Outfits from the archive - 2015

I have been away from the blogosphere for quite a while, but I have still taken quite a lot of outfit pictures. So here are some from the archive from last year. I was experimenting quite a lot with color, texture, more romantic items, with contrasts.... Hope you enjoy!

An early summer outfit. Pretty basic, but I really like that blouse (H&M)! Such a great pop of color, and can be either festive or casual... Here I went for casual. 

Another basic one where I really like the blouse/top/thingie. This one is so whispy and romantic! The necklace is a raw smoky quartz point.

Unusually colorful for me this dress... Doesn't show very well in the picture because of a lack of natural light, but it is a rather bright yellow with a floral pattern in red, white and green. Kind of a bit too happy for my tastes, but with a leather skirt underneath, a leather belt and a bird skull necklace it feels more me.

Here is one of my favorite blouses! A silky mustard colored one with a paisley pattern. Big sleeves, accentuated shoulders, crimped waist and mandarin collar, what's not to like! Here with leather belt and  skinny fit pants with a geometrical pattern. I really liked the contrast between the paisley and the geometrical patterns, and because the patterns are so subtle it didn't feel like too much pattern going on.

A classic outfit that I usually end up wearing sometime around the holidays. There is just something about the skirt and the flower brooch that feels very festive! :)

And lastly, here is what I wore for Halloween! It's not often I get to go all out these days, especially not at work, but the library where I work hosted a Halloween At the Library-type event so we in the staff got to dress up. The library was lit only by candle light and I got to walk around with a lantern and scare little kids! So much fun!!

Most of this outfit has been seen before on the blog, it is rather a classic, but I still wanted to share!

I seldom wear these striped socks anymore, but they felt quite witchy and I think I was going for steampunkish-witchy-ghost librarian or something...

Yum, those sleeves!!! And the waistcoat too!

Note the neat collar on the shirt, love that detail! The bronze bird skull necklace is a classic that I can never grow tired of.  I also wore my bird claw ring, but I don't have a picture of that. And I finally have a proper chain for my pocket watch!

And here is the outfit with more Halloween details added. You obviously can't see a lot because we got makeup and final prep done at work and it was night by the time I got home. Anyway, messy bun, pale powdered face, foundation on lips to make them pale too... and then some spider web on the hat. :)

Looks rather spooky doesn't it?

How was your style year? What styles did you dig? What didn't you wear? What inspired you? What did you wear for Halloween (yeah, I know I'm late...)?

Autumn Outfit + Rambling

I have noticed that my default style for autumn seems to be quite steampunk inspired... I just delight in digging out my vests and my pocket watches when summer is at an end! This is an outfit I wore the other day. Kind of steampunk, kind of contemporary, very practical. I feel very stylish and elegant wearing this! I love the different textures and the different shades of dark grey/black! It's quite androgynous too, which is always a plus! Scent of the day was Jeke by Slumberhouse. I stand by my words, Jeke is a steampunk kind of perfume!

The hat, shirt, vest and pants are all wardrobe staples that have been seen on this blog before. The jacket/blazer is one of my best finds ever! I bought it at a flea market for 30 swedish crowns, which is about 3.5-4 €... virtually nothing! And it fits as if it was tailor-made for me!

My new brooch suits this outfit very well imho!

My favorite gunmetal pocket watch, mechanical with the movement visible both in the front and in the back! It keeps time reliably (some of these cheap pocket watches really don't) and only needs winding about once every 36 hours.

Quirky view of my outfit! ;)

My best pair of shoes! I love how elegant they are while still being practical! I like the pointier than normal toe (for this type of shoe) and my feet look smaller than they actually are in these! They seem to be quite good quality too, I've had them several years and worn them a lot and still they look no different from the day I bought them! The shoelaces are a bit too long though...

In other news the history society in my home village is organizing a class about tule weaving/plaiting that I am taking part in. Tule is a type of sedge that has traditionally been used here to make mats, shoe insoles and various other practial or decorative items. So far I have only made a couple of bracelets and a new handle for one of my teapots. Next time I am making insoles, wish me luck!

I found this teapot in the garbage room of my appartment complex in Uppsala. It was pretty but lacked a handle. Now it has a handle again! I am rather proud of it! I also really like the matching but mismatched cup and saucer combo! Am I strange when I feel like my tea cup has to match my teapot?

My tiny village has a very active community life. We have a youth society, a history society, a historical motor society and a kind of community center where the latter two of these societíes are based (the youth society has its own house). My father is active in some way in all of these societies and I am getting more and more into it too, mostly in the history society. The word history society is a bit misleading actually but I couldn't find a english word for hembygdsförening. The swedish word more literally means home region society or even roots society. I feel strongly about my village and my roots here (my family has ben here as long as this village has existed, literally since the land rose from the sea) so being part of the history society and learning/conservating the traditions of my village feels important!

Perfume review - Slumberhouse part 2

This is part two of this review, part one can be found here.

Jeke has a fascinating concept that started "with a batch of smokey cade oil and the idea of a night time stroll with burning autumn woods in the distance - something fiery and burnt yet chillingly desolate, November illusory, breath of fog, ablaze. Into this design I sought to embed a defined masculinity - something well-worn yet intellectual, a refinement streamlined with rustic attributes - warmth of cigars in humidors, old leather shoes and odd buckles, traces of a fragmented sweet spice, the mysterious atmosphere that adorns the well traveled."
Jeke is intriguingly smoky with warm woody notes, a sensual hint of leather and a fantastic tobacco! My mother rolles her own cigarettes and keeps her shag in a leather tobacco pouch so when I sniff this I get the image of that pouch in my mind. This does not smell like tobacco smoke to me, but rather of woodsmoke. We have a tradition of Easter bonfires in Finland and this scent transports me to such a bonfire. The dark forest, the chill in the air, but most of all that blazing heat of the huge bonfire, the smoke drifting towards the dark blue sky and my mother rolling a cigarette. I think I get this image because of the fact that I won´t be going home for Easter this year... I regret that I´ll miss that bonfire and I definitely miss my home... I suspect that at any other time of the year this would be a scent to make my inner Steampunk happy. It could provoke the feeling of being an explorer of the Steampunk kind, gritty and dirty from tinkering with the airship, garbed in leathers, smoking a pipe and looking at old maps of exotic unexplored places. I really want to own more of this some day, when I have the money.

Grev is described as "The interpretation of the dapperest embodiments of a true gentleman. A deep, spicy, earthy, rooty fragrance with an elegant kick of herbs tinted through shades of orris, clove, birch and fir".
This one doesn´t evoke as many feelings and images as Jeke but it truly is one of the most elegant scents I have ever smelled. Grev is dignified and self contained where Jeke is gritty and wild. Grev is cold where Jeke is warm. To me these two scents seem like opposites, the arrogant highborn gentleman and the uncaringly unkempt explorer. The scent itself is herbal and I get that powdery kind of smell that I associate with orris root. I can smell clove and woods too, but somehow they manage to be old and frosty. As you might be able to see in the pictures, this perfume is a pale turquoise blue color, and I feel that this color mirrors the scent very well. I get the image of a elegant gentleman all dressed up in his finery going for a walk in a frosty park.


Free samples:

Pear + Olive is, I believe, the most recent scent from Slumberhouse. On the Slumberhouse blog the scent is described, apart from the pear and the olive, as "soft shades of herbal sweetness from Roman chamomile, the bitter booziness of grape tissue from French white cognac oil, the wet and earthy hues of zdravets crowned with the rich, velvety green gem of the very rare aglaia absolute. A chord of massoia bark & calamus absolute was created to provide a trace of cream".
This scent is lovely, very balanced and well made, but I´m lacking a concept, an intriguing background. And it smells a lot like an Yves Rocher pear perfume that I had when I was little... Not a positive association at all... I will forever associate pear and apple notes with the pear and apple perfumes I owned and overdosed on back then. Anyone who enjoys pear will love this though. It has the same smooth depth as the other scents but it is a bright and happy fragrance and you all know that that´s not my thing. There are some intriguing notes here that I have never encountered before, but they can´t quite make up for that pear.

Baque is described on the Slumberhouse blog as "a warm amber tobacco flower perfume containing notes of smokey apricot, cedar, straw, vanilla, tobacco leaf, davana, ambergris tincture and parchment. Elegant, rustic, golden and warm properly sum the four corners of its tobacco and honey heart".
This one is a fine comforting scent! The tobacco is sharp at first but mellows and mingles with sweet notes of amber and honey. This scent is somehow dusty and dry, I can smell straw and I imagine that I sense that note of parchment. Baque somehow makes me think of autumn forests covered with dry crinkly leaves. I wouldn´mind owning more of this, but unfortunately it seems that it is an older LE.

Kere is described as "Milky apricot, white chocolate and spiced plum-meat accords add texture and color to syrupy orange honeysuckle absolute and licorice within a halo of vaporous aldehydes reminiscent of champagne fizz. A circus of bizarre pairings harmonized in a blurring fashion that slowly devolves into spicy sugared hay and caramel".
This here is the most awesome gourmand scent ever!! It is so complex, so deep, I can´t even tell what notes I am smelling but it is so utterly, utterly divine!! I can smell licorice and caramel but there is also a sharp bite of warm spice. I doesn´t evoke any memories or places, it doesn´t transport me at all, but hey, I don´t care! Because I´m quite happy with being right here and experiencing only this scent and nothing more! This is another brilliant composition, balanced and intriguing! And the sillage! It is monstruous!! I´d love to own a larger bottle of this one, but alas, this too seems to have been a limited edition scent... Maybe it will come again sometime, preferably when I have some money to my name.


Slumberhouse really is such a fascinating perfumery! There is an intriguing depth to all of these scents, a rounded and smooth feeling that makes these seemingly simple scents so very complex and deep. Again and again I find myself using the word deep to describe them, I´m sorry I can´t seem to put this feeling of depth into better words... I also love the mysterious concepts behind them and the beautiful images that come to my mind when smelling them! Some of them take me away to other places and situations and all at least evoke certain moods!

All of these scents have good longevity and sillage, some more so than others. You can definitely tell that they are very concentrated! As they have no top notes there are no sharp changes in scent through the drydown. Some reviewers have remarked that these scents change dramatically about half an hour an hour into wear but I have not had any such experiences. What I get at the beginning is what follows me for the whole time!

Samples of Norne, Jeke and Pear + Olive can be ordered from the Slumberhouse website. Rume, Vikt and Grev have now been discontinued but are still available at places like indiescents until the stock runs out.

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?

Etsy Finds - Necklace from The Navigatrix + Outfit

I recently took part in a giveaway that the inspiring Sally-Ann Livingston hosted on her blog. And I won a £15 gift voucher to be used in her Etsy shop! Sally-Ann is a UK based creator of mostly one of a kind upcycled Steampunk jewelry and accessories. Her shop is cleverly named The Navigatrix, a name that is fabulously Steampunk! And you all know how I love Steampunk! I was already quite familiar with her shop so I went right ahead and bought a necklace I had looked at earlier for the voucher. But there are a lot of other gorgeous items in her shop! I was also tempted by this pretty clockhand necklace, this other beautiful choker and this hilarious brooch! 

-----> Sally-Ann has been nice enough to offer all readers of this post a special offer of a 15% discount for any purchase from her Etsy shop, using the coupon code BLOG15! So go and have a look!! 

Handling and shipping were very fast (is it just me or has international mail picked up speed lately?), so I had the package in my hand about a week after entering the giveaway. The necklace was beautifully packaged, using Victorian Steampunk aesthetics! I love the image of the compass on the package, such a suitable symbol for a shop that is named The Navigatrix!

                                               

The necklace itself is of a choker type with an oxblood brocade ribbon and a brass heart. Normally I´m very much not a heart kind of person, but this one is fine and that oxblood colored ribbon just charmed me! Oxblood is one of my favorite colors on me, that and dark teal, so I knew that I would have items to match this necklace. Also, it is both dramatic and demure at the same time, I rather like that! It sits very elegantly around my neck! The brass heart is light and the ribbon soft so the necklace is very comfortable.

Of course, the first thing I always do when I have acquired something new to wear is to find outfits that suit it. So here is an outfit! This necklace prompted me to bring out my ridiculously sexy little black dress, yet another Beyond Retro find... Of course I also wore Vixen by BPAL while choosing an outfit, so maybe that influenced me a bit... ;) This dress is so sexy (the pictures do not quite do it justice) that I feel slightly uncomfortable wearing it, and I´m not terribly prudeish! This outfit would probably be the perfect one for a Valentines Day date, only I´m asexual and I hate Valentines Day... It is definitely a dress for very special occasions and I don´t have many of those, sadly. So this dress spends most of its time in the back of the wardrobe... I have only worn it out once and man did I get stared at!

In any case, the necklace fits quite well with it and with those thights! I feel like a film noir heroine in this!

So, did you find any favorite items at The Navigatrix? What are your favorite colors for clothing? Which is your favorite sexy perfume? Is this dress too sexy for an asexual?? ;)

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 - Traveling in style!

Wore this today as I traveled from my (parents) home in Finland to where I study in Sweden, this involved one flight and two bus rides... I really should have photographed my luggage as well, but you can imagine that, surely. Let´s just say I had as much stuff with me as I was allowed... This doesn´t look very practical does it, but there is reason behind my madness! The thing with traveling via airplane is that there is never enough space for all my clothes! So I just wear whetever is bulkiest!! In this case one red, black and grey checkered/plaid wool skirt layered with one faux leather skirt of similar lenght... It felt a bit awkward but I got all my stuff moved from one place to another so that´s OK. 

Except for the checkered skirt, you have seen most of these items of clothing in other outfits.The skirt was another cheap charity shop find, I don´t remember what it cost me, but probably next to nothing.

The necklace I have made myself and I think it goes rather well with the skirt. I collected beads for this one for what felt like ages and it was finally completed this summer. I just had to make something really beautiful whit that fab focal bead! I have a similar necklace for sale in my Etsy shop, if any one is interested. The colors and materials are exactly the same as in this one, glass beads and smoke quartz, but the focal bead of that one is not as beatifully cut. You can find it here.

P.S. For the perfumistas: I wore Ambre from L'Occitane, a simple but glorious amber that I bought as a decand last spring. I wore it today because it is mild enough to not drive any fellow flight passengers mad, because it has great longevity, and because all my indie perfumes were packed away deep down in my suitcase!

Outfit - New leather skirt!

I actually ventured outside of my home today, for the first time in mire than a week... I had a giftcard to a local bookshop to spend. This was the outfit... The accessories are the same as usual these days, raven skull necklace, vest, pocket watch and top hat. The dark red velveteen shirt is one of my absolute favorites out of all the stuff that is in my wardrobe! A machine washable, comfortable, every day kind of item while still looking absolutely decadent! I bought it a few years ago from a charity shop for next to nothing... The black leather skirt is a recent find. I bought it last week at another charity shop for 8 €. It is real leather, the perfect lenght and fits very comfortably! 

Price tag: about 60 € excluding the hat and shoes, lots of pricy accessories here...

Wish list: Real leather pants, because I´m getting really tired of my faux leather pants getting worn out all too soon... More velveteen shirts, I´d love one black, one dark green, one dark blue and one dark teal... Won´t happen, but one can dream I suppose...

P.S. For the perfumistas, I wore Falling Stars at Winter Solstice layered with a hint of Smoke and Mirrors (both Alkemia)... My mother said I should wear something that smelled like a sauna, so I combined evergreens, vanilla and smoke... Smelled a bit like a sauna to me, though I don´t really know what evergreens have with a sauna to do...

Etsy Treasury - Steampunkery & Victoriana

Got my key necklace featured in this fascinating collection of steampunk and victorian items today! Check them out! Curator is the talented Francesca, check out her shop as well, full of victorian gothic elegance and spookiness!

Outfit - Black Steampunk

This was the outfit of the day. This is full on steampunk for me! I don´t own a corset as of yet, and I don´t even know if I want one. A vest is more practical, suits everyday life much better and I can have a pocket watch if I wear a vest! Anyway this is a very basic steampunk outfit really. It consists of:

• A black shirt with wide sleeves that are fitted at the wrist. Bought this at a second hand shop for about 20 €. It doesn´t look very nice without the vest, a bit shapeless... But the sleeves are fantastic so with the vest it´s perfect!
• A basic fitted vest, from H&M I think, can´t quite remember... I think it was cheap, because I bought two, this black one and one checkerd grey. Finding a womens vest with the right fit and with pockets is not easy, I´ll tell you. I have five vests but only these two above fit well and have pockets large enough for a pocket watch!
• One awesome wide black skirt. I can´t really tell you where to find one like this. Mine is a hand-me-down from a friend... It was literally thrown at me and was the start for my interest in steampunk/victorian style really. Or, well, the hat was first, but the skirt made me curious to try the whole steampunk look. 
• Lace up ankle boots, the same as in the previous outfit.
• My beautiful pocket watch! This was one of my first Etsy finds, for about 20€, but from a shop that does not exist anymore. You can find others quite like it though if you search for "mechanical pocket watch". But be aware that this pocket watch is neither truly hand made nor vintage, so they do not fit with the Etsy policy and such shops are freaquently terminated. So Etsy is not the ideal place to find pocket watches like this one, it was just convenient for me as I already had an Etsy account. I have bought a vintage russion pocket watch from TimeMill on Etsy. They sell mostly watch parts, perfect for steampunk crafts, but also some working watches. No pocket watches in the shop right now, but keep an eye out and the perfect one might pop up there.. Another Etsy shop, Alfresco Unique Group, have no pocket watches, but really awesome mechanical steampunk wrist watches! If I wore wrist watches I would definitely order from there. 
• My black top hat. Good luck on finding an affordable one! Mine was the most expensive item I have ever bought, but then again, I´m a cheap bastard!
• The final piece of this outfit is the brooch below. I made this myself as one of my first ventures into the world of wire wrapping. I decided that the technique was not for me, I like to be more free and impulsive in my crafts. But this brooch turned out ok. I´ve had the rhinestone eye button for a long time, always thinking that I should make it into some kind of jewelry... I have no jewelry like this one in my shop, I don´t think I have the skill set required for wire wrapping, but I do make wire dragonflies.

Price tag: about 60 €, excluding the top hat.

Wish list: I have to add corset here, I´d love to have one for really showing off, and for more formal occasions. More pocket watches are always on the list, and I want a matching chain for my vintage watch, the one it came with was a bit too worn and a bit too thin and with the wrong clasp for my tastes, I want one with a T-bar or with a hook (like the featured in this outfit)... A brocade vest is also on the wish list, preferably any combination of red, black, gold and silver. This brocade vest is something I´m not really expecting to find, and if i find one it will definitely either be a mans size or way too expensive, but one can hope!

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 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...

Resurrection

Lately my life has been dominated by Etsy and my new Etsy shop, Dreamsand. But I still like this old blog of mine, and it definitely deserves to be resurrected! It will have to change a bit though... I want this blog to be place where I can promote my shop and my items, but of course always with a connection to alternative style. I will also try to bring in jewelry, perfume and other elements of style that I have not written about before. I find a lot of alternative style accessories on Etsy and there are a lot of awesome shops that I want to promote here!

So, expect entries here soon, and expect them to be a bit different, but still in keeping with my original ideas for this place!

Finally a picture of one of my creations, quite steampunk!