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!

[pocketvenus]

@curlychiquita, if you enjoy very green scents, this is worth checking out! It's pretty affordable too.

[pocketvenus]

Testing Mona di Orio's Myrrh Casati today. This is deeply resinous and spicy scent with no sweet notes to detract from the bitterness of it. Dries down to a incense that I found too sharp up close, but beautiful from afar. Excellent longevity and projection, I kept getting wafts of it whenever I moved my wrist. I must say though, while I like this, it is my least favourite so far of the scents I've tried from the house. I'd rank them as follows, most favourite to least

• Vanille, ultra creamy, complex in character, original
• Oudh Osmanthus, gorgeous, rich, very smooth
• Cuir, high quality leather, a little toasty/nutty

Myrrh is a notoriously difficult note to work with though, and this is a very wearable take. So far, I am enjoying this house a lot. It's sumptuous and dramatic but never in an overstated way.

[angel7594]

This fragrance sounds lovely and interesting to me @pocketvenus! 

[pocketvenus]

@angel7594🙂 yes, I honestly don't know too many myrrh forward fragrances

[pocketvenus]

TOday I'm testing my sample of Mona di Orio's Oudh Osmanthus. The perfume opens with a rich, creamy oud that's easy to wear. It has a mildly pungent character, mellowed out with accompanying notes of warm citrus, fragrant woods and musk. It is different from other ouds fragrances I’ve tried. My experience with most ouds is that they emphasize its more difficult facets of smoke, rubber, plastic, blue cheese, and so on, or they feature a very harsh and biting woody accord, or they don't really smell like oud at all. Oudh Osmanthus is extremely smooth in character and is paired seamlessly with the pleasant, gentle sweetness of osmanthus. Overall, this is a very soft and elegant oud that is at points, a little powdery but always maintains that smooth character. I think it could still work with a little more of an oud-y pungency but it is certainly easier to wear as it is. Its projection is quite good and it's still projection an inch away from the skin 10 hours in.

[pocketvenus]

Today I'm testing Apoteker Tepe's The Holy Mountain. It's a smoky foresty scent with a rich, coniferous opening that dries down to a very resinous incense. I like the intensity of the resins. Reminds me somewhat of Kerosene's Broken Theories and a little bit of Slumberhouse's Jeke. @veronika23

[veronika23]

Thanks @pocketvenus!  Where can I find this scent? I want to add to my next batch of samples I want to try. 🙂

[pocketvenus]

@veronika23, I ordered this from Twisted Lily and did a little research only to discover it's discontinued! :'( Twisted Lily still has affordable samples but if you want a full bottle, it will probably take some digging around to find.

A tip if you're ordering more than 5 samples from TL: if you search for custom sample pack on their site, you can find this sample pack listing. Then you can request the samples you want, or give the staff an idea of what you like and get them to pick, or make a hybrid order. This way, you also receive samples at a discounted price, 5 for $18, so $3.6 each instead of $4-$5 each. In addition to that, when you make an order under $25, you can still request an additional free sample 🙂 The more you spend, the more samples you can request. This helps offset the pain of the shipping cost somewhat!!!!

[veronika23]

Thanks @pocketvenus!  I never heard of that site... great to know for potential future orders. 🙂 It's ok if it's discontinued... one day I'll find what I'm looking for.  If Diptyque would only make a FdB perfume I wouldn't have any problems 😄 😄 😄

[pocketvenus]

@veronika23Byredo recently made a perfume for one of their popular candles so here's hoping 🙂

[veronika23]

Fingers crossed @pocketvenus! 🙂

[Glarson]

Just thought I'd pop in with an update of all the perfumes I've tried lately.

DislikesLikes

Spoiler

In the dislikes pile are mostly floral scents, which are not my cup of tea. That's not to say these fragrances smell bad, they just were not for me.
These scents include: Book by Commodity, J'adore in Joy by Dior, Replica Beach Walk by Maison Margiela, Chloe Eau de parfum, Chloe Fleur de parfum, My Burberry, and Tocca Florence. 
My least favorite of these would have to be Book by Commodity. I felt that the scent was too intense and it ended up giving me a headache.

Spoiler

The likes pile included more sweet, spicy, or citrus smelling perfumes. These include: Mon Guerlain by Guerlain, Saint by KVD, Sinner by KVD, Clean Reserve Citron Fig, SCI-FI by Ellis Brooklyn, Black Opium by YSL, Si by Giogrio Armani, Tory Burch by Tory Burch, Decadence by Marc Jacobs, Gold by Commodity, Stella by Stella McCartney, and Dolce & Gabbana light blue. 
My favorites of these would have to be Gold, Mon Guerlain, Sci-Fi, and Decadence.

Feel free to ask me any questions about any of these fragrances and I'll be happy go to into more details!

[pocketvenus]

I tried Kilian's Princess last night and I like it more than Kissing. I've copy-pasted my Kissing review from the gratis thread below.

Princess is an irreverent gourmand that doesn't take itself seriously. While it is still a lot sweeter than what I normally wear, the sweetness is more balanced here than with Kissing. The marshmallow note is really accurate as well! First it's that powdery kind of scent you get from the exterior of those giant white marshmallows you can get in a grocery store and then it's a full on gooey, fluffy marshmallow, after it's been heated up a bit. The texture is spot on!!! The earthy heat of the ginger plays a supporting role, keeping the sweetness in check so that it doesn't become a straight up sugarbomb. I honestly don't get much in the way of bitter green tea unless it's the kind of perfumey "green tea" vibe which in my mind, doesn't smell like green tea. As the scent develops, those supporting notes fade away and what remains is a sweet gumminess, like the chewy inside of the marshmallow that has the faintest hint of play-doh. After a few hours, it becomes pretty generic. The dry down is easier for me to wear than Kissing. This is a playful gourmand at a reasonable price. It's not meant to be sophisticated and grownup and not every fragrance should be. When I picture someone wearing this, it's a young woman in pigtails, blowing bubble gum with a "so what" expression on her face.

Kissing is a fragrance that I think would be suitable for customers in their teens and early 20s, a girly-girl floral that is incredibly sugary. The “hot milk” note is not very lactic, nothing like, say, Serge Luten's Dent de Lait, mainly because the sugar is so dominant. The florals are not a delicate muget but rather, a little heavy handed, which they would have to be, so as not to be overpowered. The development of Kissing is linear. What you get in the opening is more or less what you get in the dry down except the scent becomes more fluffy and then grows quite dense with a clean, white synthetic musk. I would describe it as milk infused with abstract florals and heaps of white sugar and that is spun into pink cotton candy and then transformed into a candy flavoured dryer sheet for the laundry. Strong projection, meaning I can smell the fragrance with my nose over a foot away from my wrist. This is not a subtle scent! The sillage is not so strong though, so you don’t leave a trail of scent. Very long lasting! It's been about 7 hours so far and going strong with one spray. I do not regularly wear sweet scents because my skin tends to amplify sweetness so this is the opposite of what I would normally choose to wear . Kissing is really way too sweet for me! But if you like the level of sweetness in fragrances like Marc Jacob's Decadence, YSL Black Opium, Prada's Candy or even the Brazilian Bum Bum Cream, which I know some BIC members love, give this a try.

So far, I'd say the two new Kilians I've tried are geared toward really young customers. Gen-Z rather than Gen-Y.

[Titian06]

@pocketvenus- Although I don't like sweet or gourmand scents, this one sounds like one I might like to try just for the fun factor!  I assume you know Kilians is coming to Sephora.

[pocketvenus]

@Titian06, yeah it's a pretty good marshmallow note 😛 Etat Libre d'Orange has a marshmallow in their Yes I Do fragrance, but it's not as realistic as the Kilian. And the Etat Libre is not so innocent.

p.s. yes, Katie posted a thread about these Sephora exclusive scents 🙂

[laurakristie]

Thanks pocketvenus for posting your thoughts/reviews of Kissing and Princess. You write such detailed descriptions of scents- I am always interested to read your posts. After reading your thoughts on these two, I think I will give them a chance. If you try the other Kilian scents (Adults and/or Boys) I would love to hear your thoughts!

[pocketvenus]

@laurakristie, very glad to hear you found these descriptions helpful 🙂 I am definitely going to try the other two if I can! Actually those two were the ones I was hoping to try as I love fig scents and I am curious about what a "coca cola" note would be like

[IndyQT317]

I finally finished up the Jadore Floral samples. I enjoyed the scent this week for the workplace. Pretty, but unremarkable. Sort of like I smelled the scent before from a different brand. Another observation was it seemed as the vials were half full. Generally, I can use one vial a week. I was out by day three with this fragrance. Since the vial is white packaging I could not confirm.

[Vmaster]

Gengis Khan

by Marc de la Morandiere

A wonderful fresh & spicy mossy oriental woody! There is a very nice pine and vetiver in the dry-down. Not as soapy as some other reviewers had mentioned, which is fine by me.
I got about 9 hours longevity and the projection was within an arm's length.

[pocketvenus]

@Vmaster, glad you were able to try this today 🙂 Spicy, mossy, woody oriental sounds fantastic.

[pocketvenus]

Tested the Hermessence fragrances Christine Nagel did but forgot to write about them here! Overall, these are polished, deep fragrances that are more subtle and reserved than Nagel’s other scents for the house like Twilly or Galop d'Hermes.

• Agar Ebène is the one I chose to test on my skin. The agarwood is gentle and refined, even more so than the more polished oud offerings from Kilian or Maison Francis Kurkdjian. Agarwood is combined with balsam fir to form a warm, supple leather that dries down to a balsamic, smoky scent. Its projection is subtle but far reaching so not for the office. As it is an EDT, it dried down to a skin scent for me after four hours but the scent itself lasted much longer, over 8+ hours including a shower.

• Myrrhe Églantine is not your typical rose. A soapy rose comes to the forefront, but myrrh plays an indispensable role, rounding out the fragrance with its resinous character. It imparts luminosity, sweetness and depth to the rose.

• Cèdre Sambac is perhaps the most challenging and most powerful of the three. A plush jasmine finds an unlikely partner in the clean, hard edges of cedarwood. Jasmine is given an unexpected structure and discipline with the wood. As the scent develops, the cedar becomes more assertive.