Perfume
I'm obsessively searching for the perfect perfume. This particular fixation has hit me before, but I tend to get over it quickly, because A., I hate spending money on myself, and B., most perfumes that you can easily buy in stores just don't smell very good to me. Also, I have very specific criteria for Things I Would Enjoy Smelling Like and Things that in Absolutely No Case do I Ever Want to Smell Like, thus enumerated:
I Would Enjoy Smelling Like:
1. A nice cup of tea. My first choice would be A., Earl Grey, but I'd also go for B., an authentic smelling jasmine green, (most green tea scents smell more like lime than green tea to me: perhaps perfumers are easily confused by similarities in color?) or (C.) the kind of really fragrant oolong you get in Chinese restaurants.
2. Leather. Horrible, I know, but I realized after seeing this as a "note" in a lot of perfumes that yeah, leather is a really great smell. I had a leather headband as a kid that I never wore, but that I could sit and smell for hours. If it's any consolation, they make synthetics that don't use any animal bits and supposedly smell legit.
3. Outside, right after it rains, or just fresh air in general. Has anyone ever smelled a "rain" perfume that bore even the faintest resemblance to actual rain? This one drives me nuts. The bottle says "rain," but it smells more like "dryer sheets." "Rain" scented dryer sheets. Which also smell absofuckinglutely nothing like rain. Ditto for ocean scents.
4. The woods, or a swamp. And not any of that "pine forest" crap that they try to foist off you. If your local grove of firs smells like the inside of a bottle of pine-sol something is horribly awry.
5. Mango. Also grapefruit, and bergamot. (See #1, subsection A)
6. Sandalwood, cinnamon, other assorted spices. Ditto herbs, if they actually smell like themselves.
7. Anything realistic, unusual, and evocative. I'm drawn to stuff like old books or wet loam or burning leaves.
In Absolutely No Case do I Ever Want to Smell Like:
Hippie. I don't want people standing next to me to feel like they just licked the inside of a head shop.
Old lady. You've old been stuck in an elevator with her, or sat behind her in church, or had to eat lunch in a restaurant while she wafted from a nearby table and made everything taste like White Diamonds. While I'm sure she's a sweet woman, I don't want to smell like yer granny.
A fashion magazine you know those perfume samples in fashion magazines? You know how they all describe themselves as smelling like white musk or jasmine or teak or mandarin oranges or clean water or apple with cedar top notes but really they all smell exactly like perfume sample in a fashion magazine? I don't want to smell like any of them, cedar top notes notwithstanding.
Fruit loops or cotton candy: sickly swetness. I want my imaginary signature scent to make me feel attractive, not nauseated. There are a lot of smells that I really like in real life (vanilla, for instance) that can get really cloying in perfume.
So have you found your perfect scent? If so, what is it? If not, what would you like it to smell like? If you could enslave a master perfumer, what would you command them to make for you? Also, does anyone have any experience with BPAL or CB I Hate Perfume, or have any other brands to recommend?
I Would Enjoy Smelling Like:
1. A nice cup of tea. My first choice would be A., Earl Grey, but I'd also go for B., an authentic smelling jasmine green, (most green tea scents smell more like lime than green tea to me: perhaps perfumers are easily confused by similarities in color?) or (C.) the kind of really fragrant oolong you get in Chinese restaurants.
2. Leather. Horrible, I know, but I realized after seeing this as a "note" in a lot of perfumes that yeah, leather is a really great smell. I had a leather headband as a kid that I never wore, but that I could sit and smell for hours. If it's any consolation, they make synthetics that don't use any animal bits and supposedly smell legit.
3. Outside, right after it rains, or just fresh air in general. Has anyone ever smelled a "rain" perfume that bore even the faintest resemblance to actual rain? This one drives me nuts. The bottle says "rain," but it smells more like "dryer sheets." "Rain" scented dryer sheets. Which also smell absofuckinglutely nothing like rain. Ditto for ocean scents.
4. The woods, or a swamp. And not any of that "pine forest" crap that they try to foist off you. If your local grove of firs smells like the inside of a bottle of pine-sol something is horribly awry.
5. Mango. Also grapefruit, and bergamot. (See #1, subsection A)
6. Sandalwood, cinnamon, other assorted spices. Ditto herbs, if they actually smell like themselves.
7. Anything realistic, unusual, and evocative. I'm drawn to stuff like old books or wet loam or burning leaves.
In Absolutely No Case do I Ever Want to Smell Like:
Hippie. I don't want people standing next to me to feel like they just licked the inside of a head shop.
Old lady. You've old been stuck in an elevator with her, or sat behind her in church, or had to eat lunch in a restaurant while she wafted from a nearby table and made everything taste like White Diamonds. While I'm sure she's a sweet woman, I don't want to smell like yer granny.
A fashion magazine you know those perfume samples in fashion magazines? You know how they all describe themselves as smelling like white musk or jasmine or teak or mandarin oranges or clean water or apple with cedar top notes but really they all smell exactly like perfume sample in a fashion magazine? I don't want to smell like any of them, cedar top notes notwithstanding.
Fruit loops or cotton candy: sickly swetness. I want my imaginary signature scent to make me feel attractive, not nauseated. There are a lot of smells that I really like in real life (vanilla, for instance) that can get really cloying in perfume.
So have you found your perfect scent? If so, what is it? If not, what would you like it to smell like? If you could enslave a master perfumer, what would you command them to make for you? Also, does anyone have any experience with BPAL or CB I Hate Perfume, or have any other brands to recommend?