Community Profile

A community for reviews, discussion, and analysis of perfumes of all types, from mainstream to indie, from vintage to contemporary, from synthetic to all-natural, from eau de toilette and eau de cologne to perfume extrait and blended essential oils. If it makes you smell good, you should post about it.

What this community is:

• A place to post your reviews and impressions of perfumes you've tested, and to talk about what you liked and what you didn't like.
  
• A place to ask for recommendations for "things that are like this other scent" or "if I like these notes, what should I try next?"
  
• A place to discuss the perfume industry: trends, supply chains, marketing, history, you name it.
  
• A place to ask questions about how a particular scent wears on other people, or what other people think of it.
  
• A place to geek out about the fine details of scents, their compositions, their chemistry, and anything else you might want to discuss.
  
• A place to discuss perfume terminology and vocabulary, or to talk about the trials and travails of writing about perfume.
  
• A place to ask about getting started in perfume.
  
• In general, anything perfume-related that you want to talk about!

What this community isn't:

• A place primarily to sell or trade your perfumes. See details below.
  
• A place to argue which perfumes are better than others as though you can arrive at an objective answer. Perfume is a subjective experience, and what's great for one person won't work at all for another.
  
• In general, a place to judge other people's tastes. It's okay to say that things are better or worse for you, or that you like or don't like something, but don't extrapolate your own preferences to everybody else. Remember: one person's "worst scent ever" is another person's signature scent. It's okay to say that you personally don't like or can't wear a certain type or category of scent, but don't look down on people who prefer them. (Okay: "The alcohol used as a carrier in most alcohol-based perfumes smells off to me, so I prefer alcohol-free perfume oils like [perfumer] makes." Not okay: "Alcohol-based perfumes are garbage, why does anyone buy them when they could buy [perfumer's] perfumes instead?")
  
• A place only for perfume experts or people who know exactly what they like -- people who are new to perfume are welcome, and you don't have to know all the vocabulary or have smelled a million things to participate in the discussion.
  

Selling and trading: details

smellsgood is for discussion of perfume and for writing about perfume, not a selling/trading/swapping community. If we allowed selling and trading, we would inevitably have to deal with the fallout of things like one half of a swap not sending the item they'd promised, someone taking money for a rare sample they didn't actually have to sell in the first place, someone promising to send Extremely Rare Sample and instead sending Extremely Common Sample, etc. It also runs the risk of "commerce"-related posts completely overruning the community and drowning out actual discussion.

To prevent this, all offers to sell samples or full bottles are completely prohibited. No money can trade hands anywhere in the community (with one exception, explained in a moment). Any posts or comments in which people offer to sell or buy an item will be deleted. Any posts or comments inviting someone to PM you off-community to arrange a sale will be deleted. Anyone who offers to trade or gift a scent here, and then asks for money once the discussion moves to PM or email, will receive a warning, and multiple warnings will result in loss of posting or commenting abilities. (So please do contact the community admins if that happens to you.)

Incidental swapping and gifting is all right as long as it comes about naturally as part of a wider discussion, but please no posts on the community itself containing only of lists of scents you want to try or samples you're trying to find new homes for. It's all right to post a list in your own personal journal and post a pointer to that list here, but only one pointer per swap post, and no more than one pointer per week. (For instance: if you post to your journal on Monday with a list of samples you want to rehome, you can't post that list here, but you can make a post directing people to that entry in your journal. You can't post here again later directing people to the same post as a reminder. If you post on Friday with a second list of samples, you'd have to wait until Monday to post a pointer here. Again, this is all to keep that sort of post from overrunning the community.)

The one exception to the money prohibition: if you are making a gift, and receiving nothing in return, you can ask the recipient to reimburse your shipping costs. You must both agree to reimbursement of shipping costs before you ship: you can't offer to send a gift, get the person's address, ship what you agreed on, then demand shipping reimbursement. You must tell the person how much shipping will cost and allow them to agree to that amount. You may only ask for your actual shipping costs (postage + materials). This is only for one-sided shipments: if you're swapping or you're both sending things to each other, you'll both be paying postage, so no money can change hands there.

Examples of things that are all okay:

Person A posts a review of Perfume X.
Person B: "Oh, I've always wanted to try that!"
Person A: "It's great! PM me your address and I'll send you some."

Person A posts a review of Perfume X.
Person B: "If you like the leather in Perfume X, you'll probably like Perfume Y, too! I have some; do you want to swap for Perfume Z that you mentioned hating?"

Person A posts a long entry with their impressions of 10 different scents. At the end of the entry, they include a single sentence: "Since none of these worked on me, if you want any of them, PM me and I'll send them to you or we can swap for something you have."

Person A posts a discussion analyzing what notes they like and don't like, and at the end, includes a paragraph of other scents they want to try because they contain those notes; or; Person A posts about scents they want to try with a paragraph about why they want to try them.

Person A makes an offer to send a sample to Person B, without getting anything in return, and asks Person B to pay the actual shipping costs.

Examples of things that are all not okay:

Person A posts an entry that consists only of scents they're looking to trade or give away.

Person A posts a long entry with their impressions of 10 different scents. At the end of the entry, they include a single sentence: "Since none of these worked on me, I'll sell them to anyone who wants them. $5 for one, $45 for the whole batch."

Person A makes an offer to send a sample to Person B, without getting anything in return. Person B provides their address. Person A sends the sample, and only then tells Person B, "I sent it! By the way, you owe me $10 for shipping."

Person A posts an entry that contains only a list of perfumes that they want to try, without any discussion of why.

Any and all swaps, trades, and gifts are entirely at your own risk. Use caution when sending items. Use caution when giving out your address. We will not settle any disputes and we will not keep lists of any swaps, trades, or gifts gone wrong.

Some other discussion guidelines

-- Please be mindful of other members' gender identity and expression. Don't assume someone's gender identity is fixed, and don't assume someone's gender unless you know it for certain (because you know them or they mention it in their post/their profile). Perfume can be a heavily gendered thing, thanks to marketing and social constructs, and we don't want to rule that aspect of discussion out of bounds entirely -- it can be very valuable to discuss how a perfume consisting only of delicate floral notes is commonly gendered "female", for instance -- but whenever possible, try to focus your discussion on the social gendering rather than any absolutes. This is hard to describe, difficult to enforce, and exceptionally subjective, but please do try to keep it in mind.

-- If someone asks for "no recommendations" or "recommendations only from [perfume house]" or "recommendations without [ingredient/note]", respect that. (Likewise, if you don't want recommendations, want recommendations only from a perfume house, or recommendations without an ingredient or note, be sure to say that.)

-- If someone mentions in their post that they're allergic to or sensitive to an ingredient or note, don't a) challenge their allergy ("people can't really be allergic to [thing]"), or b) recommend them things containing that thing (an accident where you don't realize your recommendation contained that thing is okay, but do be mindful, and if you aren't sure if what you're recommending contains that thing, say so).

-- Don't bite the newbies! If someone's newer to experiencing perfume, encourage them, don't discourage them. Remember the lesson of xkcd 1053: finding someone who hasn't experienced something that 'everybody knows' just means you get the fun of sharing their joy of discovery.

-- If you have a problem with anything that happens in the community, please contact the community admins (via private message) and let us handle it.

-- When in doubt, be excellent to each other.