Perfume / Cologne

I’ve been testing out a le labo sampler for the last year and the only one I truly love is ambrette. I don’t get the hype around santal 33 - I smells nice if I press my nose right up against my skin but in the air it smells really sickly to me. I like bergamot, jasmine and another13 just fine but not enough to spend money on.

I just received a bunch of samples from scent split that I’m excited to test - mostly byredo and Comme des Garçons.

i'm always a bit unsure of L'Air du désert marocain on first application, but god the drydown is just divine.

My favorite perfume for the last couple years has been Eric Buterbaugh’s lily of the valley oud

I was rereading the intro to Perfumes the Guide and can’t stop thinking about this:

The fact is that this stuff is worth loving. As with the tawdriest pop melody, there is a base pleasure in perfume, in just about any perfume, even the cheapest and the most starved of ideas, that is better than no perfume at all. It decorates the day. It makes you feel as if the colors of the air have changed. It’s a substitute for having an orchestra follow you about playing the theme song of your choice. Think of what the functional fragrance industry calls the magic moment, when the smell of fabric softener billows out of your dryer and you can’t help but feel great. Perfume is wonderful. And it’s simply not true, as some people believe, that thinking about our pleasures ruins them. For example, few things are as wonderful as having a great meal and talking about it afterward, and remembering other great meals, and planning the next one. We have found, in writing this book, that the same holds for perfume. All pleasure is connected, and the endless ride we take between disappointment and satisfaction and back again is largely what keeps us interested in life. What more is there to talk about?

I have been steadily developing my own perfume organ of essential oils. Unfortunately some do not smell very good. Sandalwood proved a disappointed whiff.

Xp I feel that way about CK1. It was the height of teen sophistication when I was at school in the 90s and I adored it. Of course we were poor and I wasn’t allowed to spend any of the money I earned so I couldn’t afford it or any other perfume, cheap or not. Owning more than one bottle of perfume at a time feels like the height of luxury to me.

i got cartier roadster sport and z zegna milan for crimbus. the cartier smells like a designer, a high end designer. it's so great, it's like bryan ferry's slave to love, it's elegant and so pop at the same time. it's smooth, it's green, it's glossy, it's like glass. the green smells like mint but it's rosemary. the zegna i didn't know how it smelled but it's got a fig note so i wanted it. there's a prominent low-end designer mall accord initially, like a knockoff impression of aventus or encre noire, a burnt, synthetic smokiness that i assume signifies sexinessitude. but after that there's a dense figginess and some clary sage greenfullness, so it's all good. mall accord or not, it's pretty ok. by mall accord i mean what that sounds like it means. i have diptyque philosykos, which is fig but smells like fig wood, and ferragamo homme, which is fig leaf, and i had a hermes jardin au mediterranee sample or whatever which is also fig leaf. i had a l'artisan caligna sample which i think had the best fig fruit note to it. fuck it, i'll get all the figs.

i got my brother the roma, so now i can wear it. also lalique lion, which is straight class, and the armaf clone of creed imperial mellesime, which is supposedly really close to the creed. fuck creed prices, i say, unless you have the cash, then just get the creed. it's just money.

I hadn’t said so in here I think but I bought a bottle of Caldey Island lavender on the basis of its five star review in Perfumes the Guide and it being, idk, made by monks? Anyway it arrived a few weeks back and I really like it. Have always associated lavender with sleep/somnolence, but this is a sweet and summery thing. It lifts the mood and isn’t remotely soporific, quite the opposite. It’s a nice perfume for summer, sure, but worn in the dead grey of winter, it’s something harvested in brighter days bearing the promise that the sun and better days will return. Or something. It’s very good.

Slightly practical question: 19 year old nephew requested Nasomatto's Blamage for his birthday. It's £125 so he can jog on.

Fragrantica suggests:

leather
woody
smoky
musky
animalic
powdery.

What should he have? Not Lynx before someone suggests that. Bonus points if not tested on animals.

Reminded me of Bulgari Black, a gorgeous fragrance in its own right, however it’s not sold in the UK anymore so you have to order it online from fragrancex or similar (15% off though). Well worth his time. And yes, it’s legit, I’ve bought from there before and checked the batch codes.

Bulgari Black is an interesting fragrance to be sure, though it does have a burnt rubber note that might be a turnoff for some.

Thanks, both.

Sorry I couldn't think of a suggestion. L'Homme Ideal L'Intense by Guerlain has some of those characteristics but not the animalic or the musky. Chanel Antaeus would seem a good match, and is one I love personally, but it might smell too old-fashioned for a 19-year-old (after all it was introduced in 1981).

this thread inspired me to order a bunch of CdG samples and see which pleased me. i've been drawn to their line of fragrances for a long time but had never picked any up. finally ordered myself a bottle of Wonderoud as a birthday treat. i'm also a fan of Concrete, but found it barely detectable on my skin after a short while. maybe i just need a bigger supply.

so here's the thing, uh, how does one develop their sense of smell? i can smell things, and sometimes i like the things (like CdG's Oud for one), but i have NO IDEA what i am smelling. how do y'all learn how to detect different notes in a scent? i'd have a deeper appreciation for fragrances/parfums if i could build up a little more familiarity

hmm, i guess Concrete is a skin scent and not meant to project? neat.

if i like something i'll look up the notes on fragrantica or basenotes. usually i can then pick out a few of the prominent notes but most fragrances have so many notes that they're all jumbled up in an amorphous scent cloud. if i'm unsure of what a particular note smells like i'll try several fragrances that feature that note and just kinda eliminate the differences.

thank u for that, slugbuggy. fragranica is gonna be helpful. :)

after my last post i went crazy and bought bottles of CdG's (underappreciated) Concrete and (much praised) Copper, and i'd like to get more stuff from that house... i guess i'm a bit of a label whore.

anyway, this stuff is pretty fun and i get why people get into collecting perfumes/colognes. that last purchase it for me for a while, though—cutting myself off until i use most of what i've ordered and Luckyscent takes all my money.

that stuff all sounds great, Davey, wonderoud sounds like extremely my kind of thing

I have been wanting to splurge on a bunch of samples lately but I’m trying to be good and use the frags I have because they are really lovely.

I just want a sample of every Tom Ford fragrance please. I’m hopeless for Tom Ford.

my friend loves one of those Tom Ford scents... she says it smells exactly like cocaine.

I almost laughed out loud with a mixture of delight/bemusement when I smelled Tom Ford’s Ombré Leather for the first time, it’s like “yea ok maybe I do want to smell like a brand new car!”

that's the one!

i think

I've very recently gotten into fragrance in my 30s by way of a late-breaking obsession with incense (file under hobbies/habits acquired under quarantine). Agree with all that Tom Ford frags are lovely. Beau de Jour is the one for me; it makes me feel like I've just walked out of a high-end neon barbershop freshly styled and shaven.

So far I've found the CdG Incense line resonates the strongest with me. Just got a bottle of Avignon last week and have my nose set on Kyoto next. Because I didn't grow up going to church--Catholic or otherwise--I don't associate frankincense and myrrh with any of that stuff. To me it just smells NICE in a way that directly activates my pleasure centers whenever I spray on Avignon or burn a stick of Fred Soll's Resin on a Stick Frankincense and Myyrh incense.

Xps I got a sample of CdG Concrete a few weeks ago. It is surprisingly light, sweet, and sandalwoody and I really like it. I also just really love the concrete bottle as an object, and the concept of the whole thing. So I'll probably cop a bottle when I have the funds. I tried Copper in-store and found it kind of off-putting, but I'll probably give it another shot. Has anyone tried any of their Olfactory Library stuff (Tar, Soda, Garage, etc)?

Even though I rarely leave the house much, I've taken to wearing the perfume from my old place of work, Aesop's Mystra, now discontinued. Labdanum, mastic, frankincense—. I had forgotten how much I love it. Wonder what I'll do when it's run out— it is rather expensive, and I'd much rather see what else is out there, since the world of perfume is so intriguing to me.

on the incense tip, i really like Tauer's incense-meets-desert stuff, L'Air du desert marocain or Au coeur du desert - which i realize i already mentioned too much above. Memo's African Leather smells v similar to my nose. It's not as eSoTeRiC and catholic as others i suppose but really beautiful. Personally I didn't love the Olfactory Library ones i've sniffed - someone like CB I Hate Perfume had better weird evocation scents for me, though i found they didn't last very long.

recently i bit the bullet and sprang for a whole bottle of Monocle/CDG's Hinoki perfume, which has a sharp cypress wood smell and then also this bloom of camphor that makes it at once "clarifying" and almost piney + at the same time sort of toxic, in a way i like. A nice alternative to some of the more sumptuous/incensey other things i wear. excited to try it in summer!

I really like the CdG Hinoki. Good to see others liking the same

terre d'hermes is one of those liminal perfumes. like, way too much vetiver to be kosher but if you apply it just so, it's sublime, but one step beyond and it's egregious. and so it goes. not enough is just enough. jean-claude elena, what was going on in your mind? this goes all the way to eleven. six or seven is where it should live, but that's not included in the instructions.

as a counter-reference, i spayed on some of my brother's vettiver guerlain. so brutish, so elegant. jesus howard christ! if you put this on your body in springtime conditions you will be a better person! too cold and it lays flat and too warm and it weighs you down, but at optimal conditions, you have superman powers! i am pure of heart and woe of all wrongdoers everywhere! i thought this was just ok for an old-timey thing but i have been transformed into a pillar of righteousness! i should know. i'm a medical doctor. i should know. you should quit. you should never, never know. you never know.

terre d'hermes is one of those liminal perfumes. like, way too much vetiver to be kosher but if you apply it just so, it's sublime, but one step beyond and it's egregious. and so it goes. not enough is just enough.

Yeah, I went back and forth between terre d'hermes and terre d'hermes eau intense vetiver on a couple sample vials. I ended up picking up a full bottle of the intense vetiver because I liked the scent better. It's one of those scents for me where the atmospheric conditions and temperature need to be perfect for it to work. Today is one of those days: light spring rain, lower 50s, lit a couple candles this morning, windows cracked, feeling mellow. Midway through the morning, I get the idea like "today. today is the day I wear some of that." One spray on the arm from a judicious distance and let me tell you it smells wonderful but damn I am practically cross-eyed with a headache now.

Maybe if I actually stepped outdoors to apply it or something. It's kinda ridiculous.

Tried that out back this fine, cloudy spring morning. One spray on the arm from over a foot away. Still headache-inducing. Swear it wasn't like this with the sample.

could be the iso e super? i know the regular terre edt had tons of it and i assume the intense has it too, and it can give people headaches.

i forgot to add upthread that the fragrantica notes section has a votes feature, in which people vote for what they find most prominent. however, you have to be registered and logged in for it to work. boo fragrantica. boo wendy. boo wendy testaberger. boo wendy. boo. hey, what did i hear you say, it didn't used to be that way. it use to just be a regular feature. a fragrance might have 20 or 30 notes but i can usually pick out 4 or 5 tops and this gives me a clue as to which are most likely. if a note isn't at the top of the list i'm too blessed to be stessed about not picking it out. discerning notes is part of the game but a futile quest unless you're a perfume genius and everybody smells different things and ultimately perfume as a hobby is kinda dumb and something you can never explain to your friends. sometimes i'll have a thing for months and finally i'll be able to pick out a note that i knew was in there but couldn't smell and when that happens i hear the sound of mario getting a coin buy who am i going to tell? well, you people, maybe.

sometimes notes have a texture or feel, even if i can't smell them qua smells as such, i feel dryness or humidity or metallicness or whatnot. incense feels fuzzy, and so on. perception is a bitchy mistress and i just go along with what she says. i can't be positive i'm actually registering what's in there but if i think so i'll give myself full points anyway.

i stopped by the mall kiosk place and got azzaro acteur and dior higher, because they had them. acteur is from 1989; higher is from 2001. acteur is generally leathery and mossy with rose and fruit notes. it's soft, though, like a big scary biker guy who's just a sweet ole teddy bear even though he could seriously hurt you if necessary but he doesn't really want that, and you don't either. it's like they took an 80s style powerhouse and toned it down and then sassied it up a little. i put this in the interzone period where things are kinda the same but trying out new ways to be. it's like swayze in roadhouse but he gets up onstage and sings she's like the wind and all the fighting stops and all the tough guys in the bar get a little teary-eyed. it's not available on any of the discount sites but i got it for a decent price. kroq2 is playing eternal flame and it fits this scent, do you feel the same? hoffs kicks ass on the rickenbacker but so much sweetness. eternal flame is a song i always underestimate but is so great when it's on. digression!

the higher is, i feel, a totally standard fresh woody aromatic, but in a totally retro way. harder, faster, stronger, better. i'm being so mainstream, but like it's 2001 outside! normcore! i get pear, basil, rosemary, and cypress. fresh and green but a slight sharpness for contrast, kinda like my cartier roadster sport, so there's a pattern there.

the kiosk place also had lalique l'insoumnis. i wanted to smell it so they let me smell it. i'd heard from the internets that it was kinda generic, and it kinda is, but in a qualified way. it's not particularly interesting or challenging like fragnerds prefer but it's damn solid. lalique is as lalique does. it's green with the basil and a little barbershoppy, like a distant cousin to ysl rive gauche pour homme. you can't get rive gauche unless you chuck up the bucks because discontinued but this can be had for way cheap. it's like the keanu of fragrances; you think maybe he's not so great at acting but then you notice how everyone around him is ACTING so hard and then you realize he's just doing what a normal person would do in that situation and not overthinking it. it's just what it needs to be, which is lalique.

sb pls post every day

would patreon

YSL Rive Gauche pour Homme is the strongest, butchest thing I've ever smelled. Not at all like regular Rive Gauche.

sb pls post every day

would patreon

I'm always here for a random Guffman callback...

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

Speaking of which, I've been sampling a lot of DS & Durga's stuff these last few months and I'm sort of crestfallen that my absolute favorites from them so far (Bowmakers and Radio Bombay) have by far the weakest performance on my skin.

Is there any way if finding out what an old perfume smelled like? Or even have it or an approximation made up by a boutique perfumery manufacturer?

I'm interested in the 'art deco' perfumes of Lola Prusac, such as Sega Gant de Crin - but despite their popularity at the time, all I can find is a somewhat terse:

Gant de Crin is a perfume by Lola Prusac for women and men and was released in 1965. The production was apparently discontinued.

There seems to be a gap in the market for vintage/historical perfumes.

https://hprints.com/s_img/ng_md/36/36441-lola-prusac-jewels-1966-dd1dcaeded45-hprints-com.webp

https://www.osmotheque.fr/en/

France's Osmotheque archives vintage perfumes and researches ingredients and formulas. I've heard of people getting samples from their holdings, but have no idea of what that involves.

You will see online ads for companies that claim to reproduce vintage fragrances, but I've never heard of anyone getting anything (good or bad) from them.

If you're not already scouring eBay, that would be your best bet. Warning: old fragrances sometimes go very bad, depending on the ingredients and how the bottle was stored.

Along similar lines, the original vinyl pressing of Laura Nyro's 1968 album Eli and the Thirteenth Confession reportedly had a lyric sheet that was sprayed with perfume, and I'm dying to know which perfume was used--whether it was a perfume that already existed or if it was created specifically for this purpose--and what it smelled like. I have a copy of this pressing, but whatever fragrance it might have had has long since faded.

So this is a long shot, but does anyone know anything about this? Or if you were around the album at the time, do you remember what it smelled like?

Also, unrelated to my question, I recently got Chanel Antaeus and I am obsessed. I was expecting something almost cartoonishly masculine and animalic like Kouros, but it has a lovely, refined sweetness to it that registers as unisex for me

(x-post)

The art director was Bob Cato, but he died in 1999. I wonder if your best bet may be to contact the keeper of his archives at the Rochester Institute of Technology https://www.rit.edu/carycollection/bob-cato

You're probably aware, but there's a tantalising description in "Singing for Themselves: Essays on Women in Popular Music", Patricia Spence Rudden:

Slitting open the shrinkwrap of an early copy of ETC provided yet another experience: a fragrance of some kind that was in the ink used for the lyric sheet. To this day, I have no idea what this smell was, nor have I smelled it anywhere else, but it was reportedly distinctive enough so that Nyro listeners in college dorms were able to identify each other by smelling it in each others' rooms.

That's a great idea, Luna! I'll reach out to RIT. Ideally I would be able to get ahold of whatever fragrance it was and give my Eli lyric sheet a refresher, but I'm keeping my expectations low.

I tried out a sample of diptique's Eau des Sens the other day and couldn't stop thinking about it so had to return and buy it - an indulgence I wouldn't have allowed if I didn't find it utterly captivating beyond compare. I'm not particularly a fan of floral or very sweet fragrances, but this rounds out those things with an enigmatic romanticism and fresh sharpness that makes it transcend. Walking around in it makes me feel like an adept of hermeticism on a sabbatical, approaching a breakthrough in the manor gardens of the library I'm studying at. To my unsophisticated nose I can only make out the orange blossom and patchouli notes (being distinct things I have smelt before), but it has something of a backstreet sweetshop or after dinner liqueur to it as well and yet something almost peppery too. Oh it is so good, I am so excited to wear it.

Wow Eau des Sens sounds lovely, will try to get my nose on it ASAP. The only Diptyque I own is Tempo, which is really nice peppery, sagey patchouli. Your experience with Eau des Sens is pretty much what happened to me with Chanel Antaeus a couple weeks ago--smelled it at the Chanel store on Saturday, couldn't stop thinking about it, then went back on Monday to buy a bottle. It was definitely $100 I shouldn't have spent on perfume but it actually feels like an incredible bargain because of how luxurious it smells, like I'm draped in velveteen roses and myrrh.

I also blind ordered Guerlain Habit Rouge, which turned out to be a great decision. It opens with the biggest neon lemon drop blast imaginable then dries down to a beautiful woody vanilla/rose. Can't wait to rock it for the rest of the summer. Every time I try a new Guerlain (so far just Shalimar, Mitsouko, and Heritage) I wonder why I even bother with any other house. Definitely the best in terms of price to quality ratio.

I could swear Habit Rouge has changed - or evolved - within the last 20 yrs. It used to start with powdery vanilla and now it starts with that lemon blast you describe. Unless my nose has changed. Impossible to prove unless I scored an old bottle.

Was it the edt or edp you bought?

I love Antaeus too, it's more interesting than Bleu which Chanel seems to promote harder.

I think a lot of formulas for fragrances have changed since the oak moss component of them has become problematic

Diptyque's Eau de Sens is nice, I also like their Do Son and Tam Dao. My favorite fragrance of theirs is L'Eau Trois which is basically frankincense, but it's not for every day

I still have bottles of Mitsouko from before the formula changes and it is my favorite Guerlain