The Perfume Challenge

[txcatx]

Do you have a box full of perfume vials and/or a vanity covered in perfume bottles? Are you the Goldilocks of perfume, just looking for the perfect signature scent? Do you want an opportunity to post daily about how your perfume of the day smells oaky and smoky with hints of blackberry and currant, like a cigar in a whisky barrel rolling through a Mediterranean orchard on a breezy summer morning?

If you answered yes to any of the above, or you just want to hop on board for the ride, join us for a 31 days of perfume challenge starting January 1st! Some of us from the 25 days of lipstick challenge wanted to continue the fun and exploration, and since many of us have so many perfume samples, we thought this challenge would be perfect. If you don't have 31 perfumes or hate everything that doesn't smell like Meyer lemons and fresh goat cream, that's fine--we're just aiming to use the neglected perfumes we have laying around and incorporate them into our perfume rotations.

And if you want more perfume vials, there's no better time than now to take a peek at Sephora's samples section.

Edit: Anyone can join in at anytime! We're here to support, live vicariously through, and encourage everyone in their olfactory adventures!

[QueenMarceline]

@pocketvenus Thanks so much for your review 🙂 this bottle is gorgeous and the scent sounds very intriguing. However, I love that you wrote although you enjoy the scent that its not worth the hefty price tag. I'm on a journey to realize that I don't need to own a bottle of every scent I like, haha. 🤣

[pocketvenus]

@QueenMarceline I always tried to be selective but now I've become ridiculously picky 😂 I usually give it at least a couple weeks and a few wears to decide if something I really like is something I'm going to wear repeatedly.

[QueenMarceline]

@pocketvenus Good call! I need to take on some of your picky energy ❤️

[pocketvenus]

Dipped my toes back into Maison Crivelli without reading the scent descriptions and am regretting it big time. Right now, I'm wearing Hibiscus Mahajad which is very syrupy with nothing much to cut that density with. It's funny that the description mentions ice wine because this was precisely what I was thinking: bad ice wine. Good ice wine is syrupy but it balances that with an acidity that can be very uplifting, even sparkling. There's none of that with HM. It's more bearable as it dries down and there's a suggestion of leather but overall, it's suffocating. But I have a low tolerance for sweetness. If you really love your scents very dense and sweet with nothing to counter it, no spice, no acid, no dirt, no texture, this might hit the spot. The one thing it has going for it is that the sweetness is not overly sharp.

I don't know if I have it in me to finish this set 😕

[CookieGirl1]

@pocketvenus if you're hating it, don't force yourself to finish it.  It sucks when you don't like smelling yourself!

[pocketvenus]

@CookieGirl1 🙂 I'll have to think of someone who might appreciate and enjoy this better. Would be a shame to let the whole kit sit unused and of course, they might play better with someone else's skin!

[Titian06]

@pocketvenus - Too bad this scent and this brand are not working for you! 😖

[pocketvenus]

@Titian06 @QueenMarceline Aw, thanks! There are certainly far worse things in life ha ha. My sample pack from Apoteker Tepe just cleared customs so hopefully those will suit me better! 🙂 Can't wait to share my impressions with you all!!

[QueenMarceline]

@pocketvenus Awww so sorry, always a bummer when you hit something that doesn't gel right. 

[Samtian]

Perfume-10 Sabrina-2 maybe.

Instant regret as soon as I sprayed Atelier Cologne Poivre Electrique. I work in a factory that works with black pepper. I spent a lot of time working with the black pepper powder and that stuff is horrible. Horrrriiiblllle! So I can't stand the smell at all. 

Top Notes
tunisian bitter orange, vietnamese black pepper, chinese pink pepper
Heart Notes
samarkand incense, pimento leaf, turkish rose
Base Notes
african myrrh, new caledonian sandalwood, virginia cedarwood

I wish this was my picture

[Titian06]

@Samtian - I'm sorry this one didn't work out! 😔  I love the blue color of the label and your note under the picture! 😄

[Samtian]

@Titian06 haha thanks! I love all those blues!

[QueenMarceline]

@Samtian So sorry this one didn't work out for you. The smell does not seem pleasant at all for what I typically like as well.

[Samtian]

@QueenMarceline Yeah, if this hadn't been in a sampler pack I never would have tried it either. 

[pocketvenus]

@Samtian Sorry this didn't work out for yoU! But at least with a name like that you could be prepared!

[Samtian]

@pocketvenus Yep!

[WinglessOne]

I recently tried Zoologist Sacred Scarab and Cow. At the same time (on either arm), which is a dangerous way to test any Zoologist fragrance buuut I was impatient. 

Sacred Scarab was an aldehydes bomb on me for the first 30-60 minutes of wear. About 5 minutes after application, I noticed a mossy scent breaking through. Around the 30 minute mark, I smelled plum and lotus in the moss. About the wine note, well… 

Spoiler

I’m always annoyed when a house lists “wine” as a fragrance note. Anyone who’s deep into wine knows it doesn’t all smell the same, what with so many varietals and terroir impacts. Each wine has its own set of fragrance notes. I can’t find wine in Sacred Scarab (and I searched hard for it) because I don’t know which varietal, or even which type of wine (red? white? rose? Eh, red I suppose, since Sultan Pasha researched Egyptian fragrance making to create Sacred Scarab), is in there. 

Sure, I could attribute the moss scent to some sort of red wine, but I suspect that’s not the connection I’m supposed to make. Plum and lotus are a closer connection. But if you tell me there’s a wine note, I expect to distinguish that from plum notes. Especially when plum, lotus, and wine are listed as separate notes. Seriously, "wine" can smell like anything: pencil lead, roast duck, a well-worn leather jacket, violets, plums, blackberries, cherries, grass, a horse stall, petroleum... all these scents mark wines made of different grapes. I don't know what type(s) of red wine ancient Egyptians drank, but I'm curious enough to find out. That's the good part of this annoyance: things like this are what keep me 20+ browser tabs deep in a rabbit hole at 3 AM. 

And see, this is what years of wine tasting do to you: make you so cranky fussy about a fragrance note, you spend hours learning yet another aspect of a different topic (wine). Maybe this is how some folks feel when someone (including me) describes a fragrance note as simply “floral." 🤣 Do fragrance houses simply list "flowers" as a note? No they do not. But anyway. 

I did smell raisins, though not strongly. There was also a very light vein of funky civet in the moss; not nearly enough to knock anyone over, but just enough to add some interest. The aldehydes persisted with incense-softened edges, letting the lotus shine. And of course there was no escaping the amber—but not a super sweet vanilla amber, thank goodness. I never got a lemon top note, but that might’ve had something to do with the other fragrance. 

Cow was on my other arm. In the first 60 minutes of wearing both fragrances, I laughed each time I sniffed each arm. Something about the contrasting fragrances was hilarious… Sacred Scarab’s all dark mystery wrapped in black silk pajamas and cloaked in velvet, kneeling on a plum-slathered cedar plank in a patch of moss beside a lotus pond. And then there’s Cow in a different universe: warm contentment in a cotton sundress, lying face up beside a bucket of creamy milk in a grassy field near sage and an apple tree (a combo that smelled a lot like star anise in frothed milk for the first 10 minutes of wear), watching animal clouds drift in the sunny sky. 

I need to wear Sacred Scarab again—on its own next time—before casting final judgement. I think I like it. I can say the same for Cow, which was more straightforward than I expected. Eh, Cow might've been overshadowed by the other fragrance. 

[CynthieLu]

Lol to this scent story@WinglessOne 😆Your descriptions are so detailed but so honest and funny,  thank you for the laugh today 💖

[WinglessOne]

@CynthieLu  Glad I could brighten your day! 😂 

[pocketvenus]

@WinglessOne Love your descriptions! Velvet cloak is totally the vibe I got from Scarab as well, just the feeling of being enrobed in the scent. I agree that there's an important difference between "florals" or even "white florals" and say jasmine, which does not smell like tuberose, which does not smell like neroli, which does not smell like lily of the valley! I don't mind when houses do this however, because sometimes an accord is too abstract to be related to the actual thing. I also might just have to try Cow 🙂

As an aside, I think my personal pet peeve is listing a cannabis note! I feel like houses stick that in there to be "edgy" - and here we can ask why it's used to market a product as edgy and who gets to be edgy while using cannabis and who is deemed a criminal - and these fragrances never smell anything like weed. The closest I've tried is the Akro one and it's still way off.

[WinglessOne]

Thanks @pocketvenus ! I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on Cow if you try it. 

Ugh, the cannabis note... I'm not anti-weed but I haaaate the smell of it. Makes me nauseous. I realize it doesn't all smell alike, and I wasn't always so sensitive to that general scent. But for the last 20 years, I've been unable to stomach that smell. (That's been especially fun since Illinois legalized recreational weed.) So when I see it as a fragrance note, I avoid that fragrance. Then again, I usually think a cannabis note in a fragrance is just a marketing gimmick: the actual fragrance is likely "an interpretation of" cannabis, not a straight-up weed smell. If a fragrance truly smelled like weed, no one could safely wear it in certain states that still call weed illegal. Still, I'm not willing to try one and see if it makes me lose my lunch. 😂