Perfume newbie looking for some help

[lunabee34]

Several people in my DW circle are really into perfume, and I've been reading and enjoying their posts for a while now. One of them mentioned this community had started, and I figured this was a good place to ask some questions.

I have been to the BPAL website, and I have to admit that I find the descriptions of the perfumes kinda intimidating and confusing. I'm not sure where to start.

I also have the added issue that my husband reacts poorly to some scents. He can't abide anything heavily floral which has limited my perfume choices over the years.

I was wondering if I could get some BPAL recommendations from those of you who are more familiar with the perfumes there based on my scent likes/dislikes that I've listed below the cut. :)



Likes

All citrus
Herbal scents like rosemary, basil, parsley, clary sage
Grass
Green plants
Lavender
Fresh Cannibas Santal (Top Notes: bergamot, Brazilian orange, black plum; Middle Notes: patchouli, cannabis accord, rose: Bottom Notes: chocolate, vetiver, vanilla musk)
Church incense

Beyond that, I'm not really sure what I like. :)

No-Gos

Anything overly sweet
Anything floral, particularly tea rose, gardenia and honeysuckle


I would appreciate any recommendations y'all can give me.

Comments

[white_aster]

Hi hi!

Based on your likes, what's coming to mind is that you might want to try The Apothecary (for citrus and herbal) and as far as incenses...Cathedral is supposed to be a real churchey incense, and some of my other incensey favorites are Anubis and Cairo, and if you can find some Midnight Mass (Christmas LE), I hear that's also a very ecclesiastical incense.

Good luck! :)

[teaotter]

Hi! I've been doing BPAL since 2010, so I've tried a few. Or maybe more than a few... ;)

Church incense: Penitence, Cathedral

Citrus: Embalming Fluid (A light, pure scent: white musk, green tea, aloe and lemon.), Carnal (Bold, bright mandarin paired with the sweet, sensual earthiness of fig.)

You might also like Arcana ( Frankincense, rosemary, lavender, neroli, and verbena) or Nephilim ( Holy frankincense and hyssop in union with earthy fig, defiled by black patchouli and vetiver, with a chaotic infusion of lavender, cardamom, tamarind, rosemary, oakmoss and cypress).

btw - If you're interested in getting a ton of recommendations, there's a discussion board -- BPAL.org -- that has tons of recommendation threads. If you want to start there, I strongly suggest starting with the short guide, which has links to threads by note.

If you join the board, you also have access to the sales and swaps section, where you can frequently get samples ("imps") of the scents you're looking for at considerably less than retail.

[undomielregina]

I just got into BPAL this year and have been going mad testing things. Your scent needs sound a lot like mine (anything floral goes horribly, horribly wrong on me in remarkable ways.) Given that, I'd recommend:

Beer from the Marsh Woman's Brewery (beer flavored with marsh arrow grass, yew berries, purple foxglove, and giant hogweed) -- green and yeast on me. Has a wonderful and very unusual smell. This was the first perfume I ever bought, a couple years ago, and it's still a favorite.

Druid (ancient trees, fertile soil, wild herbs, spring grasses, and burgundy pitch incense) -- on me this smells very, very green and a tiny bit spicy, exactly like freshly broken ferns.

Nanshe from the Oeniros collection (no notes listed) -- smells strongly of basil and lavender on my skin. Scents in the Oeniros collection tend to have strong lavender notes in general.

Yggdrasil (nine woods, nine leaves, and three herbs each for Ratatosk and Vidofnir, with three final herbs to placate Nidhogg) -- the birch in this comes through strongly on me for a wintergreen scent. It's all woods and herbs.

Envy (green herbs slithering through mint, lime and lavender) -- I admit that this was a complete disaster on me for some reason (the scents combined in a mysterious and horrible way), but there's no reason it shouldn't work oh you, as my skin chemistry is very odd. It has a whole lot of notes that should work well for you and nothing that you wouldn't want.

[umadoshi]

As I was saying elsewhere, I don't have a hugely discerning nose (part of the reason I'm following the comm. is to try to get more of a feel for scents by seeing how other people talk about them!)--but I'm gonna toss this out there anyway, especially since I also generally dislike florals. ^_^

Most of my imps are seasonal limited editions, which does complicate things a bit, but by far my favorite incense scent is Devil's Night, which has come around at least twice in the Halloween updates. And I second the suggestion of Midnight Mass.

Nearly all of my favorite scents are at least somewhat foodie, and a lot of them sound really sweet, but aren't necessarily, so I'm just going to suggest not being afraid to try some of them. I tend to really like BPAL's takes on apple, pumpkin, and chocolate, in particular.

Oh, and I really love some of the water scents like Thalassa, the Galapagos Mermaid and Sturgeon Moon. (The latter is a 2008 Lunacy scent, so I'm more suggesting looking for something with similar notes if you like the sound of it, rather than trying to hunt it down.)

And my two very favorites are both from the Carnaval Diabolique: Tiresias, the Androgyne and Wulric, the Wolfman.

[synecdochic]

I really really don't like florals either, so I will second the recs for Penitence and The Apothecary. Cathedral made me break out into a sneezing fit, but is similar. I loved Anubis and Nephilim, which others have mentioned, but Anubis, while staying very resiny (and gorgeous) on me, turned to lilies on sarah, so it's down to skin chemistry.

For lavender, Paris ("Lavender, softly underscored by lotus and spice") was surprisingly non-floral on me -- it was a freebie and i thought i'd hate it, but wound up loving it. You might like Rapunzel for the green plants -- it smelled so much like green grass and growing things that it triggered my hay fever! ("Angel’s trumpet, bois de rose, orris, and wild lettuce.")

If you like the vetiver in that one blend you mention, Iago ("black musk, wet leather, and vetiver") might strike your fancy, and I really loved The Black Rider ("Black leather, oppoponax, tobacco, and black amber"). Since we seem to have similar dislikes, you might like it too :)

[kaberett]

Off the top of my head - more when it is not nearly 1am, heh -

Alecto (green)
Antony (herbal + incense)
Baba Yaga?
Bewitched? (sage + plants)
Bluebeard (lavender + vetiver)
The Bow + Crown of Conquest (lavender, sage)
The East (herbs + berries)
Goliath Birdwing, if you can find any second-hand (citrus + sage)
Lear (cedarwood, sage, bay leaf)
Nero (rosemary, bay, pine, touch of lemon)
No 93 Engine? (misc herbs, incl lemon balm, +frankincense)
Old Scratch (lavender)
Robin Goodfellow?
Whitechapel (citrus)
Wilde (lavender, citrus, thyme)
Yew Tree?