Smokey perfumes

[peorgiegirl88]

Does anyone have any perfume suggestions that are dominant in smoke notes? I’m talking incense and campfire burning wood type of notes. I have one scent that has an obvious Smokey note and it’s from bath and body works! Bonfire bash is the scent name. I use the body cream to pair and layer with my other perfumes to give a Smokey base, but I’m really wanting a nice EDP with a loud Smokey note. I love how smoke and incense smells go well with vanilla and cozy feminine notes and can bring a gender neutral or masculine twist to otherwise feminine scents! Anyway~ lmk

[WinglessOne]

@peorgiegirl88 Here are 3 of my favorites: 

Straight-up smoke: Le Labo Patchouli 24. Doesn't smell like patchouli at all, unless you reeeeally search for that note. This fragrance will make you smell like a pitmaster who’s just spent hours tending to a smoker. Eventually you’ll smell a vanilla backbone but, on me anyway, Patchouli 24 never achieves a super sweet vanilla dry-down, and the smoke mellows yet persists. I love using this scent on one arm to balance, or enhance a different scent on my other arm. (One of my favorite pairings is Le Labo Patchouli 24 + Killian Black Phantom.) 

Incense smoke: Papillon Anubis. One of my favorite fragrances ever, and definitely my favorite in the leather + incense category—and I looove this fragrance category. I wear Anubis year round. It’s very powerful: get a little trigger happy with it and it’ll douse you in jasmine funk for hours—I mean, in addition to incense, smoke, and leather, but the animalistic jasmine note will be very loud if you’re heavy handed with this fragrance. (Don’t worry about folks around you not being able to smell it. They will; this stuff's got serious throw. So, don’t over-apply.) This fragrance is my happy place. My warm, mysteriously smoky, intoxicating happy place. Not ashamed to say I’ve worn it to bed many nights. It's one of the few fragrances of which I can say "wow, the name alone is a perfect description of this fragrance!" 

“OMG what have I done” smoke: Zoologist Tyrannosaurus Rex. Unlike @pocketvenus , I do find this wearable, with 2 big ol' caveats: 

1. Use a VERY light hand with this stuff. Otherwise you will knock people down—like a t rex stomping down the sidewalk—with this fragrance. 
2. Wait at least 30 minutes for the initial OMGness to settle down a bit. Might take longer than that. 

I do agree that you should get a tester/sample vial before committing to even a travel size bottle of this one. It's... not for everyone. I searched BIC for my original description of this fragrance, from about a year ago. I’d applied it via sample dabber to just the crook of one arm (I’ve since bought a full size bottle and have zero regrets): 

Spoiler

[The day I wrote this review was] my first T Rex experience and I was not adequately prepared for the extremely bold raging fire and tar pit scent. Not just lit fireplace; this is an orchard of bitter orange trees and pine trees near a tar pit, and everything’s burning down. That and a metallic black pepper note obliterated all other notes for about 30 minutes. I put Papillon Salome on my other arm to try balancing out the fire since I wasn’t sure how long it’d rage on.

As the fire gradually died down, I could also smell rose, ylang ylang, something leafy, a little patchouli, and sandalwood. Hours later, I smell all those things with a much softer burnt wood undertone. I’m glad this didn’t dry down to a sweet vanilla on me; it leans more heavily toward sandalwood as a base note. This fragrance is one hell of a ride. 

(Side note: I'd read Zoologist's marketing description of Tyrannosaurus Rex before buying the sample. After trying it on that first day, I kept thinking: "this is supposed to evoke a t rex in a swamp? Is the t rex breathing fire? Am I storming through a swamp on the back of a fire-breathing t rex?" 🤣) 

[pocketvenus]

@WinglessOne Love your picks! All very bold 🙂

omg-what-have-I-done smoke pretty much sums T Rex up! 😄 My initial pass

Spoiler

T Rex opens with a full out olfactory assault. It's a fantastic wallop of camphorous, coniferous and medicinal notes. Seconds after, a battle takes shape between burning cade and an out-of-left-field sweetness that's not just plasticky, it's like a giant smack of magenta bubble-gum being lustily chewed. Smolder-smack-smolder-smack. Just as the tension starts to fade, nauseatingly creamy florals with a touch of indolic moth-ball shimmer emerge from the opening violence. It takes hours, but the scent does eventually grow tamer wherein the florals, especially osmanthus and rose, take over. It's quite good from this point onward.

T Rex doesn't evoke visions of a primordial world for me. If anything, it reminds me of two contemporary settings, my grandmother's house, full of Chinese medicines, and standing among buses burning leaded gasoline. If you have never walked the streets of Central America, your eyes watering from the choking, black fumes of leaded fuel, you can save yourself a trip, spritz a little T Rex and mentally delete the flowers, gum and medicine.

I wore Anubis to bed last night! It's so beautiful. I can still smell a hint of it hours later.

[WinglessOne]

@pocketvenus  It's always interesting to hear which notes other folks pick up prominently in fragrances (similar to wine tasting). Leaded-fueled buses are a great description of T Rex's first 30 minutes to 2 hours. No matter how anyone describes this fragrance, it seems it's not enough to prep folks for the initial onslaught. 😂 It's one of those "gotta see (smell) for yourself" things. I tell folks not to give up on it in those first 30-120 minutes; stay with it, ride it out, enjoy the shifting notes (all those transitions are my favorite thing about this fragrance), and be amazed by how wonderful it smells once it's settled down. 

Anubis is a masterpiece. 🖤 

[pocketvenus]

@WinglessOne  T.Rex is definitely very original and refreshingly uncommercial. Total admiration for you and others who can pull this one off!! I found it a fascinating ride but couldn't for the life of me think about what outfit I would match T Rex with. I really need to try some of Gardoni's other fragrances.

Your comments actually remind me of another sort of smoky, leathery one you might appreciate - Beaufort London's Vi et Armis. It starts out clashing. Think BBQ meat clashing with lemon pledge. I remember thinking, "oh no" and "but why" ha ha. But if you just let everything settle down, it is a gorgeous, rich, peaty tea and leather. Especially if you enjoy the BBQ notes of Le Labo's Patchouli, this might not be as difficult for you to wait out. Better these kinds of "growers" in my mind, than the ones that put all the expensive stuff up front only to have everything fade into a cheap, harsh drydown. Anyway, really bold scent, my favourite from the house 🙂

[WinglessOne]

Thanks for the recommendation, @pocketvenus ! Vi et Armis sounds right up my alley. Adding to my Try It list. 👍

And ugh, the typical super-sweet powdered vanilla drydown is my nemesis. I realize some folks like that scent and hey, that's cool, we all like different things. But it's such a letdown to smell a potentially good fragrance quickly morph into that scent and stay that way for hours. Hopefully Gardoni's other creations are as interesting and evocative—perhaps even as challenging, in a good way—as T Rex. I still haven't tried any Bogue fragrances... note to self (again). Would love to hear your take on any of them if you try them. 🙂

[pocketvenus]

@WinglessOne Likewise! Would love to hear your thoughts too 🙂 Lately I've been ordering my samples from Canadian outlets but none of them carry Bogue so I'll have to just eat the US shipping fees at some point. I have read really good things about Maai and Mem!

[pocketvenus]

@peorgiegirl88 You're in luck! Smoky perfumes are really trending right now so there are some great options. I'm not going to include any incense scents here and try to focus on straight up smoke and 🔥

• Maison Margiela 'REPLICA' By the Fireplace 3.4 oz/ 100 mL 
• Hiram Green - Hyde, all natural fragrance centered on birch tar with a leathery dry down softened with vanilla. Definite campfire in the woods vibes.
• Kerosene - Broken Theories, less full on sitting beside a bonfire and more walking in the streets during autumn when they're burning leaves. Nice and spicy!
• Jazmin Sarai - Nar, a gorgeous smoky scent, great quality. Unlike other scents in this genre, has a rich umami thing going on that's fantastic.
• Nasomatto - Black Afgano, niche classic, we're talking Mad Max burning rubber smoke, not an easy wear.
• Bruno Fazzolari - Lampblack. Vetiver + burning asphalt. Not an easy wear either!
• Papillon - Anubis, one of my personal faves, equal parts smoke and leather, like tanned hides in a Canadian cabin in the winter time. I love this one.
• Cire Trudon - Revolution, a surprizingly affordable fragrance given how expensive their candles are. Probably my favourite from this house and an easy wear despite the name. More of a leather than a smoke. Opening is strong with cade but dries down nicely. Think of a very supple smoky leather jacket that's already been broken in.
• D.S. & Durga, Burning Barbershop or Mississippi Medicine, I find the D&S Durgas all share a similar base. It's a bit sweet, might be up your alley?
• Naomi Goodsir - Bois d'Ascèse, this one gets mentioned a lot but I've never personally tried it
• Zoologist - T Rex, this one is actually terrifying. Not your typical smoke, this one has a weird medicinal thing going on. Do not buy this one without testing it first, it is very experimental, near impossible to wear, but fascinating.

[treestar86]

not an edp, but  Maison Margiela ’REPLICA’ By the Fireplace 0.34 oz/ 10 mL Eau de Toilette Travel Spray 

or commodity 'leather'