The friendly perfumistas thread 32: spring has sprung 🌷 and we all smell amazing ☺️

[ChiswickFlo]

Morning my fragrant friends ☺️

New thread as we are nearly in May now...

Rather grey here today so sotd will be pp mmm btf

Hope @judystilldreamsofhorses is feeling better?

Have a good Bank Holiday x

Happy birthday to your DH @ChiswickFlo, hope you all have a great celebration.

My bottle of Diorella arrived yesterday... oh, be still my chypre-loving heart, it's glorious. All citrussy and woody and lovely, just on the right side of overripe fruit in the middle for me, and a gorgeous dry down. A fantastic blind buy in the end.

SOTD Modern Muse.

I am SO relieved you love the Diorella. Great description.

SOTD Bois des Isles.

Happy Birthday to your DH @ChiswickFlo It sounds like you will all have a great day. 🎂🎁🎈🍾

Thank you :)
Just started raining! Grrr.
Bought a huge chocolate cake though 😋
I'm so tired I forgot to spray timeless before I left so I ended up with an emergency spritz of avon little black dress from a purse spray in by handbag 🙃

Happy birthday to @ChiswickFlo's DH. Enjoy your chocolate cake!

SOTD is Frederic Malle Lys Mediterranee. This reminds me very strongly of another perfume but I can't work out what it is, it's driving me mad. It could just be reminding me of actual lilies, of course! It's more green than I expected, with maybe some orange blossom too. Not sure about this one, I have other similar things which I think I prefer.

Happy birthday to @ChiswickFlo ‘s DH :)

SOTD Chanel Chance

Thank you 😊

My Karen Timson sample set has arrived. Seem great at first sniff, particularly Hermia and Rosa di Rio. Looking forward to trying them properly. Thanks for the recommendation, @MissBattleaxe

Ooh, I love hearing about everyone's fragrance samples - particularly smaller brands which may be less well known - even within the fragrance community. I'm getting lots of ideas for things to try. 😊

SOTD is Samsara. It's really quite warm here atm, but I am comfortably ensconced inside a powdery cloud of sandalwood and jasmine, so I don't mind too much. 🙃

Happy birthday ChiswickFlo!! Hope you are having a lovely day and have received some nice smelling gifts.

SOTD is Armani Si Fiori.

It's dh, but thank you! 😊
He got some 4160tuesdays invisible Ben*
He got a rather nice camera as its a big bday 🎂

*or as he calls it "disappearing Pete" 🤣

@RedlobsterJones oh, I do love Si Fiori, it's my favourite of the Si range. It's discontinued and I'm considering seeking out a back up bottle.

'Disappearing Pete' 😂

Mea culpa ChiswickFlo!! That'll teach me to skim read... although happy to see you buy your dh nice smells for his birthday!! Love it.

SOTD Si Fiori is divine DramaAlpaca xx

SOTD Byredo Gypsy Water. Yesterday was Stella.

SOTN is Miss Dior, which smells divine in the really quite humid atmosphere here this evening. Must be caused by all the rain we've been having.

Sotd 4160tuesdays fluffy lemon top 🍋

I'm having to wait in for my new washing machine. I'm not a patient person 😬🤣

Last night I suddenly got an odd compulsion to buy a perfume from the years my dc were born...in the baby/toddler hell phase I just bunged on whatever I had (usually only 1 bottle too! How times have changed 🤣)

So I'm looking for lovely scents from 2003 and 2008...hmmm...

SOTD euphoria again
I don’t have a large collection of fragrances and tend to use the same 2-3 day after day. Everyone else in this thread seems to rotate through a huge range. How do you decide what to buy and what to pick each day?

Ah...well...its not always easy 🙂

There are just too many beautiful perfumes in the world 🌎

I wear perfumes based on my mood, social event, time of day, weather, season, activity...

So, for example, my "stay the hell away from me today, you utter moron" scent is zoologist T Rex 🙂🦖

Today I am wearing 4160tuesdays fluffy lemon top because its bright and sunny here and it's a very smooth buttery narcissus which wafts around deliciously 😋

I tend to get samples first (I don't have the best strike rate with blind buys nor the cash to splash sadly)

I read @MissBattleaxe blog iscentyouaday religiously as I have had some great recommendations from her 👏

Some people stick really closely to 1 or 2 perfume houses (e.g: chanel) but life's too short to limit oneself imho 🙂

For samples:
Bloom perfumery
Les senteurs
Fragrance samples UK
Look fantastic pick n mix
4160tuesdays

Thank you @ChiswickFlo! Great advice there. Also, @Mrcpy a perfume habit needn't be expensive. You'll find cheap and cheerfuls next to more expensive scents on my blog and also in the book I co authored with Sarah McCartney, The Perfume Companion. The cheapest in there is £1 and the most expensive is £££££.

I really recommend The Perfume Society Discovery Boxes. They're an excellent way of trying before you buy and they also do niche boxes if you want to try something a bit different.

Just one tiny details @ChiswickFlo - I think the Pick n Mix is Feel Unique not Look Fantastic. I get confused too about that one!

You are quite right! @MissBattleaxe 👍

The Perfume Companion is a fabulous book...I'm often dipping in and out of it 🙂

Oh and of course good old Avon...not to be sniffed at pardon the pun

Absolutely! The two recent Avon perfumes are fantastic: Wisteria Sublime and Nymphea Lumiere. Check out iscentyouaday for reviews of both. ( It won't let me post links sadly).

Hi @Mrcpy. I’ve only recently started trying lots of different perfumes and almost all the ones I have are 1 or 2ml samples, mainly bought in sets or individually from the perfume house websites, plus I’ve also ordered some of the Perfume Society mixed samples boxes. I’ve only got three bigger bottles (and they are the smaller 30ml ones) plus a few 10ml travel sizes.

I’m really enjoying sampling and often they are things I would never have thought to try if I hadn’t got them in mixed sample sets. I seem to like a much bigger range of types of perfume than I thought. It can make it hard to decide what to wear each day though 🙂 I tend to go for tried and tested favourites when I’m going to the office etc. and then try out new or more unusual things when I’m at home, so I don’t scare anyone and/or I am close to water is case it’s a scrubber!

Thanks @ChiswickFlo @MissBattleaxe @CorneliaStreet for those tips. A perfume sample box sounds so much fun, and I’ll definitely add one to my wishlist! And it’s a good idea to get a book to go along with the samples. Sometimes I read about perfumes online but tbh I don’t get the descriptions at all - I don’t have a developed “palate” but only manage to recognise what scents make me happy. (Sounds a bit like we’re talking about wine tasting!)