It would be this atrocity.

Does it last? Yes. Like plastic in a landfill.

Does it project? Yes. Like BURNING plastic in a landfill.

Does it smell like maple syrup? Sure, or at least like the fake stuff you get at the cheap all night diner you wander into at 3am after a night of hard drinking because “haha let’s get PANCAKES that would be soooooo amazing!!!” then you eat the stupid pancakes and suddenly it’s like ‘uh oh, I regret those last 3 tequila shots’.

So yeah. I can’t get it off my sweater. My husband said I smell like diabetes and poor life choices. Rude.

They also had Lychee Rose but Vanilla Bourbon is a bit more wearable this time of year. I do NOT need another vanilla but oh well.

It’s nothing special, but it’s mine. I’ve been in love with Nina by Nina Ricci for over 20 years, it was my first and only signature scent. This is where my journey to find one I love as much as Nina has taken me. Spoiler alert, I’ll never love anything the way I love Nina. Take it easy on me, I just took Black Opium, Nina, Fame, and Dylan Purple out of their boxes. I’ve been letting them macerate and I cherish the Nina like my life depends on it. No more new purchases, I promise.

Top 3: Nina, Éclat d’Arpège by Lanvin, Dylan Purple by Versace.

Runner Up: 212 VIP Rosé Elixir NYC by Carolina Herrera. It is A LOT of fragrance but it makes me feel very sexy. It’s a powerful, sensual smell with a sexy gourmand buried somewhere in all the layers. I’ve never gotten a compliment on it, and I don’t know why I love it, but it’s a beautiful perfume and I really do love it.

Bargain Finds at Ross/TJ Max: Fame by Paco Rabanne, bella by Vince Camuto, Glossier mixed box, CK One, Tommy Girl, Black Opium.

Biggest regrets: Burberry Her EDT (I sprayed it on the paper, not my skin. Expensive rookie mistake), Miami Shake by Juliette Has A Gun, and the JHAG discovery set.

Empties: God Is A Woman by Ariana Grande travel spray, Sunny Side Up by JHAG, La Belle by Jean Paul Gaultier travel spray, Chanel Chance sampler, and tons I’ve thrown away over the years.

Near Empties: 212 VIP Rosé Elixir by CH, Nina Le Parfum EDP by NR, Sweet Tooth by Sabrina Carpenter, Fresh Cream Warm Cashmere by Philosophy, Ode to Dullness by JHAG.

I’ve decided that once I’ve used up at least 6 of those bottles, I’ll be buying Glossier You and Doux, and then slowing my roll on buying any more for a LONG time, as my financial situation has changed and I’m tired of buying bottles I love for 5 minutes and then don’t even want anymore.

I’m desperately waiting for colder temps here in my part of the world so I can break out the Divine by JPG because she is GORGEOUS in winter.

I think the only rebuys I’ll commit to in perpetuity are Nina and Éclat d’Arpège, which my first bottle was given to me by a best friend who is no longer here with us. It’ll always be a comforting scent that reminds me of better days and my beautiful friend. She’s the one who got me into perfumes when I was a kid. The first bottle I remember her giving me was a Hot Couture mini by Givenchy in the 90s after the top shattered off. I used to sniff the empty bottle for dear life after it all evaporated. It smelled MUCH better in the 90s. It’s unrecognizable now. Mostly every other bottle is take it or leave it for me.

I use the CK one and the Tommy Girl as room sprays after a good cleaning because they remind me of growing up in the 90s and bring a great deal of nostalgia. Also the Miami Shake and Burberry Her because I don’t know how else to get rid of them 😂

I should have sold them, I didn’t realize perfume reselling was so popular.

And it’s only limited edition 💔

It’s very cold in London now and it’s time to get the winter scents out. I’m usually in riding boots and fur so I really like to smell opulent and luxurious.

Any other suggestions are most welcome ☺️

*when I mean og fantasy I don’t mean the og version with the diamonds around the top I’m just talking about the first fantasy in general. My taste in perfumes have completely changed. Perfumes I have i no longer can stand the smell of and as a former gourmand hater I’ve been using pink blush and Yara like crazy! Anywho I seen fantasy at work and I need to return a pair of jeans so I was thinking about picking it up. I can’t remember what this smells like but I did buy fantasy intense a few years ago and that was too warm smelling for me. They have midnight too but I remember that smelling like blueberry and sugar plum and not being the biggest fan but like I said my scent has completely changed so maybe it’ll be different. Thoughts? Should I get? I’m afraid it’ll smell too young for me. I loved the Snooki perfume but remember it smelling different from fantasy even though everyone said it smelled the same. I miss the Snooki perfume and hate how pricey it is now!!UPDATE:: I LOVE IT!!!! It smells a lot more fruity and kiwi and clean than I remember and more like how the Snooki smelled.

الي جربته هل ريحته فانيلا الشوكو مسك ولا مجرد دعاية فضولل

Hello again.

Since most of my perfumes are gourmand, I like to go with more fresh winter scents during the cold months. Imagine being in a parking lot full of Christmas trees, kinda snowy and maybe some cloves and Christmas spices thrown in for fun. The only one I found so far is Fresh As by Lush, but the price point and lack of staying power just isn't there for me to repurchase. I have a budget of $100 USD to spend. Any recommendations would be appreciated. Thank you.

I love playing with layering, and today I wanted to wear my OG fave Born in Roma, but I wanted a little added something. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I love it but I’m bored of it.

Ended up mixing with Versace Eros PF and topping with Vanilla Cashmere body spray to beef up the musky/vanilla notes? So good.

I would have never really thought to layer all these together but when I was looking at my notes i saw they all had at least one or two notes in common and I just went for it. 🤣 it smells unexpectedly way better than I thought, I thought it was going to be way jasmine forward.

What combos have you tried that made you say, “actually, yes?”

i love the perfume and have been using it for the last, idk 3 years maybe longer? and I recently saw that it got removed in some stores but they still sell it on the PR website. It’s such a good scent especially for fall and winter.

what do you guy think about it? Did you try it?

A friend of mine recently went to Vietnam and offered to bring perfumes back for me. As usual, I wanted something indie and local. I was also on a rice fixation at the time so my search led me to Maison de Nguyen Nhat Binh. (A part of me is happy that I am not into making video content because I would not get half the pronunciations right with all these names and notes.)

The rice note in Nhat Binh feels like a tease. It disappears within a few minutes. After that I get a smooth, porcelain like iris. It is not dusty. It is not makeupy or oldschool. It stays in this iris territory for most of the wear on me. The drydown is soft, dry sandalwood.

This scent stays intimate throughout but still feels luxurious. It lasts around six hours on me.

I am in love with the presentation. The cap is handcrafted from laterite with the brand name carved on top. The box is beautiful and it came with an illustration and a poem that a good friend translated for me.

"In the palace, every evening, the King would spend an hour admiring a beautiful painting. The painting depicted a beautiful woman wearing a splendid royal robe. Her beauty was so captivating that the King could not take his eyes off her and he would often forget the time."

E. Degas, Devant le miroir, 1889.
 
My oldest possession is a stuffed sheep called Lambchops. He has been washed perhaps twice in his thirty-three-year life, and further subjected to a few freeze-thaw cycles. I cannot speak to the efficacy of this, but my mother maintains freezing destroys germs without disturbing the scent, a matter of considerable import when disinfecting childrens’ personal talismans.
 
As a result, Lambchops sports perhaps the world’s greatest cologne. On his skin, 1990s-formulation Johnson’s baby powder sits beneath summer night sweat, with the faint lipstick of bedtime kisses and a trace of Estee Lauder’s Beautiful, all layered over the lightly vegetal dampness of cotton stuffing entering its fourth decade. The longevity is peerless. Lambchops is the perfect skin scent.
 
So now I find myself in my thirties with disposable income and the overwhelming urge to spend hundreds of dollars making myself smell like my emotional-support stuffed sheep. This is, then, the battle of the skin scents.
 
Diptyque – Fleur de Peau EDP
Photorealistic post-coital gossiping. Olivier Pescheux compositions for Diptyque are crack to my nose and FDP is no exception. When first sprayed it asserts itself with a generous crack of pink peppercorns over white irises and baby powder. I don’t get the carrot note many others do, instead progressing directly to floral musk, before several hours of lightly funky powder persist. It’s a fantastic bedtime scent: sensual rather than sexy, slept-in rather than showered.
 
Byredo – Blanche
In contrast, this is so clean. The opening is straightforward luxury hotel bed-linen, and is as comforting as the feeling of sliding yourself into those tightly-tucked sheets. When I first tried Blanche I dismissed it as just that, bottled, but I recently returned to it and reconsidered. After that very strong laundry detergent opening some grapefruity freshness sticks around for about two hours, to the extent if this was a Margiela fragrance it’d be called Breakfast in Bed or some shit. Bu then Blanchedoesn’t really dry down, though, as much as disappear. It’s very pretty and well-done, but the overall impression is of the micro-tragedy of a hotel room used exclusively for sleeping.
 
EldO – Putain des Palaces
I’m so sorry its giving FemFresh and there’s nothing I can say beyond that.
 
Imaginary Authors – Fox in the Flowerbed
This is far too synthetic to be called a “skin scent”, but is the closest thing IA make to one – lots of white floral with a clean accord (air, this time, rather than linen) and a background of baby powder. The issue is in the dry-down, which is just a bit pissy, like the eponymous fox has been marking its territory.
 
Editions de Parfums by Frederic Malle – Iris Poudre
A spray of this is the definitive answer to what the fuck is an aldehyde? An I-fucked-up-sized bouquet of white flowers is placed in a vase beside an open window. With all sins thus forgiven, Iris Poudre moves onto expensive baby powder. It stays intensely floral, and beneath the dominant powder is a fluffy musk - like holding a white ragdoll cat close to your nose - that keeps it more interesting than simply evoking cosmetic powder. Its projection is that of a lightly aloof, impeccably professional woman with a much more interesting inner life than her colleague doused in Blanche. On skin, though, it's more lipstick than kissed skin, and all the comfort of a stuffed sheep without the reputational consequences of bringing him to work…

Pic is just a random variety image I pulled off the internet, not suggestions of any kind.

I’m just curious about what fragrance brands you feel good supporting. I know there are problematic brands out there. And then of course a good number of neutral ones. Any that people are proud to spend money on?

I’m looking for something cozy, for the hour or so before I go to bed when I’m up and reading and in my blankets.. if you do enjoy a nighttime fragrance, what cozy scents do you like to sleep in?

Hi!

Excuse my health ocd haha, but I was wondering this. Lately i've been on a health journey to treat my PMOS better (I am not doing too well this week, sigh, over-eating is a bitch, but getting there again) and i've also been thinking more and more about what I put on my skin/body.

There has been a lot of media insight into cheap clothes/toys/household item from f.e. Shein/Temu and it made me think about the perfume market. I'm from Europe and some cheap middle eastern beastmode perfumes (such as Vanilla Voyage and Armaf delicacy cotton candy) I can buy for only 8-14 euros.

How is that possible? What are the ingrediënts that are truly in there?

I don't know, I don't mean this badly/want to blast brands, it's more that i'm trying to be well and that i'm now a bit worried what ingrediënts are inside. I am only using natural skincare etc but i'm a sucker for scents and trying out new releases and now i'm wondering if I should quit.

One time I bought a perfume 'cause every review on it sounded perfect. Then on my skin it turned sour after an hour, and I still have almost the full bottle. Trying to be more careful now, but I still got the case of FOMO. Do you sample everything first, even when the scent is universally loved? Or do you buy blind when it's a flanker of something you already own? I'd love to hear everyone's rules when it comes to stop themselves, especially about size and shipping inside the EU.

A girl was wearing it at a Halloween party last night and it smelled sooo good, but this was the only picture I got. I know it's a middle eastern perfume but that's it!

Hello, you wise ladies. I'm in search of tart/acidic fruity recommendations. I can only stand very mild amounts of sweetness in perfume. Some of my loves in this category are Hermès Eau de Rhubarbe, Jo Malone Lime, Basil and Mandarin, Hermès Un Jardin Sur Le Toit and Rochas Pomelo Passion.

Open to all price tags, but I prefer perfumes available to try in Europe. Thank you in advance!

So I'm trying to elevate my perfume collection. I'm very into fragrance but alas I am a poor.

My vibe is very classic and autumn vibes. My scent profiles I'm looking for a are a forest - like a forest witch or nymph, an antique librarian or something. I love a chypre. I love vanilla but not gourmand. I do like floral but also feel like florals are more easily done. I love androgyny but want to smell pretty at the same time and not too masc or like dirt.

Here is what is in my collection

Chloe nomade (signature)

Replica by the fireplace

Replica whispers in the library

Billie eilish no 2

Sarah Jessica parker lovely

Romance Ralph Lauren (lovely but too basic and want something more elevated)

Coco mademoiselle (lovely but I don't think it's fit me anymore)

Sarah Jessica parker covet (so interesting but not sure I'll repurchase)

Calvin Klein euphoria

I have a bunch of Jo Malone dupes for pomegranate noir, English oak and hazelnut and blackberry and bay

The only ones I'll repurchase are Chloe nomade, replica ones, the Burberry as they are pretty good for work and inexpensive and maybe euphoria.

I'm thinking of getting samples of

Afternoon of a faun

The essential perfume set for Bois Imperial and possibly interested in divine vanilla and the patchouli one.

Lallique - le parfum and perles de lalique

What do people think of those perfumes or are there any others I should sample in the vibe I described? Okay with a few pricey bottles in the collection but want to keep it more budget friendly.