Indoles?

[pengwern]

 I spitzed some Fracas onto a strip at the mall recently, and decided to try the Serge Lutens Sarrasins* today, and noticed a briefly similar note which I'm guessing might be indoles. It doesn't go anywhere unpleasant on me -- actually, it reminds me of some sort of rice based dish (jasmine rice?)

Are there any perfumes known for a huge indolic note that I should try, the next time I snap when looking at perfume sampling websites?

*the hide I could detect in it was......fetal pig in formalin, which mercifully faded out after a few minutes. 

Comments

[rydra_wong]

There's a good explanation of indoles and what exactly is/isn't indolic here:

http://perfumeshrine.blogspot.com/2010/05/jasmine-indolic-vs-non-indolic.html

Lutens' A La Nuit is another Big Jasmine that gets recced as heavily indolic, ditto Diptyque's Olene (which goes purple synthetic grape juice on me, alas, as some jasmines do). Frederic Malle's Carnal Flower is a Big Tuberose.

ELDO's Charogne goes into the rotten edge, garnished with lilies.

If you really want to take the indoles to ELEVEN, then Ferme Tes Yeux, zombie sex indoles:

https://rydra-wong.dreamwidth.org/387281.html?thread=4537809#cmt4537809

*the hide I could detect in it was......fetal pig in formalin, which mercifully faded out after a few minutes.

Indoles can sometimes produce a "mothballs" effect, so that might be part of it too.

[pengwern]

Thank you for the recs and links! Olene I've tried in the store - I remember mostly HUGE WHITE FLOWERS and nothing much unpleasant, although I wasn't exactly squashing my nose to arm. And I desperately want to try Ferme Tes Yeux, wow.

(After reading the article I might be ever so slightly more confused -- the new question goes, what do mothballs smell like?? ;-; I'm actually still inclined to group those minutes of weird decay in Sarrasins with the animalics, if only because I can't detect anything similar in Fracas or other jasmines, but of course it might be a) the sample b) all the other samples c) my skin today d) my nose today e) an arm intruding from the next door mirror universe f) something else. It dried down to a pleasant low jasmine without much of the musky base for a good four-five hours after application.)

Triangulating jasmine (not only indoles) is another problem I've been attempting, mostly because of Joy (patou, ofc), which goes SOUR on my skin and loses the incredible wafting sillage it has on paper (which I used to call buttery and now am wary of doing, since I've lost confidence in detecting the butyl group too >_>)

And while we're talking white florals that head into unpleasantness teritory, Tocca Florence (a gardenia) goes shrill on me when sprayed, though it was the sweetest spring scent when I dabbed it from a vial. But none of those reminds me of the body, unless the body was made from neon lights with a 3D printed exoskeleton.

...At least I find all of them (except Joy QAQ) pleasant.

[full_metal_ox]

After reading the article I might be ever so slightly more confused -- the new question goes, what do mothballs smell like?? ;-;

With the customary disclaimer regarding my own sensory limitations, I've always registered them as camphor.

Luca Turin also names gardenia as indolic, and speculates that big white tropical flowers are courting dung and carrion-feeding pollinators with the animalic notes; I've unfortunately forgotten the gardenia-dominant perfume in which he detected a meaty note (which he further specified as ham or the Creole sausage andouille--and you see how that could overlap, if rather more pleasantly, with your own perception of lab-pickled piglet.)

[pengwern]

It's tiger balm time, I guess >O>

The meat-noted white floral Turin mentioned (that I have a sample of ) is Frederic Malle Lys Mediterranee, and it's not really turning up in the winter. I'm starting to get a better grasp on the whole white floral category, although it's probable that once I go out into the wilds of perfume counters that it's all going to melt away.

[rydra_wong]

I was thinking you might also want to check out Lutens's Tubereuse Criminelle, which is tuberose with an edge of methyl salicylate (wintergreen), which stops it being headachy in the way tuberose often is for me.

Very worth smelling anyway (in my head, when I wear it I am secretly cosplaying as Helen Mirren), and it ties into the whole Tiger Balm thing. *g*

[pengwern]

Ohh, in that case I need to add it for the next five pack Lutens. (I'm thinking Mandarin Mandarin, Chene, Chypre Rouge, this, and a toss up between Cuir Mauresque, Rose de Nuit, and Boxeuses, although I hear Rose de nuit is more a musk with a rosy tinge and I hate musk. (Animalics I can sort of stand, but there's a number of musks that go buzz somewhere mid-nose bridge and are generally unpleasant to me.)

I tried A La nuit and finally experienced that indolic fecal tinge \o/ (I think)

Also last weekend, I finally tried a bottle of Florida water!

https://nstperfume.com/2018/05/30/liushen-florida-water-fragrance-review/

It does have that medicinal tinge to it, but also a hint of l'heure bleue powder, which must be why my father always defaults to labeling whatever new fragrances under its name.

[rydra_wong]

I love Mandarine Mandarin -- orange peel but with a salty-savoury-black-tea-celery thing going on.

And I didn't particularly like Boxeuses when I first tried it, but tried the sample again the other day and it seems to have grown on me. One of the various Lutens scents that's a sort of spin-off of Femininite du Bois, but I do like FdB, and Boxeuses bumps up the plum and adds leather and (IIRC) something liquorice-y.

ETA:

I tried A La nuit and finally experienced that indolic fecal tinge \o/ (I think)

\o/

[ceceril]

I was going to say Olene, too! It has that huge note of something that smells like water in which a bouquet of flower has been standing for far too long, or possibly really bad breath (I had to throw away the test strip). I must be immune to the nasty aspects of indole when it comes to purely jasmine scents, as I don't get it in Sarrasins, or even in Lush's Lust, both of them well-known "death by jasmine" scents, or even in pure jasmine absolute (which smells inky to me, which I suppose must be indoles).

I associate the stale flower water/bad breath effect with narcissus scents. I first really noticed it when Vol de Nuit was reformulated and Guerlain started putting narcissus absolute in the formula again. It's also quite strong in Abdes Salaam Attars Tawaf, a natural jasmine/narcissus perfume.

I'll have to go and resmell my Fracas now! I hadn't noticed the jasmine/indole aspect.

[pengwern]

Oh, that's fascinating! I tried Lust just yesterday in the store, actually, and I got the shrillness-I-assume-is-indoles there too.

The only jasmine soliflore I've been trying is the jasmine of Abdes Salaam Attar Special Scents, and it gives me the moment you pour boiling water on tea leaves in chinese restaurants for some reason - I don't even drink that much tea?? They can't possibly all be jasmine tea???

I don't know what I'm anosmic to in Vol de Nuit, but it smells like nothing as much as face-blindness on me. If that's the narcissus, I should try it in other places/