Fragrance General

''(...) However, a small renaissance has begun in perfumery, as not everyone wants to smell cheap. Consumers are waking up to the idea of individuality once more; the cognoscente is turning its back on mass-marketed fragrances. There is a revival in creative perfumery, shifting the craft back to the genius of the Master Perfumers. The art of perfumery is once again in the hands of the gifted. As the saying goes, ''without marketing you have creativity, without creativity you have nothing''.''

Like I said, they will always criticise the industry sure. But you show contempt for people that *wear* them. Thats the difference. You can have his book, I have it too, very thorough on the history with good anecdotes. If you look at interviews and listen to Radio drop ins he is generally more friendly. Thats the big difference, he is most likely one of the most luxurious perfumers today, but he is still humble for the most part. You however, are anything but. Are you trying to live vicariously through him?

the last paragraph talks about the book itself and its content. here are 2 quotes that were included in the forewords:

''When from a long-distant past nothing subsists after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and hear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection''
-Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past

''The more we penetrate odours the more they end up possessing us. They live within us, becoming an integral part of us ...''
-Edmind Roudnistka, Perfumer

We should probably just make a new thread at this point. This fucking autist has already ruined this one.

Probably. I think samplesperg needs to understand that other people here are fans of Roja and enjoy what he does as well as his stances, just not an arrogant prick like samplesperg about it.

People have been calling me names since the beginning because I essentially see fragrances the same way as him, yet you wouldnt call him autistic. THATS MY POINT. I dont know how else to tell you either way, designer stuff is pleb shit, it's true! For pretty much the same reasons as roja. yet you wouldnt call him autistic! if the only difference is friendly and not friendly ... that in itself is not relevant to fragrances.

Nobody has a problem with you being passionate about fragrances. It's fantastic that you have an interest you're passionate about. I live fragrances too.

We have an issue with you acting like an arrogant dickhead, talking down to people, and derailing threads with your autism. I honestly hope you get bowel cancer, please fuck off and never post again.

We don't hate you because of the way you see fragrances, we hate you because of the way you act. Learn some humility and we won't have a problem.

I'm not an arrogant dickhead you're just all against me that's all

Everyone shits on me because I have $1500 worth of samples. I wouldnt even be a personality here otherwise. I said many times why I bought samples and I always had the same replies.

Well so do I, but I don't judge people that wear designer scents. I wear them to enjoy on myself and pick apart notes, but I'm not going to talk down to someone that wears it to get with someone. No-one is calling you autistic for loving perfumes, I will be glad to talk to you about certain ones. Just for the love of christ stop with the derailing and calling people plebs, cause then you are not going to get a meaningful conversation. If you wanted to talk about Roja even sure go ahead, I'm a level headed fan of his. But this is a site where you can love fragrance all you want, if you aren't kind to people they won't be willing to talk to you about perfume. If you could just do that and rebuild bridges with people here, hell, I will even spray you a decant of Roja's perfume. About 1 ml. You could get a sample but I know how to preserve my perfumes and I will be doing it out of good will.

Well, if everyone thinks you're an arrogant dickhead, maybe you're acting like an arrogant dickhead. If everyone seems to have a problem with you, ever think maybe it's you, not us?

outside of this place it's fine if people wear Sauvage instead of Axe (there has been an effort I guess) but ... we should have higher standards here. we're a small international community of fragrance enthusiasts ffs

and we're all supposed to be ressourced too! really a waste of everyones time when there are whole discussions about bdc and sauvage and the likes.

This is your problem. You think your way is the only correct way. There are many ways to enjoy fragrances and none are more or less valid than any other. Just because you don't agree with someone else's opinion doesn't mean their opinion is inferior to yours.

This is why we think you're an arrogant dickhead.

god you are such a faggot

I mean to be fair that And/Lynx "YOU" spray is weirdly gimmicky (as well as smelling like most other axe/lynx sprays) x3 Kinda like how Molecule 01 is ISO E that you can dilute yourself for less, and the "effect" of it is because you would become anomic to it partially and it would reappear, very clever marketing I suppose.

dude, everyone here said that I was the one who didnt have the correct way of enjoying fragrances. because I enjoy them for what they are, instead of blindbuying bottles and wear them for compliments.

You think people here just blind buy bottles? We sample before we buy bottles, the difference is we actually buy bottles. The problem isn't you buying samples, the problem is your insistence that everyone else should love your sample collection and should treat you with respect, despite you not treating others respectfully.

great fucking thread.

My offer still stands btw

I dont remember how I introduced myself here. Designer fragrances and marketing shit is so foreign to me, both when I wasnt familiar with fragrances and now when I became an enthusiast. It's exactly why I had no interest in fragrances back then, but then this general showed me there was more than that. I can hardly believe a mass marketed frag would somehow be someone's ideal frag when there are so many that scream to be discovered. The industry is killing the industry. Shitting on niche perfumery in this general really is a crime and that's what many people did when replying to me.

Ill buy a bottle when I like a frag enough, because in any case I still have them in a vial for my personal enjoyment.

No one shits on niche frags, they shit on niche elitism, which is what you're doing.

it's not designer vs niche it's mass-marketed crap vs works of passion

god dammit i doused myself in parfum extrait again

on my 15th hour of puredistance M

Just stop posting here. You're obviously not capable of behaving yourself. Look at this thread. This is what happens because of you. Just go away and let us have our threads.

I wouldn't recommend dousing yourself ;) Just a spray, two at most.

To be fair lots of niche houses can exploit the market and it wanting to go beyond designer by being cynically niches, like niche for the sake of it, not out of genuine creativity. I dislike the word itself because since niche is a trend what will happen eventually when the "niche" world of perfumery collapses too? Personally I wouldn't mind it being like the heyday, good perfume in a nice crystal bottle.

But realistically its not going to happen, the times will change and the big corps globally will dictate a lot of trends, natural resources themselves might wear out too.

why must you feel this way? ;(

yes fair point, but with the Internet now it's almost impossible to never be able to reach out to genuine good niche houses anymore. if anything it's because the problem will be within ourselves, not being able to enjoy genuine good stuff.

AFAIK Papillon are still relatively good, a very small lineup but Tobacco Rose (weirdly has no tobacco in it) is very nice. Very very heavy on the rose.

Natural perfumers also criminally overcharge too. Aftelier have this perfume that just has bergamot, pink pepper, orange flower, pimento, ambrette and ambergris but wants $400 for 7.5ml, making it potentially £5000 for 100 ml. Even ambergris isn't truly that expensive, you can get it for about £25ish per gram for white grade, the highest grade. If I knew how to blend and compound a perfume properly I could probably source all "the rarest ingredients in the world" and make about 500ml-1 litre of it at 25% concentration for about £3000 at most. Although deer musk and civet is banned, you can still buy it, depending where you look. You can source Grasse Rose de Mai absolute too but I'm only unsure about Grasse Jasmine.

You realize that many "niche" houses are owned by huge conglomerates, right? Like By Kilian is owned by Estée Lauder. There are even rumors that Roja Dove himself might soon be selling his house.

Also, niche houses do greedy, exploitative shit all the time. Creed just raised their prices and reduced the size of their bottles. Amouage has "reformulated" many of their fragrances.

If you think niche fragrances are all made by dudes living out in villas in Tuscany or some shit who are only doing it because of their passion for fragrances, you're an idiot.

FoxOnFluids is that you?

No, but it's true. Even the profile for By Kilian on Fragrantica says it's owned by Estée Lauder.

Well he did say himself that he will sell up shop one day, obviously he has no children to pass it on to. Personally as long as he doesn't sell to LMVH I won't have a problem. Wasser has somehow still managed to have a decent Mitsouko formula despite all the IFRA and LMVH stuff.

much more likely to still find quality in niche anyway. i know about creed and their shitty business practices and i could sense something in kilian just by their names and designs. roja, well, we'll see

Look what just came! So happy, it smells fantastic.

...

I picked up a 50ml of Rituals Sultan De Muscat as my first fragrance recently. I subjectively liked it better than Tom Fords Noir due to the vanilla in the TF reminding me of a girl I slept with.

Is there such a thing as a straight upgrade from this? No big changes in notes but higher quality, deeper/richer scents and better performance?

All I know is that I'm really enjoying getting into this.

Nice! I just bought myself a backup bottle of MI too. Figured it'd be a good idea to buy one of the 120ml bottles while the discounters still had 'em.

10/10, would laugh again.

Hey, one thing though, is the citrus always this heavy in newly opened bottles of MI? Smells really different from the sample I got from a half-gone tester.

inb4 fake, got it from fragrancenet so no worries

Well, Creed is infamous for batch inconsistencies, so bottles from different batches can smell fairly different. I do recall from my first bottle, though, that the scent really did develop a few months after I first opened it.

What batch was yours...? Kinda worried now. I'm hoping it doesn't keep this super strong neroli/lemon/lime sorta smell, reminds me of Versace Pour Homme, which I have nothing against, but I definitely don't want to spend 150 on. The drydown is classic MI, but the citrus takes so damn long to go away.

Escentric 04 (not Molecule 04) if you like grapefruit.

I thought this stuff was retarded expensive? $150 for nearly 100 ml isn't bad at all

any of you guys have been giving a try at making fragrances ! seems like a fun thing to do desu

It's 120ml. Also, the MSRP IS insanely high, like 425 dollars, but discounters usually have them for 150-250, 250 being for Aventus

First bottle is SO3314D01

My new bottle is A3315H01, which I haven't opened yet, so I can't comment on the quality.

I've been wanting to, too! I have a local farmer's market I kinda wanna set up a stand at, seems like it could be fun to sell fragrances at a reasonable price. What sort of frags are your favorite/would you like to make most?

Yeah, I got my new bottle of MI for 180 Maplebux. If you get it through Creed's boutique or from a high-end store, they sell for like 450-500 here.

I kind of want to try, but the big problem is that there aren't really places here in Canada where you can buy your components, you'd have to import them and many are considered hazardous materials for shipping purposes, so it could be difficult/expensive to import.

Where'd you get 120 for $150? Fragrancenet is more expensive and I don't know any other discounters

Wait until they have the 35% off deal on MI, it's 154 then

oh ok

are there any more good discounters tho? fragrancenet doesn't have a lot of stuff I want

Fragrancebuy.ca if you're in Canada or the U.S., their prices are in CAD, too, so they're etxra cheap.

Most discounters don't have a huge amount of the more obscure niche stuff in general, if that's what you're looking for. Fragrancebuy has a pretty decent selection, though. Even have a lot of middle eastern stuff.

I was looking for some comme des garcons stuff actually, didn't think it was that obscure

CdC pretty much seems only luckyscent has it. Strangely enough, if you go to Europe they have them everywhere.

END. and Dover street market carries them too, but dsm is run by a bunch of cunts and I know END is legit but I'm still a little wary even though they have good prices, maybe it's just autism

Thoughts on pic related? I'm hesitating between this and eau de lacoste white

i would love to make a good men fragrance, kinda earthy but keeping it light with some floral scents. Tbh i don't even know if i could manage to make a perfume on my own.

Very humid area Male

hazardous materials ?
I think you can manage to do something decent with some essential oils, distilled water, alcohol and glycerol. what materials are you talking about ?

You'd think so, but not so much. I've looked at various sites, they pretty much all require you to get a hazardous materials permit in order to import into Canada.

Nice mate. Nothing quite like getting a new bottle of creed

I kind of have this idea kicking around in my head. I want to try doing something with blood orange, dark chocolate, orange, cherry, musk, jasmine, and sandalwood, maybe some ambroxan and pink pepper.

Dunno if it would be good or not, but it's something I want to try for some reason.

Invictus, definitely. Very appealing and fresh, despite what snobs will say.

So how would one go about actually creating their own essences and notes for fragrances? Like, going from plant to useable component? I really have no idea on the whole process.

Seems like it could be kind cool. Like you could go on nature walks and collect flowers and shit to use. Are their any sites or anything where I can learn how to do this?

Ambroxan is so cool, good choice! I know it's overused, but it and ambergris are so fascinating. I'd love to use real ambergris if I felt like it'd be worth it

Don't, it's fucking impossible. Even with roses, you have to press 10,000 of them just for 5ml of essential oil.

It is interesting stuff. Very versatile. It can kind of round out all kinds of fragrances.

thoughts on pic related? wasn't a fan of original 1 million, but this....smells actually really good, like sweet but in pleasant, unobnoxious way. considering it as a scent for winter...

Yes! Prive is AMAZING, I hated 1 million as well, but somehow prive just fixes everything wrong with it and makes it 10x better. Definitely pick some up.

just a curious question. How do you justify the insane cost of creed? I want a bottle of green Irish tweed really bad and I have the money for it but I can't reconcile the cost in my mind

Green Irish tweed is like 130 bucks on fragrancenet literally right now

You buyt from a discount site while it's on sale. Never pay retail for Creed frags, you can get them for literally half the price or less. The prices suddenly don't seem so insane when it's like 180.00 for a 120ml bottle.

It's cheap on fragrancenet and the like. Only a fool would pay MSRP for creed. For that price, I imagine you could get a 120ml of a 2013 batch of Aventus.

Has anyone ever bought a split from mountainbikesandwatches on basenotes? Or anyone on basenotes for that matter? Trying to get a feel for who's legit before I get Aventus.

my collection is bigger than this

Do you buy bottles and not act like an arrogant dickhead?

Almost bought a 120ml bottle of GIT for 160$ but the fragrancenet rejected my credit card. Fuck. Are the prices always this low?

eau de toilette more like toilet water

pretty much

Yes. The "30% OFF ACT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!" thing is always going on. It's actually better you waited, wait until it's 35% off, that's the highest

didnt buy bottles yet. i got 100 new samples to try so maybe eventually?

>arrogant dickhead
if thats how im perceived, what can i say

versace eros or la nuit de l'homme for a cheap i-want-girls-to-think-i-smell-nice-and-that's-it scent?

la nuit smells like COMPLETE garbage. eros is less worse and i remember someone said i smelled nice when i sprayed eros at the shit store.

Versace Eros. Though desu Dior Sauvage or Invictus would be better for that.

I thought la nuit was a good one?
I have sauvage but I don't have anything for cold weather, unless it doesn't really matter

one of the vilest synthetic pieces of shit if not THE vilest piece of shit ive ever smelled. if i dont count axe and other irrelevant cheap frags

is this just samplesperg type autism or a genuine opinion

it's a genuine opinion, how can you even say that la nuit smells good? and im supposed to take my detractors seriously.

Oooh, cold weather crowd pleaser? Try Pure Malt. It's lovely and everyone around you will love it. I hear spicebomb is good for that, too, give it a try. One I've also been liking is 1 million prive, mentioned it back at