Site looks good, I don’t think using ai images for the notes is a good idea though. It lowers the quality of a good site, and the girlies (a gender neutral concept for people who tend to use these sites) do not tend to like AI.
I know you’re not affiliated but maybe someone who is will read it. Thanks for the rec!
Perfumery is much maligned and misunderstood. It is, ultimately, an art form, a kind of human expression like music or painting, that is rarely appreciated as such. Many would happily see it banned, knowing nothing about it other than that some people wear too much. That'd be like banning music because your neighbor's TV is too loud.
Lucky Scent (mentioned in this article) has a boutique in LA. If you're nearby, you can go in and sample to your heart's content. Perfume boutiques are unfortunately rare but most large cities will have something and they're accessible and inviting in my experience. There really is a _lot_ more out there than what a Sephora or Macy's will ever show you.
Nice article. He correctly notes that vocabulary for describing odors is limited for most so reviews and descriptions trend quite "purple" and abstract. There is a vocabulary, though, but it'd take some time spent with some books and a perfume organ to make progress on that front.
The abandoned chapel of a Cistercian abbey.
Cold stonewalls, covered in Moss.
The scent of waxen wood, of the tabernacle and ornate pews.
The linseed oil of the unfinished painting.
Myrrh and Frankincense still linger in the air,
When a peppery whiff catches you, unawares:
That of white lilies, still fresh and yet so spicy.
The subtle scent of golden pollen mingles with that of solemn green leaves.
A beam of light breaks through the stained glass windows illuminating this olfactory tumult of feelings, shifting from humility to jubilation.
A divine call.
When I visited the site in Paris, which was a lovely experience, we did sample this perfume among others and were quite impressed. Something weird happened in America, maybe the Axe Body Spray takeover, where at least those with a working class upbringing thumbed our noses at such frivolous things but now I have come to appreciate fragrance a bit more.
Funny enough, we actually randomly had dinner with the founder of a perfume shop who was visiting Paris with his wife and it was fascinating to learn a bit about the industry.
I can't stand perfume, it makes my skin crawl. Literally when someone is dowsed in the stuff, you can feel the wave of exploding microparticles in mini chemical reactions as they walk passed you. In my "unpopular opinion" perfumes should be banned.
I used to try and buy a lot of perfumes some years ago. Unfortunately I concluded that it isn't really worth it since beyond some classics (Fahrenheit , terre d Hermes, declaration, narcisso for him, dior home, ysl m7, armani code, zv this is him, ck eternity, chanel egoiste platinum and of course aventus) there aren't many truly unique scents. Most perfumes try to copy another existing, mass appealing one.
Also male perfume nowadays is either too weak or too sweet (or too expensive if you go the niche route). So either I'll wear a perfume that will smell for 30 minutes and nobody will notice or I'll bite the bullet and wear a club perfume that will suffocate people (and not even smell good).
I like instances of any fragrance really, as long as it doesn't "project". Basically, if someone comes close they catch it but otherwise it doesn't throw the smell very far. Examples: khus,sandalwood,some lemongrass perfumes, and iris.
- Composition. As a crude rule, alcohol based perfumes will boost projection, but will also last for less time. Oil is the opposite. Eau de toilettes are alcohol heavy while Parfum/attars are oil heavy.
- Despite all of this, the manufacturer can add compounds that change basically anything. They can make an oil perfume project or an alcohol perfume not project. They can blend quieter ingredients into strong perfumes and vice versa. Designer perfumes do a lot of this monkey business.
- Type of skin/weather. Different types of skin and the humidity of the air affect different perfumes in different ways.
If your goal is a quieter affair, middle grounds like lemongrass(not so projecting)+eau de toilette(alcohol) can work pretty well. 100% Khus oil on warm skin also works a treat. Iris perfumes are typically used in composition with a lot of other stuff, so you really gotta try them out and find out which one works for you.
@gwern, did you mess up your inflation calculation here?
> I couldn’t get all the ones Nguyen highlighted from LuckyScent and some sampler packs were sold out, but I settled for 39 samples total on 8 February 2021. (Which cost $153 [2021; $190 in 2025], so amortizing to $3.90 [2011; $6.03 in 2025] each.) At that point I felt I had gone a bit overboard, so I didn’t do an additional order from CB I Hate Perfume, which Nguyen praises for doing the most interesting ‘abstract’ perfumes, to pick up ones that LuckyScent didn’t have in stock.
This must have been like 15 years ago, but I vaguely remember someone making a perfume that smelled like the scent you get when you open up the box of a new iPhone or MacBook.
It’s a distinct smell and I’m not really sure if it’s purely from the electronics or if it comes from the papers inside the box too.
Oh, perfumes are a great hobby. If you're in SF or LA, definitely hit up one of the boutique perfume shops (Scent Bar and Ministry of Scent).
There are also bunch of sellers who package samples (aka "decants" - buy a 100mL, split it into smaller bottles). I found that 1-2mL is plenty to get an idea. I've had great experience with LuckyScent (mentioned in the article), Surrender to Chance, as well as random reddit swaps and highly rated Ebay sellers.
The perfume scene is super wide and diverse, and I found that although there are general trends, it's hard to even know all the popular brands, and everyone's nose is unique. Skip stuff like Aventus and Sauvage and buy some discovery sets (surrender to chance puts together some good ones).
There is definitely a spectrum between "wearable crowd-pleaser" and "avant-garde storytelling" - Afrika-Olifan comes to mind - love it for the creativity and execution, but it would be rude to go outside wearing it. There's also some storytelling - Black March, for example, starts off with grassy fresh earth after a rain, then turns into flowers.
This is the weirdest thing to see here. However, if you want to fix nose-blindness, just smell into coffee beans. Most perfumeries have a glass of coffee beans.
The high end ones are purer in ingredients, but the mainstream are just the cheapest combination of chemicals you are putting on your skin/breathing in.
My partner complains that the economics of scent mean your signature smell can be deleted on a whim. She fell in love with a very unlikely scent, got 10 years, it's gone. It's actually happened twice to her, and these are not marginal brands either, Cacharel and Beckham, who (probably because they are ruthless with otherwise underperforming product) prune their range.
If the containers were uniform, it could be a robot production line and small runs wouldn't be an issue given the inputs are somewhat universal.
It's paint blending for the nose.
"War paint" (2003) by Liny Woodhead about Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden is a fascinating read. It was a book before a stage production.
It's not only economics but also the ever-tightening IFRA rules that command the maximum content or even outright banning of various fragrance ingredients to reduce allergies or other health issues.
armani lui has been my "signature scent" since i've turned 18 in 1999 (give or take) and those bastards just randomly changed the formula at some point. i still use it, it's still my fav scent by a mile but it's not what i used to smell like and it makes me sad that it was just gone and i can never get it back
There’s Chinese analytical labs which identify the fragrance molecules in a perfume. You just have to send them a sample. The caveat is if the perfume used natural oils or captive materials; then the lab won’t be able to identify everything. There are also leaks of formulas that are circulated in perfumery circles; many famous perfumes are already known. Anyway you can then purchase the individual materials and recreate the perfume.
I spend a lot of time in Seoul and there's an entire street in the Sinsa neighborhood dedicated to perfumes and scents. A lot of experimental work going on, it's kind of fun. Worth a try if you come by.
2) I hate perfume. I met an avant garde perfumist called Christopher Brosius (label: "I hate perfume") and waited 20 years to buy his samples. They are AMAZING. So approachable. Everyone who has let me dab with his fragrances has been blown away. "In the library" smells like old books. "Wild hunt" has rotten leaves as an ingredient. "Walking on air" smells like fresh cut grass. I hate perfume but I am obsessed with his smells: https://www.cbihateperfume.com/
I know we are used to people online having the wildest disagreement because of contrarianism or something, but in this case, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation:
You know we have three different types (sometimes four) of color sensors in our eyes? And that people who miss one or several of them are "colorblind" and fail tests like the Ishihara Test?
Well, human noses have hundreds of possible olfactory receptors, and everyone of us only has a subset of these, which means we are all "smellblind" one way or another.
Each one of us smells perfumes differently. The only think that we can agree on is a shared association or experience like the smell of a standard object (e.g. a road, asphalt) or of a common plant (flower or food).
I'm a perfume fan and fragrance commentary manages to be one of the most spectacular thing on the internet. You might find comments being like "smells like cat piss" next to another comment of someone who maybe dips his feet in perfumery and goes like "oh yeah it's clear they used some new musc, the transparent ones, and not the old ones that would have been more cozy"
Your descriptions of perfume sound like someone who appreciates perfume. I don't think you hate perfume.
Perfume in general is very approachable, and most perfume one can find easily is popular and accessible. You just walk into a drug store and try some for free. The process is entirely self-directed and manual. Often, not even the security guard will look.
There are a few that I absolutely enjoy the smell of, but I have super bad allergies and migraines so I'm usually anti perfumes. It doesn't help that a lot of people wear far too much in public when a lil dab will do ya.
For anyone looking to save money, don't get the brand name perfumes.
Instead, get something from a good clone house. They have special equipment to analyse the ingredients of the branded perfumes and end up making exactly the same thing.
Stay away from lower quality copies that aren't made by clone houses (i.e random "inspired by" stuff from Amazon).
They are not making exactly the same thing. That might be their marketing claim, but it is false. Unles they somehow discovered a way to do cheap low-volume synthesis of arbitrary organic molecules, which alone would probably get them a Nobel or two, and the analysis claim is also only loosely based on reality.
The only reason perfume manufacturers are willing to pay more than gold price (in weight) for some ingredients is exactly that they can't be economically synthesized.
I've got a question since I know nothing about perfume, but overtime do you just acclimatise to the scent? So that in the end it's like it's not really there?
At least I've noticed this with listening to music, personally speaking.
Sometimes you get nose-blind to the scent but IMO that's not a good thing, because it means it contains something too strong.
But more interesting to me is the effect that your perception of the scent will change, like it's different to hear a piece of music the first time and later. You can find new nuances, new depth, start to like it more, or less.
64 comments
[ 0.18 ms ] story [ 66.2 ms ] threadExample: https://fragplace.com/fragrances/18774/neandertal/neandertal...
I know you’re not affiliated but maybe someone who is will read it. Thanks for the rec!
Lucky Scent (mentioned in this article) has a boutique in LA. If you're nearby, you can go in and sample to your heart's content. Perfume boutiques are unfortunately rare but most large cities will have something and they're accessible and inviting in my experience. There really is a _lot_ more out there than what a Sephora or Macy's will ever show you.
Nice article. He correctly notes that vocabulary for describing odors is limited for most so reviews and descriptions trend quite "purple" and abstract. There is a vocabulary, though, but it'd take some time spent with some books and a perfume organ to make progress on that front.
Here’s the description:
When I visited the site in Paris, which was a lovely experience, we did sample this perfume among others and were quite impressed. Something weird happened in America, maybe the Axe Body Spray takeover, where at least those with a working class upbringing thumbed our noses at such frivolous things but now I have come to appreciate fragrance a bit more.Funny enough, we actually randomly had dinner with the founder of a perfume shop who was visiting Paris with his wife and it was fascinating to learn a bit about the industry.
Also male perfume nowadays is either too weak or too sweet (or too expensive if you go the niche route). So either I'll wear a perfume that will smell for 30 minutes and nobody will notice or I'll bite the bullet and wear a club perfume that will suffocate people (and not even smell good).
Costco has some nice deals on high end perfumes, like Roja or Tom Ford.
There are also local perfumeries which can be interesting.
- Ingredients have a natural level of diffusion.
- Composition. As a crude rule, alcohol based perfumes will boost projection, but will also last for less time. Oil is the opposite. Eau de toilettes are alcohol heavy while Parfum/attars are oil heavy.
- Despite all of this, the manufacturer can add compounds that change basically anything. They can make an oil perfume project or an alcohol perfume not project. They can blend quieter ingredients into strong perfumes and vice versa. Designer perfumes do a lot of this monkey business.
- Type of skin/weather. Different types of skin and the humidity of the air affect different perfumes in different ways.
If your goal is a quieter affair, middle grounds like lemongrass(not so projecting)+eau de toilette(alcohol) can work pretty well. 100% Khus oil on warm skin also works a treat. Iris perfumes are typically used in composition with a lot of other stuff, so you really gotta try them out and find out which one works for you.
> I couldn’t get all the ones Nguyen highlighted from LuckyScent and some sampler packs were sold out, but I settled for 39 samples total on 8 February 2021. (Which cost $153 [2021; $190 in 2025], so amortizing to $3.90 [2011; $6.03 in 2025] each.) At that point I felt I had gone a bit overboard, so I didn’t do an additional order from CB I Hate Perfume, which Nguyen praises for doing the most interesting ‘abstract’ perfumes, to pick up ones that LuckyScent didn’t have in stock.
It’s a distinct smell and I’m not really sure if it’s purely from the electronics or if it comes from the papers inside the box too.
There are also bunch of sellers who package samples (aka "decants" - buy a 100mL, split it into smaller bottles). I found that 1-2mL is plenty to get an idea. I've had great experience with LuckyScent (mentioned in the article), Surrender to Chance, as well as random reddit swaps and highly rated Ebay sellers.
The perfume scene is super wide and diverse, and I found that although there are general trends, it's hard to even know all the popular brands, and everyone's nose is unique. Skip stuff like Aventus and Sauvage and buy some discovery sets (surrender to chance puts together some good ones).
There is definitely a spectrum between "wearable crowd-pleaser" and "avant-garde storytelling" - Afrika-Olifan comes to mind - love it for the creativity and execution, but it would be rude to go outside wearing it. There's also some storytelling - Black March, for example, starts off with grassy fresh earth after a rain, then turns into flowers.
The high end ones are purer in ingredients, but the mainstream are just the cheapest combination of chemicals you are putting on your skin/breathing in.
If the containers were uniform, it could be a robot production line and small runs wouldn't be an issue given the inputs are somewhat universal.
It's paint blending for the nose.
"War paint" (2003) by Liny Woodhead about Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden is a fascinating read. It was a book before a stage production.
armani lui has been my "signature scent" since i've turned 18 in 1999 (give or take) and those bastards just randomly changed the formula at some point. i still use it, it's still my fav scent by a mile but it's not what i used to smell like and it makes me sad that it was just gone and i can never get it back
https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/
every single comment on that website is amazing.
2) I hate perfume. I met an avant garde perfumist called Christopher Brosius (label: "I hate perfume") and waited 20 years to buy his samples. They are AMAZING. So approachable. Everyone who has let me dab with his fragrances has been blown away. "In the library" smells like old books. "Wild hunt" has rotten leaves as an ingredient. "Walking on air" smells like fresh cut grass. I hate perfume but I am obsessed with his smells: https://www.cbihateperfume.com/
This was a plot line for Seinfeld (Kramer invents it then Calvin Klein steals his idea).
You know we have three different types (sometimes four) of color sensors in our eyes? And that people who miss one or several of them are "colorblind" and fail tests like the Ishihara Test?
Well, human noses have hundreds of possible olfactory receptors, and everyone of us only has a subset of these, which means we are all "smellblind" one way or another.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10824/
Each one of us smells perfumes differently. The only think that we can agree on is a shared association or experience like the smell of a standard object (e.g. a road, asphalt) or of a common plant (flower or food).
Perfume in general is very approachable, and most perfume one can find easily is popular and accessible. You just walk into a drug store and try some for free. The process is entirely self-directed and manual. Often, not even the security guard will look.
The simplicity of design and the pace make it timeless, despite the fact that it was produced 11 years ago.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G88zqPxJ00
Instead, get something from a good clone house. They have special equipment to analyse the ingredients of the branded perfumes and end up making exactly the same thing.
Stay away from lower quality copies that aren't made by clone houses (i.e random "inspired by" stuff from Amazon).
The only reason perfume manufacturers are willing to pay more than gold price (in weight) for some ingredients is exactly that they can't be economically synthesized.
At least I've noticed this with listening to music, personally speaking.
But more interesting to me is the effect that your perception of the scent will change, like it's different to hear a piece of music the first time and later. You can find new nuances, new depth, start to like it more, or less.