to be found, it has an extremely flattering shape and I love the sleeves! I guess that if I want one like it I´ll have to go to a seamstress and have one made for me... => Expensive! Otherwise this outfit hasn´t brought any new wishes to mind... Perhaps a raven claw ring would be nice though, like this one but with a black finish to match the skull.

Etsy Treasury - Gothic

Here is a treasury I made featuring some beautiful gothic items that would make great gifts for any goth!

Etsy Finds - Perfume

Last spring I discovered a new obsession! Perfumes! I can never get enough! There are so many great perfume shops on Etsy! More interesting perfumes to a more affordable price. Here are a some of the shops I have found:

BlackBaccara is the place to go for affordable gothic perfumes. I recommend splurging on samples, beacuse there are a lot of delightful options to try on! I love Boneyard, Raven and Black Cat and I´d love to shop some more samples!

DarlingClandestine is another great place for buying affordable natural perfume for those with a love for the dark, gothic and strange. I can attest to Evonne's fabulous talent! Her shop is closed until the New Year, but in the meantime you can check out my review of some of her perfumes.

SteamBathFactory is another great shop that I have personal experience with. Affordable steampunk perfumery is this shop's niche! Of what's currently in stock I have tried and liked Black Widow, but I LOVE Conservatory and Acid Reign!!

This, above, is the extent of my personal experience with alternative natural perfumery on Etsy, but I have a lot more that I want to experience! Here are some:

Alkemia has an enchanting array of strange perfumes that I want to try. I just ordered ten samples, so I´ll be back with a review after I have recieved those. I´m especially intrigued by Wing of Bat and
Miel de Sauvage et Tabac. 


Pixxxie Pie & Posie and The Mindful Mushroom are both wonderfully whimsical perfume shops! I can´t wait to order some samples from both of them! I´m especially interested in scents like The Blackwood Cello, A Thight Corset, Annabel Lee and Freakshow.

Madam Scodioli, the bearded lady, sells solid natural perfume inspired by circuses and sideshows. I love solid perfume! Natural perfumes do have a tendency of lacking longevity, but if you can easily transport your perfume, that is not a problem. So solid natural perfumes are a hit with me! I´m lusting after Step Right Up and Laudanum!

MidnightGypsyAlchemy draws inspiration from "ancient alchemy and gypsy lore". These magical and natural scents are really enticing, as well as very affordable, and I so want to order som samples! I´m most interested in Alma Gitana and Mandrake Garden.

If you are blessed with more money and feel like spending it on personal luxuries there are some more high end perfumeries on Etsy as well:

ForStrangeWomen works with strange concepts in their organic and natural perfumes. Many of these scents are elegantly gothic or perfect for victorian steampunk. All solid scents can also be bought in beautiful perfume lockets! I´m in lust for Decadence and Debauchery and Bollywood (I do love spicy scents!).

Illuminated Perfume sells organic, natural, botanical perfume with some serious attention to detail and quality!   Most of the scents in this shop are classicaly inspired, and not very alternative in nature. But there are some darker scents that are inspired by pagan celtic lore as well as old tales and fantasy literature. Examples are GreenWitch, Vespertina and Hedera Helix.


There are of course many more perfume shops on Etsy, but writing about all of them is impossible... Anything in particular that you want to find? Feel free to ask! If  there is one thing I know something about, it is perfume on Etsy!!

Perfume Review - DarlingClandestine

Etsy is one of the places where you can find strange scents in great numbers, whether you like steampunk, sideshow, burlesque, gothic or any other alternative style of perfumery that you are not likely to find in the perfume store at the mall.

I got this generous package from Evonne of DarlingClandestine last week. She sells wonderfully complex and odd perfumes in her shop on Etsy! I ordered the two solids that you see in the picture but because I had to wait a bit she threw in all of these other wonderful goodies!! That´s customer service for you!!

Now, I really love reading perfume reviews! I think they are the most wonderful thing ever! And I do love analyzing scents, even though my sense of smell is quite... mediocre... So I´ll try my hand at it here!

The scent that really cought my attention and made me order from DarlingClandestine was Vardogr. In her description of the scent Evonne pointed out that this was a really weird scent, and I´m all for anything weird! evonne describes the scent as "dark, damp, herbal fragrance—mossy forest floors, sunken alleys, underground spaces—with a dozen unlikely notes including pure essential German chamomile, bitter black coffee, hazy Indian musks, sharp herbs and a whip of leather". I´m usually drawn more to spicy gourmand scents, so what exactly attracted me, beyond the "weird" is hard to say. I do have a fascination for anything underground, but that is my taste in horror movies, not perfumes.
Vardogr even looks weird, it´s a beautiful green color! The scent itself is indeed herbal! it is green in a softly dark kind of way, not clean at all but full of dirt and grime. I can´t smell any coffee or musk, but, as noted, my nose is sub par when it comes to these matters. I don´t find Vardogr very weird, it is unusual to be sure but not shockingly so. It is earthy and subtly haunting, unsettling like a walk in a graveyard or a damp dark crypt. I´ll admit to expecting a stronger, less subtle, concotion, but it works! It is stunningly beautiful, but perhaps a bit too subtle for my tastes... I don´t normally do subtle.

The other solid I ordered from DarlingClandestine is much more my usual cup of tea, lo and behold, a spicy gourmand! This scent, named Big Top Train (2010 formulation), is not subtle in the least! Evonne paints a picture of a sideshow Christmas, and that picture represents this scent well with its blend of normalcy and strangeness. Big Top Train is a seemingly simple holiday spice scent. But the reality is more complex, full of strange olfactory cues. It evokes memories, fleeting memories that I can´t quite grasp.  There are scents like this one where the individual notes refuse to blend, and the result is just chaos. But here there are no dominant notes that my nose can smell, just a stunningly overwhelming mass of creamy sweet spice. I have other gourmand spice scents that grow boring after a while, but this one, in it´s complexity will surely keep my interest far longer! To me this is hypnotic, a truly intoxicating brew!! It is like a great party, of the kind that you can´t quite remember but you just know that it had to have been good!

Thanks to Evonne's great generosity I also ended up with two full size perfume oils and two large samples. I always LOVE surpise samples when I order perfumes, and Evonne took that to a whole nother level!! I really enjoy getting samples that I have not chosen myself, that way I get to experience something new, I get to maybe fall in love with something that I thought I hated.
One of the samples I recieved was like this... The thing is, I HATE clean, fresh scents. I almost completely gave up on commercial scents because there were simply too many clean, fresh scents for me to smell before I found soemthing I liked... Bottom line, I can´t stand anything clean or fresh!
And then, along comes Gram Negative and changes everything! Evonne describes it as: "Gram-Negative is deep, damp, earthy essential moss; sticky green leaf resin; a whisper of black tea; and a rare, rich, mellow, buttery orchid essential oil that is just divine."  I can´t quite agree with her description, for to me, the green leaves dominate the scent in a way that I should hate, because they are fresh and green... However, this scent also,  is crazy complex! The freshness of the green leaves is dominant, but not a terrible spike straight into my brain, like so many commercial scents. There is also an earthyness to it, a hidden depth of damp soil and moss, and a beautifully sweet orchid grows here, a sultry dark flower among these green leaves! I´m still not in love with this scent, but I like it, which IS enough of a miracle, I assure you!


Ummm... it seems I use metaphors when talking about perfumes. This is very little about the technical aspects of the perfumes (staying power, sillage etc.) and very little about notes, drydown and the like... I guess I´m more interested in what kind of associations the scents give me, be it memories or leaps of imagination. Hope some of you enjoy my whimsical flights of fancy. I might give you more on the remaining three scents, Step Right Up, Fisticuffs and Aragon, another day. First I have to wear them a bit more and see if they are friends or enemies or somewhere in between...

Muse - Siouxie Sioux

She is a real goth icon! Simple, sexy and undisputedly goth. Her eye makeup makes her look very feline, and not a cute kitty, but a very sleek predator. Her clothes, her hair and her makeup all harmonize to create a look both edgy and timelessly beautiful!

On a side note I wonder if Neil Gaiman wasn´t inspired by Siouxi when he created the sexy gothic Death (character in The Sandman)...



Sometimes I really wish my hair was black, so I could pull of this kind of gothic look... At least I have an oversized bronze anch cross like the one Death allways has... That is some consolation at least... I enjoy the irony of Death wearing a hiroglyph meaning "life". I wear my anch with my more gothic style outfits in the hope that someone will realize that I´m mimicking Death... Sadly all teenage goths these days wear anch crosses... As a Sandman fan and an ex-egyptology student I still uphold my right to wear an anch cross without beeing cliché.

Outfit - Ouji/Dandy

A little ouji/dandy-inspired outfit. My top hat, grey suit, grey and black-striped stockings, my new and astoundingly versatile blouse/shirt with cravat and, to top it all off, my lace gloves! I felt very dandy indeed! I adore japanese style. I would never wear lolita, too cute, but I like gothic aristocrat, ouji, dandy...

Wish list: black suit, frilly white lace jabot, black vest, red vest... I would love an outfit like this but in black and red...

For a "gothic" outfit this was a cheap one, excluding the hat (that hat cost me about 60 €) the total cost was under 20 €. Cheap is good!