Perfume / Cologne

^^^^this guy, killing it

really interested in how you find the bentley as that's on my wantlist too (along with other stuff by lorson), azzaro visit also since i seem to have become an annick menardo fan.

baux is great, you won't regret it. i've been waiting for the weather to cool off before i get a bottle for myself.

visit is a bit much in the opening, there's a lot of pepper and bergamot and nutmeg and some ginger along with the incense. maybe the weather is too warm still and those notes are more subdued when it's colder. towards the middle it calms down and it's mostly incense and woods, and i get ambergris and maybe musk in the base. it's got a distinct incense note, more like an unlit incense stick rather than the smell of the smoke, and it's only about 20 bucks online, so there's that, but i still like cdg 2 man better for an incense fragrance.

it's a pretty good pepper and/ or incense frag for the price but i don't think it's essential menardo, compared to roma or black or kokorico.

eau des baux is so good i want to spray it on my body so i can walk around all day and smell it. it's that good! i can't as of yet pull out all the individual notes, like i couldn't even tell it has incense or cypress specifically, but i don't care. if it happens, it happens.

bentley absolute is is pretty much what i thought, a really resinous, oud-woody thing, dark but soft and rich, but when it dries down it turns into kenzo pour homme: there's that slightly plasticy oceanic note. i don't know what to think about that. the nose for the absolute is michel almairac, who did gucci pour homme I, lorson did the bentley intense (which has a rum note that's not in the absolute)and most of the other bentleys, just in case you were thinking of the intense.

versace versus uomo, i can't tell yet. i have a 1 ml vial, so i'm smelling it in concentrated form from smelling the stem and just dabbing it on as opposed to getting the ambient experience from generous spraying, but i get intense fruit notes off the top, specifically peach, which i've not encountered in a gentleman's fragrance. it's supposed to also be herbal and floral and woody and resinous and spicy and vanillic and tonka-ey, ie, transitional in that it's from that interzone period where it's still the 80s so it's expected to be heavy and butch but not really, looking towards an enlightened and liberatory esthetic, but not there yet, like where kevin and julie on the first real world season have to go round and round about racism because the term privilege wasn't something you could just drop and be done with at the time.

this smells like what it meant to be young in 1991, back to life, however do you want me, i just want to be close to you, you're unbelievable. some stuff that's old smells old and some stuff that's old smells like what it meant to be young when it was new.

nb i might change my mind when i get a better wearing of this.

i also got a tommy hilfiger loud sample because of the bbc perfume documentary, despite the reviews that said it was synthetic and crap and crap and generic and crap and crap. there's only three listed notes, rose and patchouli and tobacco, how can you fuck that up? kudos for fucking that up. i can't detect patchouli or tobacco, and barely any rose. if you've seen the doc you'd know how much effort went into the marketing and presentation of this debacle. tommy hilfiger shows up to a very important pre-launch finalization meeting and gives the fragrance a half-assed sniff and oks it and bitches about the bottle design and that's it. how the fuck is what i'm smelling the same thing he was smelling. so much effort went into getting the styling perfect for the ting-ting's video for the ad campaign and finding patchouli plants to impart the relevant vibe to the merchants of cool invited to the official launch party that i'm losing my religion over the ability of the capitalist machine to sell me the zietgeist in physical form in the things i consume, since you have no control over the black box that exists between intent and outcome anymore. goddamn, polo green sold the colonialist preppy dream but made it real, made it a thing
where you could buy into the fantasy without reservation, so fuck you, tommy hilfiger, for killing the dream of the 80s that branding was a thing you could depend on.

in summary and in conclusion, i give it a pass.

lalique encre noire l'extreme, i thought it would be even darker and smokier than the regular, but it's actually weirder and harder to get my mind around. this is some niche-level shit i don't have the knowledge base to assess.

frederic malle bigarade concentree: it is so choice, if you have the means, i highly recommend picking one up. i smelled it and thought, this is so much a jean-claude ellena composition, i'm really good at this. then i thought, i already knew that, so stop it. but it is, it's like if terre d'hermes eau tres fraiche were a part of the jardin series. it has the bitter orange and cedar of the terre and the rose and grass from the jardin sur le tois; it's transparent and ethereal but it's out of my price range.

tommy hilfiger: that's not my name, that's not my name, that's not my name. shut up and let me go.

The one I've been using all year is named after a Pixies song: https://www.dsanddurga.com/products/debaser

I've been a DS & Durga loyalist for years now. All their stuff is outstanding.

i've never even heard of that house; there's so much stuff to sort out that i don't look in any particular direction until someone says something and then it's on my radar. i don't even know how other people find what's good or for them; there's so many niche and indie perfumers that not being in an environment where this is a part of my existence i wouldn't even know where to start. but now that i know there's an actual song-to-scent transliteration i have to find out.

i was in a perfumania outlet to sift through the dustbin of history and a consummate flatbiller, he could actually have been bubba sparxxx for all i know, beefy manhood and perfectly matched cap, jersey, shorts, kicks, came in and requested of the sales associate a sampling of the paris hilton potion, to which he gave his assent after whiffing and posthaste made his purchase and thereupon departed the premises. i hated him because he knew who he was and what he wanted. i kind of miss when all i had access to was in the mall and that's all i knew existed.

the debaser has a pear stem note! not just pear, but pear stem. i remember from the age of the dinosaurs, i didn't even know that notes were a thing, obsession smelled like obsession and that was that, i can't get used to this lifestyle.

nb i assume ppl aren't posting here just for my edification but i'm really on this tip and get carried away.

I follow this thread obsessively, cannot begin to match slugbuggy posts so I just sit back and enjoy.

Last weekend I was in airport duty free and put on some Chanel 19, which was my sole scent from age 18 to 28. Now I am 43 and just don't like it, can't really understand the chick who did.

I also put on some Diorissimo which I found too fruity (peach?) upfront but more my style than the 19.

Need to try some La Panthere. Old ladyish is more interesting to me these days than Chanel Chance and all the other young gal stuff.

kinda need a new daily scent - i've been using clinique "happy" for a long time - not partic exciting but don't feel the need to blow my coworkers away or wear a hugely expensive scent day in day out. i have wonderwood and one or two others for more special occasions. have considered aesop, pretty simple but distinctive.

I use Musgo Real No 1 (Orange Amber) for work. I like the smell, it's relatively cheap and it doesn't feel like I'm flirting with my colleagues. I suppose its a bit "old man" and/or "shops at Labour & Wait".

I've also got some Murdock samplers - the intention was that they were for away from work (to emphasise home/work) but I do often carry one with me.

I've recently discovered Miller & Harris (at a garden centre, of all place) and do like some of the bloke ones. They last well and seem kinda "grown up".

i wore grey flannel today, because it was moderate temp-wise with some post-rain humidity in the air, perfect march weather that's not actually in march but that's what it was.

i'm really getting that bitter floral in the opening, which i think is narcissus flower? fragrantica voters cite hermes' eau de narcisse bleu as the closest analogue to gf. maybe it's the galbanum. i don't know either of those notes. memory is not your friend, but i remember the smell off the top of the splash bottle all those years ago, and it's not ringing the same bells. close your eyes and i'll kiss you, tomorrow i'll miss you. i remember there was a radiant ultraviolet glow and an oily leatheryness that's not in the current formulation. i'm trying to separate out selective memory from reality; i think all the current notes and accords were always there but the gestalt has side-shifted from sexhammer to a very you don't have the proper discernment to appreciate this niche construction. i think the current formulation is difficult but rewarding, while what i think i remember of the original is straight lothario.

there's a scene in the second miami vice episode, the first one in the proper series after the pilot episode, where crockett and tubbs are preparing to go out undercover, and sony is going click-click-click with the rotating cap of his patou pour homme, which i don't know from then but is really animalic and way too stinky for miami heat so totally crockett, tubbs, however, is seen pouring out the love potion from what could be none other then a grey flannel bottle, sleek nyc swag and style, steel blue eyes and open-shirted confidence, and i swear as much as i know that god is a bullet that the thing tubbs was melding with his eternal essence isn't the same thing as exists today as much as i know that gravity's rainbow isn't quite the same thing as infinite jest, which i have and swear i'm gonna read before the exam, sir.

i looked at the miller harris section of fragrantica and that seems like a good call if you're looking for a quality house that's traditional with serious intent but not too pretentious. it's like in a hitchcock movie, you know, where they tie you up in a rubber bag and throw you in the trunk of a car. you find fragrances. it seems like a quality house for people who like good things. also ds & durga, you could pick from a multitude of indie perfumers, i don't know where to start, but there's a vibe, they have fragrances with names like beartrapper and cowboy grass and mississippi medicine so i'm homing in on the artisanal buffalo burger and saffron-infused sweet potato fries thing, by which i mean, people in the future will refer back to this as totally emblematic of the zeitgeist in the nostalgia of the nostalgia of the period sense, cf i wore vintage 80s pendleton shirts back in the 10s, and i know it's that type of thing but in a post-post era game recognize game and you connect with what you can use. i haven't smelled any of their stuff but i can see how if your life circumstances put you where you have access to this sort of thing, which i readily don't, it would slot into your groove with satisfactory clearances.

there are people online who are indiscriminate, insofar as they consider themselves fragrance aficionados and their purview is the whole of fragranedom, it's just aromachemicals, labels are an artifice. that's right, but i still like the illusion that certain things are created for certain people in certain circumstances. this is what moms wore who drove ford ltds in 1978 and this is what was worn by gay men in clubs in 1993 and this is what suburban jocks wore in 1997 and this is what investment bankers wore in 1985 and this is what urban 20-something women in new media wore in 2008, because that's a thing that also happens.

by people online i mean the fragrance youtubers and bloggers who regard everything because it's all online, so i hear about things i wouldn't otherwise, but then i feel like i'm losing the natural progression like when you had to know where to find the right zines or have the right friends to find out about certain bands.

love vetiver and frederic malle vetiver extraordinaire is my go-to but now my supply is running low and I'm budgeting. I picked up a botle of Guerlain Vetiver at the duty free this week. Doesn't last long on my skin but does the trick. I paid too much for it, though, dammit, which I realized once I went online post-purchase to check its "regular" price in order to gloat.

quincie!!! i got your vetiver!!! thank you so much <3 <3 <3

Oh god it only took like six months amirite? The box would still be sitting by the door had spouse not finally said "do you want me to mail this?" and dod the post office honors. What so you think of it?

love it - green, mossy, soapy, slightly funky and musky. definitely my new everyday scent!

anyone rate byredo?

I went to Bloom Perfumery in Covent Garden today, which I highly recommended if you are in the area and after something different.

I ended up getting Vi Et Armis by Beaufort - the perfume line, oddly enough, put out by the drummer from The Prodigy. The collection has a strong and somewhat Problematic theme of swashbuckling derring-do in British history, albeit probably somewhat tongue in cheek, so there are lots of references to gunpowder, blood, the sea and the fruits of empire. The one I got has huge amounts of tea and cold smoke. I also picked up a sample of 1805 Tonnerre which has a really aggressive smoke and lime combination and may not be entirely wearable.

I liked some of the Imaginary Authors line too - particularly Memoirs of a Tresspasser with a clever mix of apple, vanilla and subtle smoke.

The shop does a mail order sample pack service which I have already signed up to. Really nice, well-informed staff with no hard sell.

I have noticed the 1805 dries down to a much more approachable animalic leather so may be worth further investigation.

They also stock the dirt-cheap Russian drug-store brand Brocard for some mysterious reason. I picked up a bottle of Колдун, which the woman in the shop translated as “shaman” but I’m 99% sure means “wizard”, which is much dorkier. Either way, it’s a very pleasant Terre d’Hermes copy.

I have great handfuls of samples from Bloom now and have been wearing a different one each day. Yesterday was A City On Fire by Imaginary Authors - a fragrance compared to both an autumn campfire and Guy Fieri’s Smoky BBQ Sauce, depending on who you ask. It has a fairly strong bonfire smell to me - warm and rounded rather than particularly acrid. I did briefly think it developed into a much more strident, complex smouldering accord later on but it turned out that someone had set fire to the bin outside of Argos in Chatham shortly before I walked past.

Underneath the smoke there is a strong over-ripe red berry / juniper thing going on. I often like the boozy, fecund smell of slowly decaying fruit irl (I have fond memories of intoxicating orchards groaning under the weight of enormous mystery fruit on the outskirts of Guilin) but idk if I want to carry it around with me all day.

Today I am wearing Gin & Tonic by Art de Parfum which smells like gin and tonic.

1270 by Frapin, commemorating the year the cognac house was founded, smells like someone unaccountably serving pineapple alongside the fruitcake, brandy and chocolates after Christmas dinner. The fragrance also reminds me a little of the honeyed sweetness of Serge Lutens’ Arabie - which has candied orange iirc. It’s nice but I prefer the oriental fantasy of Lutens tbh.

Camel by Zoologist also has candied fruits of some description and smells much more authentically Arabian than the Lutens - or most European ‘oriental’ fragrances. It’s much heavier but stops short of being dominated by oud, which a lot of the region’s perfumes are. Frankincense and myrrh make it festive. Civet (synthetic) reminds you that most of the story takes place in a barn.

These are great reviews Sharivari.

i am venturing into this world. sampled a limited selection last week and really dug the YDL L'homme Intense

YSL

I asked for Coco for Christmas and now I feel so amateurish and uninteresting compared to this thread. But tbrr someone sprayed me with it a couple of weeks ago and I felt very expensive and it lasted like 12 hours with different notes and I was intrigued.

all the Chanels smell expensive and that is the whole point; ie your choice of Coco is highly rational.

I got so into perfume a few years back, but now I just wear Mitsouko on fancy occasions and Mandragore in summer when I feel like smelling something pleasant all day.

I have and love Coco!

my mom wore Coco, and it's the kind of thing I'd probably like, but it just has this overwhelming association with my mom.

otherwise these days I rotate between rochas femme, bottega veneta eau de velours, and various lutens. yes I'm a cliche, thanks for asking

I’m always intrigued by how smell and memory have this complex relationship. Certain scents immediately bring experiences to mind, and remembering events sometimes have a specific smell memory associated

A coworker mentioned a certain building at work having an odd smell and I couldn’t remember it, until I thought about a particular time I’d been there and boom, there it was. And I could more vividly remember events that had happened there.

This is also why Chanel No. 5 causes me to feel irritated! Too many stressful memories.

(xp: the bottega veneta's probably my favorite recent scent, a spiced-plum leather that with my luck is probably going to be discontinued since it's both a flanker and really good)

Proust to thread xp

i got miller harris la fumee and montale full incense samples. i can't decide between the two. ideally i'd still get cdg man 2 but it's never discounted enough. cdg is only moderately costly and something to just get but i'm bouncing around from thing to thing and if she knew what she wants he'd be giving it to her but she wants everything. mh and montale are affordable enough and can be found discounted, so they make more sense from my pov. montale is slightly creamier and earthier, miller harris is more floral and spicy, but both have a discernibly prominent and persistent incense note, unlike other stuff i've tried in which the incense is integral but blended into the gestalt. there are pricier niche houses like amouage that are lousy with incense frags but at those price points i don't have the discernment to justify the cost difference; i feel like the cover of fleetwood mac's mystery to me in this situation.

i've given up on the azzaro visit as an incense frag per se, but it's a nice fresh-spicy type of thing, where the incense and pepper and other spices coalesce into a vague smoke accord and the bergamot smooths it out rather than seeming like an afterthought to cover up the the litany of individual notes all barking for attention i was getting when it was warmer. i could detect a distinct incense note before when the temp was higher, but the overall effect was chaos. i can't much tell any individual notes now, but now it's achieved actualization, so there's that. it's nice, it smells good, it's ok. we can be heroes, just for one day, for about twenty bucks.

i also got a givenchy xeryus rouge sample because annick menardo, who is grebt and did laura biogetti roma and bvlgari black, so it was worth trying out. it's a different kind of fresh-spicy. there's a cactus note contrasted with a pimento note. it feels very generic and mainstream, in the sense there's not a lot of texture, just this kind o accord and that kind of accord, but it's generic and mainstream in a slightly divergent world where love like blood and proud to fall were top ten pop hits and the apotheosis of mall culture.

nb using terms like generic and mainstream implies i have enhanced sensibilities which i do not. if it weren't for the internet and reference sites i'd have no idea what was in anything or have any any notion o the history of perfumery whatsoeverhow. i wonder about authenticity; sometines i feel like i'm wearing a notion i got from a blog post instead of an actual scent i enjoy. my fantasy has turned to madness; i will have you, i will collect you and capture you. i feel like there's meaning to smells like there's meaning to music that i sense but don't quite get but everyone else does. there's an artistry to niche scents that requires a knowledge base of aromatic structure and the attendant nudging of subtle nuances but otoh historically nothing contains multitudes like the unabashed punch of a zeitgeisty designer offering that doesn't give a fudge about subtlety.

also i am posting drunk again.

Bvlgari Black is one of my all-time favourites, at least in the formulation I have from about ten years ago. It’s such an odd fragrance for something so inexpensive and widely available - vanilla and tea but a huge hit of rubber and burnt sugar to go along with it.

You def get some niche houses willing to push the envelope but there are just as many that’ll sell you a bottle of Ambroxan + iso E Super for $150 and call it art.

"sometines i feel like i'm wearing a notion i got from a blog post instead of an actual scent i enjoy"

I'd say this is true in a sense that goes way beyond fragrances and stretches out to the enjoyment of music and art sometimes too, to varying degrees.

Also: booming posts all.

I’ve got (well I say, “got” but share a bottle of) La Fumée as well and really like it but have to be in the right mood for it. For MH, I prefer Feiulles de Tabac, which is warmer and smokier and dries down really nicely.

Chanel is great tbh there’s no shame there - esp as they still make their own perfume in house and have their own perfumery where they source a lot of their ingredients. No 5 has never worked on me - too soapy - but Chance is an all time favourite.

The most recent perfume I got was YSL’s Cinéma last year - think it’s now discontinued - based on reading recommendations from stuff I already liked on Basenotes. It’s lovely but evaporates in under ten minutes, a tragedy.

If they haven’t been recommended already, the CdG incense fragrances are gorgeous. Particularly like Avignon and Jaisalmer.

I think liking what you like is really the only thing that matters and perfume is fun but so off putting once you go online and see people talking authoritatively about formulations and heart notes. Having said that, I found the Luca Turin/Tania Sanchez book 10/10 for the way they talked about perfume as experience and feeling, although some of the descriptions are a bit off putting.

Paloma Picasso? Thoughts? Perfume not the lady/jewelry/etc.

the description sounds great and it's on my wishlist, but never tried! the bottle looks really cool

it's... fine, not particularly my thing. I find it more masculine than a lot of actual masculine fragrances

Replica's "Soul of the Forest" has dried really well on me.. It's making me question my initial reactions to the other scents I sampled Friday, much of them seemed too cool and sharp for my rudimentary taste

master: as quickly as you can, snatch the pebble from my...

brimstead: *snatches pebble*

master: damn, grasshopper

i kid but that's way faster than i figured that out - the landscape kinda changes as you move around it but doing so also changes you so there's maybe no privileged pov, only where you are at any point, or something. whatever the point was that seems like a good point to have, at that point.

in related news, i got a 100 ml cdg 2 man for crimbus presents. when i got the sample i thought it was the only game in town. now that i've sampled the aforementioned miller harris and montale i know there are more incensey incenses, and stuff i haven't even tried yet, but this is like the epitome of high-end designer or low-end niche, for me. it's where i want to be. i get enough note separation to feel like i can see how the main players bounce off each other but otoh there's just the visceral impact of liking the gestalt of how it smells, so there's that.

in return i gave my brother armani pour homme and encre noire. he likes the armani enough, he's all about the classics, i could have given him dior eau sauvage, the original not the johnny depp sauvage which shoudn't share the same name, dior, we lived in italy when we were younger, it's very italian, i can borrow it. encre noire is pretty good, wonderwood is the only woodier thing i know but it's all the woods; that's too much wood.