Introducing...

Fujima Yumie...

Ok, not so imaginative of a name but they gave you only a short time to figure out a name and the only one I could come up with is my Natori name (after years of practice and lots of money, i was awarded my professional name for japanese classical dance...and no, I will never dance in public again. Fujima Yumie has retired.)

I like the fragrance and do plan on re-ordering. It's really cool to have a signature scent that you created all by your lonesome. It's awesome. Although it does have a STRONG undertone of vanilla. Actually, i think that scent may over power all else...who cares. I like vanilla.

Flowers in Provence!!!

Lavande photos (not to be confused with Lavandine that is grown everywhere else but the mountains of Provence). The bees buzzing freaked me out a bit but I regretted not purchasing some of the honey from these Lavender bees.

These photos just don't do the colors justice...but carrie was right, we were both lucky that we didn't have any objects that could be used as tools of death. Although I was driving...and complaining about the twisty narrow roads. Sadly, I was starting to get car sick...and i was driving. This was their idea of a two lane highway...

We pulled off on the side of a road to take some photos of sunflower fields (sorry, erin...we found the fields in provence, not italy!). We would've crossed the road to get to the other side to take some close up photos but we feared that we'd become road kill from oncoming traffic. I could see the headlines "two dumb tourists flattened down by cross traffic in an effort to photograph some dumb flowers"

Lavender Madness

As Jenny reported earlier, you really expect to see fields of lavender everywhere in Provence. Since this is not the case, we had to go looking for it. It is a testament to our friendship and sense of decorum that neither one of us flipped out and there were no attempted stabbings during this truly hellacious car ride in search of lavender. (Jenny's lucky I didn't have my shiv on me.)

Guest Post: Carrie

comment from Jen: i had my shiv on me...i was just saving it for dire circumstances...then we came upon the lavendar fields. carrie was lucky...

carrie at Grasse

The mad scientist at work...please note that I am not the cause of all the bruising that you see...

all ready for her session as "Ms Floral/Fruity"

Adding additional scents to the mixture

I have to admit that I've never been good at chemistry but this was really easy! If only high school Chem was this much fun!! I would've actually paid attention.

One side note to the photo below in Carrie's blog about Grasse...I nearly attacked the puppy because he was so darn cute. The father of the guy who was holding his leash told him to just let me pet the puppy so they can get on with their shopping...

Galimard at Grasse

Best part of the trip. We made our own perfume at Galimard (a famed perfumerie) in Grasse. It was a great experience. The "Nose" at Galimard uses about 2,000 different scents every day. He works 15 minutes at a time to preserve his finely honed sense of smell. In the class we were given around100 choices, which are all of the scents combined.

The store at Galimard

They refer to this as "the organ" (like a musical instrument in church, not like a liver or something).

They have you smell about 10 little bottles and then pick 2. As Jenny stated before, I am floral fruity. Those that know me are saying "no shizzle". Anyways, then they give you other choices based on what you pick, and so on and so forth.

The Nose's organ

Perhaps the most special thing about France - it is a dog country. People take their dogs on the metro, the train, to cafes, and into stores.

Fini

Guest Post: Carrie