I bought some perfume samples.

This should astonish you.

I usually avoid fragrances because I find so many of them irritating. Much of the time they are just overpowering and way too bright. (Is that even a thing with fragrance?) They have even been known to trigger migraines for me, so why would I take this risk?

I honestly don’t know. This company says they keep to all natural (edit: some artificial, but still non-toxic, and environmentally safe) , non-toxic ingredients and that was attractive to me, and then the descriptions of some of their scents drew me in. (Tangent: Can you imagine trying to write copy for fragrance descriptions? That sounds so difficult.) They advertised as not being specifically created for just women or only men (no gender assigned to their scents), and that also caught my attention. It just sounded different than anything I’ve experienced before. So I decided to give it a chance. $18 for three samples. Not cheap, but not light years out of the budget either, and the $18 gets credited to your purchase when you buy a bottle.

I first found this company, Phlur, a month ago, just before we left on our trip to Israel. I knew it wouldn’t arrive until we got back, and so I decided to bookmark the site and just think about it until we got back. Throughout the whole trip the idea of this just played in the back of my mind. I dithered about it when we got home. I was feeling too sick to make a decision anyway. But a few days ago I decided to take the chance.

It arrived today. I’m so excited. I rushed (okay, I might have actually skipped) out to the mailbox to get it. Shh. It’s all right, I don’t think the neighbors saw me.

I’ve tried on the lightest one, Hanami, and so far I really like the way it sort of settles in with my skin and mellows out. It reminds me of beeswax and wood resin. (The website says, “fig, white florals, hazelnut, and sandalwood.” Honestly, I don’t have a clue what white florals means, but the longer this is on me, the more I like it.)

I’m feeling a huge sense of gratitude at the moment, because as I have mentioned before, I lost my sense of smell completely almost a year-and-a-half ago. It’s taken a long time to fully recover it, and it’s different than it used to be. I have had to re-educate myself to recognize the smell of something burning, as well as other things that I used to take for granted. I’ve had to re-educate my taste buds as well. To be able to even smell this is amazing. To have it be such a pleasurable experience is exhilarating.

The big question is, what will Mr. Hot Stuff think?

… Stay tuned…

In my scripture reading in the Book of Mormon today, this small, but intrepid, Nephite army is at the limit of their provisions and their stamina. They have petitioned their government to send provisions and reinforcements, but have gotten a mediocre response.

So they pray. They ask God for help. He sends hope to their hearts – a reassurance that He will deliver them – and they take that hope and exercise faith in it, treating it as a factual lifeline. They move forward with their efforts and God comes through for them. It’s not instant relief, but it comes. Without fail, God makes good on His promise.

“10 Therefore we did pour out our souls in prayer to God, that he would strengthen us and deliver us out of the hands of our enemies, yea, and also give us strength that we might retain our cities, and our lands, and our possessions, for the support of our people. 11 Yea, and it came to pass that the Lord our God did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us; yea, insomuch that he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our deliverance in him.” Alma 58:10–11 https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/alma/58?verse=10-11&lang=eng#p10

This Bible verse that came from my Tecarta app today also made a similar point.

1 Timothy 4:10 NIV

That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.

We can trust God’s hope. I need to remember that more often.