The Friendly Perfumistas Thread 34 - 🍂 Autumn is Here & It's Time For Cosy Scents!

[FestivelyScent]

Hello all my wonderfully fragrant friends,

It's time for a shiny new thread! 😊 Perfect timing for autumn too. 🍂🎃🍂

Newbies are most definitely welcome. Come and discuss your Scent Of The Day (SOTD), old favourites, new infatuations, the best dupes and scents of any price point. We are very friendly! 😊

Thanks for the welcome!
@Mrcpy I love the idea of matching colours or clothes to perfumes, I never thought of that. Of course, like most of you i have different perfumes I wear at different times of the year.

I can imagine that narrowing down the samples to one favourite is tough! This info might be in the thread somewhere already but do any other perfume houses offer the same thing - refund of the cost of the discovery set against a full bottle? It seems like such a good idea to me!

SOTD - Tom Ford Santal Blush

SOTD Initio Magnetic Blend 7. Big meeting day today so a pick-me-up perfume to go with it.

@ChamberLink Yes, some of them give you a voucher for the full amount (I remember Gallivant does) and others give a voucher for some of it or a percentage off a full bottle. I think the number of perfume houses doing discovery sets or sample schemes increased massively during Covid when people couldn’t shop in person.

I don’t live very close to any big shops so sample sets are great for me. I still end up going a bit nuts and trying everything whenever I do end up in a department store or duty free though!

sotd matcha meditation- quite nice maybe for summer

Quite a few niche perfume houes do it:
4160tuesdays
Le jardin retrouve
Gallivant

Thanks for that info. I will look them up! But think I'll start with Byredo first.
Its a dark cold wet day here and it's hard to get up & going.
SOTD: Dyptique L'Eau Capitale

Byredo and Kilian do sample sets where you can redeem the price against the full bottle

I bought a 30mls of Michael kors mystique Shimmer from escentual in the sake.. £13!
It's very pleasant.
Sotd 4160tuesdays captured By Candlelight with added coffee ☕️
Sote MK mystique Shimmer

sale

Stopped for a sniff whilst running errands in town. Chanel Coco Mademoiselle is nicer than I remember and Chanel No 5 is growing on me!?! I've never liked it before. The other perfumes I checked out all seemed rather dull :(

No 5 I always hated when I was younger. Now I really like the EDT, the l'eau and the premiere. Maybe it's my tastes changing as I've got older? Not a fan of Coco M though personally

Sotd pp mmm btf layered with campfire marshmallow body creme
Yum yum

Bit of a strange question perhaps but is there a specific perfume from Germany that anyone recommends? I'm going to Berlin soon & I always love to try out perfumes from the places / countries I visit. I can't think of any but you're all fat more knowledgeable than me!
SOTD: Creed Neroli Sauvage - I love this one but haven't worn it in ages.

Far not fat!!

Sote skylar vanilla sky

Rather pleasant coffee vanilla scent

Had a lovely few hours trying out my Le Jardin Retrouve samples. So many beautiful scents and such pretty packaging.

Great arent they? :)
Which is your favourite?
I've got sandalwood sacre, oriental Sans souci and cuir de ruisse.

@Alienbigcat45 a really lovely family perfume house. Full disclosure: I do some work for them but I fell in love with Le Jardin Retrouve fragrances long before. My favourite is Sandalwood Sacre with Rose Trocadero and Cuir de Russie a close second ( especially when worn together!).

@Chevyimpala67 @MissBattleaxe it's so hard to pick a favourite but Oriental Sans Souci just edges it for me. I think it was your blog MissB that introduced me to the house, thank you!

A silly q from a novice, are niche fragrances (i.e. fragrances that are by perfume specialists rather than designers and celebs capitalising on their brand) more expensive than mainstream high-street perfumes?

Oh, and second question, how do you get to experience them unless you happen to live near them? Buying blind is just too risky!

@whatausername there are no silly questions in perfume so always feel free to ask. Niche perfumery usually means an independent perfumer who works for themselves and sources their own ingredients. Mainstream, designer and celebrity perfumes are all made by renowned perfumers but they usually belong to one of the big institutions such as Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF and I can't remember the others off the top of my head. So for example, if a brand wants a perfume they approach, say, Givaudan who has many of the worlds most prolific perfumers.

Celebrity perfumes are also made by these perfumers and the celebrity licenses their name to it. There is a lot more transparency now and the of the perfumer is easier to find on sites like Fragrantica. So master perfumer Olivier Cresp made Angel for Thierry Mugler. Perfumer Louise Turner made Good Girl for Carolina Herrera.

As for tracking down niche perfume samples, may I suggest The Perfume Society niche discovery boxes? I also recommend 4160 Tuesdays sample collections, and Le Jardin Retrouve sample sets which are refunded via a gift code, as is the excellent Gallivant discovery set . Feel free to ask if you have any other questions. HTH.

@whatausername good question! @MissBattleaxe has explained it expertly. I’m no expert but, to my mind, there’s no real boundary between niche and designer except that niche perfumes tend to be more adventurous and designer/celebrity perfumes tend to be more generally pleasing. There’s a large overlap though. Also worth saying, many consumers like the idea of using a niche brand, which is unrelated to the quality of the fragrance itself.

It's about quality for me. I do have high street perfumes created in a lab by IFF and firminech etc but I'd rather buy from small, ethical companies who create, hand pour and pack their own perfumes.
I don't particularly want to smell the same as everyone else tbh
I've tried quite a few niche houses but always return to 4160tuesdays, le jardin retrouve and tauer. Gallivant is also very good.
I also have massive issues paying for global celeb ad campaigns (which are usually cringingly bad) in the price point of a perfume.
I haven't tried Karen timson or that Greek chap whose name escapes me (blush) but I will! :)

Oh love that one :)

@Chevyimpala67
I don't particularly want to smell the same as everyone else tbh

I’ve heard this said a lot but the logic confuses me. The most sold perfume ever (Chanel No 5) has 5% market share. Only half the population are women, and only a fraction of women even wear perfume. So even the most popular perfume is only worn by a tiny fraction of the population, and it’s unlikely that you’ll meet someone wearing it on any particular day. Add the fact that fragrances smell different on different people as they’re altered by skin chemistry. So I feel just wear the scent that you like, don’t be worried about smelling like “everyone else”.