Perfume / Cologne

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.

lalique equus - i mentioned to fambily that i liked the lalique white and encre noire, and that the quality seemed pretty good vs. online price, maybe the other offerings are just as good, this seems like a good and quality house, dedicated to different interpretations, what else do they have, and that the equus looked interesting as far as the listed notes, because usually the woody note is cedar and the dominant fruity note is bergamot or lemon, not sequoia or juniper berry. that's what i said. what was heard was that i really wanted the lalique equus.

anyway. now i have it. nb i'm a novice but stereotypicically intp so i really feel the need to qualify my impressions. the woods are predominant, but really red. the juniper, it's chistmasy, almost craft store make your own wreath, there's some attendant citruses, buy it's mostly all juniper.

it starts off really square, like a really polite attempt at interesting, but sheena is a punk rocker now. it's like going on a wholesome nature hike except you secretly have your boy scout canteen fulled with gin.

this is the most glamping fragrance i've ever encountered not that's not a bad thing. tim gunn chopping firewood, what's the thread count on that gingham table covering? hey. diipshit, this is america, we're gonna roast some hot dogs over the campfire, put on your bean boots and flip up your fucking collar on your rl polo.

never stop!

i have optimisms.

i think i meant 'opinions' but whatever.

<3 a slugbuggy optipinions

i like the equus, i just thought it was a little confusing. feels too well-mannered given that the notes suggest a gin-soaked lumberjack. or vice-versa? the black sheep of a respectable family that might disappear on a bender for a few days. also i'm not picking up the leather note.

i also wasn't calling tim gunn a dipshit, the last part of that rant was me picturing a kinfolk editorial or lifestyle blog spread featuring a very posh and forced version of outdoorsiness.

lalique goes for high-end designer prices on their website and through upscale retail stores like neiman marcus, but is really cheap on the discount sites. like, the 4.2 Oz of lalique white lists for $138, but i got it for around $25. encre noire is $125 for 3.3 oz, but again i got it for around $25 online. chanel and hermes are similarly priced high-end designer, but never get discounted to that degree. equus is the same deal, $115 for the 2.5 oz edp vs. $25ish my brother paid.

i kinda feel like i got caught wearing a thrift store tie that as is turns out, is a repp tie from a fancy prep school that i did not matriculate and in fact didn't even know existed. it's like how the family in your neighborhood with the most wealth isn't the one that drives mercedes and buys armani, it's the one that drives old volvos and goes to andover shop every school year and has a lot of old threadbare stuff in their house and all the kids read wittgenstein in the ninth grade and were over it because that's how their day school rolled and you didn't read that shit until freshman year of public university and wouldn't shut up about it. it's all just smells but there's something suspiciously square but assured about the laliques that doesn't have a place in the obvious and populist designer/ complicated and in-the-know niche dichotomy, is how i'm framing this.

Well framed!

Do you dabble in any "women's" scents? I wore Coco yesterday and it seemed pretty retro but in a different way then, like, Giorgio retro. I tend to choose a scent (to be fair I only have 5, not much to pick from) based on what I'm wearing. Today is jeans, t-shirt, cropped cowboy boots and I'm going to a gun range. Definitely not a Coco day. Maybe eau de Cartier but I tend to only do that in warm weather and it's quite chilly today. Perhaps I'll give the Guerlain Vetiver one last try before I admit that I like to smell it in the bottle but don't particularly like wearing it.

tried a couple 90s scents, one really familiar (tommy) and one less (cool water). tommy smells even better than i remember, like fresh soapy apple. i feel like this could easily be a unisex scent.

as for cool water i've already blown through almost ~1.5oz of a bottle. i was half-expecting to find it somewhat cloying since this is seems to be the archetype for mainstream male frags made in the last 30 years, but it really is brilliant. pleasantly abstract and balanced as fuck, can't honestly name any one particular note that stands above the others. maybe oakmoss. it's hard to describe how it smells other than just "clean"

also snagged a large bottle of puig quorum on a friend's recommendation. first thought is, "wow this is like yatagan" but with more of a powdery grapefruit vibe and not quite as piney. reads as super old-school masculine which i'm thinking is where i gravitate frag-wise.

quincie you should give encre noire a try -- when i was wearing it i thought it was quite unisex

i haven't dug into scents marketed as women's much because i don't know the landscape. i smelled the ysl opium and i can see it being unisex. i figure a lot of contemporary unisex scents are orientals, so a lot of classic women's scents that are orientals would be unisex by today's standards.

also calling something unisex suggests there are still things that aren't? i don't know if unisex means genderless or gender inclusive. there's the line i see a lot that there's no gender in fragrance but i dunno if you can dispose of the concept entirely. there's stuff that has nothing to do with gender associations, stuff that shouldn't have been given gender associations but wasn't given a choice because society, stuff that acknowledges gender associations but bridges the gaps to allow for freedom of expression, and stuff that is deeply rooted in gender associations, which is also good because you can't subvert paradigms if there aren't any, or conversely you just want to stick to where you're at as far as that sort of thing goes.

I wear the goiter with the male torso.

what's that smell like?

i tried the tommy and i think it's a better choice for my 90s retconning than the hugo man, which is giving me attitude. i didn't have the tommy at the time, but i could wear it and pretend it's a nostalgic scent for me. def get the "clean laundry" vibe, which i think is in other more recent stuff like versace pour homme, but this seems seminal and of pop-cultural import and could be a good everyday thing when you just want a pleasant uncomplicated thing that reminds you of rocco's modern life and playing doom and all the divisions in the boston firehouse and sean and montana should have hooked up already and whatnot.

i did a mall sweep where i smelled all the mall scents to see if anything stood out and it was unproductive. after a few smells all i got was white noise, which would be a good band name for any band i would be in. the worst part was that i found out that the dior homme sport has been completely reformulated. i wasn't going to get it, but i liked it, and they changed it. they took out the fucking iris! and the ginger and citron! it was really pretty, for a man's scent! it's like jesus said, people are dicks, whatta you gonna do? we're all slaves to the rhythm, and the rhythm of dior homme sport was a sophisticated yet flirty foxtrot. i can't dance to this new stuff. boo dior.

also before it goes away i used the last of the cdg 2 sample. it's so slight, but there's an allure. this makes me wish i had applied myself more in the competitive sphere so i could afford to longer keep frivolous things that might be for me but i'll never know. i now get the aldehyde/ floral thing that looks over its shoulder at its inky shadow, it's so damn cute. goodbye, cdg 2 sample, we could have spent the rest of out lives together wasting away sunday mornings reading the times in bed and splitting a croissant because nobody needs a whole croissant.

ah but that's where you're wrong

you think you need a whole croissant?
nobody needs a whole croissant!

maybe you just don't like croissants?

cause i'll eat two as a goddamn warmup

Slug where do you get your samples? Any sample-shopping tips?

picked up laura biagiotti roma for myself and mugler cologne for my bf: roma is like a creamy vanilla-y benzoin with orange/bergamot, pine needles and a kind of pleasant musty note that smells a bit like visiting someone's else's house. the mugler is musky metallic neroli soap, really lovely, just wish the longevity were better.