Friday, April 29, 2022

Perfume Ranking - House of Sillage Whispers in the Garden Noir


I did a video of this. Please watch it above. Spoiler alert: I didn't like any of them and won't be buying any of them! How cruel does my review get? You'll have to watch it to find out. 

P.S. They will never send me free products to review at this rate. But I figure an honest review is more important than a pandering one.
 

Monday, April 18, 2022

House of Sillage - Whispers in the Garden Ranking

 


That's the video. I did two rankings on each fragrance, first on paper and then on my skin. I'll post the ranking below as skin/paper, because I ultimately ordered them in the skin order. If you don't want to watch it, here's a rundown of what it says:


In last place, 7/7: Whispers of Strength. This is the perfume in the purple bottle. It is a white floral and isn't for me mainly because it has tuberose in it, which smells rotten on my skin. Very sweet and floral.


6/5: Whispers of Innocence. This perfume comes in a white bottle. This is another white floral and even though it doesn't have gardenia in it, the overall effect is gardenia to me. It is very strong and really makes a statement. That statement is, "I'm wearing perfume!!!!" If that's the statement you want to make, then this is a good choice for you. 


5/6: Whispers of Truth. This perfume comes in an opaque white bottle with multi-colored crystals on the cap. It is the most expensive perfume in the line. At $495/bottle, you might not be surprised when I tell you I bought the travel version, which is much less expensive. The overall scent is very powdery to me. It has a sweet/bitter scent which competes for your attention. 

4/3: Whispers of Enlightenment. This perfume comes in a peach bottle. It has a clean scent and is much more fruity than the others in this collection, which tend to be more floral. I think it might not have had a lot of staying power on my skin.


3/1: Whispers of Guidance. This perfume comes in a green bottle. It has something called "green notes" in it and even though I liked this one on paper the best, when I put it on, it smelled like tomato plants on me. I'm not sure if I would ever want to smell like a tomato plant or not. It was clean and green, but just not an ideal match for me.


2/4: Whispers of Time. This perfume comes in a blue bottle. I wonder if the color of the bottle influenced how much I liked this one. I really wanted it to be the best one, because the bottle is blue. It has ginger in it and that's the main thing I could detect. On paper, the ginger was sharp. On skin, it was softer.


1/2: Whispers of Admiration. This perfume comes in a pink bottle. It is sugary and reminds me of cotton candy. So again, not very floral, but I liked it the best. I didn't buy a full bottle only because it seems to either be sold out or never on sale. To me, that means it is the favorite one by everyone. Why put it on sale when they can't even keep it in stock? I only have a travel size of it because I'm not going to spend full price on any of these bottles without there being an amazing gift with purchase on offer.


There you go. The bottles are very pretty. I didn't hate any of these perfumes and ranking them was a little bit difficult because none of them were really horrible.

Whispers in the Garden Noir collection ranking is coming soon...

Friday, April 8, 2022

I Watched Three Versions of Death on the Nile so You Don't Have to!

 

I’m going to do some comparisons between the three different adaptations of Death on the Nile. I will assume you’ve seen at least one or read the book, otherwise this is meaningless and spoiler alter - filled with spoilers.

Characters and key plot:

1978 Version

2004 Version

2022 Version

Hercule Poirot

Peter Ustinov

David Suchet

Kenneth Branagh

Colonel Race

David Niven

James Fox

Omitted

Linnet Doyle née Ridgeway

Lois Chiles

Emily Blunt, playing American

Gal Gadot, no longer American

Jacqueline de Bellefort

Mia Farrow

Emma Griffiths Malin

Emma Mackey, no longer American

Simon Doyle

Simon MacCorkindale

JJ Feild

Armie Hammer, playing English

Linnet's maid Louise Bourget

Jane Birkin

Félicité Du Jeu

Rose Leslie

trustee Andrew Pennington

George Kennedy

David Soul

Ali Fazal swapped in as  Andrew Katchadourian

Salome Otterbourne, romance novelist

Angela Lansbury

Frances de la Tour

Sophie Okonedo, now an American jazz singer

Rosalie, Salome’s daughter

Olivia Hussey, becomes engaged to Mr. Ferguson

Zoe Telford, propositions Tim, but he is a homosexual and turns her down

Letitia Wright, Salome’s daughter and business manager, in a secret relationship with Bouc

Tim Allerton

Omitted, so the pearls are not counterfeited

Daniel Lapaine

Tom Bateman swapped in as Bouc, he steals the necklace and hides it in Euphemia’s luggage where it is found

Tim’s Mother

Omitted

Barbara Flynn

Annette Bening swapped in as Euphemia

Marie Van Schuyler, socialite kleptomaniac

Bette Davis, steals and returns the pearls

Judy Parfitt, steals the fake pearls and Cornelia returns them (I think - I’ve forgotten already)

Jennifer Saunders, no longer a socialite or kleptomaniac, now a closeted lesbian with her “nurse.”

Cornelia Robson, cousin of Marie

Omitted

Daisy Donovan, agrees to marry Dr. Bressner after turning down Mr. Ferguson

Omitted

Miss Bowers, nurse to Marie

Maggie Smith

Omitted

Dawn French, closeted lesbian companion of Marie.

Mr. Ferguson, communist, witnesses first shot

Jon Finch

Alastair Mackenzie

Combined with below.

Dr. Bessner, Austrian

Jack Warden

Steve Pemberton

Russell Brand swapped in to replace Dr. Bessner and Mr. Ferguson as Linus Windlesham

Guido Richetti, archeologist

Omitted

Omitted

Omitted

Jim Fanthorp, lawyer/solicitor

Omitted

Omitted

Omitted

 

 

 

Susannah Fielding, Poirot’s former fiancée, not a character from the source material

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1st murder victim

Linnet

Linnet

Linnet

2nd murder victim

Louise

Louise

Louise

3rd murder victim

Salome

Salome

Bouc* New character in this version.

4th murder victim

Simon

Simon

Simon

5th body

Jacqueline

Jacqueline

Jacqueline

 

 

 

 

Pearl Necklace

Still pearls, stolen by Marie

Still pearls, stolen by Marie, counterfeited by Tim

Changed to diamond necklace

Nail Polish Bottle

Filled with unexplained paint

Filled with unexplained paint

Filled with red paint from new character Euphemia’s paint supplies.

 

This proves what? Nothing. Just noting the differences to keep track of them. One difference in the 2022 movie which I think was a problem was Linnet saying she rented out the entire riverboat for her guests. All of the characters, including Poirot, are on the cruise by Linnet’s invitation and yet Jacqueline still manages to get a room despite Linnet renting the whole boat. Doesn’t make sense. And why change it? It was fine that Poirot just happened to book himself onto the cruise. And that the other people had some connection with Linnet. She was rich and owned a lot of properties or companies or something. Everyone didn’t need to be on the boat at her request.

I also didn’t think the changing of Salome and Rosalie’s characters in the 2022 version worked. Salome was such a great character in the other 2 versions that the changes just didn’t work in 2022.

2022 wide shots of the Nile looked like CGI and did nothing to entice me to want to visit Egypt. 1978’s shots of the Nile and Egypt were better. Which is good because it was filmed on location.

Anyway, what are my thoughts? 1978 was the best as a movie. 2004 seems most faithful to the book and is the shortest one, so that’s a bonus. 2022 was embarrassing and cringe in so many ways. Just search on YouTube for the opening dances between Simon and Jacqueline and Simon and Linnet and see if it doesn’t make you incredibly uncomfortable.