Good Day Good Friends! Are you staying inspired?

I love thrift stores, antique malls, secondhand places! Always have.

During the pandemic, I didn’t visit any of the secondhand stores I love. I really missed that. I’m eager (after my busy summer ahead) to be able to browse them again. For me, it’s not about shopping. It’s about finding a special or useful find that will bring joy to my life.

In any case, there is a local consignment shop that more recently, every time I walked by, was closed. Only, there was a leather purse in the window that I just felt was meant to be mine.

At length, after seeing it again and again in the window of this closed shop, I finally found the store open one day and promptly purchased the purse. Great price, and I was really happy.

Only, after getting it home, my house began to smell like strong perfume (understatement). Those of you who read this blog know that I am VERY allergic to perfume. I didn’t notice while carrying the purse home on a walk out-of-doors. But now, I got close to the purse and YIKES! It was as though it had been soaked in strong perfume. I now have to believe that it was sprayed inside, intentionally. This wasn’t a little surface fragrance. It was in the leather.

This was really upsetting to me. I’d pined for that purse for a long time but now it seemed I would have to promptly remove it from my house.

All of this to say, I looked up ways to remove perfume from leather online. And I, after weeks, have almost achieved the goal of removing much of the perfume from the bag. It has required wiping down, filling with baking soda, filling with newspaper, airing in the window, repeatedly. It’s been a chore.

The winner? Newspaper, I think. It seems to take in the perfume. You pull out the newspaper and it is scented. You throw it away, and do it again as needed.

Perfume and I are mortal enemies. But I really wanted to give my new secondhand purse a chance and I’m glad that I made that effort. It’s not there yet, but it’s come a long way. Enough that I can carry the purse around. It is at present however, taking another round of newspaper!

Sometimes there are hard cases in life. But when you love something enough, the extra effort is worth it.

Stay Inspired.