Harajuku Lovers

Harajuku Lovers, originally uploaded by Ayala Moriel.

I always get lucky when I go shopping with Tamya. Last Saturday, when after we went for our weekly swim at the YWCA, I decided to overcome my inferiority complex and go check out the new member of Les Exclusifs at the Chanel boutique next door. We were both wearing our heart-illustrated gum boots and feeling great but looking everything else but glamorous. I secretly like taking Tamya to fancy boutiques, as a test to see how nice the sales people really are. I can tell you that in both Chanel and Holt Renfrew they are very, very nice to kids and usually also to adults. This time, I scored 2 “samples” from the Les Exclusifs – Sycomore and 31 Rue Camon (they really are minis). Obviously, Tamya is my lucky charm...

We than continued to a the drugstore to check out the new doll collection htat hides perfumes inside. I saw them a couple of days earlier and could not for the life of me make up my mind about one. So I thought Tamya could help me, and after all – her Bat Mitzvah was just a few days ago so she deserves to pick a perfume for herself!

I have to say, this was difficult. The dolls are all very cute. In fact, irresistibly cute. The juices, however, are not as nose-catchy as the dolls are. There was only one that I found to be really distinct – G. But I couldn’t really decide if I like it or not. The others all smelled like something I smelled before. There was Baby with a curly black hair which smells like a fancy baby powder; Music, a brunette with a fancy hairdo reeking of a non-descript musky floral; G with an overly symmetric blonde hair and smelling oddrly of coconut and something green at the same time; Lil’ Angel, dressed as a tomboy, and smelling very pineapple-y and a very MiamiGlo kind of way; and Love, the prettiest of all dolls with an asymmetric Asian-inspired hairdo which smelled like a very pretty yet quite generic light floral with a musky base (at first I had a hard time distinguishing between Love and Music).

After spending about an hour staring at them, sniffing, making up our minds only to change again two seconds later, both Tamya and I unanimously decided to adopt Love and take her home with us. We got home and almost forgot that she even existed (she’s very well behaved). We did the perfume-box-opening ceremony and from this point on I was just immensely impressed by how accessible this perfume was. This was the first perfume that Tamya really seemed to be into, spraying, sniffing her wrists AND showing off. And I suspect it wasn’t just the doll, because when her daddy came home, and I asked her to show him her new perfume – she let him smell her wrists rather than bring the doll. Love smells lovely on Tamya, by the way. It also smelled good on my wrist (though not as good as on Tamya). It reminded me very much of Spring Flower but a little softer.