jasmine's blawg

What I know from my chef brother is that kitchen recipes are reaped from the web then evolved into something that reflects both the chef and his customer's tastes. What I know from the Internet is that the chef in a South East Asian home kitchen is a matriarch carrying generations upon generations of knowledge about salt, spice and vegetable seasons, and using that to deliver a nourishing dish for their family. Many a tiktoker have recorded their mothers and grandmothers providing non- specific instructions about the dishes they prepare, and yet the meal turns out delicious every time. Years of service to their families is what they have, and it is what they deliver. It is a labour of love- generations of it, and as such there can never really be an exact recipe for any old chef to follow. In fact, the best chefs go with their hearts and their heads, and their understanding of the produce before them. 

This is one of the factors that draws me to Vietnamese cuisine. Partially it's the little bit of love that is delivered with simple and complicated dishes, partially it's the desire to find simple recipes that I could make, that suit my tastes and fussy tummy syndrome, that maybe one day I could carry into a home of my own. Not only that, Australia is rich in Vietnamese cuisine and culture, and while the history of the Vietnamese in Australia is a tragic one, the simple fact of having them here enriches Australia just that little bit more. 

Colonially speaking, Vietnam has fought the occupation of the French for decades. And though said occupation introduced a variety of western influences to the Vietnamese cuisine- of which we wouldn't have bahn mis- it does not discount the damage the French had done onto the indigenous culture of Vietnam. 

In terms of indigenous Vietnamese cuisine, I discovered in my deep dive into Vietnamese cuisine (wikipedia) that a Vietnamese cook incorporates the rule of fives into each dish. Five spices that address the five tastes (salty, sweet, bitter, sour and spicy) that correlate with the five elements (water, earth, fire, wood & metal respectively) and the five organs (small intestine, urinary bladder, large intestine, gall bladder, urinary bladder). It is all about balance and nutrition. 

The meals themselves are generally made up of what is inexpensive and abundant in Vietnam, reflecting the long history of war, conflict and poverty. Every part of the animal or vegetable is used and nothing goes to waste. The vegetables are used and replanted, the livestock are stripped and their bones and blood used for broths and stock. Even though Vietnam is tiny in comparison to Australia, the cuisine differs between North, Central and South Vietnam, reflecting the climates, the environment and the living conditions of the people there. South Vietnam is fed by the Mekong Delta and lush with fresh fruit, veg and tropical fish. Central Vietnam relies on the long coastline, and thus the food is central to their diets. North Vietnam is strongly influenced by Chinese cuisine, and has more of a harsher climate than that of the South. 

Today was very exciting, I got the chance to peruse the selection of britney spears perfumes at chemist warehouse and priceline!! And got myself a 30mL bottle of her midnight fantasy. And can I just say. For a $24.99 bottle of perfume, I am wowed. Not only has it stood the test of time- it's been a major seller since the mid 2000s (it's literally 19 years old), but the scent itself is really nice. It's top notes are plum, raspberry and cherry, as I mentioned in another post, it's one of the most popular cherry scents out there. The middle and bottom notes of amber/musk and white florals really back up this scent too. It's pleasant, not overbearingly sweet, definitely fruity. I'm post- maturely jealous of the fourteen year old girls who wore this at its peak, who clearly had more sophisticated tastes than I do at 22. The scent settles from fruit to florals to a gentle musk after a little while of wear, and does have to be reapplied pretty often, but the bottle is pretty easy to carry around, and for the price, reapplication every hour or so is a luxury it can afford.

The comments on this regard it as a bit of a juvenile perfume, which I think is an old school way to think, considering today's twelve year old girls have moved from harmless, inexpensive celebrity perfumes to my behated (not really) sol de janeiro, which is wayyyyy more overbearing and sweet, and expensive, and low-key an appropriation of Hawaiian girl culture. I've come to the understanding that vanilla is a valid scent, it's old school and classic and generally enjoyed, meanwhile caramel is the juvenile scent. But even I don't really care for what other people wear.

The other scents I was considering purchasing included her hidden fantasy, which I definitely will purchase one day, but not on this occasion because the notes were too similar to my Eilish no. 1, and I didn't want to double up. Also fantasy sheer, which looks interesting considering it's blend of sweet, aquatic, floral and fruity.

Today's scent, which I believe I have not reviewed yet, is the floral street neon rose. It's, of course, another floral scent, but is remarkably greener than the other fragrances from this set. Instead of smelling sweet or particular floral, the scent is reminiscent of a freshly cut stem, with touch of rose and jasmine. It sits very close to the skin after a moment or two of wear, in fact I couldn't catch any of it without putting my nose right up to the pulse points I had applied it too. It doesn't really last, and isn't a particularly strong scent, so I felt as if I was robbed of the bottom notes of amber and peach. It still smelt nice, but lacked the depth I had come to expect from floral street perfumes. Some commenters on fragrantica had noted that it was almost sterile, and I have to agree. I would expect this kind of scent from a bathroom air refresher than a perfume.

Another yap about fish, sorry in advance but you have free will and you chose to use that free will to read about fish from me. Look inwards. 

I made a post about salmon, arguably the fish everyone knows, and in that post I talked about wild caught Australian salmon and it's quality and fabulous sustainability when compared to farmed salmon. So imagine my surprise when I asked the local seafood joint's shop assistant about the lacking availability of wild caught salmon and she informed me that it's incredibly hard to source this side of the world. So when I got home, confused and sick of driving, I looked it up. Wild caught salmon almost exclusively comes from Norway and Alaska. What about Australian salmon? I ask my dad. Even he, arguably an industry expert in fishing around Australia for over thirty years, is also unaware of a lack of Australian wild caught salmon.

The Australian salmon I was carrying on about does exist, and is a more sustainable option than farmed salmon, but its not salmon. It's not even from the same "salmonidae" family. The (multiple) species that fall under the "Australian Salmon" umbrella are actually from the same family as herring. Herring being a very common fish related to sardines. Again, its still a sustainable option, in terms of quality the herring has a great nutritional value and is a versatile fish in terms of cooking. It's not considered a popular option amongst consumers and wholesalers because of their "strong" taste and tendency to dry out when cooking, branding the Australian salmon as a bait fish to catch nicer, bigger, meaner fish. But its still not salmon. The nomenclature comes from early european settlers who noticed the likeness between the two species and named it accordingly. 

Whether or not you will still choose to eat farmed salmon is up to you. My advice would be to source your salmon from New Zealand rather than Tasmania, as kiwis have stricter standards than Tasmanians. In fact, there's a whole dirty underworld to Tasmanian Salmon I intend on exploring. 

Moving on. On my adventures to Morgan's Seafood I picked up some wild caught Barramundi, on recommondation from the shop assistant, to make ceviche for the very first time. Ceviche has been around for decades, especially on the menus of high end restaurants across Australia and Europe. Its a Peruvian dish made of chilli, coriander, avocado, diced onion and diced white fish "cooked" in lime juice. It's eaten on corn chips and traditionally enjoyed for lunch by the beach on especially hot days. In Peru, "Cevicherias" close at four in the afternoon, serve their ceviche at lunch, source their fish from local fishermen in the morning, who catch said fish before dawn. 

The concept of ceviche is so simple and so old that historians have failed to pinpoint exactly where it originated. They know that the incorporation of lime juice arrived with columbus and his citrus, and that the popularity of the peasant dish grew with "Nikkei". Nikkei were Japanese emigrants who brough their appreciation for raw fish with them, and opened the first cevicheria in Lima around the 1960s. The premise of cooking fish without heat, i.e. with acidic or vinegar, is the kind of historical fact that arose on its own in dozens of places around the world.  

My ceviche slayed, here is the recipe I used. 10/10 dish that was super easy to make and made me feel super fancy to make and eat, hunched over the bowl watching tiktoks. 

I had time to kill between engagements and $7.50 burning a hole in my pocket, so I gathered my coins and my patience and ventured down to coles to try mussels for the first time. I bought them, roped my roommate into trying them with me, googled what they sat well with. The taste was certainly unique, not awful, but unique. From my own memory, it was probably closest to imitation crab meat (which, fun fact, is made from the unsellable bits of fish, that being offcuts of fillets, not fish guts. or maybe it is. I don't really want to know). It was fatty and briney, and was half decent when had with salt and vinegar chips. The texture was awfully rubbery, and the mussel itself had different parts that were varying degrees of rubbery-ness. The trick was to eat the mussel with a chip underneath, to confront your tongue with the crispness of the chip instead of the very odd and unmatched textures of the mussel.

A quick google will tell you that mussels pair best with dishes that are garlick-y and white wine-y, meaning anything from frites (skinny hot chips), to pasta to paella. Most recipes expect fresh mussels, and I think fresh mussels cooked would’ve been a tad less rubbery and more enjoyable. The mussels I did purchase were pre- cooked and preserved, and you will find with most seafood that comes precooked, the risk of rubberiness is quite high. I would not eat them again I think, but I’m happy I gave them a chance.

Fish is not hard to find in Brisbane. Most colesworths will have a small seasonal selection that reflects what is most sought after by customers. Mine, when I went to get my mussels, had just salmon, a pink kiting(?) on special, more salmon, and tubs and tubs of prawns, cooked, uncooked, tiger, probably others I don’t care to recall. It wasn’t a major selection, but it still reflects the customers more than reflecting what the fish industry is really like. In fact, it rather poorly reflects what is actually available to consumers.

Brisbane is a port city, and an old city too, and geographically, a halfway point between the fish caught in far north Queensland and fish caught in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. It’s a big question to ask what fisheries are local to Brisbane, because there’s so many ways fish are fished. Before I go on a tangent, the main ones are line fishing (spanish mackerel), trawler fishing (e.g. whiting), harvest fishing (e.g. mussels, oysters, scallops), net fishing (e.g. prawns) and crab fishing (e.g. crab).

So why should you care? Why should I care? Why does it matter where your fish comes from? What is the point of reading Jasmine’s one thousand words on fish? What do you have to gain? Not a whole lot, admittedly. But I think it’s important to not only shop sustainably and shop locally, I think it’s interesting to know the shape one marks on the world. You’re not an awful person for buying the cheapest tinned tuna you can get your hands on, even knowing it may not come from the best environment. Lord knows most of the time I never shop sustainably, never really care that lamb was once a cute little baby sheep. Instead I’ll indulge in food I’m interested in, try and shove as many veggies onto that dish as possible to steamroll the “getting enough nutrients in my diet” process, and ignore the fact I only ever shop at coles rather than supporting local farmers and fishers and butchers. I prioritise my comfort and my own tastes over how sustainable something is. I think you’d be pretty miserable if you constantly stressed about how good of a consumer you were.

Today I wore the floral street chypre sublime. And, shocker, I love this perfume. I was hesitant at first to wear it out, because when it's first applied there is a very strong rosey/deep floral scent. It's almost overpowering and worried me a bit because the perfumes I really want to wear are ones with layers and depth and subtley mix with their top, middle and bottom notes. And this perfume, when I first applied it, didn't seem like that at all. However, after a few minutes of having it on my skin it settled into this warm, woody, gentle floral mix that I absolutely adore. It's a very sophisticated scent, definitely one to use for sophisticated occasions, like in class or at a candle lit dinner or late nights at the pub. It's classy and mature, with a touch of sweetness from the many floral igredients. Said floral ingredients are notably different from the perfume I tried previously, electric rhubarb. Electric rhubarb had white florals like jasmine, fragipani and gardenia, where chypre sublime contains dusky rose and gardenia.

It's interesting to note when you take away sweetness from a fragrance it's almost as if you add age to it, you make the audience older and more mature and more refined. Maybe that could apply to wines too, or sweet treats in general. What do I know.

The interesting this is, without taking my time with the perfumes like I have thus far, I probably wouldn't like it. It's complexity and depth and the lack of sweetness upon first application would have turned me away. But after the few weeks or so I have been obsessed with perfumes, and taking my time to savour and enjoy each one and appreciating the notes in each, I have refined my palette. Which is epic because now I can enter a Jo Malone boutique and know what it is I'm smelling, the vibe that it gives, the intended audiences, the intended occasions, et cetera.

A perfume I'm definitely looking foreward to trying is the Maison Margiela by the fireplace. It caught my interest on my first hunt for perfumes to try, with its warm, woody vanilla scent. Unfortunately it is more of an indoor, winter scent, and incredibly expensive. I think it would be very interesting to try something that has a sweet musky undertone, because most perfumes have sweet musky top notes. Overall it's very different to what I have tried so far, being a unisex scent that has been likened to a christmas candle.

Other things I'm pretty excited to try are cherry perfumes, because I simply have never smelled one before, and it seems fun and sultry and interesting. One of the most popular cherry fragrances is actually the brittany spears midnight fantasy. Also, I'd like to try the juliette has a gun perfumes line, like the vanilla vibes, juliette has a gun and ex veviter.

Fish have been my special interest before, but specifically the coral reef I used to live down the road from. I never appreciated her as well as I should have, the heaving breathing ecosystem more complex and diverse than anything I could ever imagine. I learnt, at school, just some of the complexities of it. The shelter of mangroves for little fishies, their migration into seaweed fields for adolescents, the bright lights of the coral reefs they inhabit as adults. And then there’s the beauty of coral reefs, the calcified forests of the ocean, home to brilliance and alien like no other. Their yearly mating cycle, around November to December is a fleet of sperm and eggs that fly through the coral jungle to find their other halves and grow into something beautiful. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, and maybe even wrong- it wouldn’t be the first time. And only a small fraction of what I learnt. I remember capstones and legislation, the total destruction of ecosystems and the desperate attempts to rebuild them, coral bleaching, coral farming, fish farming, invasive species, lost species, global warming, coral stress. 

I could go on, and I would without much prompting from the audience, but the focus of this post is fish, what to eat and where and when. One of my newly realised lifetime ambitions has always been to explore and enjoy the world around me, because really I know little about it, and I’m desperate to know more, and info dump on first dates and the individuals with the misfortune of being rostered on with me. It’s a bit mean to talk about how beautiful the oceanic world is, but separate that paragraph from what I intend on sharing with you. Or don’t, take a bite of coral for all I care x. 

Everyone knows that certain fish are more abundant at different times of the year. Most people guess it’s because of the weather, and they would be right. Fish move around based on when and where it’s optimal to reproduce. Fish have been eaten since we learned to walk on land, although over the years our tastes have grown far and wide to almost odd and weird proportions. Like caviar. Whichever freak started that should be put down. 

It was the Persians apparently. 

Caviar, not to be confused with fish roe, because fish roe is just little fishy eggs that are sometimes cured with salt. Caviar refers to fish roe harvested from sturgeon, a very old, very widely spread species of fish that is quite ugly and at extinction’s door. Earliest evidence of caviar consumption began at the tables of Greek elites and aristocrats, and spread through the European aristocracy and nobility. It was first consumed by the Persians, or modern day Iranians, from the sturgeon that lived in the Caspian and Black seas. Of course caviar is ridiculously expensive, is hard to produce, hard to harvest, harvest to season right, leaves a lot of organic matter (i.e. lots of dead fish left over) for such a small amount, and doesn’t last very long. And of course that is the charm of caviar, its expense and exclusivity. I think my bitterness toward the hors d'oeuvre arises from my general distaste for elitism and exclusivity, and also the very cruel and graphic way the roe is harvested. And that sturgeon are ugly.

Moving on. The fish I am most familiar with would be salmon and tuna from Sushi Train, or barramundi. I should be more familiar considering my father was shoulder deep in the fishing industry for over 30 years, only just retiring in August of last year, swapping his broken down boat that he sold for a fraction of the price he bought it for, for a broken down bulldozer he adores. Whatever, he’s happy and fed and will be rapt when I ask him for information for my silly little blog. I know he secretly wished that I would be a fisherman like him, but fish guts are gross, and fishing is hard, and I am happy to ride shotgun and try things fresh from the ocean rather than actually do a fraction of the work he would do in a day. 

The history of Australian style sushi is interesting in itself, even the history of sushi itself is interesting, and doesn’t begin in Japan. To simplify the extensive wikipedia article I read, sushi began as a way to use rice, in obvious abundance, to preserve the less abundant fish that was often prone to going bad. A mixture of salts and vinegars were used, and initially the rice was discarded. Over time it moved from South East Asia to China to Japan, where fish was first eaten fresh, then pickled with rice because of widespread pollution and prevalent parasites, then the fish became less and less pickled until it very quickly evolved into something like modern day sushi around 1830. The first conveyor belt sushi joint opened in Japan around the 1950s, and exploded in popularity after the World Expo in Japan in 1970. Salmon could now be eaten raw because it was sourced from parasite-less fish from Norway and was refrigerated appropriately. 

Australian style sushi came from popular takeaway sushi joints in Melbourne and Sydney around the 1990s, and has slowly evolved into modern day sushi, but it is still separate from Japanese sushi. Sushi Train is the most popular and accessible source of Australian style sushi and I hold that silly little fast food joint as close to my heart as I hold the neighbourhood IGA I used to live around the corner from, that magically had all the baking ingredients and sweet treats I could ever want, without really having much else. Sushi is one of my favourite foods, my go to hangover meal, the thing I missed most when I wasn't in Australia. It’s heartwarming and nostalgic and a wonderful place to share a meal with a loved one. 

Sushi Train source their salmon from a Tasmanian aquaculture company. In terms of surface level sustainability, aquacultures are aquably an alternative to overfishing salmon. And consumers have salmon available to them all year round. However things are never that simple. The fish food that aquacultures use to feed their fish is made from wild caught fish, and that has been proven to add strain to stressed fisheries. Keeping a high concentration of fish in one area puts a lot of pressure on the surrounding water ecosystems. Disease spreads easily, fish die prematurely, surrounding ecosystems suffer. There are sustainable ways to foster aquacultures, the kiwis have done it quite well. 

In terms of how healthy salmon is, the argument could be made that because every stage of salmon farming is controlled, and thus one could control the amount of pollutants the fish consume, but decades of fish farming and fish fishing have proven the opposite. Farmed salmon is fattier, has more pollutants, is physically orange, where fished salmon is leaner, has less pollutants, and is closer in colour to fresh tuna. Physically they could taste very different to farmed salmon. In Australia, wild- caught salmon is underappreciated, and I’m going to make it my mission to find some and try it. Hopefully it’s cheap enough for me to enjoy. 

Today I'm wearing electric rhubarb by floral street, a gentle, ocean-y floral scent that lingers like the salt in a closed street market. I am not brave enough to rate it yet, but I am enjoying the scent quite a bit. It's simple yet simultaneously complex, it's fresh and deep, and pairs really well with my warm sugar vanilla bath & body works body wash and vaseline cocoa glow moisturiser. It definitely makes me feel elegant and mature, but I could also see it as a scent to wear to a summer dinner or on a beach date.

This scent is completely different to the gourmands I've been wearing thus far, as it has strictly floral top and middle notes with notes of "marine" and salt. Gourmand meaning a scent that is the replicated scent of a foodstuff, like vanilla or chocolate or honey. To make it a gourmand fragrance, the sweet top notes are typically backed up with a deep, almost masculine base, like patchouli or musk.

WINE !!!!!!

The world of wine is a scary and treacherous place. I have no idea how it works, truly. One of those worlds suits my palette and what flavours I can and will enjoy. Another suits sommeliers and wine makers and professionals who's role is to sell you wine, and the third, and most important, is the tastes of the general public.

I've had a few consumer based experiences with wine. The typical "trying a glass with your parents and it being aboslutely awful" is one. There was that time in barcelona I drank so much sangria I nearly died (I was fine- just an awful experience all together). That time at a gender reveal I drank so much champagne I nearly died (again, fine, just embarrassed myself in front of a whole group of people I never spoke to again). In terms of moderation and responsibility, I genuinely enjoy sparkling pink moscato, specifically the innocent bystander version, or, in a pinch, the $9 whispers pink moscato. It comes in a litre bottle, and I am always IDed for it.

Moscato is not very alcoholic. It is sweet, in the wine making process it's paused early to keep it sweet. To put it plainly, alcoholic content high? no sugar! Alcohol needs to eat the sugar to be alcoholic. The bottles we sell at work are only 3.3 standard drinks in a 750mL bottle. To compare, our popular house sauvignon plonk is 7.6 standard drinks. I actually had to cut off a young woman at work just the other day- who had maybe three glasses of moscato. I lowkey hoped she'd done a line in the bathroom or something to explain her behaviour, because I, a moscato enjoyer, was embarrassed.

The name moscato comes from the muscat grape. Pink moscato is only pink because of the splash of red wine, often merlot, is added. Moscato is the lightest and sweetest of the wines, and as such is such typically supposed to be enjoyed at "light" occasions, such as brunch, pres, with fruits salads and deserts, in summer with ice in a nice cold glass.

The only other wine I've had is the pinot gris I bought this evening. I researched what to enjoy with the caprese salad I was going to make, and google informed me I should opt for something simple, white and acidic. Of course I ignored that advice because wines that are white and acidic are gross and I'm not that refined. So instead of a dry sauvignon blanc or pinot grigio, i opted for a simple, new zealand pinot gris. I could definitely tell the warm apple-y undertones, and enjoyed it chilled in my fabulous pink wine glass. It didn't suit my salad at all, but the salad was fantastic all on it's own.

Thats it.

I've begun to delve into the world of perfumes. I think it was lord brittany broski that originally got me into them, that and an old colleague from my nightclub days. It was so convenient, after standing in the same position for hours, to have a small roll-on scent sitting in my pocket that I could apply at a moment's notice. I started off attracted to the very famous sol de janeiro and it's signature sweet almond scent, and consequently picked up my own mco beauty version to dab on my wrists. Although the mco beauty version lacked the woody- depth that the sol de janeiro has, I was not spending that much on a body spray. And although I really like the sol de janeiro, it was admittedly famous and predictable. I didn't like that someone would know what I was wearing immediately, something that I had picked up based on a trend without really thinking about it. I also didn't quite like how bold the scent was, particularly how strong it was. Regardless, from the mco beauty version and with my previous notions in mind, I tried the black plum and vanilla body spray by mco beauty, also convenient and cheap. While it was nice, I wasn't very wowed by it, I noticed the lack of any notes other than sweetness and slight floral fruitiness.

But what I wanted most was the first of the Billie Eilish perfumes. Coveted since it came out, but never really had the interest or the money to get my own. When I eventually broke the nozzle for the fcuk friction for her, which i had done for all of my other perfumes, including all the body shops vanilla eau de toilettes I had previously owned. It was my opportunity to move away from cheap, sweet perfumes and onto something older, more elegant and graceful. While friction for her has some coconutty floral-ness to it, at its core it is still a chemist warehouse perfume with a dominating sweet vanilla scent. Nice to smell upon first application, but not that interesting and lacking slightly.

The Eilish no. 1 perfume was more elegant than anything I'd ever worn. It still had the dominating vanilla notes that I'd always sought after, as soon as I sprayed it I noticed the different notes underneath the vanilla. It's woody and warm and sweet and fruity and tangy. I adore that scent, happily splurged on a smaller bottle, and wore it everyday for about a month.

Unfortunately, the scent didn't last that long, and I work long smelly shifts, where after about an hour I needed to reapply my trusty roll on mco beauty sweet caramel rip off. Eventually, I noticed the really alcohol-y smell of the mco beauty roll on, and decided to move onto something more refined and ladylike and expensive.

after many hours and headaches later, eventually I located a fairly cheap set of testers for the brand floral street. And oh my god I am obsessed.

The first one I tried was wonderland peony, and I absolutely adore it. It has a very fruity, floral sweetness to it, that's backed up by a bottom layer of caramel and woody- notes. It's a lovely everyday summer perfume, and I wore it for a week straight and loved every second.

Next I wanted to try another one of the set, and settled on black lotus, which was the exact opposite to anything I've ever worn before, and was slighty too older and elegant for my tastes. On its own, it's very warm and tangy, and contains scents I was very unfamiliar with, like patchouli and leather and rose. It is still a lovely scent, but a little too big girl for me. Definitely a winter scent. When I first wore it, I noticed this straight away, and instead of wearing it on its own, I layered it with a thin layer of wonderland peony, and savoured the result scent. My friend mentioned I smelt like a luxury musk stick to give you an idea. The longevity of these two scents was fabulous, and I noticed I only had to apply maybe twice during an extensive frozen margarita session with my coworkers.

Today I wear another summery scent from floral street, arizona bloom. This scent doesn't have a particularly notable top note, instead a thorough blend of coconut and musk and various woody scents. It's a perfect versatile, everyday scent, not too summery, not too suitable for spring, and just fresh enough for winter. Its quite a suitable perfume for work.

As some of the commenters on fragrantica note, the smell you wear can alter how people feel about you in a professional setting. Vanilla and caramel can be seen as woman like and professional and powerful if they have enough depth and underlying woody/musky scents underneath to back up the sweetness, but not enough depth can be smelt as trendy and juvenile. The same idea follows floral scents in tandem. Too floral and sweet may seem girlish and young, which is definitely appropriate in certain settings, but professionally the advice is to stick to interesting, deep florals that aren't so overpowering they bother your coworkers, but enough to make you smell fresh and put together. Other musky scents definitely give off an air of maturity and elegance in the workplace, especially if you're a young woman.

my first ever post on tumblr ever in the history of tumblr.com! how exciting! I've never ever posted anything ever on tumblr.

For real though, I've been a long time admirer of tumblr, it's users and community and memes. I know that's a crazy thing to say, and many tumblr users themselves would agree because tumblr is lowkey a cesspool. But there's a sense of authenticity on tumblr, and a sense of freedom to share the most intimate details of your likes and loves without (much) judgement and without having to associate you're IRL life with said likes and loves. That's admirable to me, the ability to share and the ability to do so freely (monetarily or physically).

A little about me, I work in hospitality, in a pub to be precise. And I can say there is a disctinct split between the society on the internet and the society at my door. More on that later mayhaps. I'm studying visual art, I live almost two thousand kilometres from where I grew up. I like reading, collecting movies, fashion, coffee. I have a half a bagel with cream cheese every morning for breakfast. I have a cat, he's evil and playful and naughty, but naughty cats are happy cats.

I love a shop at the op. I like to write. I don't particularly enjoy creating, that is writing a story or painting a picture, rather I feel like the act of creating releases the pressure inside of me. Rather than something I want to show the world, I feel like it's something I have to get out from under my skin.

Anyways. More to come. I'm very excited.