Perfume / Cologne

i remember when i was wearing chanel #5 in hs and someone complained that i smelled like old people
i was mortified!

still, smelling like old people >>>>>>>>> smelling like a sexual predator
at least old people are friendly and cool sometimes

it's a classic, might not even make me *scrolls up thread to figure out what emotion I associated with it* angry anymore!

teens can't tell the difference between "old" and "cultured" anyway

https://y.yarn.co/abf77722-317b-44d5-b42e-9b1048439029_text_hi.gif

also xxp -- I have a luckyscent order coming in and a byredo sample is in it -- it's Bullion, which I kind of suspect is going to be near identical to eau de velours and/or cuir amethyste (which are already pretty similar) and I have a large bottle of the former already, but we'll see

Which of the review sites do you all like best? Luckyscent, fragrantica, basenotes? Like, if you had to choose one, which one?

normally I go by fragrantica -- I only really use luckyscent to buy stuff and basenotes is just there

also I just realized yesterday why I like poison so much despite an entire generation of people hating it, it's the ladytron of perfumes

Basenotes probably has the highest percentage of dorks who post about fragrance as though they're on the Steve Hoffman forums but that can be kind of useful sometimes.

Fragrantica wins for me because of the crowd-sourced notes / longevity / sillage voting, though. People ranking which elements predominate (1000 people say iris is prominent, 210 say they can smell tuberose strongly, etc) is much more useful than knowing that the fragrance contains 23 notes, including iris and tuberose - which you could find out from the marketing materials.

Given the tendency to reformulate and water down classic fragrances, it's also great to be able to see what proportion of people felt the scent was weak / middling / strong / huge.

speaking of tuberose, I keep meaning to try Adjatay, given my last analogy I am expecting it to be more like the Client of perfumes

Have you tried Fracas? Possibly the Eartha Kitt...

I haven't -- I'm not a huge fan of just straight-up florals

oh man i love fracas
one of my all time favorites

i really want a bottle of arpege

going through aforementioned samples; frapin 1270 is a remarkably accurate recreation of the experience of taking a bath in a bulk-food bin, mostly candied pineapples

Someone gave me Burberry Brit for a late Christmas present. I hate it. It has a long-lasting fake vanilla note that makes me feel nauseated.

I still have a a bottle of Burning Leaves and an Earl Grey Lavender water based scent from I Hate Perfume. It's so hard to find scents that aren't cloying or make you want to die if you are trapped with a heavily scented person in a small space.

I see on this thread that I was wearing Annick Goutal's Petite Cherie 13 years ago. Ha, so weird!

not to be gross but why is there no deodorant stick for ass cracks?

not to be gross but what's stopping you rubbing a deodorant stick into your asscrack?

it's legal, dude, go to town on yourself in the comfort of your own home

Couldn't you just use a regular one kept especially for that purpose?

here you go, LG
http://www.goldbond.com/blog/product/no-mess-powder-spray/

I haven't worn any fragrances in years. I'd love to get back into it at some point, but probably can't justify the expense at the moment.

BUT the other day my wife ordered a scented candle from Amazon. Buying scented candles over the internet can be hit or miss even if you're buying from a reputable place with other scents you know and like, but just randomly shopping candles on Amazon was a particularly, um, adventurous move on her part. I opened it up to take a whiff and I'm almost entirely certain that the scent of this candle is Contradiction for Men by Calvin Klein! It was my first scent, and I wore entirely too much of it for at least a year. I mentioned it to her and she was like "yeah, it's too perfumey..." I almost want to light this candle and a Marlboro Light (quit smoking over a decade ago, but it would have mixed in with whatever I was trying to do at the time) and see if it does any weird sense memory things for me.

I might try to hunt down a sample to confirm that it is indeed Contradiction, but I lived with that scent for a while so I'm pretty sure. My impression from my brief experience with the candle is that it's very overwhelming - like, way too much trying to go on and very sharp. Maybe it wears differently, idk. Probably not.

Anyway, just thought the perfume thread people might get a lol out of this.

entirely, entirely ffs

it's no more off-topic than deodorant for your ass crack

lol how's life that's funny

where nature sows stink, I shall sow peace.

killing time by reading fragrantica reviews of rochas femme, my favorite perfume and the one I'm wearing now actually, and nothing has been more "fucking @ me next time" than this:

"Rochas is the smell that remains of a lovely perfume, once harmonious and joyous when first applied but hours later has been marred by fear laden sweat and soul numbing sadness."

(the rest is some weird... WWII fanfiction...?)

you'd think after 15 years of posting LG would come up with something funny

I'm going to the Emirates next week. Does anyone have recommendations for Arabian fragrances or Arabian editions of international ones?

does "arabian editions of international ones" mean that, f'rinstance, amouage makes a version of bracken man that it exports to europe and the us that differs from what it sells to a local arab customer base or that non-arabian perfume houses like chanel or gaultier alter formulations of things like coco or alien for sale within arab countries? or are you referring to houses like armaf and rasasi, whose offerings often have a specific analogue in popular western releases?

in local news, my brother got versace versus uomo and azarro acteur. i think the uomo is a duff bottle; the citrus top notes have all burnt off, compared to the sample vial i got. i checked the batch code and this specific bottle is from 2010, so degradation is possible. shame, since i really think that transitional period from like 1988 to 1993ish walks the line between old man stuff and trying-too-hard youthful stuff from the eras that preceded and followed it. the sample was so fucking glorious! citrus, and peach! fir, and lavender, and all the other stuff! fresh, yet aromatic! peak versace, fuiud! sadly this particular instance betrays its platonic progenitor, it sinks right into my skin and i can't even smell it up close but then there's a slow release of an herbal, floral, coniferous melange that grudgingly gets released in small doses like a bank robber negotiating hostages for promises of a helicopter and pizzas. i'm still gonna get my own, but i'll have to pay more because the site he got it from is 10 bucks less than the next, but i don't want to risk getting the same wack batch. this would be my favorite designer shit; this is what dylan mckay smelled like, i'm positive. motorcycles and i'm too sad to fuck right now, brenda, i'm off to my family's spot in aruba for a season or whatever.

the acteur is also transitional, i think. there's rose, generic fruit notes, but over an classical azarro base of moss and leather. some ppl in fragrance communities always have to say that a certain rose in this or that cologne is a masculine rose, but i don't care. i don't feel that there's no gender in fragrances because it's all cultural associations; i don't know these people that exist acontextually. my feeling is if there's a discernible rose note, then there's an explicit assumption that there's a performative display of playing the dandy, which is more or less a cis-gendered appropriation of femininity, unless it's not. i think i'm piggy-backing on the struggles of those who lived through history, i don't know the way you feel inside, i don't know how much it hurts your pride, but there's a certain frisson in wearing a rose-based fragrance that geranium or carnation or lavender doesn't provoke, those things are dead butch. but anyway, the point is that love is a stranger in an open car, and i want you, so, it's an obsession, get in the car, it smells like roses.

he also has oscar de la renta pour lui, because basenotes is rife with the powerhouse 80s guys and they think everything from that era is must-have and that's what he reads while i'm all does this translate to someone who's still alive on this planet today. it's like all the classics in one thing. leathery, patchouilly, spicy, oakmossy, florally, all the things. aramis plus givenchy gentleman plus z-14 plus quorum or azarro ph and whatnot. ther's way too much aldehydes, which work really well in things like aramis new west or recent things like my beloved cgd man 2, which is great, but too much makes the millenials go meh, that's old-smelling. dial that shit down a bit, it'd be good to go.

he also has givenchy gentleman, the old one, not the new thing that has that mall accord, you know what i mean even if you don't know, and it is too old-smelling. he also has hugo boss no 1, which has that old-timey, bold-timey, patchouli thing going on but tastefully done and with honey and a very masculine rose note and it refrences a real new york gordon gekko type, slicked back hair and pinstripe suit and power tie that just touches the belt but not all the way down the crotch like some assholes i could mention that are also presedint.

i bought it ten years ago for sixty thousand dollars. the illusion has become real, and the more real it becomes, the more desperately they want it. i can sell it today for over six hundred. capitalism at its finest. i create nothing; i own. you got that killer instinct. stick around, pal, i still got a lot to teach you. hey buddy, are you with me? i need to know if you're with me. you don't have to live it but damn, it's all there in a bottle. hugo boss no. 1, available at macy's and other fine retailers right near where you live. a thing you know and understand conceptually completely distilled into a tangible consumer product that you can get, you can bend to the thing without becoming the thing, hugo boss no. 1, for the pinstripe in you.

for reals tho i was gonna get my own acteur but it's already gone from the discount sites. you can't dither about these things, it was discontinued but then there were some available and then there was none.

also! he has aubusson homme, which i looked up, and it's 70% the same notes as drakkar noir, except it doesn't have the same dihydromyrcenol overdose that taints drakkar and cool water. it's very indeterminant; its very much a 90s holdover from the 80s: it's like the inside of a merry-o-round a few years before it went out of business and became a hot topic. every review on frarantica compares this to belanciaga pour homme, but i don't know what that is. i think i remember ppl referring to versace versus uomo as something dylan mckay would wear; this reminds me of david silver for some reason, it's a hypercopt t shirt with acid-ashed jeans, it's the consummate mall-scent if you live in 1992.

hypercolor and acid-washed, i mean

dang this must be the truth

nothing i wpuldn't back down from immediately if challenged, but it's the truth as i see it.

I love it, I didn't mean it as a knock

belatedly, no problem, good sir or madam, i just mean to reinforce the notion that these drunken fragrance reviews are for entertainment purposes only and do not express the opinions of ilxor.com or any affiliated corporations, which whom cannot be held financially liable for any ruinous or detrimental outcomes resulting from any and all actions pursuant to the allegedly prescribed recommendation of, and subsequent engagement with, including but not restricted to the purchase of, use of, or interaction of any kind including but not limited to the prescribed application of the consumer products aforementionedly indicated.

my brother also now has yatagan. it's kinda too late in the season to be getting this but it's mostly just gonna sit there on the dresser anyway. i'd say this is for lovers of serious stank. it's piney, plus quorum-level dense oakmoss, with the forest-animal-nutsack thing that oscillates between primordial sex pile and put some deodorant on that. i was disappointed when i first got a sample, because i had already smelled quorum, kouros, and ralph lauren polo original green original polo, and this is the confluence of those things, as it always is with everything, you never smell anything really new, but it does smell like a masterpiece of fragrance compositionery. by comparison i was in sephora and smelled the tom ford noir, which is black-tie skank, damn, son, you must have serious bank, and also the john varvatos dark rebel, which is skank-lite for the contemporary man who dares to project that mature vibe, that's what varvatos is, and i'm quoting a youtube reviewer who i believe is scandanavian but has a socal look and accent, varvatos' output def has that "daddy vibe," which, means over-35s can pull this off without coming across as the old guy in the club or under-35s can pull this off without actually smelling old, but still play the sugar-daddy role if that's how you prowl.

i got a small bottle of gucci by gucci i found discounted. it's not great, but i get a decent cypress note off the top and i like cypress. it's a wearable version of better things that aren't as wearable.

james franco was the face of the gucci by gucci ad campaign. the best review on fragtantica was that this is an apt metaphor; he's not quite as handsome as he's supposed to be but hey, who the hell are you to turn that down.

dark rebel is totally a daddy scent, but too polite to be really skanky. i was hoping for more smokiness from reading the notes -- i get pleasant church incense, resins, car leather and powdery tonka

do you mean dark rebel or dark rebel rider? dark rebel has a castoreum note but it's very slight, more of a suggestion than a dominating presence.

i got dark rebel rider in the interim between this and my previous post. i didn't mean to, but i had to go out and there was a marshalls and they had a bottle of this and now i have it. it's not in macy's or whatnot anymore so i hadn't smelled it yet and blind bought it.

i agree with both the hoping for more and pleasant remarks -- it could be smokier but that could be a bit too much for the target demographic, not that i think that's a bad thing. per the name it's dark and dangerous, but like, about as dark and dangerous as the cult's electric, which was metal that got played between songs by new order and the sugarcubes, who were probably more so dark and dangerous in a different way. it's tempered-badass, like the bad boy or manic girl you're hoping won't behave according to the attributes that made you attracted to them in the fiest place and this time they don't, which is great, because you can just spray them on and wear them for daily use without worrying if they're not suitable for office use or general social occasions whereas a girlfriend or boyfriend like midnight in paris might get wasted and act out in front of your boss.

varvatos is generally regarded as having poor longevity and this one seems to be in line with that. the regular dark rebel sample i had seemed to project longer; the rider comes and goes. off the skin i'm now getting the cacao; it's not as deep as the l'instant de guerlain (the ockham's razor of elegance! meaning, any more elegance would be superfluous, which by definition is inelegant!) but it gives the rider a tasteful dry sweetness where normally in a designer there'd be way too much vanilla, i'm sick of too much vanilla.

actually at this point in the drydown i'm reminded of kokorico, if only for the cacao, patchouli, and cedar. remember when i said kokorico smelled like what people who live inside david lynch movies smell like? that was a great line. where do i go to get my royalty check. this phase of drr is like the normal world version of that, except i can't smell it in the air ambiently, just on skin because apparently varvatos sells mostly to young people who think it's declasse if your scent passes the boundry of liminality and is detetable in the least. boo. boo varvatos. boo john varvatos. boo varvatos. boo.

i sprayed more on. yay varvatos.

nb i'm off tomorrow; it's ok i had a few and did the bourbonated review thing.

i think my sample of jpg kokorico went off because no mainstream fragrance could be that strange, but then again i don't think so. such a weirdo scent for a mainstream house, which is weird in itself because gaultier as a presence is too weird but his fragrance house is not. i was in a speedway gas station and the burly construction worker in line in front of me getting his morning bitter, flavorless coffee was wearing le male and it reminded me of all the times he got laid in the 90s and i was like, get some, dude, and this is in rust-belt ohio so that's how outre gaultier is. when i look at conceptual art i assume it's a comment on and a reaction against whatever else was going on in the art world just a moment ago that i'm not clued in on, and i get it, that's kokorico, it's a negative presence, it's not for you, it's for the person next to you who gets it, but you want to be them, so it's for you so you can be them, and the same for them, they don't get it either.

nb the other person in the latter scenario is an artsy thin person looking at the conceptual art piece, not the burly construction worker in line getting coffeein the previous scenatio, although there's no real world reason they couldn't be the same person, except they never are. one is le male and the other is kokorico.