A couple of times a year, there is something called the Big DC Flea Market that comes to town.  Vendors from around the region come to show their wares; some good, some bad.  It can be fun to see if you can find yourself a good bargain or treasure of some type.  Typically, I have found that if I do find some perfume, its overpriced and/or the bottles are in bad shape.  Yesterday, I saw various bottles, of Opium, Lanvin’s My Sin, Worth’s Je Reviens to name a few; all of which were not a good enough deal for me to go after.  I then ran across another vendor who a 1/2 filled bottle of vintage Van Cleef and Arpel’s First Parfum (which I found I loved this summer, well, at least the EdT) and a full heart-shaped stopper bottle of some unknown Guerlain (it’s massive, it has to be at least 2.5 ounces).  Now, the Guerlain didn’t have a label, was huge and had the Baccarat stamp on the bottom.  I knew it either had to be L’Heure Bleue or Mitsouko.  The sales lady said that it was sealed and had never been opened as far as she knew.  From the amount of liquid in the bottle I figured that was true.  So, she said she wanted $75 for both…I offered her $60 and walked away with these two to add to my collection.

I can appreciate a pretty perfume bottle with juice in it, but I really want the juice.  So what to do about getting that stopper out of the bottle?  Luckily I remembered that I had read an article on Perfume Shrine stating how to open a stuck stopper through the use of rubbing alcohol.  I ran to the drugstore and got myself some alcohol and 15 minutes later the bottle was open.  The juice revealed a deep rich civet heavy fragrance of yesteryear (it is definitely not MItsouko, so I figure it’s L’Heure Bleue).  I have no idea how this has been degraded, but to me it smells wonderful.  And the bottle is big enough so that I can get my index finger down into the bottle.  What a treat.

So where is this taking me?…I decided that I keep running into these fantastic articles and blog entries that are informative and helpful, so I decided to launch my Resources page.  As I find an interesting or helpful article I’ll link them to this page.  I hope that you find the articles and links to be useful and feel free to send your recommendations to be included on the page.  And yes, how to get a stuck stopper open can be found on the page.  I’m ready to find my next great deal!