Monday, April 5, 2010
Julian Rouas Paris
Calvin Klein is a famous designer who has launched many clothing lines for men and women as well as fragrant lines including Calvin Klein Eternity perfume for women. The Calvin Klein Eternity perfume was launched in 1989 and remains an ever popular Calvin Klein perfume. With so many other options on the market for a buy is the Calvin Klein Eternity perfume a versatile fragrance for all women? Time to find out!
This Calvin Klein perfume comes in a plain off white box with Calvin Klein and Eternity in normal black text. The box of the Calvin Klein Eternity perfume is nothing really special compared to all the other scents on the market. The bottle of the Eternity perfume is square with a silver push down scent dispenser. Each dispense from the Calvin Klein perfume is perfect for those scent points on a lady. The bottle of the Eternity perfume is actually quite elegant. The glass of the Calvin Klein Eternity scent is very smooth and crystal like. The scent is a light gold-like color can be seen through the Eternity perfume bottle.
Sizes for the Calvin Klein Eternity perfume vary. The most popular size for the Eternity perfume is 3.4 fluid ounces. The Calvin Klein Eternity perfume also comes in 1.7 and 1.0 fluid ounces. Gift sets are also available for this Calvin Klein perfume and usually include the Eternity perfume, shower gel, and body lotion for women.
The scent of The Calvin Klein Eternity perfume is a fresh like scent. The Eternity perfume consists of refreshing spices, lavender, and amber. This Calvin Klein perfume also is infused with a blend of greens, crisp jasmine, basil, sage, and rosewood. Calvin Klein Eternity is a practical perfume for any women. The Eternity perfume is pretty versatile that it can be worn for day and night use. This Calvin Klein perfume is very mystique and not overbearing. The Eternity perfume does seem to be strong at first when putting it on; however, after an hour or so it wears off quickly with just a linger.
Calvin Klein Eternity can be found at most department stores such as: Wal-Mart, Macy's, The Bon-Ton, and numerous others. This Calvin Klein perfume is widely distributed. The Eternity perfume can also be found online at various vendors and on EBay. The cost of a 3.4 fluid ounce bottle of this Calvin Klein perfume varies amongst stores but runs roughly around $50.00.
I would recommend this Calvin Klein Eternity Perfume for those who shy away from floral scents. The scent of this Calvin Klein perfume aims more toward a shower fresh aroma then a girly-girl fragrance. The Eternity perfume is practical for everyday use for all women in all age groups.
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Julian Rouas Paris
I used to like Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen; that was until I saw their mugs pasted on the PETA website. Turns out the twins like fur... I like animals... so now, the girls suck. But hey, so does their perfume!!!
I have had 2 bottles of perfume by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen for quite some time now. One is labeled, coincidentally...One. The other is called Two. Today though, we're going to focus on One.
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, One, is actually made by Coty. A designer name that has been popping up a lot lately. I have mixed feelings when it comes to Coty fragrances. I don't love the designer fragrances, nor do I hate them.
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, One, has sad on my desk for nearly a year now. I got both from a friend for my birthday, and ever since first smelling them, I never really used it again.
Bottle:
One comes in a cylinder shaped bottle. The glass is clear with a very slight tint of blue added in. Running down the length of the bottle is the name of the perfume. There is nothing special about the bottle, nor would anyone want to save it once the perfume was gone.
Scent:
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, One, by Coty smells like blueberry mixed with hand soap. It is supposed to be a clean, fresh scent. However I got a soapy blueberry bubble gum scent. It's not really that natural, but it is a relatively playful scent.
I liked it. I really did. Even though the scent was not a natural one, or sophisticated one, it was still a pleasant one.
Last:
So I liked the scent... however there is no point in liking a scent that does not last for longer than 5 minutes. That was seriously all I got out of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, One, by Coty. The scent smelled lovely for 5 minutes, and then it vanished; up and disappeared... not a hint, not a trace...just gone.
Recommended Wear:
What wear? There is no wear to recommend wear.
Overall:
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, One, by Coty is a nice scent, it truly is. Sadly though, nice scents are 100% useless if they do not last. For me Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, One, is a waste of natural resources. It's sad that they would release such a suck-o-rama in a bottle.
Pricing and Availability:
You can still see this crummy stick of perfume in local stores such as Walmart, Kohl's and other department stores. The pricing is around $10.00 for the bottle. You can also buy them in gift sets, which would include both One, and Two.
Sadly though, I do not even find One, to be worth $1.00.
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, One, by Coty is a skip in my opinion. It just does not stick around long enough for me to go ahead and recommend it.
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Julian Rouas Paris
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab produces perfume oils unlike anything else on the market. Aiming for a "dark, romantic Gothic tone" the Alchemy Lab carries scents inspired by religions, literature, cities of the world, fairy tales and inside jokes. The general catalog contains hundreds of different perfumes, and limited edition scents are frequently provided. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is referred to as BPAL or the Lab by customers. These perfumes are unlike any other commercially produced scents.
The sheer volume can be overwhelming for a new customer. Fortunately BPAL offers Imp's Ears, samples of most general catalog scents. Samples are not available for limited editions and a few general catalog scents. Imps are standard 1/32oz perfume vials. They are $3 individually, and $16 for a half dozen. BPAL oils are packaged in small glass bottles with screw tops. These bottles are usually cobalt blue, though sometimes amber bottles are used. General catalog scents have simple black and white labels, but the limited edition labels are often elaborate and colorful. 5ml and 10ml bottles of scents cost from $12.50 to $25. Considering the perfume oil content of each blend is 85 to 100%, these prices make BPAL one of the most affordable perfume lines around. BPAL oils are 85 to 100% perfume oil, as compared to straight perfume (15-25%), eaudeparfum (8-15%) or eaude cologne (2-5%). No animal products are used in any BPAL fragrances. Elements such as civet are composites created from carefully mixed bouquets.
The general catalog is broken down into the following categories: Bewitching Brews, Funeral Oils, Dark Elements, Sin & Salvation, Love potions, Diabolus, Mad Tea Party, Illyria, Wanderlust, ArsDraconis, Rappaccini's Garden, The Salon, Excolo, Voodoo Blends, Tarot Oils, Sephiroth, The Chakras, Panacea, and Somnium. Some categories, such as the Tarot and Chakras are straightforward. ArsDraconis includes several scents using dragon's blood as a base. Illyria contains scents inspired by Shakespeare, and Mad Tea Party is a line influenced by Lewis Carroll's work. Wanderlust showcases perfumes named for cities and places both real and legendary. Many scents in the catalog are inspired by famous and obscure works of fiction or art. Dorian is a hugely popular scent named after Wilde's famous dandy. There's a scent named for Wilde as well. Many scents reference poetry, legends and religious myth. There are scents for gluttony, wrath, envy, sloth, greed, lust and pride in the Sin & Salvation category. It is often surprising to experience how well the perfumes suit their names and descriptions.
Limited edition scents are usually just placed in the Limited category. BPAL has a limited edition series titled "A Little Lunacy" that appears each month on the full moon. Lunacy scents are created around various names for full moons, such as Harvest Moon, Flower Moon, Snow Moon, Hungry Ghost Moon, and Honey Moon. Lunacy scents are only available for 24 hours on the day of the full moon. Other limited scents are often created for the season, such as the Halloween and Yule creations. Sometimes the Lab creates an entire line of limited edition scents available for a few months at a time. One of the first was Springtime in Arkham, a tribute to HP Lovecraft. The second was CarnavalNoir, an intriguing line of scents inspired by a suggestion regarding summer carnival food on the customer forum. one of BPAL's most popular scents ever was Midway, a sugary tribute to fried and sweet foods. Other limited edition lines A Demon in My View and Maelstrom. These limited edition lines allowed the Lab to create complex olfactory tributes to Edgar Allen Poe's short stories and poems.
An enormously popular limited edition offering was Chaos Theory. Each bottle of Chaos Theory was unique and untitled except for a roman numeral. Every single bottle was a different blend. The only rule to the edition was that there was no way to choose which bottle arrived. Chaos Theory was so popular it is now in its third round. in the third round, oils containing common allergens such as nuts were removed so that no bottles would cause any unexpected reactions.
Because scents are not transmitted through the internet, the BPAL customer forum is an essential tool for a shopper when selecting a scent. Most perfumes have a brief description o the major notes or inspiration for the oil. Because BPAL oils are mostly perfume oil and complex, they often react in different ways to the skin chemistry of different people. What smells like a bounty of lily and musk to one person may turn plastic and sour on another. The forum contains reviews written by customers about the oils. It is an excellent resource to use while learning which scents work best with one's personal preferences and body chemistry. Customers of the Lab learn to train a discriminating nose, and many reviews are elaborate affairs with complex analysis of the stages of the perfumes.
When BPAL scents don't work out, there is a lively secondhand market for imps and bottles. The customer forum has a subsection devoted to swapping and selling scents that just didn't work out. this softens the blow for any customer disappointed with their purchase, as it is quite easy to trade and sell on the forum. Moderators make an effort to address any issues with members who don't follow through with swaps, a practice known as "swap-lifting." There are also limits on the forum to prevent the prices of discontinued oils from spiking too high. eBay is another source for secondhand BPAL scents, with more freedom for pricing. However bidding wars for discontinued or limited edition scents can push the price up dramatically.
The Black Phoenix Trading Post (BPTP) is also affiliated with the Lab. Here one finds shirts, scent lockets and statues inspired by and for BPAL. Each month the Trading Post offers a shirt to correspond with the Lunacy update. Unlike the Lunacy blends, BPTP shirts usually stay up for sale for one week. There are several regular catalog shirts, as well as several heavy silver scent lockets designed by the Lab. BPTP plans to continue expanding their offerings over the coming year. Orders for BPTP products cannot be combined with orders from BPAL because they are separate entities.
BPAL is a small business, and has experienced a number of growing pains over the past few years. The wait time for shipments climbed dramatically, sometimes topping out at six to eight weeks. In 2006, shipping times have shortened and are now only a few weeks. On the customer forum, one of the most heavily trafficked threads chronicles the shipping notices received by customers. The Lab prides itself on excellent customer service and works quickly correct any problems. Because they are a small business, Lab staff have an unusually personal and friendly relationship with large chunks of their fan base. Lab staff are frequent contributors to the customer forum. Some offhand jokes in the forum have mushroomed into inspiration for BPAL blends, most notably the CarnavalNoir line in 2005, and the limited edition Enraged Orangutan Musk.
For scents to compliment lifestyles from the gothic to the geeky, the Black Phoenix Alchemy lab supplies quality perfumes. Few other companies can provide such nuanced and beautiful creations for such an inexpensive price. With a reasonable price for samples and an active secondhand market, it is easy to become hooked on BPAL oils.
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Today, it seems every celebrity has a perfume scent with their name attached to it. From Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely, to Britney Spears' and Beyonce Knowles' lines of fragrance to the classics of Chanel and Dior, there are hundreds of bottles to choose from. But how do you find the right one?
First answer, of course, is ignore the brand name or label. Just because Jennifer Lopez says you won't end up smelling like a skunk doesn't mean you won't. Choose a smell based on how it smells on your skin, and your personal tastes.
There are several basic themes which perfume manufacturers stick to: Chypre, citrus, floral, and ambers. Chypre scents have a woody, mossy, floral base to them. Citrus scents incorporate orange, lemon, tangerine, and grapefruit, much like Calvin Kline's CK One. Floral smells just as it sounds, like flowers. An example of a floral scent would be Chance by Chanel. Ambers have a delightful mix of musk, vanilla, spice, and animal scents, such as Obsession.
Once you've decided on a category of perfume to try, go to your nearest perfume counter. Try a few scents out on paper before deciding on one to put to the test. Apply to the back of your hand, and then wait an hour. If you do apply the perfume to your wrist, avoid rubbing your wrists together. This can crush the delicate buds of scent and distort the sampling. It isn't how a perfume smells in the bottle or immediately after application, it's how it reacts with your skin chemistry much later that can make or break a scent as one for you.
The reason behind this is perfumes have four layers. The first layer, or top note, is the first scent you get after applying the perfume. It's the most noticeable, but is also the one the fades the quickest. The next layer, or middle note, is the next apparent component to the perfume. It appears several minutes after applying the perfume, and can stay up to an hour before disappearing. The third layer, or base note, appears usually after a half hour and is the layer that stays on your skin throughout the day. And the final layer is one most overlook, the natural scent of your skin. Just like everyone's DNA is different, everyone has a unique skin chemistry that can affect the outcome of a perfume.
Keep this guide in mind next time you are perfume shopping, and you are sure to find a scent that's right for you!
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Julian Rouas Paris
While many women love perfume and may even have their own signature scent, the cost of purchasing a bottle can be prohibitively expensive. Why spend $50 or more on a tiny eau de toilette when you can make a completely unique scent of your own for a fraction of the cost? Save money and make a truly original creation with just a few simple steps.
The Basics
According to the Natural Holistic Health Blog, a basic perfume formula contains 15 to 30 percent essential oils, 70 to 80 percent pure grain alcohol (vodka being recommended, as it doesn't have any additional odors or colors), and 5 percent distilled water. Adding a bit of glycerine at the end of the process is also recommended, as it will help to "fix" your perfume and keep the scent from disappearing into the air or escaping the bottle. Both glycerine and essential oils are easy to find at health food stores or even craft supply shops. Pick the kind of scents you like, when choosing essential oils, and remember that you can choose to mix and match them in order to create the perfect scent.
Necessary Supplies
Along with your basic perfume ingredients, you will also want to gather together the following items before you get started: a glass mixing jar, dedicated measuring cups and spoons, an eyedropper, a funnel and aperfume bottles or other small containers in which you can store your final product.
Method
Instructables.com offers step-by-step instructions on how to make your perfume at home. The basic procedure is as follows:
1. Measure 1/4 cup of vodka into your mixing jar.
2. Add about 25 drops of your essential oils, making sure to keep track of how many drops you've added if you are mixing scents. It may help to keep a tally on a sheet of paper, as you should add drops, swirl the mixture, and then smell as you go to make sure you don't make an overpowering scent.
3. When you've got your desired scent, seal up the mixing jar and put it into a cool, dark spot to age for at least 48 hours. The longer you age the perfume, the stronger it will become, so feel free to sniff and add more oils after the first 48 hours has passed.
4. After you've aged the perfume, add 2 tablespoons of distilled water. For spray perfumes, add a bit more water. Now is also the time to add about 5 drops of glycerine to fix the fragrance.
5. Finally, use the funnel to pour your perfume into its bottle and apply a label with the name of your new creation. You may also want to add the date so you'll know how long your perfume lasts, and when it's time to make some more!
Additional Recipes
There are lots of basic recipes on-line for perfumes, if you're not interested in tinkering with smells at first and just want to get started. Check out PioneerThinking.com for recipes with exotic names like Orient Nights, Whispering Rain, Falling Stars, Enchanted, Amaze, and Misty Passions. They've also got recipes for cologne, for the men in your life, including something called the Homemade Love Tonic!
Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy is all about using scents to change your mood, so you might be interested in reading up on this topic before you begin. For a crash course in aromatherapy, check out Aromaweb.com, where you can read up on a variety of different kinds of essential oil profiles and find out how a particular scent can contribute to your overall well-being. An article from HowToDoThings.com on making perfume suggests a few quick fixes, including the following: "Jasmine and lavender can calm the anxious and aid in sleeping, orange and ylang ylang can ease anger, and sandalwood and grapefruit can fight fear. Need a boost of confidence? Try cypress or rosemary. Frankincense, rose, and bergamot can help relieve depression and grief. To increase memory powers, try black pepper and peppermint."
Notes
Finally, if you really want to get technical with your home perfume making, you should learn about notes. These are the order in which certain scents appear in a given fragrance, where the top note is the initial scent, the middle note is what you'll smell after the top note has dissolved into the air, and the base note is what lingers at the end. The Instructables directions on how to make perfume give a quick primer regarding what kinds of scents generally fall into each category, and suggest that when mixing your own perfume, you should built from the base notes up.
Typical base notes include heavy smells like patchouli, vetiver, frankincense, cedarwood and sandalwood. Middle notes are slightly less heavy, and include coriander, palmarosa, marjoram, basil, rosemary, rose geranium, pettitgrain and lavender. Top notes usually include lighter scents like lemon, orange, grapefruit, lime, bergamot, spearmint and peppermint.
Recreating Brand-Name Perfumes
Though brand-name perfumes are usually carefully guarded trade secrets, there is a website that can help you out if you're looking to re-create your favorite perfume at home. It's called the Basenotes Fragrance Directory, and although it only offers rough approximations, it can point you in the right direction by breaking down the list of scents that make up each of the notes found in your favorite department store perfumes. You may not be able to find all of the ingredients, however, as this is what you're spending the big bucks for! As one example: Calvin Klein's Obsession uses middle notes of tagete, which comes from marigold flowers, and armoise, which is actually an oral toxin and must be used very sparingly. Since these items are not likely to be readily available in your local health food store, you may want to weigh the pros and cons of creating your own fragrances versus shelling out the money for your favorite store-bought scents.
Sources
-ChrysN, "How to Make Perfume." Instructables.com.
-Melissa Trulock, "How to Make Perfume." HowToDoThings.com.
-"Perfume and Cologne Recipes - Women." PioneerThinking.com.
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Saturday, April 3, 2010
JULIAN ROUAS PARIS
Many people find a perfume they love and use it for years. While there is certainly nothing wrong with this approach, one can run the risk of becoming so accustomed to the perfume that it is easy to become immune to the scent and over use it. All of us know the woman who practically knocks you over with her perfume and none of us want to be that woman! To create a unique touch acquiring a fragrance wardrobe is highly recommended. Just as jewelry or shoes can add a distinctive touch to your outfits, perfume has the power to do the same. You wouldn't wear the same thing to a formal dinner as you would to a sporting event so it certainly makes sense that the perfume you choose should vary according to place and time.
To understand how to choose the perfect perfume for the right occasion you need to understand the perfume categories. Perfume categories are growing by the day and they can and do sometimes overlap. Due to the rapidly growing popularity of niche perfumes and the advances in scientific research new and unique scent categories are created every day.
The Fragrance Foundation is the authority on all things perfume and their fragrance categories are as follows: (from the Fragrance Foundation website www.fragrance.org). These descriptions are listed on the first page of their excellent site filled with fantastic fragrance information.
Citrus
The light, fresh character of citrus notes (bergamot, orange, lemon, petitgrain, mandarin, etc.) is often combined with more feminine scents (flowers, fruits and chypre).
Green
Green notes are natural in character; often married with fruity and floral notes, they are modern and fashionable.
Flowery
An accord of different floral notes. Combines with any other family, flowery perfumes are universally commercial.
Flowery Aldehydic
Aldehydes add sparkle to flowery notes. Aldehydic creations radiate elegance and originality.
Single Floral
A composition based on the scent of one particular flower; the main examples are rose, jasmine, tuberose, lily of the valley or ylang.
Oriental
A blend of warmth and mystery. Musks and precious woods are complemented by exotic essences.
Semi-Oriental
Semi-orientals combine oriental notes with various florals. Top notes are often fresh.
Chypre
Based on a woody, mossy and flowery complex, sometimes with aspects of leather or fruits, chypre perfumes are rich and tenacious.
(From www.fragrance.org)
There are other categories, however, understanding these will help you to determine how to match your perfume to the occasion. Perfume websites also frequently describe scents by categories. The Luckyscent and Sephora websites both feature very helpful sections that will help you to choose a perfume by its fragrance family.
There are perfume classics and disasters in each of the categories. The informative book Perfume The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez is a wonderful resource that rates perfumes and can be an invaluable resource to help you avoid the disasters and discover the greats in each category.
Citrus and green scents are often good choices for the work place. Citrus fragrances are fresh and light and green fragrances can be warm and natural and convey sophistication.
Flowery, single note florals and flowery aldehydics are good choices for that all important first date or elegant sophisticated gatherings. Consider a perfume from this category if you want to stay within a more conventional fragrance family.
Chypre scents, popular in the thirties, are making a comeback in a big way. These fragrances are statement making and generally you will either love them or absolutely hate them. They convey an evocative and rich presence and the best are well balanced and beautiful. This category is a great choice when you want to distinguish yourself with a unique perfume.
Orientals. These are excellent choices for that special evening or when you want to add mystery and sex appeal to that little black dress. They are generally heavy and have a very strong presence so wearing them in the office may not be the best idea.
There are thousands of perfumes available and just a spray will help to create a mood make a memory or mark a special occasion. Don't limit yourself to just one...enjoy the possibilities!
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Friday, April 2, 2010
Julian Rouas Paris is great
Perfume is one of those films I desperately wanted to work, but ultimately, no matter how I tried to fit its pieces together in my head could not make a coherent peace with.
Perfume is the story of a boy, Jean-Baptiste, who is born with an extraordinary sense of smell. Desperately wanting to preserve the smell of a girl he has accidentally murdered, he endeavors to become a perfumer and embarks on a series of murders to create a perfect and powerful perfume made from the scents of 13 girls (3 chords of 4 scent notes, plus a thirteenth, the magical one to bind them all together).
Jean-Baptiste's story is a compelling one, thanks largely to the strange, scuttling and nearly mute performance of Ben Whishaw who manages to make Jean-Baptiste both an innocent and a dangerous obsessive. Without such fine work from Whishaw, Perfume may well have been unwatchable in its many distracting and contradictory flaws.
Among Perfume's many problems is its inability to settle on a tone. Is this a dark fairytale? Is it magical realism? Is it a cautionary tale? Historical drama or romance? Quick cuts to various scenes of odiferous grotesquerie and an excellent voiceover open Perfume, and it seems, at first that we're bound for something very serious that's fully willing to embrace the discomfort of discussing smell, both good and bad. This promising, if difficult, opening is soon utterly pushed a side by an intolerable performance by Dustin Hoffman as an Italian perfumer. His accent isn't just terrible, but inconsistent and his mannerism absurd. Is it bad acting or bad directing? It's unclear, but it's the first of Perfume's massive and poorly handled tonal shifts.
Other problems, that might be less noticeable to a less punctilious film-goer, include the accidental strangulation of Jean-Baptiste's first victim (death by suffocation isn't that quick or that not noticeable), massive anachronisms in costumes and custom, and poor science on the subject of perfuming itself. And with the exception of costuming, these are not subjects on which I hold significant knowledge, but any thinking person in pondering how they are presented has to go "but that makes no sense!"
When Alan Rickman shows up in the second half of Perfume, it's a disappointment. The character (the father of the victim Jean-Baptiste wants most, because she visually resembles that first girl he killed -- how are looks and scent possibly related?) is underwritten and Rickman is clearly just there to do what he does so inimitably, that is talk very slowly in a very menacing way about the terrible things he's going to do to someone. It's as effective as ever, but it's a waste of an acting talent.
Perfume ends as it begins at the scene of Jean-Baptiste's execution for his crimes. And execution which, with the power of his perfume goes far differently than expected. Here Perfume had a real chance to make a statement, be uplifting or condemning or even bring in a hint of the supernatural (which is the only thing that would explain certain other facts we get in the course of the film, but I don't think there's supposed to be a supernatural element to the story, I think those are just mistakes). Alas though, we get a big dose of anachronistic heightened reality and our drama is transformed once again, this time into an absurdist fairytale for adults, that is not so enticing as it should be (I must also note irritably that when the most powerful aphrodisiac in the world is unleashed apparently the world is populated merely with heterosexual couples and lesbians. It's a little quibble, but exactly the sort of little quibble that run rampant all over this film).
Sadly, it is also at this point that the voiceover, so effective in other parts of Perfume, lets us down, by implying that Jean-Baptiste has acquired a worldliness on his journeys, but there is no evidence of that in what we have just seen and it weakens those parts of the film that do succeed in catching our attention and even charming us.
Perfume is interesting and may be worth renting for those with particular interest in the story or the struggle to tell stories of this nature, but prepare to be disappointed.
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