Sunday, April 24, 2011

Harvey Prince - New Scents! Fling, Eau de Lite and Nightshift



Over the last 2 years I have had the opportunity to review different scents by Harvey Prince.

- The first was AGELESS - still my favorite, AGELESS has a sweet, fresh scent that is a great pick me up. This is one of my favorite Spring and Summer Scents. It is sweet, fresh and fun. See my original review HERE.

- I also was able to try Eau Flirt when it hit the market. Another winner - again, see my review HERE

What I love most about Harvey Prince perfumes is their original approach to scent while maintaining a product that is youthful, fun and unique. Most of their scents are based off of what is appealing to the opposite sex.




Most recently I was able to try Eau Fling, one of the newer scents. It is a lighter version of Flirt - slightly more fruity and more earthy - it has the same base notes of Lavender and Pumpkin Pie, but has a sweeter scent.
top notes of lavender, blackcurrant, plum, raspberry and apple


middle notes of jasmine, nutmeg and cinnamon
dry down of musk and rare woods


For whatever reason, when I first spray this on, I find the scent odd. This only lasts for a few seconds - literally. After the fragrances settles on the skin, it takes on a sweet smell with floral and spicy undertones. like all Harvey Prince Fragrances it is a nice, light scent. The downside is that if you want a lingering scent, you will need to re-apply, but it is nice that it is not heavy or overwhelming. I prefer fruity scents in the summer but with a little more substance - Eau Fling is a great addition to my collection.



If I go with a floral, I prefer florals with a musky scent or white flower based scents. I asked to also try NightShift - this is a fragrance made up of exclusively night blooming floral scents because it sounded intriguing. It even sounds exotic.


  • Night Jasmine – Also known as the Lady of the Night flower, a subtle scent of white berry


  • Night Phlox – The Zaluzianskya or ‘Midnight Candy’, is an exotic flower that stays tightly closed during the day but as dusk arrives, opens up to emit a honey, almond and vanilla scent.


  • Moonflowers – This unique species of night-blooming Cereus stays open until the early morning hours…but only for those special few nights every year.


  • Evening Primrose – The fragrant tufted evening-primrose first blooms white, then turns pink or light magenta.

    This definitely is more of a sophisticated scent - a grown-up floral suitable for evening wear and special occasions. A truly unique scent and very different from the others in the Harvey Prince Line


(Another scent that I smelled was the Eau de Lite - this is a scent that is a Fragrance Induced Thinness (FIT) scent. Basically this perfume is supposed to help you lose weight. It contains notes of green apple, peppermint and vanilla proven to help curb appetites in almost 3,000 test patients. Other notes include fresh spearmint, Egyptian fennel, Moroccan jasmine, Bulgarian rose and Kununurra sandalwood. I am not sure how well this works but could definitely stand to use a few pounds. I will be back with more on this)


I did not review the following scents, but here are another sampling of newer fragrances in the Harvey Prince line:


Another white floral based fragrance is Coupling (new!) - Pumpkin, Cucumber and Gardenia - sounds potent! I think the cucumber and Gardenia would compliment each other nicely: the sultry, headiness of the Gardenia tempered with the coolness of the cucumber and subtly spiced up with pumpkin. A stronger version of Flirt!, this definitely sounds like an evening fragrance!!!




Harvey Prince has also introduced Submariner. A little different from the others is something for the gal who loves more of a fresh, outdoorsy fragrance. This is a water based scent with spicy undertones. (Think "weekend at the ocean.") I am not a huge fan of aquatic scents but for active ladies that prefer a fresh and clean scent that is also feminine, this may be for you! (My daughter would probably like this as she does not like anything too fruity or floral).


*** From the website, "Harvey Prince products use only eco-friendly and -quality ingredients and come bedecked in handcrafted packaging". Even more of an incentive to use Harvey Prince products. For more information of Fling or any of the scents in the Harvey Prince line, check out HarveyPrince.com



I did not receive any form of compensation for this post nor was I required to write a positive review. I did receive products for review purposes. For more information on this blog and on my posting practices, please refer to the disclosure policy at the bottom of the page.



Friday, April 22, 2011

Good Friday was mostly good.

I was supposed to have the day off today but ended up working half the day.  The girls were not behaving well today at all.  This morning they were playing ball in the house, something we have asked them not do do at least a few hundred times.  I heard a large crash and then a silent pause, quick whispers and then nonchalant "oh, wow, look what happened" type conversation.  I became very angry, said as much and sent them up to their rooms.  There was no arguing and no stalling - both immediately headed up to their rooms with a sheepish, guilty look on their little faces. 

The hardwoods are scratched and the paint on the wall is scratched and chipped as well but luckily neither were hurt.  Miss C. came down and helped me sweep and vacuum the glass from the carpet and floor.
 After that I vacuumed the rest of the house, I cleaned the carpet and mopped the floors.  The floors were wet so I asked the girls to stay out of the kitchen.

Shortly after cleaning Miss E. called her friend- for some reason she cannot sit when she is on the phone, she walks room to room through the entire house.  When on the phone in the middle of a conversation she came running into the kitchen.  I heard a large skid and fall.  I turned around to see her on the floor.  She kept her cool, but I could tell she was about to cry.  She simply told her friend "I have to go now" and hung up.  As soon as the line was disconnected we had a lot of tears.

Both girls were arguing and physically fighting all day - they really do not get physical too much anymore but I feel like the entire day was spent sending them to their rooms.  Tonight Ryan dropped Miss C. off at a friends and decided to take the two little ones over the neighbors - every night since the tornado the neighbors have been banding together to cook, support one another, feed the volunteers and victims, etc.  Tonight our next door neighbors are hosting a shrimp bowl.  I had a migraine earlier so stayed in while Ryan took the little girls.

Just now both girls just came running in with 2 huge bags of candy, each.  Miss N. excitedly said she might go be on the news.  She was talking so fast I could not understand what she was saying and had to ask her to repeat what she was saying 3 times.  She finally slowed down.   Apparently a volunteer group came in as well and had purchased Easter candy for kids in the neighborhoods and the news crew was filming the get together.  Even for those of us who did not lose our homes, the aftermath of the tornado has been a traumatic experience for everyone.  I thought that it was a very thoughtful gesture.  


Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Tornado Recovery


I had planned to do a few product reviews and post a couple of giveaways this weekend - I was targeting Sunday to catch up. Friday I worked until very late and Saturday I had an all day Girl Scout event an hour outside of town. Although we were aware of storms on Saturday, the events went on as planned and regarding the anticipated weather, we played it by ear. Saturday afternoon the expected storm front hit Raleigh and was headed our way. Some of the parents headed back to Wake Forest / Raleigh early. For those of us who stayed behind, we waited with the girls for the same storm front as we were on the same path. Before, during and after the storm we had intermittent contact with home or none at all.

Our troop sought shelter with another troop. About 25 girls and a few adults were in a cinder block room. As sirens rang, we remained bunkered down. Half of the girls were crying, frightened because we could not reach home and frightened of the storm headed our way. Ultimately we did experience rain but were fortunate that we did not get anything worse.


During the time we took shelter I tried repetitively to get in touch with my husband and daughter. I received a couple of texts from my daughter stating that she was OK. The last text I received from my husband said "tornadoes everywhere" and then I did not hear anything for close to an hour. I was certain something happened to him because he always responds to texts right away. Even though I was trying to remain calm for the girls, I was very frightened and became more and more agitated as more time passed. I finally did receive a text from him with just a picture of a home flattened and another home next to it standing, but missing a good portion of the siding.

When I received the text I was immediately relieved my husband was Ok but very upset because I thought the collapsed home was our neighbors and the other home standing, ours. The house was the same color and the frame looked identical. I tried texting my husband to get some context around the picture but it was very difficult to successfully make phone calls or receive text messages. (One of the other moms showed me how to make the picture bigger and I discovered once magnified that it was NOT our home by the type of window).

When I finally did speak to my husband he informed me that our home was fine but that the one street that both crosses and runs parallel to ours was hit. The section that crosses ours is about 6 houses down and this is the section that I initially thought he was referring to. The 2nd time I talked to him he said it looked "like Kansas". At this point I decided to go home and ultimately decided to let my younger daughters stay overnight at camp. I planned to pick up my oldest daughter upon arriving in town before heading home.


When I first arrived in Raleigh, I noticed quite a bit of debris littering the roads. I had to go on the beltline to pick up my daughter and as I passed the general area we lived, I noticed signs and trees down as well as more debris. As soon as I picked her up we headed back home. When we arrived into our subdivision I was shocked at the general conditions. Trees were down everywhere and many people were walking around looking shell shocked.

We arrived home and my husband was standing outside. He told me to check out the impacted area, explaining that it was the section of the road, after the curve, that ran parallel to ours, . This is much closer - literally right behind the homes directly across the street. As soon as I saw the damage I burst out in tears. This section of our neighborhood was totally destroyed. There were several homes in which half of the home was left, trees were bent and broken and cars were crushed under piles of siding, wood, insulation, and tree branches. One home even had the sod ripped off the ground. Other homes were simply gone, totally collapsed. Every single home sustained considerable damage. Miraculously we later found out that everyone survived - the fact that it is spring break was a huge blessing as many families were not home.

We were surprised to get electricity very early Sunday morning. Once it was a reasonable hour, I headed out on foot to walk down the block and inspect the damage up close and see what I could do to help. The police came and blocked off the road because many people were coming by to walk or drive over, look and take pictures. The officers were not letting anyone through except for the homeowners so they recover what little bit they had left that was salvageable in peace and with privacy. We were not able to help as much as we hoped so my husband dropped off some water and few other neighbors contacted local pizza shops and were able to get donations.

We did leave at one point on Sunday to get groceries. A friend had told me she heard our old neighborhood had gotten hit so I drove over to make sure that our old neighbors were OK. It was very strange going back because it was a similar scene. The street we had lived in looked fine, but the main road in the subdivision had many damaged homes. All that was left of one house was a concrete slab.

For the latter part of the day on Saturday and all day Sunday I felt very disconnected from what was going on outside the neighborhood - we had very limited access to information. I had intermittent access to facebook through my phone, but was not able to pull up the news until late Sunday. We did not have cable or Internet back until late yesterday. I normally work from home on Mondays but because we had no Internet service, I went into the office where I was able to get information on other areas that were hit, the extent of damage in our area and recovery plans. Our neighborhood was featured a few different times on different channels / websites as being one of the hardest hit. I found out that another co-worker who lives on the opposite side of the triangle area also experienced considerable damage.

Over the last 3 nights neighbors have prepared food for victims, volunteers, the police officers and neighbors. Many of the neighbors are pitching in. My mother-in-law donated money to cover food costs which stretched over 2 days. This has definitely brought the neighborhood closer together.
On Monday the elementary school, which also sustained damage, was closed. During the day my teen (who is on spring break), my two younger daughters and a few friends sang for donations and raised $50 for the cause. Also, outside of the taped off section, my oldest daughter swept and bagged trash and debris and also helped the victims recover items in wooded areas. Most of the homes on the cross road were coated in grass or chunks of insulation.

Today I drove to the adjoining neighborhood across from the school, which I had heard sustained even more damage. It was like seeing it again for the first time and I experienced the same emotions all over again - the destruction is unbelievable. Some homes were blown right off of the foundation. Many were collapsed in a heap of wood. There was the now all too familiar sight of blue tarp.


After viewing the other impacted areas and the size of the path I realized that our home was literally right outside the edge of the tornado's path. If the tornado had moved a hair to the left I would be sharing a very different story. We sustained very minor damage to our roof and fence and feel incredibly fortunate. I'll come back with pictures and updates within the next week.


Sunday, April 10, 2011

Scrapbooking and Cardmaking 101 - Newbie

After winning a fantastic professional photography shoot package from a blog post, I had a nice stash of fabulous photos. As such I have finally given scrapbooking a try and became obsessed right away. I met with a friend who gave me a ton of advice, tips, tricks and motivation.

I have already spent more than I care to admit (I plead the 5th) but on the flipside will be trying to get my money's worth. I did invest in a Cricut (beginner version), a few inexpensive cartridges, and purchased or pilfered out of my craft stash paper, glue, glitter, brads, stickers, embellishments, ribbon and card stock. Here is a sampling of what I have done so far:


Cards:






Handmade card holder:



1st attempt at a Scrapbook Layout:



I hope to get better as I go along but feel that I am off to a good start. I am also looking forward to following some scrapbooking, card making and paper craft blogs for lessons, ideas, inspiration, tips and resources.

If you have any good blogs or blog posts, resources/supplies, tips, etc. please feel free to share!!!


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