Perfume / Cologne

Slugbuggy, if I wanted something like Elizabeth Arderns Green Tea but more refined and elegant, do you happen to have any recs? It’s super cheap, and it’s rough, but I’ve always liked it, even though I’ve been wearing expensive perfumes for 20 years.

all i really know is that the bvlgari eau parfumee au the vert seems to be the standard for that kind of thing. it's a jean-claude ellena cration, feels good when we kiss, nobody ever made me feel like this. it's been a while since i've smelled it but it seems that what followed was pretty much based on that. i think it's better than the arden but i'm not sure if it tracks price-wise. i have the banana republic vintage 78 and i feel it's a pretty good tea fragrance for the price i paid but it's discontinued and already hard to find online.

i'd say check out fragrantica and look under tea in the notes section. there's all kinds of teas at various price points: the body shop, roget and gillet, armani prive, guerlain, and so on. jo malone does green really well from what i can tell and they have some teas.

i've also smelled bvlgari pour homme, which i think is just ok, l'artisan tea for two, which is a very cinnomany tea, kenzo tokyo, very spicy and hard to find, and bvlgari black, which is ostensibly a tea fragrance but really a leather thing.

i feel like i have the highest noise-to-signal ratio on this thread. i spew a lot of word salad; i have a lot of thoughts because intp like a lot of ilx but then a coupla whiskeys and then here's everything i know about a topic. also i work in a refernce from whatever modern rock thing i'm listening to at the time; i'm a slave to love in that respect. i'm too young to reason, too grown up to dream. how poignant and lachrymose is that lyric, now that we're so much older? if that resonated so long ago, how much more so now, now that nobody hardly remembers or cares about that song?

what was i talking about? i think fragrances in general are under-represented as cultural products: smell is the most evocative sense but all the smart people talk about movies and visual arts and music in that regard. ck one is as much a dividing line between eras as nirvana. maybe that's a bad example. i feel clever enough to be on ilx but just barely; i posit positions as a starting point for someone of advanced erudition to run with. dare to be stupid. almost everyone else who posts on here seems to know as much or more about fragrances as i do. i'm just the loud drunk poster.

in conclusion and in summary, does anyone know if au the vert is pretty much it or is there better, and is it worth the price differential? also, does anyone want to dread pirate roberts me and be the drunk posting fragrance and cultural reference person? it's really fun and people seem to like it; at least so far no one has said shut up, voices carry.

how elegant is that slave to love video? if that's not the aural equivalent of armani pour homme then i don't want to live in this world, because i'm right and the world is wrong. i can hear your laughter, i can see your smile. such sexless sexuality, so much jawlines and hemlines. the height of cultivated artifice. i can so remember pulling the cap off of my bottle, and whatever it was i was contained therein, it was clearly something i was only ever to imagine from afar.

Pls post more not less, especially pls post about Cool Water

Thank you! I’ll check those out. I loved bvlgari au the blanc but I wore it during a really shitty time in my life so I’m not sure I could wear it again without that taint.

i dunno, i feel like cool water is a legacy fragrance: it's a thing and you can't detract from that. there's a blog from an old-school guy, called from pyrgos, and he has a post about the history of dihydromyrcenol or whatever and cool water is def a part of that iconography. you got paco rabanne ph, drakkar noir, green irish tweed, aspen, and cool water. i read it and i guess cool water is part of that lineage.

i had cool water during my fallow period because somehow i fad read that it was transitional and important. wait, here comes linda richmond: cool water is neither cool nor watery. discuss amongst yourselves. i don't know if it's a proper fougere but it's lavendery so it's probably is. then you had eternity which is to cw what bush is to nirvana: it's the call is coming from inside the house type of situation. the first is the shot across the ramparts, the second is we took the shot and decided to market the damn thing back to y'all. i think.

like i said, after i stopped buying thugs and before i really started buying all the things, i had cool water as my only bottle. i liked it okay but i wasn't in love with it. i liked it, but not like liked it. we're still friends, though. the crrent iteration is supposed weaker that the original so i can't really comment on how good it once was.

i still haven't smelled the tom ford beau de jour but i plan to. why is something that is in the signature line and not the high-end line 190 dollers? that's too many dollers. i'm still all san dimas football rules about ysl rive gauche, though. how the hell is that discontinued, when it's clearly the shizznit? shizznit should be axiomatic.

proudly posting despite grammatical and spelling errors.

great post slug buggy!

funny enough, i tried cool water last night from a tester at Sam's Club. it was glued down to the display and I had to angle my wrist in a weird way to get a spritz. it's a pleasant scent, but I don't think it's for me, tempermentally. i can still smell traces of it close to my skin, which is a positive. i also feel like I would have to dress better to make it work. it wants qualities of fabric greater than what is achievable by Target Corp.

counterintuitively, I've been an occasional Silver Mountain Water wearer for the past few years. for me, Silver Mountain Water isn't inhibited by my lack of sartorial refinement, but I do need certain atmospheric conditions to make it work - generally only in cool/cold crisp weather. Last month, noting that my bottle was depleted about halfway and not feeling great about the prospect of dropping another $200+ on perfume (speaking of too many dollers) I looked into knockoffs and picked up Franck Olivier Sun Java White Men, based on Fragrantica comment chatter, for about $20. While the power of the fragrance is there, and the notes are obviously similar, they were arranged in a way that made me nauseous.

which brings me to Aventus. i thought based on my love of SMW that i should try out the most expensive of Creed's line. I've tried their Santal, which was of similar quality, but was just not my scent. picked up a vial of Aventus for way more than a sample vial should cost. but expecting similar strength to SMW (which definitely projects for a good portion of my day and can stay close into the next), the aventus that I got was barely audible from the start. i really had to bend down to my wrist to smell it throughout the morning, and that was about as long as it lasted. did not inspire confidence in me to spend whatever exorbitant price they are asking for a full bottle. it's a shame, because the fragrance itself was well composed and interesting, but again not justifiably $400+ of interesting.

I got a bunch of samples from

https://adqperfumes.com/products/explorer-set

and am pretty impressed.

got some alkemia testers in the mail and holy shit is YDALIR ever a dank monstrous haunted old reliquary

I don't know how, but I ended up watching an unboxing video for this Chanel no. 5 advent calendar (£610 in UK, I think maybe $825 US?) and it's full of the cheapest, shoddiest shit and hardly any actual products!
https://www.chanel.com/gb/fragrance/p/105997/n5-the-calendar/

I know you can get great beauty calendars, luxury ones, good value ones and lots filled with worthless crap but this one surely takes the prize for pissing on its own brand? Or do die-hard Chanel fans actually enjoy tiny samples and stickers... so many stickers...?

also it starts on 5 and goes to 31, which is terrible.

Lol. I saw this as well, not overly impressed either. I think Chanel do a great job branding (well they should, the amount of money they put into it) and the beauty products are legitimately good ime. I still have a bottle of Blue Satin I bought in 2008 from getting paid from my first real job and the formula is still perfect. However, I think you’d have to be a real completist to own that. I think I have said that I don’t really care much for no5 myself at all but Chance is a legit great fragrance and I always try to own some.

Has anyone tried Les Nereides ? I really like their approach to jewellery, so am trying their Etoile d’Oranger out of curiosity. It smells a bit like geraniums to me and I was initially a bit disappointed - but I’m liking it more after a few days use.

I’ve also just received a very generous gift of a pack of 3 different Acqua di Parma Colonia (regular, Intensa and Pura) which I am looking forward to trying.

Xpost self

The two sales assistants were both heavily pushing the ‘patchouli antique fragrance’, sowing the seeds for self-doubt, and I’ve got buyer’s remorse now.

Last time I got a full 100 ml of Boucheron perfume (Jaipur) for free on top of four second-hand chairs (100 $), felt like a good deal.

Also I finally got onto the Liberty box subscription so I’m looking forward to going to the perfume department and getting something with my credit in the new year. Am getting this Frederic Malle discovery set as a Christmas present, was thinking of Portrait of a Lady if I like it.

Musc Ravageur by Frederic Malle is still my s**t: two sprays at 10am today and still present at around 5pm. This after lots of bike riding, a bit of rain.
Worst recent buy was CDG Kyoto EDT - a scent I fell in love with via samples. No longevity whatsoever. Barely 30 minutes. Bah Humbug.

I love Kyoto and I find the opposite with longevity, but I do find that some perfumes that people online praise for their sillage seem to evaporate off me :( I have a bottle of Cinéma that I love but after an hour it’s almost entirely faded. Maybe that’s part of why I like Angel so much, that stuff survives baths.

I love Kyoto too but like xp I find it doesn't last very long on me. I don't mind re-applying throughout the day though. My current fave from the CdG Incense series is Zagorsk--cold, austere, piney, vaguely soapy, and perfect for winter. Supposedly smells a lot like Eastern Orthodox church incense, which I'm not familiar with.

I also tried Guerlain Jicky (EDP, new 2021 bottle) for the first time a few days ago, and the opening has to be one of the most beautiful things I've ever smelled. Lavender, citrus, herbs, hay--clean and rustic at the same time. It smells old but feels timeless rather than dated. I got a bit of the infamous civet funk in the drydown, not in an unpleasant way. Similar to the clean/dirty dichotomy of Kouros but mellower and more welcoming.

Got Frederic Malle’s 12 piece discovery set as an asked-for present yesterday and the Imaginary Authors perfume as a surprise Fox in the Flowerbed.

Wore Fox in the Flowerbed yesterday and tried Portrait of a Lady from the Malle set today, so these are just initial impressions.

Fox in the Flowerbed:

My husband said he thought of this for me because it has a jasmine top note same as Alien, which I’ve worn and loved for years. Alien is a beautiful fragrance but it’s not for everyone and some find it a lot. Turin and Sanchez don’t particularly rate it but I’ve always found it to be very special, and have gone through several bottles in the last twenty years. Anyway, Fox…is a fresher scent than Alien, it’s designed around the theme of a whimsical book about a fox that falls in love with a butterfly. Insufferable as all that sounds, it’s a beautifully presented bottle (in a box that looks like a book), and the notes echo the fiction it’s supposedly inspired by. The jasmine ofc is pretty notable, but the pink pepper lingers on as well for a little kick. It’s very pretty and well done, and was a nice touch of spring in this dour winter. I wish all surprises were this great.

Portrait of a Lady:

I’ve owned Carnal Flower (another Christmas present), and wanted to try some more Malle fragrances but haven’t made it out to anywhere in 2021 to do so in person :( This one came highly recommended and I was keen to try it first. The notes are very reminiscent of Twilly eau poivrée (which I also own and love). The initial impression is of the rose, warm and luminous, but after a while some of the other notes come to the fore. I got the cinnamon and sandalwood hints a bit stronger but other people may perceive it differently. Am I the kind of person who wears this, I wonder? Maybe not, it’s very sweetly feminine and ladylike and I think I might slightly prefer Twilly au Poivrée’s slight bite but I have a few more goes of this. It’s a very beautiful perfume, I can’t quite work it out.

Also just realised that Dominique Ropion, who did Carnal Flower and Portrait of a Lady, was also behind Alien so that was nice to think about the similarities between them.

More Frederic Malle:

Musc Ravageur

Was excited about trying this one but undecided on it. I had read other people's impressions of this as this towering, sexy fragrance and it's...a bit weak? I don't know. Will try it another couple of times, but it doesn't come close to Fracas for sexy.

En Passant
Well named. Evaporated almost as soon as I put it on.

Une Rose

The description of this interested me.
An earthy rose is tinged with Périgord truffle for a subtle taste of the gothic. This crimson femininity is bound by wine dreg to a darker base, the rose’s secret roots. A garden flower with hidden depths.

It's sweet, it's warm, and I definitely get the wine dregs - like an evening after an engagement maybe, but the word I keep settling on is nice and it's not £172 nice.

I'm not a hugely perfumey person but I want to smell all these!

Next time you're somewhere they have perfume you can try, try Twilly. Incredible. I bought it in the airport on the way home from Ireland in the summer and I haven't liked anything so much in years.
https://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/Hermes/Twilly-d-Hermes-46145.html It's fresh, it's bright, it's warm, it's gorgeous. Haven't loved anything like this in a long long time.

Isn’t that the one you bought Gyac? The one with the bottle that looks like it’s wearing a little hat?

My trusty fave is still Narciso Rodriguez “For Her” but I also recently got Juliette Has a Gun’s Not a Perfume and I love it so much.

xp yep, I have the Eau Poivrée one as well!

btw I've never tried Narciso Rodriguez For Her but Luca Turin & Tania Sanchez gave it a good writeup in Perfume: The A-Z Guide.

But give Narciso Rodriguez to someone you like, and stand at attention as she sweeps past. You then realize that some fragrances, like gravitation, reliably generate an attractive force day in and day out, without fuss or explanation, though theories abound. LT

Memorable mostly for mating a big, somewhat masculine patchouli-musk to its harsh, chemical-smelling orange-blossom floral. TS

It’s gorgeous.

Musc Ravageur

Was excited about trying this one but undecided on it. I had read other people's impressions of this as this towering, sexy fragrance and it's...a bit weak? I don't know. Will try it another couple of times, but it doesn't come close to Fracas for sexy.

I went to a Frederic Malle store a couple months ago, mainly to try that one and Monsieur. I had a similar reaction to Musc Ravageur; it was definitely more subtle and less aggressive than I expected. Monsieur, on the other hand, I loved immediately. The drydown smells exactly like Minorien Fu-In Kyara japanese incense, which is amazing stuff and worth checking out if you're into that kind of thing.

A couple weeks after that I got a sample of Le Labo Labdanum 18, which smelled really familiar to me in a way I couldn't articulate. Turns out it's basically Musc Ravageur with a slightly more animalic edge (also by the same perfumer). I really like it; it's both soothing and sexy at the same time. Makes me want to give Musc Ravageur another shot and do a side-by-side of the two.

Also gyac, you're OTM re: Fracas. Easily my favorite "women's" perfume ever. Fun, sexy, glamorous, and miraculously undated for a perfume from the 40s. I got my girlfriend a bottle of it, but I keep my own decant just to sniff once in a while and spray some on if I'm feeling adventurous

my friend who like me loves Frederic Malle was taken aback by Musc Ravageur, he said wearing it felt like the experience of waking up in a bed next to a stranger

Carnal Flower, Lys Meditérranée, and Portrait of a Lady are my favorite Frederic Malle scents. My friend asked me for Bois D'Orage (renamed French Lover) as a Christmas present. He really likes that and Angeliques Sous la Pluie

Une Fleur de Cassie is also amazing, kind of feral and animalic but compelling

Musc Ravageur and Vetiver Extraordinaire have been my faves for some years now. And Guerlain Vetiver (og, not Extreme). But I really love FM and their creations.

I went to a Frederic Malle store a couple months ago, mainly to try that one and Monsieur. I had a similar reaction to Musc Ravageur; it was definitely more subtle and less aggressive than I expected. Monsieur, on the other hand, I loved immediately. The drydown smells exactly like Minorien Fu-In Kyara japanese incense, which is amazing stuff and worth checking out if you're into that kind of thing.

Curious about Tyler, The Creator's debut scent.

Got recommended Dear Polly as a high end dupe for Elizabeth Arden’s Green Tea and my sample finally arrived today: the green tea is sort of underneath but the top is an incredibly soft smoke. Love it, and it def smells high end, but not quite green tea enough. I think it might layer really nicely with a little of the Elizabeth Arden though.

i think the hardest thing is finding exactly what you want, specially if it's a single note thing with whatever else it takes to make a complete fragrance, but mostly you want that one note, with the extras rounding out the corners and adding lift but not being overly obtrusive. bring on the dancing horses is playing on kroq2 right now, and i don't know how to tie it in to what i'm saying as is my shtick, but it reminds me of the "bring on the dancing horses, tuff stuff" quote from the ilx archives, and that's a moment we can all reflect upon wistfully. they just don't write 'em like that anymore.

like, i asked for and got lalique encre noire l'extreme for birthday presents. because of the supposed incense note. it's mostly a cypress thing. i can tell there's incense in there, if i sniff the wrist and apply my knowledge base to the task at hand, but upon initial sniffage i wouldn't say it's an incense frag per se. also azzaro visit, it's supposed to be incensy and i can tell but mostly it's peppery and sweet salty ambergris. fragrantica says top voted notes are cedar and then incense but these aren't distinct as individual notes. it feels woody and smoky, but obliquely. cdg 2 man has a prominent incense note, but there's other stuff, too.

on the other hand, i have miller harris fumee or whatever and montale full incense, as samples. just incense, but mostly labdanum, which to my nose is really sticky and gummy. also mostly expensive. texturally incense should be dry and not gummy.

also i have these issues with fig leaf and tomato leaf. joop! what about adam is a great tomato leaf perfume but it's long discontinued.

anyway, i like the lalique, but mostly as a cypress fragrance. there's the gucci guily absolute, which has nothing to do with the guilty line; it's an old-timey leather with a strong cypress opening, which means it stinks real bad in a glorious way. the lalique is also pungently medicinal in the opening with the cypress but then it goes right to a warm balsamy elemi resin and benzoin drydown. now they're playing "talk yo you later" by the tubes. all the early 80s characteristics and qualifiers. how f*ing specific is that particular sound? i know what kind of shoes you were wearing when that song came out, i know what kind of haircut you had. the gears of timekeeping used to leave imprints on cultural artifacts but it doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

i also got a frederic malle sample set for birthday presents. musc ravaguer. old-timey aniamlic musk like khiel's plus old-timey concpetion of oriental, i.e., vanilla plus cinnamon. but it kinda rocks, in a near-modern old-school way, like jaipur homme or opium pour homme from the same period. last mohicans.

also en passant: realistic floral. lilac. i dunno from lilac but it smells like real flowers, not the impression of flowers like a lot of things. it's also supposed to have water and cucumber notes and can confirm. it's an olivia giacobetti so if all you know of her is philosykos you should smell this if only to expand your library of who and what different noses are.

l'eau d'hiver. powdery floral. jean-claude ellena. mostly heliotrope and iris, so, powdery. if i had to be reductionistic, i'd say it's intimate. cdg 2, the light/ inky one is intimate. the ds & durga coriander i talked about is intimate. it's the right kind of hug.

for crimmus i got lalique l'insoumnis, which for i asked. because it's herbal and barbershoppy both. the herbal is basil, the old-school is lavender and moss, plus the rum note gives it an aftershave vibe, sorta of. i feel it's like guerlain's homme, which is thierry wasser's attempt to bring guerlain into the modern era but still retain ties to the past and whatever. ppl on fragrantica say there's a generic bent to it or something clean and fresh that compares to dior sauvage. i didn't see it before but now i do. god help me. luckily it's not so egregious that it can't be forgiven. hopefully the look of love will pull me through. i love the half that is old-school, and his time will be the last time that we will fight like this. i don't want to have to fight with my fragrances.

been getting back into colognes after taking a few years off, didnt feel the need since i was working from home and not seeing anyone. but then i realized i miss smelling good even if im working with no one else around. i guess i used to do it for the compliments now im doing it for the loooove. i pretty much stick to designer fragrances and havent really gone down the niche road yet.

just got a bottle of paco rabanne ultrared man on a blind buy and im not sure i like it yet... it does smell much better after 30 minutes or so, might be coming around on it. very sweet, grapefruit/blood orange but not quite masculine enough for me maybe.

also got a bottle of banana republic tobacco & tonka bean. this one is unisex but more masculine than the ultrared i think. the pear and plum top notes really pulled me in when i was sampling at a store and i had to have it. lasts quite a while on me and the vanilla/tonka/tobacco dry down phase is really nice, love it. do wish the tobacco was a touch more pronounced.

in other news... the youtube frag reviewer culture is something else.

Is anyone here familiar with Etro Messe de Minuit? Reviews speak of a complex, luminous church incense. It's discontinued but FragranceNet seems to have found a few bottles in the back room. As of this post there is only one left, and I'm seriously considering blind buying it (feel free to scoop me on this; I really shouldn't be dropping $100 on something I've never smelled before). I love incense and really like everything else I've smelled from Etro (especially their Patchouly and ManRose) so chances are high that I'll dig this one. Would appreciate thoughts from anyone who knows it.

Lately I've been really into Le 3e Homme de Caron. I bought it blindly a few weeks ago, and it immediately triggered a dim olfactory memory of having smelled it when I was a kid in the early to mid 90s. I can't place it precisely though--maybe a male family member or a boyfriend of my mom's wore it at the time? At any rate it makes me feel like I'm in an art gallery or a high-end clothing boutique in that era. It smells so so good--fizzy citrus, fresh spices and florals with a woody musky base that is unambiguously masculine without being skanky. Actually not sure why I'm thinking about buying that Etro when I can just wear the Third Man all the time...

I love Caron - 3e Homme isn't my thing but I admire it a lot, and I adore my gigantic bottle of Yatagan.

I bought Le 3e Homme along with Pour Un Homme and Yatagan, and I think they're all wonderful. Le 3 is the one that resonated with me the most, and my lavender-loving girlfriend likes Pour Un Homme for herself--her reaction to smelling it on me the first time was "Wow, I want to smell like that all the time." Which is fine with me!

i had a sample of the le 3e homme and i thought it more or less was a precursor to later 90s light fougeres like eternity and egoist platinum, just because it also seemed really familiar to me but i'm sure i never encountered it at the time it was released, so there must have been something about it that was replicated in things i knew of. i dunno. fragrantica says this reminds ppl of pour monsieur, lancome sagamore, mitsouko, eau sauvage, insense, passion for men, bel ami, and even stetson, so who knows. doesn't mention eternity or egoist platinum, but it doesn't exactly smell like those, the connection wouldn't be that direct. being a perfume detective is hard work and i haven't even been paid yet. then there are also things like paco rabanne xs and ysl l'homme which aren't structurally or categorically similar but are function progeny, ie, carefree anti-macho-bullshit stuff for the regular guy who still plays the bass in his suburban basement sometimes and remembers the time thurston moore was in the audience for his college band but now the highlight of his week was when his son malachi almost scored a goal. you should have seen how happy malachi was. we all piled into the mini-van and went out for pizza and i remember looking at my wife sarah and thinking i'd trade all my dreams of being a famous graphic designer in the david carson mode to do it all again with her for the rest of eternity. that's l'homme, it's who you are. i think i lost the tread but i think le 3e homme might be the genesis of the comfort scent, not in the sense of comfort scents being a surrender, but an embrace of what's close.

also i still haven't smelled dior jules, chanel egoist, or ysl jazz or live jazz. or anteus. i hope they're like rive gauche. it was this great thing i didn't have and then i got it. i don't know what i'm expecting from jules et al, but, i just sprayed on rive gauche, and it's glorious. it's not the height of artistic expression qua artistic expression in absolute terms, but it's the intersection of that thing and a world that i can touch that has buildings with businesses inside them and people that make them work and highways and plastic packaging and songs that were on the radio and standing in the soup isle for fifteen minutes figuring out whether i want the creamy chicken noodle or the butternut squash. if you shoot an arrow and it goes real high, hooray for you. niche arrows can go really high because what do they have to lose but designer arrows have to penetrate a much denser atmosphere, i think, so if there's any artistic achievement at all i guess that bronze medal is as good as gold.

Would subscribe to a slugbuggy fragrance reviews substack.

^

i like it here just fine. i don't know as much about fragrance as i know how to go off on tangents that end up somewhere else so i'm good with starting off with low expectations and seeing where that goes. hopefully that adds to what i was trying to talk about.

It’s not an insult, your posts are great to read, that’s all we mean!

Absolutely - you are a star sb!

oh, i'm greatly amused by the stuff i post, but then i'm embarrassed by acting out in public. i just figure ilx is a nerd community where you can nerd out in yr own particular way but the emphasis is still on whatever it is we're talking about.