2022

How To Shop For The Best Perfumes – For Women

I found that there are five basic steps you need to consider when perfume shopping, so here they are for your perfume delight and delectation…

1) “This is going to take some time… “

Yes, perfume shopping is something that needs to be savoured, enjoyed and definitely not rushed. Set aside a good portion of time in the day for you to check out your local perfume department stores and smaller fragrance stores. Try to keep an open mind when you see a perfume that perhaps your friend has dismissed and don’t judge a perfume by its packaging. You’re going to have to rely on your nose for this shopping expedition, not your eyes.

2) Before you start perfume shopping, decide on your budget

Shopping for a fragrance can cost you as little as $50 or as much as $5000 (yes, there are perfumes with those kind of price tags!), so it is important to decide your budget before you even step foot in a perfume shop. Firstly, decide if your fragrance is going to be for everyday use, or just for special occasions? Are you looking for a celebrity name perfume, or simply a well-known brand? Which season is your perfume for? Sometimes it is nice to have a fresher and lighter perfume for the hotter summer months and perhaps a more subtle fragrance for autumn and winter.

3. Understand the different concentrations of perfume available

Perfumes come in three distinct categories which tell you about the concentration of the perfume oils in the bottle. The most concentrated, and therefore most expensive, perfume is known as ‘Parfum’ and you won’t need to use a lot of it, so it should last longer. Parfum has a concentration of between 15% and 22% of the fragrance oils. Next is ‘Eau de Parfum’ with a concentration of between 8% and 15% – quite a popular choice for many women. Lastly, and least expensive of the three concentrations, we have ‘Eau de Toilette’ or ‘Eau de Cologne’. With a concentration of between 3% and 8%, a spray of this perfume will give you and people around you just a hint of the scent to tantalize the nasal senses. Eau de Toilette is of course the least expensive option, but you many need to use more of it than the other more concentrated preparations.

4. Time to get your nose working

So you’re in the perfume store. It’s time to start smelling some fragrances by spraying some sampler bottles of each perfume onto those funny bits of white cardboard. They’re called ‘swatches’ – rather like colour swatches, but for smelling. Try to dry the perfume on the swatch before smelling (don’t touch), as the fragrance will change subtly as the minutes go by. After several minutes you will smell the ‘base notes’ rather than the initial ‘top notes’. Ah, now we’re getting technical. The fragrance’s base notes are the scents that will become more apparent as you wear perfume through the day. If you’re really up for being prepared, take a small container of coffee beans with you. Take a whiff of the beans to ‘reset’ your nose before smelling the next perfume – it’s a trick that works. Keep going and you should be able to narrow down your search to perhaps just three or four fragrances.

5. Time for some real skin

Hopefully you have now managed to select a handful of perfume candidates? Now is the time to spray a little on your wrist. Let it dry naturally without rubbing and have a whiff. Oh, by the way, top tip: Don’t wear any fragrance when you go perfume shopping for obvious reasons. It’s also wise to avoid eating spicy or hot food beforehand as your nose won’t be as sensitive as it usually is.

Hope you found some or all of these ‘perfume pointers’ enlightening. The best perfume for you is out there, and it will just take a little preparation and patience to find it! Happy perfume shopping!…

Can Educational Toys For Babies Also Be a Baby Gift?

If we follow what most psychologists under the Freudian and Neo-Freudian school of thought, we could say that what a child becomes later on in his life is, somehow, related to how we was brought up. This bringing up usually refers to the early development years of a child.

Although most people are not aware of it, one of the ways by which you can develop a child’s mental abilities is with the use of toys. As early as a few weeks after birth, babies can already recognize shapes, colors and patterns. It is also during their first few months that babies are able to absorb as much information as possible. Needless to say, you should take advantage of these early years in order to shape your baby’s future.

Toys have been known to stimulate the following senses:

Sight – Aside from easily catching their attention, toys that are brightly colored or have contrasting colors allow a child to differentiate shades as well as get to know what the different colors are. This allows their sense of sight to become sharper and allows their visual intelligence to be enhanced.

A crib mobile is one good example of a simple yet educational baby toy especially if your baby is just a few weeks old and has not learned yet to crawl or sit up. Your baby is also sure to have loads of fun playing with mirrors. Make sure, however, that you keep an eye out for your baby as they could easily get hurt by shards of broken mirror. Stacking rings of different colors help improve not only your child’s sense of sight but also his or her hand-eye coordination.

Touch – When it comes to the sense of touch, babies will run their hands against anything within their reach. The different textures allow them their sense of touch to be heightened. Simple toys such as rubber balls and building blocks also help your bay learn about the different shapes.

Building blocks, specifically, can also help your child refine his or her motor skills. It is also known to improve a child’s planning and designing skills. If you are on a budget, a simple baby blanket that has fun designs in them should do the trick.

Hearing – A newborn baby’s hearing might not be that refined, they can still react to sounds. A number of studies have also proven that classical music help enhance a child’s intelligence level. Crib mobiles that produce melodies as well as a simple rattle can, not only help your baby distinguish between sounds, but can also help them develop their ability to relate cause and effect. Even a simple play hammer that produces a squeaking sound every time it hits something would also suffice.

Keep in mind that every baby will react differently to toys so make sure that you also consider what interests your baby the most before you go buying one. You would also need to consider the age-appropriateness of toys, i.e.; toys with small parts should not be given to babies as there is a great possibility of them choking on it.…

Raising a Green Family – 25 Easy Ways to Conserve Our Planet and Save Yourself Money in the Process

So you want to “go green,” huh? I’ll tell you how!

Sell your minivan or SUV and buy a hybrid. And while you’re at it, have solar panels installed on your roof for an alternate energy source. Make your own clothing out of hemp grown in your own backyard, hydrated by water you’ve been collecting in rain barrels. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Let me know when you’re done.

What’s that? You don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on new cars and total home remodels?

Okay, neither do I.

What we need are feasible and realistic ideas to help us leave a smaller carbon footprint, reduce the consumption of resources, teach our kids how to be ecologically responsible, and how to save some money in the process! We all know how to throw things in the recycle bin, but there are other easy things we can do every day.

Re-use shopping bags. You can buy cloth shopping bags at almost any store these days. They are inexpensive and sturdy, and are usually very roomy. If you don’t want to invest in shopping bags, ask for paper bags. We don’t need more plastic polluting our oceans.

Replace the light bulbs in your home with fluorescent bulbs, and turn off lights when not in use. You’d be surprised how much power it takes to illuminate a standard incandescent bulb. Fluorescent bulbs are 4 to 6 times more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs.

Try not to buy bottled water. Are we really willing to pay a buck or more, for water? If you don’t like the taste of tap water, an inexpensive water filtration system on your kitchen faucet will produce better tasting water. Buy yourself a groovy water bottle to refill and keep with you. You will save yourself a lot of money!

Become a bento family. You don’t need plastic baggies and disposable containers to pack these eco-friendly lunches, and the very design encourages people to pack healthier, less processed foods. Which leads me to my next tip…

Stop buying processed foods. I know we’re all busy, but setting aside some time to make freezer meals or prepare snacks yourself is much better than buying sodium and high fructose corn syrup laden foods.

Buy from local farmers. There are so many benefits, I don’t know where to start. Local produce is fresh, often organic, and always more delicious. Local farmers and business owners are supported, and large gas-guzzling trucks have not had to crate the produce to stores.

Carpool. Carpool with co-workers, other parents, friends. You’ll all save money on gas, and fewer carbon emissions are always a good thing.

Walk or ride bikes. Obviously, the added bonus here is the physical exercise for your family.

Participate in or organize clothing swaps. We all know how fast our kids outgrow their clothes, and we spend a lot of money on new clothes for them. Some PTO parents and churches have been known to organize clothing swaps. Meaning, people bring clothes to donate, and they take what they need. This is an excellent way to reduce consumption of resources, and save us a TON of money!

Turn off the water while brushing your teeth.

Turn off computers when not is use or at night. Don’t just sleep or hibernate them.

Reuse gift bags and gift wrap. A friend of mine and I made an agreement years ago that we would not write on the tags on gift bags when we gave each other gifts, that way we can reuse the perfectly pristine gift bags.

Turn down the thermostat, especially at night. Just turning it down a degree or two will show savings on your heating bill.

Install weather stripping around doors and windows.

Hang clothing to dry, or remove clothes from the dryer before they are completely dry. A clothes dryer is typically the second-biggest electricity-using appliance after the refrigerator, costing about $85 to operate annually. That’s why you won’t see an Energy Star sticker on a clothes dryer anytime soon.

Don’t rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Scrape them, but let your dishwasher do the work.

Take showers, not baths. Believe it or not, you save a lot of water. If you can stand turning off the water while you soap up and scrub, even better.

Don’t use spray air fresheners. Use natural things to freshen your home.

Visit the local library instead of buying books. Unless your child has a favorite book he or she will read again and again, just borrowing books from the library actually promotes reading because there are new and exciting books to read on a regular basis. Added bonus, it’s free!

Buy rechargeable batteries. …

How to Make Sure Your Online Shopping and Selling Arrives on Time

Many people now buy a lot of products online, whether is a music CD or a DVD or even clothing and our weekly food shopping, there are many items available to buy online and quite a lot of the time it can be cheaper as well as more convenient. A growing number of people are indulging their entrepreneurial spirit and actually selling items online, whether this is unwanted possessions on eBay or actually starting home businesses where you can sell your own products online.

A large part of making sure that any buying or selling online goes smoothly is that the product gets sent via a reliable delivery service to ensure that it arrives quickly to prevent buyers getting angry or frustrated that their order has been delayed. Many people will buy items online that are gifts for friends and family, many eBay buyers may claim this when they find their parcel has been delivered later than expected and whilst it could be a rather flimsy argument, the idea behind it that by sending something late you could have let your customer down is something a lot of home businesses and individuals that don’t have huge customer service departments like major companies should be concerned about.

Sending your parcels by a courier instead can instil some confidence in the buyer so that they are assured that by ordering from you they are going to get the best deal and a quick delivery that many people will be looking specifically for. Couriers used to be the kind of option only large businesses or people looking to ship large quantities would use but these days as the rise of home based businesses and similar ventures they have made their prices much more affordable to even regular individuals only needing to send one parcel securely.

With couriers you can get the benefits of a much less cluttered mail system so your parcel won’t be sat under a pile of other mail items but also they typically offer a much more detailed tracking system so you can keep a close eye on exactly where your parcel is and when you can expect to see it arrive. Couriers will also make extra attempts to deliver items such as leaving a card for rearranging a delivery or informing you that the parcel has been left with a neighbour or stored in the garage or any other secure area.

When it’s your bunnies and reputation on the line you should make sure that when you send a parcel, you send it securely with the help of an experienced parcel courier.…