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...

*******************

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!!

Perfume - Spikenard Oil and more

Around Easter I won a giveaway that was hosted by The Perfume Dandy but created by The Fragrant Man. The prize was a little bottle of spikenard in sweet almond oil, meant as a massage oil, and a sample of a perfume blend that goes by the name of Alabaster Wrists. These blends were made by a lovely lady by the name of Brie who apparently enjoys making perfume in her spare time but who doesn't have a shop or sell her creations (yet?).

I knew next to nothing about spikenard before winning this giveaway. I had seen it as a note in some perfumes, but not in any that I had tried. Fragrantica tells me that spikenard is a flower that grows in the Himalayas and that the roots of the plants are used for both medicine and perfume. I am also told that this plant was used by both the ancient Egyptians and the Romans for its fragant properties. The scent is described as herbaceous, resinous, spicy and animalic.

It seems that the scent of spikenard is one that you either love or hate. When I wore the spikenard oil as perfume yesterday my mother asked "What's that stench??" and my friend (and skin chemistry guineapig) Blomma hated it too, but personally I love it! It has a sweet and musky herbal smell in the bottle. On my skin it is more spicy and is more distinctly animalic in nature. It doesn't smell like any musk that I have smelled in perfume though... It smells more like wool, unwashed fatty wool (where have I smelled that?)! So, yeah, if you want to smell like wool, try spikenard! ;D I love it though, I seriously do, spikenard is all the things I like right now, dark, herbal, sweet, resinous, animalic and spicy!

I have no list of notes for the Alabaster Wrists sample but it is a gorgeous scent!  I think I smell vanilla and tuberose. This was a very familiar smell for me and I couldn't  understand why, but then I remembered what it reminded me of... I have one scent, Saffron and Balsam, that is from a lovely Etsy shop called Plume Perfume and when I ordered that scent I got a sample of another scent, Vanilla Tuberose. I fell so much in love with that Vanilla Tuberose scent and it was on my FB list, but then Plume Perfumes went on vacation and has been so now for more than a year... :( I still have that little empty sample of Vanilla Tuberose and I sniff it vistfully from time to time... But Alabaster Wrists reminds me a lot of Vanilla Tuberose! Finally I get to indulge in that luxurious and sensous smell again!! I'm guessing that there is both vanilla and tuberose in this blend too! Jordan River at The Fragarant Man mentioned that there would be a post about Alabaster Wrists on that blog before long and that this post would disclose the contents of the scent, so I'm keeping my eyes open for that!

You might have noticed that there are also two little bags of peppercorn in this package. Those really confused me, literally had me scratching my head! However I later read at The Fragrant Man that these peppercorns aren't just any old peppercorns... They are Cambodian Kampot pepper, apparently one of the worlds best peppercorns! Who knew! I will have to get a pepper grinder and try them!

This was such a great package of olfactory experiences!

Oh, and I faintly remember promising to post some pictures of our dogs, so here you go!

Paavo male Jack Russell Terrier, Tyyne female Miniature Pinscher and Irmeli female Jack Russell Terrier.

Irmeli.

Paavo.

Paavo and Irmeli.

Tyyne. Although she might look quite dangerous here, this is actually her way of imitating  a human smile.

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 - Semi-Steampunk for the Dancefloor!

Was out clubbing last night with my friend Blomma. There are a lot of student nations (just google it) here and they offer a wide variety of clubs and other student events available only if you pay a small sum each term. If you choose to do so you get a student ID that grant you access to 11 pubs and/or nightclubs with cheap alcohol and some good music. Once a month there is a club called Klubb Katushka that I frequent. They play kletzmer/balkan/russian/eastern beats kind of music and there is always one live band. I love dancing to this kind of music, the beats are just so exciting! The only music I like dancing to more is the soundtrack to the Bollywood film Devdas (that really gets me into a trance)! 

Yesterday was a Klubb Katushka night!

This was the outfit of the evening. It´s pretty much the same every time I go out clubbing, because I just don´t have many really good outfits for the dancefloor. The vest works well though, never gets too hot while still being very much my style! A pocket watch is good to have on a dancefloor too, so you know when to order that last drink or when to leave to get out to the wardrobe before the rush sets in. I also like to wear something shiny when I´m dancing, like this shiny gold skirt. The perfume of choice this time was Miskatonic University!

Image by Kalmar Nation.

My top hat ensures that I get photographed a lot at these events, and some of these pics are actually very nice! My face generally doesn´t photograph very well as it is quite asymmetrical but certain angles are flattering. The image above is from yesterday and the image below is from Klubb Katushka in November. 

Image by Sputnik Kollektiv. 

Do you go out clubbing? What do you wear? What perfume? What kind of music to you love dancing to?

The Commune - Our Humongous Tea Collection

Just recently Rachel, of Brightest Star Of All, and I got to talking about our "tea collections". Yesterday she wrote a blog post about her teas and now here is the tea cabinet in my commune. In my commune, we drink a LOT of tea! So we have a lot of tea! It is rather a ridiculous amount of tea, is it not? Wonder how long it takes for three people to drink this much tea? 

About one third of the tea in this cabinet is black, one third is green and one third is red, white, herbal or just plain weird. As you must realize I can´t write about all the tea in this cabinet so I´ve selected a few teas that I have  either bought myself or that I like very much. We all mostly buy loose tea from various tea shops so I generally don´t know what brand they are, if they even have a brand...

Hare is a selection of black tea. The on on the left is called Fina Augustina and is a creamy coconut and fruit blend. The bottom one is a blend with chocolate and piri piri. I really like this one because I love really spicy tea! The last of these three is a wonderfully weird blend with flower petals and pieces of salmiak. That´s a kind of tea that you can probably only find in the salmiak obsessed Finland!

Here is a selection of green teas. The top one is a Japanese rice tea. Bottom left is a minty one and bottom right a green chai. I´m not particularily fond of green tea anymore, but the rice tea is tasty, the green chai is wonderfully spicy and the minty one is very refreshing!

These teas are a bit stranger. The left one is a green and black blend with ginger and other spices. The top one is a herbal spice blend with fennel, anise, cumin and nettles and the bottom one is a white tea with, believe it or not, dried spirulina algae and exotic fruits.

Here are some more rather strange ones. At the top is a classic yogi blend of spices like clove, cinnamon, cardamom and ginger. The right one is a herbal blend with rose hips, chamomille, lemon grass, orange peel and so on... Now, the bottom one is the really strange one! It is lapacho, a south american bark tea that is supposedly good for you... but it doesn´t taste very nice, and it certainly looks weird!

And finally some tea bags from my favorite brands. Pukka and Yogi Tea are brands that make herbal spice blends. They are ridiculously expensive, but also so delicious!! 

Pukka Three Ginger is a blend of ginger, galangal and tumeric. Pukka Green Chai has a green tea base with ginger, cardamom, star anise, cinnamon and licorice root. Pukka After Dinner contains fennel, anise, chicory and cardamom. 

Other Pukka favorites are: Revitalise and Licorice & Cinnamon.

Yogi Tea Classic is a powerful cinnamon blend with cardamom, ginger and clove. Yogi Tea Throat Comfort is a licorice root tea with lots of other spices.

Other Yogi Tea favorites are: Licorice Egyptian Spice, Sweet Chai and Sweet Chili Mexican Spice.

And last but not least my poor little pack of English Toffee Dessert Tea from Celestial Seasonings that is, o horror of horrors, discontinued *black cloud of depression*! Three bags left, after that I´ll miss it forever... Among the discontinued teas I also found Canadian Vanilla Maple and Vanilla Hazelnut Dessert Tea. :¨( All three of my Celestial Seasonings favorites discontinued. *Sigh* I´m out of luck! I´d love to try Honey Vanilla Chai or Nutcracker Sweet though, but I dont think they can replace the delicious descontinued teas... 

So there is my tea collection! What kinds of tea do you like? What is you favorite tea? Do you prefer loose tea or tea bags? Or are you one of Those That Drink Coffee (Heathens!)?

Inspiring Blogger Award #2

I was nominated for another inspiring blogger award!! This time by Twisted Princess of Darkling Dreams! (Thank you!!)

This means five more odd habits for you guys to digest!

1. I love dead languages! I was obsessed with runes in my teens and I have studied Middle Egyptian grammar at uni.

2. I love sleeping and I LOVE dreaming! I sometimes have lucid dreams and I use that to make those dreams really awesome and strange!

3. I am fascinated by preserved human remains, like mummies, bog bodies and frozen bodies like the Iceman or the Inca children... My favorite preserved human (right now, it varies) is The Tollund Man, his face just looks so peacefully asleep even after almost 2500 years.

4. I am also morbidly fascinated by diseases, genetic disorders, epidemics and stuff! I love reading about pandemics like The Black Death or The Spanish Flu and I love really icky and disturbing diseases and disorders, like Harlequin ichthyosis, Noma, Ebola... and so on...

5. I make up fantasy stories and fantasy worlds in my mind, but I never write them down, because I hate writing. But I love building the worlds and populating them, creating cultures, mythologies, maps and all the little details that makes a world.


Here are a few more blogs that inspire me! Consider yourselves tagged and give me some odd habits:

Baroque Boudoir
Juliet´s Lace
lostpastremembered
studiomaison
Tuppence Ha'penny
Hexotica
Liber Vix

Inspiring Blogger Award

I got an Inspiring Blogger Award from Aristocratic Elegance! (Which was a huge honor!!)

Five odd habits of mine:

1. I read fanfiction as if it was a full time job. Literally 40 hours a week sometimes! When I have to write a paper for school I usually spend five hours reading fanfiction for every hour I spend working. I also have NO self diciplin AT ALL when it comes to fanfiction, I just can´t resist... My current fanfiction obsessions are Game of Thrones, Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek TOS and, as always, Harry Potter.

2. I am asexual and I can seriously not understand what´s so great about romantic relationships... Give me a dog any day, if it´s the intimacy!

3. I live in a closet that is about 3 square meters. I don´t have room for a bed so I sleep an a mattress on the floor... I have lived like this for 5½ years, and I love it! I do have a window, a radiator and a couple of shelves but that is about it really...

4. I am about the laziest person on the planet... I am (almost) seriously considering a future as a relaxation coach! Stress related disorders flee before me!

5. I cannot live without Finnish salmiak, I just have to have it!! I import it to Sweden, because swedes really suck at salmiak, they call it "salty licorice" for chrissakes!!!

I´m going to tag a few blogs that I enjoy reading! Give me som odd facts people (I love oddities)!

Brightest Star Of All
The Walrus Room
Miss Prissypants
My Perfume Diaries
The Navigatrix

Awful or Awesome - Prologue

I love holidays! BUT, they are wery boring when it comes to style... In the last week I have not worn any interesting outfits, or seen anything inspiring, my style has consisted of the ugliest (and admittedly most comfortable) things from the bottom of my wardrobe and I have turned into Common Housewife Extraordinaire... Nothing alternative about my Christmas, and my latest order of perfume samples has failed to arrive as of yet... All of this combined = nothing to write about...

UNTIL I took a look in my wardrobe here at my parents house. I still have a room here and I have never really moved out (nor do I plan to, I happen to get along with my parents so well that I don´t really have a reason to move out). My closet here contains some really strange clothing items, mostly impulsively trifted and never really worn. At my other home I also have some strange items that have brought similar reactions from friends, but that I find absolutely fantastic... I have a tendency to fall for clothes that are so strange that I can´t really tell if they are awful or awesome and that have many of my friends cringing. And so I thought to share these strange finds with likeminded fellows!

Hence the new blog project, Awful or Awesome! Like Hot or Not except it is not about hotness at all... Most of these items will not be hot, all of them will be some kind of strange, some of them will be so strange that I bought them for nothing at all because no normal, conforming person would wear them. If my friends cringe and question my sanity when I come home with a find, it will go straight into this category! If I cringe and question my OWN sanity, then that item will definitely show up in this category!

Now, off to photograph some really strange clothes!

Edit: Decided to rename this segment Awful or Awesome, rather than Ugly or Awesome... For no other reason than that alliteration is awesome!!