Potty Times and Perfume

My daughter A took this photo of me right after a successful potty. I'm on her plastic cell phone taking a very important call, and holding her panty in my left hand. No make-up. Just fragrance!

I’ve fallen a bit behind in my blog in the weeks past. There was a recent breakthrough in my daughter A’s potty-training, but the seemingly never-ending period preceding it involved a slew of accidents, which left my hands slightly chapped from the copious amounts of hand-laundry. My mail was piling up into leaning skyscrapers (thankfully it was tidied up this morning), my health problems flared up, and my vanity is in such a sad state I can’t bare to lay my eyes on it.  So what’s my beauty regime for these potty times? On a good day, I’m still on top of it with my tinted moisturizer with SPF and some pretty blush. But on those super haphazard days where I feel like roaring before it’s even 8 a.m., it’s that little bit of perfume that get’s me from lion to lady in two spritzes.

I decided to potty train my daughter A, by loosely following the way they do it in Korea (I am Korean-American), where they believe in pulling the diapers off as soon as the child starts walking. My eager mother bought my daughter a potty as soon as she got word that she was on her two feet, but I didn’t start the real training for another few months. I think the whole process, once it began, has taken us now into, five or six months, and there’s been a lot of stressed-out Mommy running after a panty-less, hysterically giggling wee one.  My daughter loves to throw her half-clothed body onto the couch and chair and roll around and flip, until I'm dizzy. Watching her is fun -- sometimes it's awesome. The clean-up? Not so much.

I can be a neat freak – there have been waves of more extreme episodes in my life. When I was in journalism school, there was a joke made about me that when people weren’t looking, I was scrubbing my white Adidas with bleach and a toothbrush. I promise I wasn’t doing this, but evidently, that’s how white my shoes were. Obviously, with a small child, my house doesn’t quite look the way it used to, and I was smart enough to change my color scheme from stark white to chestnut before the baby came.  Potty training has been definitely been, um, a voyage. I’ve had to adapt, adapt, adapt. And sometimes, it’s meant that all I’m wearing for the day, beauty-wise, is fragrance.

And there’s something utterly simple and pacific about it.

Your Best Scent 1-2-3:

Fragrance is a very personal thing. Everyone has a fairly specific idea of what they like or dislike in a perfume, and also, scents smell differently on individuals depending on body chemistry. Here are some of my all time favorites, as well as some suggestions for some new ones to try. I’m noticing that all three include flowers from home state of Oahu. I guess a youth in paradise does make its impression!

1)    I’ve loved Kai fragrance for a long time. The notes of gardenia remind me of afternoon floral breezes in Honolulu, and I find that the Kai Perfume Oil ($45/.125 oz.), which comes in a convenient-to-carry roll-on vial, is easy to slip into any bag, big or small. The oil form also makes the scent longer lasting.

2)    Another one of my go-to perfumes is A La Nuit by Serge Lutens ($120/50 ml), which has notes of jasmine, honey and musk. A little goes a long way with this one, but it is graceful and delicate.

3)    My relationship with Jo Malone’s Tuberose Cologne  ($55/30 ml) took a while to develop. But now I quite enjoy the way the scent rounds itself out with the spiciness of the cardamom, sandalwood and myrrh. Again, this one, like A La Nuit, is better when used sparingly.

*Want a look-see at some new aromas? Check out LuckyMag.com’s “Lovely Summer Perfumes”


-N.C.

Disclaimer: Nuy Cho has no affiliation to any of the beauty companies mentioned on www.nuybeauty.com.