(no subject)

[sapote]

Welp, you all made me do this and I have Smelt Perfumes now. One of my arms smells like a rich old lady and one smells like cotton candy. In fairness these are samples from a friend's Birchbox and one was made by Chanel and the other by Selena Gomez. I leave it to you to guess which.

(There are actually quite a few samples and I'm curious about some of them, but right now I am mostly caught up with the generational conflict happening on my arms.)

Comments

[rydra_wong]

I am both proud and slightly terrified of what I have apparently helped unleash upon DW. *g*

[sapote]

I was giving my brother a ride home from work and he got in the car and went SOMETHING HERE SMELLS LIKE OLD WOMEN WITH MONEY. So I guess that's floral chypre? I have been super curious, because I love bergamot and "moss" doesn't sound like it would smell like country club. But I guess that plus a whackton of florals is a smell people have associations with?

[rydra_wong]

So I guess that's floral chypre?

Depends (is it described as that?); not everything that evokes that reaction is a chypre, but lots of the things that do are.

Chypre-ness seems to be one of the things that can make something smell "like perfume" or "old-fashioned" or "grown-up" to people. Partly, I think, because a lot of the big classic scents from the '40s and '50s are chypres. So there's something people recognize as Old-Fashioned Serious Perfume.

And the older Chanels and Guerlains (chypre or not) can be great at smelling like Fuck You Money. See sporky_rat's Jicky experience here:

http://rydra-wong.dreamwidth.org/389211.html?thread=4554587#cmt4554587

[sapote]

"Fuck you money" is a good description. Oh! While I was out of town I was wearing my homemade perfume thing a lot: (sandalwood/lavender) + (bergamot/sweet orange) + (clary sage+rosemary on the top) and I asked a bunch of family members what they thought it smelled like. My brother and sister, who smelled it before the top notes were gone, kept insisting I smelled like pine trees, which I guess is all the camphor, and then everyone else who smelled it frowned and went "... cinnamon?". It's interesting how the different impressions that people get still apply even when it's just essential oils.

Also! I went to Sephora right before I left and decided I liked Bvlgari Green Tea enough to put the test strip in my pocket, which is pretty good for me and a commercial perfume, but by the time I got to the parking lot it had gone something that my nose insisted was MUSK MUSK MUSK and I threw it in a trash can. I don't see musk listed as a note in the sales information, but fragrantica swears it's in there. ... Say someone doesn't like flowers or non-citrus fruit or also musk. What smells are there to smell? If I have learned anything from all the perfumeblogging I've been reading, surely there is something.

[rydra_wong]

Say someone doesn't like flowers or non-citrus fruit or also musk. What smells are there to smell?

Lots of things! Particularly scents that are predominantly green or woody or spicy.

What sort of smells do you know you do like, or are interested in?