Perfume reviews
gwern.net
gwern.net
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).
Most people would disdain that ... perfume.
The way everything mixes together, there's a dill pickle overtone that some people are really receptive to. I can smell it if I actively think about dill, but it's not the first thing I notice. Others seem to respond to it like a jar of pickle juice.
https://basenotes.com/fragrances/santal-33-by-le-labo.261328...
I couldn't believe it when I found out it was a high end fragrance people would wear...willingly.
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.
Here’s the description:
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.
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.
https://www.orizaparfums.com/en/ultimateproduct/170/coffret-...
[1] reasonable within the context of their prices... YMMV.
[0] Villa Lympia, L'Eau de Corse, La Fleur d'Oranger, Relique d'Amour (obviously), Jardins d'Armide and Vétiver Royal Bourbon.
The way I see it, perfumes should replace your scent. They should complement it. They should go together like wine and food.
Axe Body Spray covers your natural scent -- the entire marketing is "You smell bad so you should smell like something else". That's how we've marketed fragrance in the US since forever. Somebody finally figured out that we could sell it to boys as well as to adult women.
(Honestly, I sometimes think those top notes are there just to get you to buy them in the store.)
Lorca wrote here, Picasso sketched here, Buñuel and Dali schemed to shock the world here. Even today, you'll still find ideas hanging in the air at Madrid's Cafe Gijon-along with the pungent smoke of Ducados.
Stir sugar into your cortado and watch the room unfold in the nearest mirror. There are so many, reflecting into each other, you can see everything from one spot.
Are those young ladies debating García Márquez? It's perfectly acceptable to stroll over and get involved. All it takes is confidence-and this jacket. Spanish Café Linen Blazer.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.
For those not in America, SF and LA are counties in the united states of america.
Also, in California: San Luis Obispo, Riverside, Sacramento, Fresno, Santa Barbara.
In Sweden, we also have administrative regions translated as counties, which are lead by someone I'd directly translate as "county chief" (as in "chief over this tribe") but they're anonymous bureaucrats a normal person wouldn't know about. (The common translation is the less exciting "governor".)
For some reason, the UK doesn't issue the title of "count", only "viscount". "Marquis" is linked etymologically to "marches", an old type of land allocation boundaries, but again not in practice.
When people outside of LA say "Los Angeles", they're almost always referring to the county. The city of LA is actually quite small.
For "San Diego", it's precisely the opposite - a giant portion of San Diego County is comprised of the city of San Diego, and they're almost always just referring to the city.
And for "San Francisco," the city and the county are basically the same entity and thus have the same borders.
Why?
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.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9243450/
Perfumiers change recipes because CITES don't allow use of some animal derived products, and because of price, and changing health concerns with chemicals.
https://ifrafragrance.org/initiatives-positions/innovation-s...
Primo Levi writes of post war searches for snake shit, which contains a urea concentrate which makes lipstick bind to the skin. Circus snake handlers laugh at him because it's sold on contract to the big perfume houses, not to random chemists.
The Periodic Table https://share.google/rOmXYeiScZwBPCE40
There's a scientific formula for artificial banana flavor, but none for bananas, by analogy.
And like bananas, the product is volatile. An unsealed 50yo bottle of Chanel No. 5 does not smell like it did when bottled.
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
I don't know if everyone else has ADHD or what.
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.
Taste is just a combination of 5 basic tastes, vision is a combination of 3 primary colors, etc.
Food reviewers don't note the levels of salt, sour, etc. They describe flavors and textures and parings.
But also, I don't buy that taste is just the composition of 5 components. This sounds like a reference to that diagram of the tongue we've all seen. It's as complex as scent is. There's no way you can define the taste of cinnamon by specifying some sort of 5-tuple.
It’s still true that we can only taste salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. All other flavor complexities come from scent simultaneously giving us information. It’s why everything tastes so boring when you have a head cold.
Food also has a universe of possible consistencies.
You can get pretty close to what you're seeing this way.
With scent? Not even close.
Yeah, the only way I can describe scent to another person is to compare it to other scents that I hope we both have a common experience with.
Thanks.
Hearing is quite similar in that there are numerous different length hairs in the ear drum that can sense different frequencies of sound.
Sure, this is a finite number, but for practical purposes it's not really decomposable.
I wish I knew what is so irritating in so many perfume so I could militate to have that substance banned instead of being in the no perfume militia!
Essential Oils like fir needles, black spruce, orange, rosemary... don't affect me, I even like them (but I find lavender repulsive but it's not hurtful).
And I don't feel like going to an allergy specialist for something as superficial as this is a good use of my time since my coworker, friends and family are not into perfume.
I know I was lucky, but the point is that yes, it is sometimes possible to "reverse the problem".
A bit east of Elkhart Indiana, there's a place that claims to sell "natural perfume". Does anyone who is perfume-sensitive have any experience with that? Is it possible that the chemicals used in "non natural perfume" are at the root of the sensitivity? (I haven't dared to test it on my wife, so I'd be interested in any reports.)
Instead of migraines, it's closer to hay fever type allergies.
That said I think it's unlikely this will be the reason. Another interesting thing to try would be one-note or other simple perfumes (like Pantomime).
I don't understand how this is distinguishable from random smells going about life, like traffic, fresh rain, flowers, cooking, grass, etc.
Traffic chemicals appear strongest on busy motorways with stagnant air, where people outside of cars don't spend much time.
Flower chemicals can cause problems but usually dissipate within 10 feet or so.
Fresh rain primarily eliminates free-floating chemical attacks and does not cause one itself.
Cooking is self-regulating because the person actively triggering the chemical emission is exposed much more strongly than people elsewhere even in the same room.
Grass can only be crudely avoided or mitigated during the seasons where it's problematic. (Thank God for COVID bringing awareness that masks make it physically easier to breathe.)
But perfume? You never know when you'll run across a person who chooses to be a targeted, walking violation of the Hague Convention. There's no way to mitigate this other than avoiding people entirely (which some people do choose to do, but which has negative side effects).
That said, in recent years I find the perfume from cleaning supplies or laundry supplies to be more problematic than the perfume from people.
> not because someone wears to much or smell to intensely
a normal perfume/cologne wearer is not going to smell 10 feet away
also
> Fresh rain primarily eliminates free-floating chemical attacks and does not cause one itself.
yes, petrichor
I'm aware of petrichor existing. I'm not aware of it ever effecting a chemical attack the way perfumes do.
again, no one is arguing that people who wear too much perfume are not obnoxious
> a chemical attack
what chemical?
If I have my inhaler at hand, that feels like pulling knives out of my lungs - better than before, but the wound remains. But we don't expect people to get much work done if they've been stabbed today.
It would be extremely annoying if that was a regular occurrence. Luckily I only seem to be sensitive to something rarely used.
But oh well. It does happen. I don't know what it is. It's not all scents, and sometimes it is things that don't have much of a scent at all. But I will never use any perfume, any product with scent added, and aerosolized anything at all is always a minefield. Even letting my wife clean can be hazardous, because whereas I am always careful to hold the spray bottle close to the surface, she'll shoot it into broad air, where it gets into my sinuses and gives me a massive headache for the next two hours.
I can't identify what it is that does it, but I can at least enumerate:
* Any and every perfume I have ever encountered, regardless of the specific scent.
* Any and every essential oil I have ever encountered.
* Any aerosol.
* Pump-sprayed solvents, including pure isopropyl alcohol diluted in water.
What doesn't irritate me:
* Food of any kind.
* Shit and untreated sewage.
* Rotting flesh.
Each of these may still smell quite terrible, even to the point that I have to flee like any other person with working scent receptors, but it doesn't feel like someone poured acid into my brain.
Iffy:
* Plants. I guess these just depend on whether I'm allergic to their specific pollen or not, but the scents themselves are not irritating in the same way.
If anyone else can find a pattern here, well, I'd be thankful.
Eh, we get pretty angry about people going around with music in public spaces (and tend to require licensing for it) and I think we're right to.
Phthalates are pervasive too in soaps and shampoos, where it's hidden within the ambiguous "fragrance" item.
There are phthalate-free options for soap and shampoo, and a quick google search indicates the perfume industry is starting to offer more products without phthalates. Phthalates aren't the only nasty chemical used for scents. Parabens are another, and maybe more I'm unaware of.
1. There are brands offering 100% natural perfumes.
2. I don't think it's reasonable to just say "phthalates, which are endocrine disruptors". Which ones exactly, how much? IFRA says diethylphthalate is safe to use in fragrances[0], where is the research showing otherwise?
I was perplexed at why this coconut perfume doesn't smell very much like coconut - turns out it was being overwhelmed by vanilla scent. I have this oud perfume, which has the oud smell, but also something... rosy? But not rose. Searched Fragrantica and turns out it's a different kind of rose smell (and the complaints about it overwhelming the oud and being too feminine clicked too). It somehow gets the length of time and range of the perfume almost perfectly too.
Considering how expensive a few drops of perfume are, I just love the site.
I'll have to disagree with Gwern on the use of Fragrantica here - you don't read the comments. The comments are there to feed the AI summarizer. Then people democratically vote on which comments were most accurate. Fragrantica has one of the best usage of AI+rating algorithms I've ever seen; it just combines all kinds of weird stuff and spits out something incredibly accurate. Smell is so difficult to describe in words.
> 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.
That site sells decants or maybe samples for 4 for a 0.7ml (saw one example). Now I know one doesn’t need a bucket in one go but only way that 0.7ml is going to last 10-20 doses is if one opens the cap (or presses the atomiser) and then closes it before anything actually comes out and the person just assumes they “took it all in” :)
I am saying this someone who regularly buys 1.5-2ml samples and 4-5ml decants.
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.
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.
https://airtable.com/appwvvqqF1fxLQKSy/shrmlkXEHooxFCB8i/tbl...
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.
Perfume gets up my nose.
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).
There is lots of interesting brands that don't go for mass appeal, for example Pineward.
- 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.
At least I've noticed this with listening to music, personally speaking.
If you are always reminded by your nose that the smell is present, then... it's subpar. But YMMV. I hate perfumes that are so strong that you literally leave a trail behind you and you can smell it all the time on yourself... and others will carry it on themselves if they spend 15 minutes with you in a room :D.
When you spray these on yourself you become a pollen bearer. It's like your perfume has a social life of its own - it sticks with everyone who gets too close to you.
That's why perfume reviews are total nonsense. You go, get 15 samples and try them on yourself one by one (right after a shower, just sprinkle it on your chest).
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.
Example: 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!
That. Man. Loves. Women.
This was back when I was collecting fragrances as a hobby and I tried to somehow mix IT into it.
Costco has some nice deals on high end perfumes, like Roja or Tom Ford.
There are also local perfumeries which can be interesting.
I don't know if it's still a good route, but I used to be able to buy sacks of random perfume sampler bottles from eBay sellers for peanuts and then I could try a couple every day and note down which ones I liked or not.
Plus I’ve found it’s a power move when I smell good in a room of people who have no aura.
Humans are animals/automatons after all, and it’s a neat hack.
Any others you can recommend for me? I personally like deep, earthy, and intimate scents.
Cheers
For what it's worth, I love Tam Dao by Diptyque.
Source?
why compare to 2021 and 2011?
> inflation adjustment: Inflation.hs provides a Pandoc Markdown plugin which allows automatic inflation adjusting of dollar amounts, presenting the nominal amount & a current real amount, with a syntax like [$5]($1980).