Perfume reviews

1) Internet commentary is generally pretty low quality, but perfume nerds seem categorically to all be the most interesting person you would ever invite to a party: https://basenotes.com/fragrances/no-5-by-chanel.10210628

every single comment on that website is amazing.

2) I hate perfume. I met an avant garde perfumist called Christopher Brosius (label: "I hate perfume") and waited 20 years to buy his samples. They are AMAZING. So approachable. Everyone who has let me dab with his fragrances has been blown away. "In the library" smells like old books. "Wild hunt" has rotten leaves as an ingredient. "Walking on air" smells like fresh cut grass. I hate perfume but I am obsessed with his smells: https://www.cbihateperfume.com/

One of the coolest perfumes I’ve come across is Relique d’Amour by Oriza Legrand https://www.orizaparfums.com/en/eaux-de-parfums/20-relique-d...

Here’s the description:

  The abandoned chapel of a Cistercian abbey.

  Cold stonewalls, covered in Moss.

  The scent of waxen wood, of the tabernacle and ornate pews.

  The linseed oil of the unfinished painting.

  Myrrh and Frankincense still linger in the air,

  When a peppery whiff catches you, unawares:

  That of white lilies, still fresh and yet so spicy.

  The subtle scent of golden pollen mingles with that of solemn green leaves.

  A beam of light breaks through the stained glass windows illuminating this olfactory tumult of feelings, shifting from humility to jubilation.

  A divine call.

Funny enough, we actually randomly had dinner with the founder of a perfume shop who was visiting Paris with his wife and it was fascinating to learn a bit about the industry.

Oh, perfumes are a great hobby. If you're in SF or LA, definitely hit up one of the boutique perfume shops (Scent Bar and Ministry of Scent).

There are also bunch of sellers who package samples (aka "decants" - buy a 100mL, split it into smaller bottles). I found that 1-2mL is plenty to get an idea. I've had great experience with LuckyScent (mentioned in the article), Surrender to Chance, as well as random reddit swaps and highly rated Ebay sellers.

The perfume scene is super wide and diverse, and I found that although there are general trends, it's hard to even know all the popular brands, and everyone's nose is unique. Skip stuff like Aventus and Sauvage and buy some discovery sets (surrender to chance puts together some good ones).

There is definitely a spectrum between "wearable crowd-pleaser" and "avant-garde storytelling" - Afrika-Olifan comes to mind - love it for the creativity and execution, but it would be rude to go outside wearing it. There's also some storytelling - Black March, for example, starts off with grassy fresh earth after a rain, then turns into flowers.

Sometimes this website feels like Adderall is somehow being directly rendered into Source Serif type, displayed through the browser.

My partner complains that the economics of scent mean your signature smell can be deleted on a whim. She fell in love with a very unlikely scent, got 10 years, it's gone. It's actually happened twice to her, and these are not marginal brands either, Cacharel and Beckham, who (probably because they are ruthless with otherwise underperforming product) prune their range.

If the containers were uniform, it could be a robot production line and small runs wouldn't be an issue given the inputs are somewhat universal.

It's paint blending for the nose.

"War paint" (2003) by Liny Woodhead about Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden is a fascinating read. It was a book before a stage production.

@gwern, did you mess up your inflation calculation here?

> I couldn’t get all the ones Nguyen highlighted from LuckyScent and some sampler packs were sold out, but I settled for 39 samples total on 8 February 2021. (Which cost $153 [2021; $190 in 2025], so amortizing to $3.90 [2011; $6.03 in 2025] each.) At that point I felt I had gone a bit overboard, so I didn’t do an additional order from CB I Hate Perfume, which Nguyen praises for doing the most interesting ‘abstract’ perfumes, to pick up ones that LuckyScent didn’t have in stock.

Perfumery is much maligned and misunderstood. It is, ultimately, an art form, a kind of human expression like music or painting, that is rarely appreciated as such. Many would happily see it banned, knowing nothing about it other than that some people wear too much. That'd be like banning music because your neighbor's TV is too loud.

Lucky Scent (mentioned in this article) has a boutique in LA. If you're nearby, you can go in and sample to your heart's content. Perfume boutiques are unfortunately rare but most large cities will have something and they're accessible and inviting in my experience. There really is a _lot_ more out there than what a Sephora or Macy's will ever show you.

Nice article. He correctly notes that vocabulary for describing odors is limited for most so reviews and descriptions trend quite "purple" and abstract. There is a vocabulary, though, but it'd take some time spent with some books and a perfume organ to make progress on that front.

I've got a question since I know nothing about perfume, but overtime do you just acclimatise to the scent? So that in the end it's like it's not really there?

At least I've noticed this with listening to music, personally speaking.

This must have been like 15 years ago, but I vaguely remember someone making a perfume that smelled like the scent you get when you open up the box of a new iPhone or MacBook.

It’s a distinct smell and I’m not really sure if it’s purely from the electronics or if it comes from the papers inside the box too.

I used to try and buy a lot of perfumes some years ago. Unfortunately I concluded that it isn't really worth it since beyond some classics (Fahrenheit , terre d Hermes, declaration, narcisso for him, dior home, ysl m7, armani code, zv this is him, ck eternity, chanel egoiste platinum and of course aventus) there aren't many truly unique scents. Most perfumes try to copy another existing, mass appealing one.

Also male perfume nowadays is either too weak or too sweet (or too expensive if you go the niche route). So either I'll wear a perfume that will smell for 30 minutes and nobody will notice or I'll bite the bullet and wear a club perfume that will suffocate people (and not even smell good).

This is the weirdest thing to see here. However, if you want to fix nose-blindness, just smell into coffee beans. Most perfumeries have a glass of coffee beans.

I spend a lot of time in Seoul and there's an entire street in the Sinsa neighborhood dedicated to perfumes and scents. A lot of experimental work going on, it's kind of fun. Worth a try if you come by.

Does anyone recommend a good sandalwood cologne? I use an aftershave that is sandalwood and I love the scent but it is fleeting.

If anyone's looking for suggestions, I'm a fan of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab:

https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/

Most will be aware, but Basenotes is a leading community for this https://basenotes.com/community/

I personally try to avoid perfume.

The high end ones are purer in ingredients, but the mainstream are just the cheapest combination of chemicals you are putting on your skin/breathing in.

what's the point of having "price in XX year" if it isn't consistent?

why compare to 2021 and 2011?

For some reason this thread reminded me of the movie "The Perfume: story of a murderer"

Perfume is an amazing avenue to express oneself, and has the perfect website with a perfect design to do so in Fragrantica. Superb website

For anyone looking to save money, don't get the brand name perfumes.

Instead, get something from a good clone house. They have special equipment to analyse the ingredients of the branded perfumes and end up making exactly the same thing.

Stay away from lower quality copies that aren't made by clone houses (i.e random "inspired by" stuff from Amazon).

I like instances of any fragrance really, as long as it doesn't "project". Basically, if someone comes close they catch it but otherwise it doesn't throw the smell very far. Examples: khus,sandalwood,some lemongrass perfumes, and iris.

Nice. I found my signature scents over a period of a few years.

Costco has some nice deals on high end perfumes, like Roja or Tom Ford.

There are also local perfumeries which can be interesting.

I can't stand perfume, it makes my skin crawl. Literally when someone is dowsed in the stuff, you can feel the wave of exploding microparticles in mini chemical reactions as they walk passed you. In my "unpopular opinion" perfumes should be banned.

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oh well, someone discovered niche perfume lol