Support Small Biz: La Curie Artisan Perfume

I have a pretty strong sense of smell, which can be a blessing and a curse.  I love natural smells, sniffing flowers and herbs, incense and essential oils.  A great, natural scent can be life-enhancing.  Sometimes when I stick my face into a rose and inhale...I feel high, elated.  

On the flipside, most synthetic smells give me a headache.  I can't use laundry detergents with strong scents and I hate the smell of most perfumes.  When I'm unexpectedly bombarded with scents of hairspray, excess cologne or cigarette smoke, I can feel sick to my stomach or even angry! 

So I've learned to be careful when choosing any scents to wear on my body.  The more natural they are, the better.

La Curie is a small line of unisex perfumes that I love.  They're "luxurious bohemian scents handmade in Tucson AZ" by Lesli Wood.

How to describe the scents?  That's tough.  They're reminiscent of natural smells: campfire, the wind after a storm.  Familiar, but hard to place, and like nothing I've smelled before.  There's mystery in each scent, which I absolutely love.

Scents change on your skin, over time and according to your own unique chemistry.  I like to live with a scent before I decide to invest in it.

La Curie offers a wonderful option for people like me, who are slow to make up their minds and want to try everything:  

THE MASTER SAMPLER

For a super affordable $20, you get sample sizes of her three eau de parfum scents (Ossuary, Faunus, Larrea) and her four perfume oils.

I've been living with my sampler pack for weeks, trying to decide by process of elimination which full size I'd like to purchase.  It's very hard to decide!

Another reason I love this sample pack is because they also double as travel size.

Go on, support a small business.  Indulge in a sampler pack, at just $20 it's an affordable luxury.

ON INSPIRATION: Visual Inspiration IRL

I always want to feel inspired.  Every day, if possible.  I love the feeling, it makes me feel connected to the unknown and it fuels my creativity.  So I'm going to try writing about inspiration, to see if I could write something that might inspire you.  Worth a shot!

One thing I realized this morning:

 I don't go online to get inspired.  

I rarely feel inspired when I'm online.  It just doesn't work that way for me.  I go online to get work done and to do business, but being behind a computer sort of shuts down my sensors. 

For inspiration to come, I need a dreamy, unfocused mind, deep breathing, room to wander and to receive.  I get visual inspiration from beautiful objects I see when I'm far from a computer. Traveling fills me with inspiration, without fail.

Hammock time at El Cosmico in Marfa, TX

Hammock time at El Cosmico in Marfa, TX

Drawing in the sand in Santa Monica, CA

Drawing in the sand in Santa Monica, CA

Weird bathroom lighting at Jo's Coffee on South Congress in Austin, TX

Weird bathroom lighting at Jo's Coffee on South Congress in Austin, TX

An artist's studio in Marfa, TX

An artist's studio in Marfa, TX

What about you - do you get visual inspiration online? Offline?  Where do you see it?

 

MUSIC MONDAY: Rahsaan Roland Kirk

I love an original.

Here are just 3 of the reasons why I love American jazz multi-instrumentalist RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK:

  1. He played tenor sax, flute & instruments of his own invention - ALL AT ONCE.
  2. He renamed himself Rahsaan after hearing the name in a dream.
  3. He was born with sight, but went blind at age two as a result of poor medical treatment.  Despite this hardship, he became an inventive, open-minded, uniquely creative artist with a positive spirit.

"The Inflated Tear" was the first RRK song I ever heard and it blew me away. It made such a huge impression on me that I can still picture exactly where I was when I first heard it.

Here he is performing it live in Prague in 1967.