Our negligees may be covered in cat hair but at least they smell divine - it's Lovely Friendly Perfume Thread number 9!

[explodingkittens]

Welcome to the long-running perfume thread! All are welcome - drop in to chat about old loves or new discoveries. Ask a perfume question and someone here will know the answer.

Be warned though, we are a bunch of terrible enablers and you may wish to put your credit card in the freezer before entering

They've been really on the ball on email and have said it's unusual. I suspect it's just an accident but my God, all those violent mixed together has put me off florals for life I think. I'll stick with a gourmand violet for a while and see if I recover.

I mean violets mixed together, not violent.

Teta, if it smells right to you, I am happy!

Bad luck Lost.

Back to price, I have no problem with small houses who handmake their perfumes with high quality ingredients charging a fair price. Often it's these people who offer samples and small bottles so enthusiasts can explore their range.

| really struggle to take seriously those brands that make price exclusivity their USP. "You need to be the sort of person who drives a Range Rover to wear this" sort of thing. It just suggests a lack of aesthetic integrity to define your perfume primarily by its unattainability to most people, rather than by what it has to communicate about beauty, truth, craftsmanship etc etc. There again, I'm hardly the target market.

Good Arab proverb for skint perfumistas: “If you have only two pennies, spend the first on bread and the other on hyacinths for your soul.”

Hope you feel better soon Floof - would like you to have enough help in the home, good quality stick and lovely things to smell too.

MrsGruber, the Liquo sounds delightful! I may need to spend some money at Bloom. I can often smell liquorice even when it is not listed in the notes, for instance, in Dior’s Feve Delicieuse and 4160’s Creamy Vanilla Crumble.

Today I wore Chloe Narcisse followed this afternoon by Elizabeth Taylor’s Diamonds & Emeralds. They are both somewhat heavy peach fruity florals and have some similarities, sharing some notes (checked on Fragrantica). The Narcisse is fresher and greener, but the Diamonds & Emeralds lasts longer.

Judy, does the Lipstick Rose smell like Chanel lipsticks? They used to be my luxury treat before I started spending my spare money on perfume 🙄. They have such a beautiful rose smell and a very satisfyingly luxurious “click”.

Calm - I thought I was close to being anosmic when it came to licorice notes. Had to strain to detect it in all the obvious things LL, Yohji Yamamoto etc etc but Liquo delivers a huge warm cloud of the stuff.

I guess I've been looking for the black sticky stuff rather than wafts of lighter anise?

MrsGruber, Liquo is definitely going onto my “must try” list! I have a bottle of Caron’s Eau de Reglisse (an ebay bargain - I was the only bidder!). This is a citrussy liquorice, quite light, but lovely in warm weather.

Carrying on the general discussion, I think it’s very odd that perfume advertising campaigns rarely tell you what the perfume smells like. It’s all aspirational nonsense. And it filters through to the retailers, where often sales assistants selling perfumes don’t even know the main notes of the latest pink minger they’re trying to promote. They just want to spray you so that you will buy on the basis of the beautiful top notes which only last 20 minutes, and not the boring generic dry-down. Having said that, there are some places where you can occasionally find a knowledgeable sales assistant, and that is a real pleasure for me, to have an in depth discussion with someone like that.

The Caron sounds lovely Calm. It's funny how satisfying spend on perfume is compared to other small discretionary indulgences. Judy, Motoko and Floof all describe this really well. Can't think of anything else that offers the ability to own small amounts of critically acclaimed work, with day-long mood boosting properties, low cost per spray, and opportunities to swap or offload on ebay should you tire of it.

SotD is The Great Randello. All the pirate talk over on The Big Sniff thread has me reaching for gourmand tobacco. This is fabulous stuff.

No SOTD as I still cannot smell anything.

Yes I also find it really strange that you can’t get information on notes in say, John Lewis. You might stumble on one staff member who knows one house well, but generally there is no information available.

The worst marketing description for a perfume is probably for Charlotte Tillbury’s. It’s absolute nonsense and tells you nothing about how it smells.

It’s nice to see so many people not on this thread signing up to the Big Sniff, as they’ll probably be discovering the joy of identifying notes that appeal for the first time. Which is a revelation in being able to find the perfumes you’ll like amongst the sea of pink mingers!

4160Tuesdays have started their 2018 sale today. I tried to do a link but it hasn’t worked properly. If you go to their website, the link is on their front page. Do I get the “Best Enabler of the Day” badge?!

Half Price Scent of the week is Mrs Gloss Made Me do it.

4160 sale page.

SoTD is Mitsouko.

My velvet box has still not arrived

I'd never really stopped to notice that perfume ads give you no detail about the scent before. They sell a lifestyle, or emotion, or personality... They work though (well, I assume they do or else why spend the money?) Judy I bet you know a thing or two (!) in this... (also- how're the teeth?!)

I feel a bit like this with shoes in that I'll buy cheap ones and pricey ones if they make me happy (and they do!!) but you can't really get shoe samples can you? Scent is so much more accessible...

SotD was RM Oxford. More masculine than usual today.

Oh, and argh!!! at the 4160 sale. Eat Flowers sounds good... Anyone smelt it?

Cheap...you are welcome to shazam if you would like it 😁 pm me

I'm a bit disappointed in 4610 if I'm honest 😔...ive tried 5 now and none of them have any silage at all on me...scent gone within 1-1.5 hours

Anyone else?

LOVE sexiest scent but I have to reapply it liberally!!

Am loving PP opium and cinnabar however ❤

Cinnabar on e bay you say piam?? 😁 I wore avon eau givree years ago!

SOTD is JHAG Mad Madame.

calm Lipstick Rose smells a bit more like Guerlain Meteorites. I love it but I know it’s not for everyone.

cheap perfume ads are just selling you an aspirational lifestyle - as are many adverts, tbh. The key message - proposition - is that if you buy, say Mon Guerlain, you will be a bit more Angelina Jolie. Perfume is quite unique in that the actual product tends not to be the thing people recognise, so the ads are usually quite big on “pack shots” so you would recognise the box, plus people have a conditioned response to logos like Chanel. Lots of people won’t ever own a Chanel bag (me!) whereas a bottle of No 5 is a bit more accessible. I am about to start teaching one of my favourite modules next week, in brand management. I do a lot of stuff on luxury brands, perfumes etc in it, but also loads on things like Coca Cola, where the product assets are worth virtually nothing, but the brand value is worth millions. One of the good bits of my job is that provided I teach certain key evidence requirements, I can teach them in any reasonable way. I do love me a good wee case study to illustrate a point!

Teeth - thanks for asking, okay. He said it could take a couple of weeks for my body to adapt to the filling material, and I’m a bit sore today (he would say “tender”), but nothing that some ibuprofen can’t fix. Am back next week for a review, then we will schedule in the second tooth. God, I want it to be over! I cried there yesterday, the guy thought I was a stone cold mental.

They do vary MrsR. I've had a lovely day in The Great Randello - a terrific tobacco gourmand that last very well. Guess it depends whether you go for the lighter citruses and florals or the heavier-weight gourmands, woods, chypres, and orientals? Remind us what you've tried so far?

On my skin, Paris 1948 goes on forever and Shazam! sticks around too.

The other thing about perfume is that you're never quite sure how much effect it's having on other people. I mentioned something about the perfume I was wearing yesterday to my friend after we'd been to the cinema and she then said 'oh yes, I liked it' but I'd have said the sillage wasn't great by that point. So was she just being nice or did she really like it?

So, for many women, you are buying without really trying many options or receiving as a random gift (most of the perfume I've worn in my life has been bought as gifts by other people) then wearing without really knowing if other people can smell it. It feels like quite a private passion. And without seeing the bottle most people wouldn't know if a perfume is expensive or not. And yet we're all addicted!

Calm and Pest - thank you and have you succumbed yet? Can anyone explain who Harry is?

MrsGruber, I have no idea who Harry is, unless he is Arthur’s replacement, but I believe Arthur has now returned to 4160. (For the benefit of others, Arthur is a very charming young man who helps out at 4160Tuesday inbetween acting jobs.)

I succumbed to The Great Randello and Eat Fruit, both blind buys. So I have fingers crossed on both hands that I like them!

Count, I’m always careful to wear something fairly inoffensive and not too strong if I’m socialising or mixing with people, and I suppose because of that I very rarely get feedback. The few compliments I get are welcome, but my perfume hobby addiction is very much a private interest. I don’t know anyone in real life who is as interested in perfume as me.

Calm - I missed EatFruit. A mod? Sounds fabulous given how good they are with fruit notes. What's in it?

I think The Great Randello is one of their greatest and beats most other tobacco gourmands hands down. Think, given you like Rome 1963, it's a pretty safe bet (but if you don't like it- PM me!).

mrsg
I've tried Dark heart, shazam, EMS, sexiest scent and another I can't remember (!)
None of them last more than an hour on me
Sotd..prob knowing

Oh goodness, this thread is the most enabling place ever! They have Ealing Green in that sale I shouldn't, I really shouldn't....

Thank you for good wishes and being polite about my ramblings, I have yet to bring my temperature down so I'll keep this post brief

It is very interesting looking at the "big" picture and it had never properly occurred to me that perfume adverts never actually mention anything about the individual scent! I absolutely hate most perfume adverts anyway tbh, especially if they include Keira Knightly staring soulfully into the camera

Yes flowers and candles and books definitely fill the same "need" perfume fills in my head, and also maybe lipsticks? These are the only items I can think of that are as "accessible" in the price v pleasure formula thing!

I sometimes think about how many years I just mindlessly sprayed perfume as part of my "getting dressed" routine, before I started really thinking about it (my teens would say "I am woke" ) and wonder how many other women do this. And I could start thinking about men and aftershave but then I'd definitely ramble on! It's a good hobby to have!

On that note I better take a look at The Big Sniff - I have been peeking and lovely how many more cult members have been recruited how many other secret perfume lovers there are!

I derive so much pleasure from this thread almost as much as from perfume and it helps maximise the interest and knowledge. Most of us (well, me) don't have RL friends who share our interest in how things smell; I think of this a bit like a rolling coffee morning where there's bound to be someone along to for a quick and happy interaction. Of course, it helps that no one is ever unreasonable here, just opinionated in good ways!

SoTD is Sahaara Noire. It seems suitable for a bright morning (yay, the first in a few days) and for Y13 consultation later on. It shouldn't be intrusive by 4.30 this afternoon, I hope, but it's delivering a nice belt of dry incense and hay now.

Love the sound of your brand management module, Judy, and good to hear the dentist seems to be winning for you.