Perfume / Cologne

now it just seems nicely balanced. i don't know if this acts weird on my skin or my nose is just settling down and getting used to it. sorry about all the fuss.

not smelled before but a friend said it was mindblowing

acquisitions so far:

versace dreamer, blue jeans
lolita lempicka au masculin
bvlgari black, aqva marine
d&g the one
narsico rodriguez bleu noir
rochas man
hugo man
armaf tres nuit, club de nuit intense
grey flannel
lalique encre noire
azzaro pour homme
armani pour homme and drakkar noir minis, and claiborne for men, for nostalgic smelling

the hugo man is pretty synthetic and mall-generic but i got it because it seemed pretty 90s-ish and i'm ret-conning my past. i figure i would have had this in 1995 or so if i were buying colognes then. i was taking a drawing class at community college at the time time and someone was playing "you oughta know" on a tape deck and someone walking by stuck and his head in the door and asked who that was because it just seemed so now and hugo man fits in there somewhere. we were doing gestural figure drawings with charcoal sticks and a girl liked mine so i sold it to her for fifty cents. d&g the one was at tj maxx so i just got it; it's ok but i figure i need something that's popular today instead of waiting 10 years and getting it as something emblematic of that era, which is now. the dreamer is what i assume leonardo's romeo was wearing while skulking around verona's cafes scribbling poetic vignettes and romantic idylls in his moleskin, mooning over claire's juliet as his hair flopped around insouciantly while everyone else was off doing violence. it's pretty good; it's a dirty, smoky le male for people who are afraid of le male. the armafs are clones of creed's green irish tweed and aventus for way less because i don't need to spend that much on what i can't tell the difference. rochas man is a good gourmandy espresso. grey flannel is grey flannel.

i want guerlain homme but that can wait until next year. it's a pretty basic summer scent but i like it just fine. the lime, mint, rum (mojito) and vetiver notes just seem really natural and uncomplicated. i don't know what else is good for summer or i'd get that. all the other fresh summery scents, the versace man au fraiche, d&g light blue, azzaro chrome, montblanc legend, etc. that i smelled seem interchangeable but maybe that's just me. l'instant de guerlain is supposed to be a modern classic but i can't really get a handle on it yet.

prada amber, it's really clean and elusive and zen-like. it barely smells like a fragrance but it feels like it's knocking all the kinks out of my chakras at the same time. i should get this.

i'm also gonna get:

narciso rodriguez for him. strong violet leaf note like fahrenheit, which i also want, but rainy and moody, instead of a kerosene fire accord. i'd forgotten about fahrenheit but it's the really the apex of human achievement. i have a hard time not drinking it straight out of the sample vial. gucci pour homme ii has that same note but i'm already getting the other two.

hermes terre d'hermes, un jardin sur le nil, and concentre d'orange verte, why not. i know i like them already, but they're more pricey. also want to sample rocabar, equipage, and bel ami.

i keep sniffing the empty vial of habit rouge. if i were david niven, sporting a velvet smoking jacket and glancing up from a leather-bound tome to address a bbc audience who just popped in via the telly to hear a narrative on the crimean war i'd be all over it but i can't pull that off.

i'd also like a bespoke fragrance series based on and titled after popular music selections, specifically in between days, strangelove, silent morning, her head's revolving, cities in dust, green eyes, lake of fire, and blister in the sun if anyone wants to get on that.

my friend joe would actually probably be up for that

i don't know you'd translate subjective sonic perceptions into subjective olfactory perceptions, but i figure out of the tens of thousands of perfumes out there, one of them best matches the impression new order's ceremony leaves on me, for example. it's likely different for someone else but that's an interesting question for a nose, how closely can the feel of a fragrance be matched up to the feel of a song, even if that experience is unique to him or her.

true faith, if you could just bottle true faith i'd be all set. my life depends on the morning sun. i need that inner sensation externalized, bottled. how soon is now? is also a song i need to smell.

i don't feel like 80s fragrances i know match the perceptions i have of 80s culture: bright, shiny, immediate, corrosively seductive, NOW! krugerian/ haringesque/ nagalesiac/ lynchific pop offerings in music, film, graphic design, and fashion, but the fragrances seem like they kept to a narrow leathery, fougery tangential corridor left over from god's own whenever until joop! homme and fahrenheit arrived at the very end of the decade, and those only posthumously capture the pop! zeitgeist. you get these words wrong. armani pour homme at least feels like bryan ferry in mood and texture, louche and elegantly disheveled, everyone has left the piano bar save the two chic personages exchanging wry repartee at the end of the night, tuxedo and unbound tie and rumpled satin dress, and they're totally gonna go home together and do sex things, except this is only a vague memory of what you once felt was once possible. you can't wear armani pour homme anymore; you're too grown up to dream. slave to love reference.

the contemporary grey flannel i have is so wrong. bitter herbal, green, soapy, with a mild violet note coming in during the heart note section. very pleasant and calming, a true classic fragrance that stands the test of time, once the difficult opening is past. except wrong, the grey flannel i had eons ago was a leathery, oily, floral, sensory blitzkrieg that radiated iridescent purple and stayed that way. i'm gonna get some oakmoss absolute and add a few drops to my bottle because that's supposedly the difference due to ifra restrictions. i'm not some weirdo nostlagieste who thinks old things are inherently better but there's a marked difference and it's not as good.

slugbuggy, have you ever tried Égoïste by Chanel? It came out in 1990 and I remember sniffing it at the time thinking it was the loveliest scent out there. Powdery and subtle, as I remember it. Apparently it flopped in the US and hasn't been sold here in years but still is in Europe. Maybe price was an issue - it cost about twice as much as a Guerlain, iirc. It's the favorite scent of its creator, Jacques Polge, who has created quite a number of fragrances going back to 1970.

I recently scored some online just to see if it smelled as great as my memory… and was kind of surprised by the strength and intrusiveness of it. Maybe best in small applications. Still stands out quite a bit from what you would normally smell nowadays.

*opening a french door* EGOISTE!!!

got a bottle of yatagan off amazon, kinda reminds me of the fougeres my dad would wear in the early 90s. not sure what the connection is... artemisia? it's also really spicy and woody. today's weather is chilly and wet and i notice the oakmoss notes for the first time and can't stop smelling my wrist

i've been wanting to try egoiste but it's not in stores and the sample sites i use don't have it either. from what i read the current formulation doesn't get as much love from people who had the original; at least the opening is supposed to be harsher but i gather that overall it's still pretty good. either way i'll feel like i missed out if i don't get a hold of a sample.

yatagan has a castoreum note so maybe there's some similarity to kouros?

my dad wore stuff like drakkar noir and joop! -- don't think he was fancy enough for ysl. kouros is on my wishlist though.

have you checked out luckyscent? i'm planning to get a bunch of samples from there since a friend rec'd it

i've browsed luckyscent but so far i've only used myperfumesamples since it's pretty inexpensive but limited to designer and theperfumedcourt for higher-end and it also offers different sizes compared to luckyscent. for full bottles i've only bought from fragrancex (i usually get stuff in two days) but i also check fragrancenet since prices vary and sometimes one will have a better deal than the other. there are other online discounters but so far i think i'm doing ok. luckyscent has full bottles of niche that i can't get from the others but they don't seem to discount.

i got my oakmoss absolute and put two small dollops of the resin into the 8 oz. splash bottle of grey flannel. there's a marked difference: the bitter green herbal galbanum note off the top of the current formulation is still present but pushed back into a supporting role. the problem i had with my current bottle was that one day the herbal note predominated and the next the floral or soapy notes stood out, but after i messed with it it seems pretty consistent so far. i think oakmoss is like a rug that ties the whole room together. i may have dampened the floral notes a bit in the process but this seems a lot closer to the vintage mini (90s pre-oakmoss ban) i have in texture and style if not exact smell. i'll let it settle a bit more and i don't want to futz with it too much but i might get some violet essential oil and add a bit to bring that note up. i've also added a touch of oakmoss to my screw-off top bottle of azzaro pour homme to see what that does.

nb i'm still a novice at this. mostly i can't pick out individual notes unless i see the note breakdown on fragrantica and then i go back and correlate what i'm smelling to what's supposed to be in there. like i thought d&g the one's sweetness derived from vanilla until i read it has a predominant amber note; maybe the inkyness of encre noire is the cypress? some people are really good at this stuff.

tbh i don't know what the grey flannel mania is about but if the past keeps changing i don't know how the present isn't wildly oscillating.

i think what i meant by that last post was that perfumery is a weird area of interest since you always have a shifting frame of reference temporally. if fragrances keep getting reformulated until they're barely the same thing anymore you don't have a stable baseline for comparisons. plus, given the "smell is the most powerful memory trigger" thing, if you change the smell you're getting a wonky signal and not getting full access to the memory bank. unless you want to pay $225 plus shipping for a vintage bottle off ebay. it's like if your mom photo-shopped your high school graduation picture every year to keep the hairstyle up to date.

like whenever i mention polo green to a sales rep as something that was really popular in the 80s they always wrinkle their noses and declare how awful it is. that kinda makes me a bit upset, not because they dislike the styles of my era, but because they've never truly smelled polo and don't know how gloriously awful it once was in all its disgraceful glory. it was truly glorious, that disgracefulness. i wore it all the time anyway.

also, clouds, have you smelled lapidus pour homme? it's from 1987 but to me smells even older, like from the deep polyester afternoon delight 70s. there's something really weird and dated about it in the opening, but at the same time i can't qualify why i feel that way since it doesn't smell like anything else from that era that i'm aware of. it's an oriental, it has rose, tobacco, honey, incense, pineapple, and some other random stuff in the notes. it think the clash of the sweet, floral, and dirty notes makes it weird, but it dries down to something that's really elegant, if you don't go heavy on it since it's pretty potent but i think it's like kouros in that aspect. fine line between love and ew gross. i think its datedness makes it kinda sad and poignantly beautiful, like a grand hotel that's fallen into disrepair.

i only figure since you mention kouros, egoiste, and yatagan; i think it triangulates somewhere in there. also i only recently smelled whatever current formulation exists so i can't speak to all that previous blather about things being different now since i don't know if it's changed any or how.

i think from the present era i like the narciso rodriguez for him and prada amber the most, but even those are like ten years old. they seem pretty introverted and contemplative and kinda soggy and passive-aggressive in their blithely transparent opaqueness that doesn't settle anywhere particular, so there's that. also i think from a raw sensory angle they also smell good to me without qualification and that's is not an idea i'm used to.

i don't know how i got from wanting to try a few new things besides cool water to wanting to learn a little more so i can make good choices to where i'm getting all upset because as cultural artifacts fragrances are texts that i don't have the skill set or methodology to properly approach so i'm not sure what i like anymore, all in the space of two or three months. i was in a store just smelling things and doing field studies and an actual customer walked in, asked to smell something, decided he like it, bought it, and then he took his purchase and left, and i think i was blown away that you could just do that.

i haven't tried lapidus, sounds interesting.

just got my pack of samples from luckyscent: unum lavs, cdg hinoki, maison francis kurkdjian oud silk mood, legrand chypre mousse and lutens vetiver oriental

wearing unum lavs atm and it's like old precious leatherbound books meets slightly metallic herbal soap.

i may have overreacted a bit but the lapidus was weird to me because i'm not really familiar with orientals in general and particularly because it seemed so far out of context with what i've tried of the old-timey scents, but it gets mentioned by the ppl who are into kouros and yatagan and the like so i thought i'd bring it up.

i looked up what you got and they all seem nicely timed for testing in the autumn weather, which is something i should keep in mind since i usually try whatever i've just read about that i think i need to put into my database, regardless of season.

also, i'm not sure if i'm trying to find scents that reflect and express something interior bout myself to the outside world or if i'm trying on things from the outside world in hopes of effecting some change in that general direction, like there's some jungian alchemical work towards actualization going on through the application of discernibly attainable qualities via the medium of scent or whatnot, or maybe just a a cargo cult type of thing. or else i just want to smell nice and carry around a nice thing on my self to smell all day. between love and madness lies obsession.

wearing unum lavs atm and it's like old precious leatherbound books meets slightly metallic herbal soap.

yeah, this is what i like about putting on smells. it's just fucking chemicals but there's old books in there and the leather seats in the dodge challenger your father drove before he got serious and had a family and violins and woodwinds and scratchy wool sweaters or whatever.

also, we're living in the near future already, you'd think by now they'd have developed sub-dermally injected symbiotic micro-organisms that metabolize and convert raw materials into designer aroma chemicals that are continuously extruded through sweat glands so your days belong to adventure and your nights belong to romance.

yeah i am quite solipsistic in public life and i really only wear things so that i can smell them, also it tends to block out unpleasant external smells

so far out of all the testers i got the mfk oud silk mood has been the most stunning, of course it's almost $400 for a bottle. it is like the most luxurious rose scent, but the rose is so fresh that it's almost herbal and not even floral at all. not skanky at all, not that that's a bad thing (part of why i love yatagan actually, it's such a dtf frag). i don't know what laotian oud is like on its own (checked the price for a bottle of oud absolute, sheesh) but i assume that and the blue chamomile are responsible for the "herbal" impression.

i'd been thinking of fragrances as having personalities so i was wondering if people (mostly myself) tend to pick scents that project or amplify aspects of their own personalities or if the tendency is to pick scents with personalities they aspire to have and graft those over top of their own, is what i think i was getting at, but now that i see what i wrote that seems less the case than it is that scents have moods that you can use either way, to amplify or change you own mood at will.

i like what you wrote even better, though. creating a mini-environment that you yourself inhabit and can take around with you everywhere, it's not about changing yourself as much as it's about altering the texture and feel of the space you're in to your liking the way someone might decorate a room.

i got cdg 2 and 2 man samples. there was a post on the 2 that i can't find, but iirc in summary and in conclusion the takeaway was idgi, and i also am befuddled by this fragrance given its statement of purpose and what i actually experienced. the concept is opposition: light and dark, airy aldehydes and inky blackness, but i get a moderately pleasant scent that i can't engage with. prada amber is a comparatively liminal scent in that there's nothing there but the suggestion of something beyond what the senses can detect, but with the prada, and i'm quoting diane in manhattan, it has a marvelous negative capability whereas the cdg does not. i'll probably end up getting the cdg 2 over something i actually like, because it makes me feel dumb and i want its approval.

the cdg 2 man, though. my current situation is that i need something that is accessible/ wearable but pulls me towards the dark side and this is it. there are likely more complex incense fragrances out there but this is pretty fucking solid. it literally just smells like an incense stick but it also guides you by the hand into the proposition that dank smokiness can also be light and elegant at the same time, ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with?

i didn't get the amazingreen sample because of the negative reviews that said it was generic and mainstream but then i remembered what stevie said so i'll get it next go around. i think there's an intersection between advanced and populist that knows where you live and that's what i'm looking for. i think it just might have a nice butt; everyone likes a nice butt and everyone wants to have a nice butt despite creed or philosophy so let's get together on this. also i got the wonderwood a few months ago and it was way too much wood but i tried it again in the dry and cold weather and it it really dialed in to where it's on point.

i also am trying out the l'artisan parfumeur line. the velour de roses is way patchouli. the rose and plum are barely evident but i felt like it was instructive in that they really rounded out and shaped the main accord. it's hippyish firstly and gothy secondarily (lucretia, my hippy mama )and it's gorgeous out of the vial but it's yuck on my skin so i'll pass. the caligna is just a really good fresh fig; i don't get anything else. fou d'absinthe is an aromatic fougere so it smells like a lost classic from back when but i can't separate the wormwood from the pine and fir because i don't know what wormwood smells like. there's some spiciness in the drydown. très lumberjack. tea for two is available again and i want to try that. also i want to try timbuktu and the premier figiuer. seems like this is a good entry-level niche house for people who are me.

i'm wearing the fahrenheit. the next to last formulation toned down the chamomile, which apparently gives it the kerosine accord, and i checked the batch codes so that's the one i got. the reactionary faction of the fragrance community prefers the most recent formulation in that approximates the original with the smells like burning, but i can spray on the bastardized version as much as i want and get that sweet violet leaf bump as much as i want. you really can't go wrong though. i know there's a guidingi force to the universe because she gave me fahrenheit to spray on myself. who's gonna drive you home tonight? fahrenheit, that's who.

mongol general: what is best in life?

conan: to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women. and dior fahhrenheit, never mind that aggro bullshit i just mentioned.

mongol general: that is good! that is good.

bookmarked

friend of mine has timbuktu, recommends it

really want to try al oudh

for some reason i really want to like the timbuktu, and that reason is the hay note. rocabar is supposed to have this, too. i want to roll around in field and hear what the earth wants to say to me, without literally having to do that. i'll take a simulacrum of that experience. also i want a serviceable woody spicy thing that's good for cool weather and scarves.

i have opium pour homme and jaipur homme coming and that's something, even though i think they may be too old-timey. still can't find egoiste samples.

jaipur and opium are both pretty good! not amazing, but good reference points, as they're from the 90s but could be worn today without seeming too retro. not your most exciting friends, but your most reliable. very solid journeyman scents for cool weather. warm and inviting but not shouty-spicy. there aren't any really intriguing or compelling notes compared to current niche stuff but they seem well balanced and subdued compared to current mall-centric spicy stuff.

since i last posted i've been wearing lalique encre noire -- pretty much the best vetiver scent i've encountered. i don't really get the "black ink" of the name so much as vetiver and resinous wood. also, the bottle is gorgeous, a heavy black glass cube.

Just wanted to say I love this thread and have it bookmarked, pls keep it coming!

I still get a lot of joy from Musgo Real's No 1 (Orange Amber).

i think the degree of inkiness is temperature/ humidity dependent? i first tried encre noire during the summer and i did get a discernible inky note, although i am susceptible to suggestion so i'm not discounting that i was looking for it to be there. i've worn it a few times lately in the cold and i probably wouldn't get "ink" out of it either under these conditions if i didn't already carry that impression around with me. i think the bvlgari black is the same way. i also tried it in warmer times and got the strong rubber note ppl talk about, but i'm wearing it now and i mostly get the black leather vibe (and that breaks down to the tea plus vanilla, i think) with hardly any rubber. i can still see where the ink and rubber come from but they're not really that prominent if you don't wear them out of season. the bottles are representations of inkwells and tires, though, so that novelty aspect is emphasized, even though that detracts from the actual balanced composition you get if worn during appropriate conditions, i'm assuming? that's on a level of makers of glass pipes for tobacco use only who strongly advise against any misuse of their products as putting weed in your pipe could have the undesired side effect of getting you really high.

i do like that ink note though and would wear this out of season to get that effect. also i am under the understanding that certain s&m types value the bvlgari black specifically for that vinyl/ rubber note. i just googled to check if this assertion was correct and got so far before i backed off.

does benzoin have a buttery, slightly nutty flavor to it? i get the resins in the drydown of the jaipur but i'm not sure if that particular slant comes entirely from the benzoin or if something else is bending it in that direction.

bvlgari black along with guerlain's l'instant are next on my list, hopefully i get a nice tax return and can get my boyfriend JPG kokorico

my brother has caron pour un homme which is musk with lavender and vanilla; it has a minty medicinal note in the opening that i don't like so much and don't understand given the note breakdown but it seems to be of historical importance from my readings as far as musk goes (it's from the 30s)and i like the soft texture after the opening dissipates. the musgo looks like it's in the same trad vein but the citrus notes brighten it up, it seems? how do you know about this and where do you get this? i ask because it doesn't seem to be talked about much.

what's the kokorico like? i like the fig leaf in the hermes un jardin en mediterranee, the patchouli in zino and tom ford noire, and the dry cacao in lidg. this is available on fragranceenet for like $25 or $18 for a tester so i could blind buy.

also, midnight in paris, azzaro visit, roma by laura biagiotti? any intel on these? mip is likened to bvlgaei black, but more powdery and opinions seem really divided, visit is incencey and woody but could be cheap, roma is resiny but could be cheap.

i apology for all the typos; scotch and smells is my MO. i'm not as smart as i should be under these conditions, but otherwise i'm all intp about it and that doesn't address what smells are for, just what they appear to be.

my brother asked what i was wearing and when i told him it was the encre noire he gave the same comment - it didn't come across as ink as much as it just smelled like a good vetiver.

how do you like it? i think it is a really stylish frag but almost too cool for me?

Bought a bottle of Creed Aventus even tho cologne doesn't last terribly long on my skin.

the encre noire? i've seen it described as too serious and dark and a bit melancholic, so only appropriate for formal occasions, mostly funerals, but also as rooty and earthy and woody, so a good lumberjack scent but maybe without any warmth. lumbergoth, maybe, so i can see where it might not comfortably fit either mood without seeming a bit self-conscious or forced?

personally i'm attached to a specific accord it has - kinda smoky, charred, inky, but also dank, sort of redolent of bongwater, maybe. can't pin it down but it's a bit funky and different than what i've experienced so far. right now that overshadows other aspects: nuances of composition, suitability of occasion, how its style wears on me, etc.. i just like shoving it up my nose.

i've had a crimbus and a birthday since last annoyance, so this is what i got:

narciso rodriguez for him - musky, violet leaf, patchouli. i like it so i never wear it so i can save it.

mugler a*men - sweet caramel but that tar note for contrast. fresh floral underpinning i think. historically significant, avoided for clubby associations but essential.

guerlain homme - basic, lime, mint, rum, vetiver. good for high heat. will report back when that occurs.

azzaro visit - good incense, pepper, cedar. way cheaper than cdg 2 man, which i prefer. too much iso e super, which makes it fade in and out.

versce man - not the man au fraiche, just man. saffron. i like saffron.

prada amber - saffron. white florals. vaguely realized concepts, like amber accord and eau de cologne accord and leather accord and fougere accord, which i get, but only because the designer indicated that that's the idea. pretty fucking elegant.

lalique homme equus - juniper berries and sequoia wood. blind buy gift. i didn't know what it would smell like and neither did the person who bought it for me. i thought it'd be more lumberjack. i think it's a different smell so i'm intrigued.

those all sound good - equus, original a*men and narcisco rodriguez are all on my want list

how do you all feel about Vetiver Guerlain?

i like it, but i'm still trying to sort it out. i got a sample last summer and felt the woody and aromatic aspects were a little too much for the heat, even though it's still green and citrusy at the same time. i think it'd be good for spring weather.

i have the same issue with terre d'hermes and tom ford grey vetiver: too fresh and citrusy for cold weather, too woody in the heat.

i haven't smelled any of the nichey vetiver-dominant scents like creed original vetiver or frederic malle vetiver extraordinaire and the like so i don't know how it compares to that sort of thing.

i think maybe that's why i wanted the guerlain homme - it still has that vetiver backbone, but dialed down for summer.

i keep sniffing the empty vetiver guerlain vial, just the same as the terre d'hermes and the paco rabanne ph. i love these earthy/ fresh smells, but have issues with melding with them. i thought this would be a fun hobby but it's bringing on existential crises. this vetiver guerlain feels too serious for the summer! i feel like i should be trying to sell insurance to someone or issuing missives to the office staff to not change the copier toner before it's completely depleted! this fragrance would be great for wearing a white button-down short-sleeve oxford shirt with tan slacks! to a rotary club cookout fundraiser! fun but let's not get too crazy here, folks, this is plano, texas, not marin county!

in summary and in conclusion, i give guerlain vetiver an a minus.

not sure if i really answered your question. i defer to anyone else who has an opinion.