I was at Saks this weekend looking to pick up a few beauty items, among which fragrance was not on the list. So of course, when I walk in, there is a sales woman standing very unavoidably at the front the store wielding a bottle of perfume.

Oh no, I thought.

Then I took one whiff, and nearly swooned. In a good way.

The new Chloe fragrance is absolutely gorgeous. I’m not a huge perfume kind of girl, but I am in love with this one. Words that come to mind are sophisticated, clean, floral, feminine, pretty. And when I say feminine, it doesn’t skew too girly, nor does it skew too seductress either. It’s a beautiful scent — gentle yet confident. Bonus points for that beautiful bottle with the flesh-colored ribbon.

The fragrance is centered around the rose, but with a modern twist as it features some green, airy notes to it. Base notes are amber, honey and cedarwood.

This is an exclusive to Saks. Prices start at $85 for a 1.7oz bottle. Very expensive, but I’m seriously considering a purchase (if I can sneak it past my husband…hehehe).

Now here’s a Valentine’s Day treat to get excited about! All of this is yours free with a minimum $28.50 purchase at the Macy’s Lancome counter.

I’m a big believer in only buying makeup counter products (i.e. Estee Lauder, Clinique, Lancome, etc.) when there is a free gift involved. After all, the cost of those free gifts are probably being billed into the regular products that you’re buying, so why not get what you’re paying for?

The gift items are a collection of Lancome’s best sellers: Tresor perfume, Definicils mascara, Bi-Facil, Renergie Microlift R.A.R.E. face and eye cream, Color Design eye shadow quad and lipstick.

The Definicils mascara is definitely a reason to get this set. I’ve yet to find such a good all-around mascara (and trust me, I’ve been trying).

The Bi-Facil, on the other hand, seems to have lots of devoted fans, but I don’t get the hype. It’s a little too oily for my taste. I’d much prefer to go with The Body Shop on eye makeup remover.

Offer ends February 24.  Happy Valentine’s Day my lovelies!

Saturdays are usually the day that I take our shih-tzu mix, Oscar, to the dog park. Inevitably, I return with paw-stained clothes, muddied shoes and wind-rumpled hair.

Imagine my delight when I came home this past Saturday and opened my mailbox to find a bottle of Nanette Lepore’s eponymous fragrance waiting for me. I have no idea how the ladies at Nanette got my address, but nonetheless, I’m glad they found me!

The fragrance is exactly what a Nanette girl would smell like — girly and fun. There’s a strong scent of fruit — Magenta Nectar, White Peach and White Cranberry — that add spark and vivaciousness to the perfume. Moonstone Rose and Violette Petals add a feminine touch, while Amber and Indian Sandalwood give it depth.

Overall the fragrance is the perfect companion to Nanette Lepore clothes — full of life and very girly, but without the wispiness.

Ok, I am just a smidgy smidgy embarrassed to be saying this here but here goes anyway: Celine Dion’s new fragrance Enchanting is actually really really great.

There, I said it.

I’ve been using the Shower Gel for a while, and must say that I am quite enamoured with the fragrance, which is described as floriental (that’s a new one - gotta remember that one). It features notes of osmanthus, cyclamen, ripe red berries, diamond orchid, gardenia, freesia and mimosa along with exotic base notes of sandalwood, amber and tonka. Another way to put it? The fragrance is mostly nice, with just a sprinkle of naughty to it. Yowzers!

And as for the performance of the shower gel, it’s actually among the best that I’ve tried. You know how with some shower gels, you put it on your bath pouf and by the time you’ve worked your way down to your legs, the lather has totally pooped out on you? Well, the lather on this one just keeps going and going. Gotta love that!

Celine Dion’s Enchanting is available at JC Penny, Sears, Ulta and Kohls. Go check it out and tell me what you think, ok?

I don’t know about you, but it’s unlikely that I will ever be able to summer in the Hamptons. However, I can get pretty darn close with the new signature fragrance by Hampton Sun: Privet Bloom.

Hampton Sun is known for its luxury sun and skin care products, which is quite appropriate and practical given the locale. The range was inspired by the beautiful beaches of Eastern Long Island, and the new perfume is no exception.

Privet Bloom features the aroma of privet hedges, which are synonymous with the Hamptons, along with pretty notes of muguet, jasmine, linden blossom, gardenia, orangeflower and dune rose. Driftwood and musk make up the bottom notes.

Translation: you’ve got one beautiful scent. It’s clean, fresh, open and classy, which is how I imagine the Hamptons to be. And imagine is all I can do for now until I win it big on my next scratch-and-sniff. Sigh.

So tell me: what fragrances will you be wearing this summer?

This is pretty much illustrated by the fact that I bypassed the many other perfume samples in Glamour in favor of the Guerlain Insolence ad which I spotted in Allure. But you have to admit that it’s hard to take your eyes off of Hilary Swank’s long, gorgeous locks swirling about in the ad. (Love the wind machine!!)

This seems to be the most inappropriately titled perfume as the scent smelled to me like a rich and complex baby powder. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really digging the fragrance. But it’s about as insolent-smelling as an Olsen tween film.

Call me thick when it comes to the olfactory department, but Wonderful Indulgence smells a whole heck of a lot like Curious by Britney Spears. Their fragrances both contain the base of white flowers. However, when it comes to branding and imaging as a deciding factor between the two perfumes, I think I’ll have to go with Miss Judd (sorry Brit).

Seeing as this week’s beauty series is to test out all of the perfume samples in October’s issue of Glamour, I had to go there.

I really, really didn’t want to like it, but in fact, it sort of ended up winning me over. It wasn’t a mature or complex fragrance, but it was fun and innocuous, sort of like Ms. Spears’ music.

The scent is “an exhilarating white floral accented with Louisiana Magnolia and wrapped in the sensuality of vanilla-infused musk.”

To translate this out of marketing-speak for you, what it really smells like is perfume for curly-haired girls named Candace who wear mall clothes and love hair spray, the beach and medium-sized dogs.

So I want to tell you about this great amber-scented loofah soap from Sabon NYC that I’ve been using this past week. I chose this particular fragrance after Blogdorf Goodman asked me if I had any amber-scented recommendations for her, and I came up with nada. Well now I have one!

It’s a glycerine soap, which I’m not normally keen on, but really worked for me in this instance. I’ve also never used a loofah soap, but I like the idea of hiding things in your soap - like finding a prize in your cereal box.

This is great for exfoliating and smoothing your feet as you wash. But other than your feet, I don’t recommend rubbing the bar directly on your body. I found it too rough and abrasive…that is, unless you have some serious alligator skin. Still, I loved the scent and am now a big fan.

Which brings me to my fun fact of the day. I started wondering, “where does the scent of amber come from?” When I think of amber, I think of Jurassic Park with the rocks and the mosquitoes (you know what I’m talking about), but I couldn’t figure out how they could possibly eke any oil/fragrance out of that.

So then I asked my friends at Makeup Alley and was led to this website:

Yummy, huh? The good news is that amber oils are not commonly created from ambergris anymore since the sperm whale is now an endangered species. Still, after all of that investigation, I decided that there are times when ignorance truly is the better state of being.

I’m not a huge perfume fan as I prefer to scent myself with body lotions since it’s a goofproof way of making yourself smell nice. I had a traumatic experience in middle school where I doused myself in perfume thinking it was cool and people basically ran for their lives.

But seeing as the new issue of Glamour just hit my mailbox, and there are about six perfume samples in there, I figured, why not? It might be a good way for me to overcome some of those adolescent scars. Or something.

So first one I tried was Sarah Jessica Parker’s spinoff to her Lovely perfume: Liquid Satin. Love the ads - Ms. Parker looking luminous and radiant. But I was confused by the copy:

Liquid Satin Perfume Serum leaves a delicate baby soft finish that begs to be touched. A perfect scent accessory to backless, strapless and skin bearing fashion.

It starts off so well, and then it takes an uncomfortable turn towards the vaguely skank with that last sentence, doesn’t it? I get what they’re trying to say, but it didn’t really come out right.

The perfume smells pretty nice on the paper. Notes of mandarin, rosewood and apple martini. But then it had an epileptic seizure upon contact with my skin and mutated into old-lady perfume complete with moth balls. Not entirely bad because it reminds me of my grandma.