Wednesday 10 December 2008

kitty, daisy & lewis

it's wednesday again, time for some books, films, music and whatever else cultural products of interest..

lovely betty lou was so nice to tip her readers about this fantastic british teenage band "kitty, daisy & lewis" who will get you swing and dance in no time! treat your ears with a fantastic mix of r&b, blues, country and rock 'n' roll:



sadly enough i don't have too much to add to this wednesday list right now, but i'll go to the movies tonight to see "Brideshead Revisited" and might just have time for a little review afterwards!

made with love by hannah

there is this girl somewhere in the u.s., and she is totally infatuated with everything traditional and folkloristic. such as gingerbreadhearts, cuckoo clocks, the design of polish pottery, fairytales and so forth. also, she designs the cutest prints of such motifs and prints them herself on cotton fabric. AND she makes the prettiest skirts out of that fabric:
























"scherenschnitte skirt"

























"polish pottery skirt"
























"snow maiden matryoshka skirt" and "winter woods skirt"

especially the white "winter woods skirt" is right on top my current "i wish i wish" list. i so would like to have one and am determined to keep my money together so that i will be able to get one of them in january.
the girl i write about is called hannah, and she both has an etsy shop and her own web shop, and above all that, she has a blog called "knick knacks & ric rac" where you can get a peak behind her shop and every now and then she features lovely little prints for cards to print out for yourself or other diy ideas. have a look!!

Friday 5 December 2008

the sniff experience

now, as you can imagine from the title (and from reading some of my previous posts), i have not been idle during those last two weeks of non-posting. indeed, i have been haunting different perfume stores (mainly the big turquoise one, but also three or four different ones in oslo, which actually were not sorted well - one of the ladies there didn't even know hermès! now, i don't expect somebody working in a perfume store to know every single fragrance in the world and every perfume house in the world, but hermès is not the smallest amongst them and doesn't exist only since yesterday... well. mainly they featured celebrity stuff and the general j'adore by dior and the one or other chanel.) and sniffing loads of bottles. i did also test quite a few on skin, most of them after reading a review or two, and i'll try to give you some of the highlights - and some of the failures...

after this post i was recommended to test dolce and gabbana's "light blue" and also chanel's "chance eau fraiche". i personally think that chanel fragrances smell of old ladies with pink poodle hair, and while i don't have anything against these ladies, i just can't stand the smell on my skin. "chance" started off with a nice fresh note, but the rest felt just unbearable..
"light blue", on the other hand, also started nicely and fresh and stayed fresh - and turned into an ugly air-refreshener's smell (think a blend of "sea breeze" and "green apple") after half an hour on my skin. which was sad as i liked the opening a lot. not such a promising beginning maybe..

the next fragrances i turned to was bvlgari's "eau parfumé au thé ..." series, and as the red one didn't appeal, i tried both thé blanc and thé vert. while i don't really recall the blanc version as anything remarcable, i love the warmth of "thé vert". it feels simple and elegant, it is not sweet at all and just perfect for winter. the bad news here was the lasting power: it vanished after an hour, as it is an eau de cologne with a very light concentration. the good news is that there is an "extreme" version which stays an afternoon plus half an evening and even survives a flight from oslo to hamburg (i applied some at the tax free on my way back). so this one is definitely something i will want to own!

what came next? i had read about this one norwegian perfume, "laila", which at some points had been recommended as a nice substitute for an everyday floral such as "j'adore" (which i actually like). i took the chance to try it on spot in norway, and was way disappointed. it was boring and had a weird buttery tone inbetween which i didn't like at all..
the same day though, i tried prada's "infusion d'iris" which turned out to smell special and soft and powdery and had a lovely wooden base. it felt very well balanced and gave me a feeling that you can have after a nice bath with some lovely soap. it felt really clean. lovely.

as i know that i sometimes do like "male" perfumes just as much as "female" ones (or even more), i thought i'd try the male version of the prada fragrance. what a desaster. the review said that "infusion d'homme" contained the same ingrediences as "infusion d'iris", but in different amounts. thus, i found out that i do not like too much incense in my scent. the thing smelled buttery and ugly, well, in the way that cold incense smells. ush. another iris-scent which went just the same way (though i don't know if there is any incense in it) was hermès "hiris". nothing for me...

so. enough perfume for today. there sure is more to come!

Thursday 4 December 2008

it's been a while...

... since i posted something here. i don't even know why it took me so long, but i guess i needed a break from all the writing and taking pictures. winter is definitely here and it is, at times, both refreshing and depressing. i do have loads of stuff to do for school which stresses me out quite a bit, but then christmas is approaching and that's a treat.

i just came back from a prolonged weekend in oslo at my favourite person's place. it snowed a little, but mostly it was just cold and we went to the park. the park seemed literally full of music, it was so enchanting! this little girl was so sweet playing the violin, and she seemed so lonely, so i put a little money into her box. she was so absorbed in her playing, i think she didn't even realize me approaching her..

















here is one of the most famous sites of oslo, the monolith at vigelandsparken, taken by my favourite person. with me right in front of it, in my favourite white winter coat and matching hat:

















other than enjoying ourselves in the park, we spent our time on the sofa, eating good food and playing video games. or rather, a. played and i sat besides watching. for me it's like watching a movie, i actually prefer watching him play than play myself.

he had two new games for his x-box, fable 2 which is a weird blend of ancient english myths and the victorian times with some whiffs of steampunk in between, and mirror's edge, based on doing parcours. both are very well done, and while fable 2 was engaging in the tale that is told and your choices between good and evil, mirror's edge got my pulses racing just by watching the player jump between skyscrapers and onto helicopters. if you want to face your acrophobia, there's your chance.