smellsgood | Perfumed Court recs, anyone?

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Perfumed Court recs, anyone?

For my next adventure in perfume, I want to move beyond BPAL and test some more traditional, alcohol-based perfumes. The Perfumed Court seems like a cool place to get sample sizes of those sorts of perfumes. So, I guess I have two questions for y'all.

1. Have any of you purchased perfumes from this site, and what was your experience?
2. This site seems pretty extensive, specializing in a lot of classic perfumes. What should I sample? What's the top ten list of classic perfumes that I should smell?

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I get most of my samples from either The Perfumed Court or Surrender to Chance. They've both been reliable, but TPC sends a small coffee candy with each order. TPC also has a better selection of vintage Guerlains.

http://www.nstperfume.com/2012/11/26/26-vintage-fragrances-every-perfumista-should-try/ is a good place to start.

I am relieved to see everyone commenting and saying that they use the site. Yay!

Thanks for the link; that looks like a great place to start.

ETA: I was also telling Rydra_Wong below that you and Thatyourefuse have inspired me with your reviews and I might start with some of the things y'all have posted about that sounded interesting to me.

Edited 2014-05-07 17:05 (UTC)

1. Yup, and good. Surrender to Chance is also good (and I believe is essentially a splinter site) -- sometimes it has slightly cheaper prices. They're both very solid and reliable.

2. What should I sample? What's the top ten list of classic perfumes that I should smell?

SUCH A HUGE QUESTION. *g*

You could go with one of the big lists:

http://www.nstperfume.com/2007/11/26/100-fragrances-every-perfumista-should-try/

But that runs the risk of landing you with a lot of things that are important and fascinating, but that you don't actually like.

One option would be to start with what you know you like, what notes appeal to you, and pursue that -- maybe with one of the Perfumed Court's sample sets. Or you could post here about what you like and ask for recs for (alcohol-based) perfumes that fit the bill.

Thanks so much for the links and the info. :) I appreciate it.

Part of my problem is that I don't really know what I like. I didn't grow up with women who were into perfume, so until now, I hadn't really smelled many perfumes that weren't made by Estee Lauder or Clinique. I've also always lived in pretty rural areas so my access to much beyond drugstore/cosmetic house perfumes has been fairly limited.

I know that I like most citrus and most "green" smells and most herbal smells, also lavender, myrrh, white musk. I know that I don't like overly floral smells (especially lily and gardenia--although I love to smell an actual gardenia flower).

I think I might start with some of the perfumes that people you've been linking to have reviewed. Minim_Calibre and Thatyourefuse keep talking about these skanky dirty smelling perfumes and it fascinates me. LOL I don't think I will like them AT ALL, but I want to smell them. *g*

And vetiver! I must not forget how yummy vetiver is. Also most woods. :)

Fancy a few recs that might relate to your likes?

(This thought brought to you by the fact that I'm currently wearing Guerlain's Vetiver. *g*)

Yes please!

Smillaraaq recced me this vetiver sampler pack (which is how I found out about the Perfumed Court):

http://theperfumedcourt.com/Products/Vetiver---3-vetiver-You-Pick-sampler-pack__vetiverpick3pw.aspx

But, of course, there's lots to choose from on that list. :)

Okay, some recs!

Guerlain Vetiver is really a gorgeous, classic vetiver. It's a "masculine" which a lot of women wear too. I find it very calming and grounding.

Comme des Garcons Black (not to be confused with their Play Black) is gorgeous smoky woods with incense and a touch of licorice.

I did a write-up of some lavender scents here: http://rydra-wong.dreamwidth.org/383205.html

Citrus -- I haven't smelled this one, but it sounds like it might be Relevant To Your Interests:

thatyourefuse reviews Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune

For "green", it'd be interesting to know what you made of Bandit, which is a legendary bitter green leather chypre:

sapote's Bandit review
vass's Bandit review

Oh thank you so much!

I hope I will have the chance to smell Guerlain's Vetiver tomorrow. We are Going to Town to a swanky shopping center, and I hope their Dillards will have it at the counter; Dillard's sells it online, so I'm crossing my fingers. I will also have the chance to smell Angel (although I am not anticipating liking it very much). And I'm pretty sure some of the other classics like Shalimar will be there for the sniffing too. I'm excited!

I read a bunch of reviews of Guerlain's Vetiver on Scent-base or somewhere like that, and they seemed pretty evenly split between "Old Man in a nursing home" and "most awesome smell of ever."

All the rest of these sound so good. I will keep them in mind for my Surrender to Chance order.

Thanks so much for linking me to the lavender write up. Such thoughtful work and good research; so so helpful. I am 100% trying Jicky; y'all have written too much about it, and I simply must smell it. Pour un Homme also pings me as a possibility.

Guerlain's Vetiver is gorgeous and quite wearable as a unisex frag, but I'm a vetiver fiend so my bias there is obvious.

And Angel is worth trying at least once, even if gets a bad rap sometimes - it's very strong and has massive sillage, and it's suffered the curse of a lot of uber-popular fragrances of many people having had bad experiences being around too many people who wore too much of it at the height of its popularity. But it's interesting to experience just as a historical thing, as it pretty much established the whole modern gourmand category, and it's just much more complex and interesting than a lot of the sticky-sweet pink cupcake foody fragrances that flooded the market in its wake. (Among other things, it has a TON of patchouli in it, which gives a nice earthy-skanky grounding depth and dirtiness to help balance to all the sweet candied notes.)

A few interesting reviews:

http://boisdejasmin.com/2011/03/thierry-mugler-angel-perfume-review-and-fragrance-poll.html

http://www.nstperfume.com/2010/01/07/thierry-mugler-angel-an-appreciation/ (some great discussion in the comments, too)

http://thisblogreallystinksperfume.blogspot.com/2011/03/perfume-review-angel-thierry-mugler.html (check out the links to sites like Fragrantica and Basenotes to see more of just how polarizing the scent is to its fans and anti-fans)

It's worth checking out on skin to see how it reacts on you, and I say this as someone who really dislikes most of the sticky-sugar modern gourmand scents. Just remember to use a *very* light hand when testing it. ;)

I smelled Angel on paper this weekend, and I liked it more than I thought I would. I need to test it on skin. I didn't expect it to smell so dark. I expected something on the lighter end of sweet.

I also smelled Chanel No. 5 and was pleasantly surprised to see vetiver as an ingredient in that fragrance. Apparently I've always loved vetiver! LOL

Thanks for all the links; those were great reads. :)

I will also have the chance to smell Angel (although I am not anticipating liking it very much).

It's definitely worth smelling as a huge, mould-breaking, love-it-or-hate-it blockbuster that started various trends. Even if you hate it.

vass wrote a wonderful review of Pour un Homme here:

http://vass.dreamwidth.org/1615601.html

Enjoy your shopping centre trip!

I did enjoy the shopping trip although sadly I did not get to smell Vetiver. But I smelled lots of other things, including Angel, which were very intriguing.

Oh, what a lovely review. Thanks for linking me; Must Smell Now!!

I've had good luck so far with both http://surrendertochance.com and https://www.luckyscent.com. I've been searching by notes and trawling http://www.basenotes.net/content/ for reviews.

Edited 2014-05-07 16:31 (UTC)

Oh cool! Thank you for the links. I'm glad these are sites the comm has had good experiences with. I can now spend money with impunity!

I've been thinking about this, too. :)

I think I'm going to start with some of the Basenote award winners from Surrender to Chance, like the Masterpiece or Classic ones.

yay! We adventure together. LOL

Huh, thanks for asking about this! I see that Surrender to Chance has a Fresh Fig sampler: how wonderful! I may have to get that!

Oh cool. :) I hope you enjoy.

There's also the fairly common option of "Buy a copy of Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez's Perfumes: The A-Z Guide for entertaining reading, then buy samples of things that sound interesting."

ooooooooooooooh. Book! Thank you for the rec.

It's been a while since I last ordered from them, but TPC have always been reliable in my experience, and have been recced for years by a lot of the mainstream perfume bloggers I follow.

And I definitely agree with the other commenters that going for any sort of generalized list of "greatest perfume classics" runs the risk of getting you a lot of things that may be historically interesting, but aren't anything you'll particularly *like*. It might be simpler to look at lists like the one on Now Smell This!, or even just going over reviews on blogs that focus on a lot of classics (like NST, BoisDeJasmin.com, or YesterdaysPerfume.com) and making notes of anything that sounds particularly appealing to you. And once you've tried a few more you may be able to start figuring out that there are certain dominant notes or fragrance types that really work or don't work for you, certain eras or creators that do and don't fit your tastes, and focus more of your exploring in those areas that seem to click for you.

I think you were the person who clued me in to the site to begin with!

this sounds like good advice. I know I don't like super floral things for example, and I don't want to buy a bunch of stuff I know I'll never wear. I'm going to start with the Vetiver sample pack you linked me to and probably do an animalics one because I really want to smell Jicky and CB Musk.

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