Torrilin

So, the lab sent me a frimp of Sybaris. Sybaris depresses me, for lo, the powdery violets of awesome vanish into... vaguely Snake Oil-ish spiced vanilla. And it isn't even a very good spiced vanilla, since it doesn't blend well with my natural scent. (vanilla itself, bad. heliotrope, similar but not as bad. tonka bean, sliiiiiightly better. amber, good.)

I want the powdery violets back! To stay this time!

BPAL's vetiver, sandalwood and leather notes tend to anchor scents into a "skin scent" for me. Carnation and clove are good, tho probably not essential for this. Rose is probably not a good idea because my skin tends to like it a lot. Saturnalia is fairly obvious. But what else?

Wet: plastic strawberry with a hint of carnation underneath

Later: the faintest hint of vanishing carnation

Wet: plastic apple

Later: disappeared

This was very depressing.

Wet: Floral powder. Powder powder powder. I like powder!

Later: Snake Oil, only not overwhelming, and much less complex than the "Snake Oil" impression in Strangler Fig. So tonka bean on me is vanilla that does not eat the world. Clove/carnation built the base for "spice" that smells good to me, which is not surprising since unlike a lot of other baking spices there's a strong green/minty component to both clove and carnation. The powder goes away almost entirely, which is depressing.

*****

Analysis time! Tonka bean works much better on me than vanilla, but I don't like it as well as I like amber. Clove works nicely as a base note, but by itself it doesn't have enough blendy to really make Sybaris sink into my skin and smell like "me".

On the plus side, I know I really like violets now. I should probably try Saturnalia for the violets + vetiver.

Wet: something sweetish in the amber/vanilla range, a bit of powder, a bit of spice. No green, no roots, it smells very generic.

Later: spice like Snake Oil, vanilla, powder, and a fig note. On me it smells very conventional. There may be ve-ry delicate hints of vetiver. It would be good if I wanted a vanilla scent, but there's pretty much never any circumstance where that's a priority for me.

****

Analysis time! My skin likes vetiver. Loves the stuff, and turns even vats of it into a delicate, soft green-ness that melds with my skin. There is probably vetiver in here, because unlike most Snake Oil impression stuff, this melds pretty well with my skin. There is probably a touch of carnation or clove as part of the "spice"... both of them have a green/mint overtone, and thus work well with my skin. I'm starting to suspect that fig is another green overtone note. On me, it's a blends in with the skin generic sweetly fruity scent. The most notable thing is the blendy, since my skin doesn't handle a lot of sweet scents well.

There is probably some patchouli like in Snake Oil, but after comparing with some other scents, I think the "vanilla" impression is actually tonka bean and musk.

It's a really cleverly constructed scent. Probably not bottle worthy.

I bought a bottle, unsniffed. BPAL's honey note doesn't give me or the partner-creature problems it seems like, and everything else in Alice is ok. Soo... I took a flyer.

Not total victory, but I get a simple honey and carnation scent that would be nice for cold winter days. It speaks of hot tea and baking so the house stays warm. It's not at all soft or snuggly tho. My skin adds a lot of hard edges to the scent so it is not all blendy.

It's a much warmer and more definite scent on me than Maiden is.

I haven't tried Hod, but it'd show up a lot in recommendation threads for carnation. Maiden tends to get more carnationy as it ages. Alice can be pretty heavy on the carnation (and the bottle I got two days ago is almost all honey and carnation... I suspect it did not care for travel). Saint-Germain is largely carnation and amber on me. Bathsheba gets recommended a lot to folks who like those three, but I haven't tried it yet and am not likely to due to the fruit.

Maenad lists carnation, but is not strongly carnation scented to me (plastic strawberries are depressing). Strangler Fig on me is very creamy and spicy, tho I don't think the spice is carnation (no green. at all! so depressing!). Both were frimps with my Alice order, and at least on my skin they obviously "go with" Alice.

White Rabbit

It's got vanilla. Not surprising that you'd sweeten it.

Strangler Fig

There are no notes given, but to me it's spicy vanilla with a touch of fig. (I just got it as a frimp yesterday tho, so I haven't really dissected it... a lot of the reviews suggested it was strongly green and not so much on me.)

Queen Alice

Bearded Lady

Bordello

Harlot

IIRC these all have rose. Historically, a lot of the desserts we now flavor with vanilla were flavored wtih... rosewater. Some people really sweeten up rose too.

O

Snake Oil

Chimera

Eclipse

These are also all supposed to have vanilla.

This suggests to me that you'll tend to amp and sweeten vanilla and rose. I'd also watch for "sugar" or "cream" in scent descriptions since that tends to mean vanilla. I'd probably try a few tea scents like Embalming Fluid, Shanghai or The Dormouse. A lot of people like The Unicorn, and it's supposed to be a very airy, clean floral. It's probably a good idea to try some scents with an oakmoss base, since some people find that very clean. Fae is pretty popular, but heliotrope smells an AWFUL lot like vanilla on me, so you might want to pair it with another oakmoss blend. The Harlot's House and Omen look like they'd lean towards vanilla free.

Vetiver, lavander, jasmine and tuberose tend to be stuff you won't smell much in daily life, and tend to be real love it or hate it notes. I'd look for some blends that have those as dominant notes, since they'll definitely smell different!

Fragrance isn't really gendered. So what kinds of smells seem especially feminine to you? For me, rose is quite feminine, and if I feel like a scent is a bit too sharp, a mostly rose scent often softens it into something nice. I also tend to feel that it's hard to go wrong adding lavender or amber to a scent. But your nose probably isn't my nose . You'll probably want to highlight different elements in Casanova than I would.

On me, Sensual Amber is all about lotus. It's a *very* prominent note in the scent. Wearing it reminded me of just how much I like lotus, so I was happy. The amber is very subtle, and the other notes are nearly imperceptible.

So if you've smelled Sensual Amber on your aunt, was it a snuggly vaguely vanilla sort of scent, or was it an almost fruity kind of scent? If it's vaguely vanilla, then the amber is prominent on her. If it's almost fruity, the lotus is prominent.

I do know for me both The Lion and Haunted are not at all right to go with Sensual Amber. They're too ambery. Black Rose on me is a sharp and musky rose with no detectable amber. I don't have Black Lotus, but it and Bastet look like they might be the closest.

Blood Countess is strong though, my experience with it - it was a strong perfumey floral with hints of fruit.

 

Veil is somewhere near there, a bit lavendary though.

If your skin doesn't get on with white florals, it's pretty common for them to turn into SCREAMING FLOWERS. But since White Shoulders is one of the classic white florals, her mom's skin likely adores white florals. And if your skin likes white florals, the usual description is a sensual, sweet and gloriously creamy scent.

I'd just give thanks that he likes a well constructed scent . Antaeus is a classic for guys. It uses a lot of kinda unusual notes, so it might be hard to find something. If you can tell what notes are most prominent when he wears it, I'd start there.

It sounds rather like Death On A Pale Horse or maybe Morocco could work. But if he's not getting a lot of sandalwood out of it, I'm probably on crack.

My skin loves green notes. It also amps florals. Soo... Here's a list of all the green notes I can think of. If you're looking for an ultimate green scent, I'd start by looking through those notes. Keep in mind my skin tends to dry things out, so you may get a different experience from me.

Lavender is a good green note on me. It's subtly spicy and nicely green. It has a very dry tone to me tho.

Rosemary is also dry and green smelling to me. It's a little more piney and a little bit less spicy than lavender.

Carnation smells a lot like clove. Some carnation notes are a bit greener toned than others. Really green carnations also tend to smell wet to me. Clovier carnations tend to smell drier.

Oakmoss is green and golden ambery smelling. It's a very long lasting note and starts out greener and dries down to something that's almost but not quite amber. It tends to feel like a cartoon of a plant, rather than an actual plant to me.

Vetiver is a green and growing plant. It tends to feel very wet to me, and is very alive. It can be a problematic note for some people, but if vetiver works on you there's *nothing* like it for green notes.

Sweet grass is also green, and smells a bit like fresh cut grass. I really don't care for the smell of mowed grass, and it's probably too dry for your tastes.

Patchouli can be very very very green, with a sort of earthy or dirty tone. Not dirt like a Phish fan, dirt like you grow plants in. On me it mostly wants to smell like a Phish fan tho.

Petitgrain is a scent made from orange blossoms, twigs and leaves. It can be very green and sharp smelling.

Aloe is a nice wet green note, but it's not used in many BPALs. The only one I can think of is Embalming Fluid, and that's nothing at all like what you are looking for.

Pennyroyal is a kind of mint and smells very green. Most mints smell green to me, and kind of sharp or pointy. Pennyroyal is round and green and very disturbing because green things shouldn't oughta be round.

Pine and juniper also tend to smell green to me, tho they're more resinous than most of these other greens, and *very* dry.

Basil is a bit like black licorice and a bit like lettuce. So it's a green smell but a very planty sort of green smell. It's not dry at all.

Leather smells very green to me, but it's not a wet sort of green. It's also not particularly dry.

Many aquatics smell rather green to me, as well as smelling wet. Well, not wet, they more smell like the idea of being wet rather than actually being wet.

Grapefruit can smell a bit green on me. Mostly it's citrussy and a bit aquatic, with a bitter tinge.

Incantation is also very vetiver heavy.

It's actually pretty easy to identify vetiver heavy scents in the reviews. The heavier the vetiver, the more reviewers will complain of smoky, oily, overpowering green smells, possibly with a side dose of dirt and mustyness. The lighter the vetiver, the more reviewers will talk about how it smells like a growing plant. As near as I can tell, this happens because a lot of the forum's population has skin that amps vetiver's odder aspects. All I ever get is the growing plant smell, even on the ones that are pretty heavy on the vetiver. And if the scent is fairly light on vetiver, all it does is add a lovely skin scent sort of aura to the scent.

Now that I've gotten to be better friends with oakmoss and chypres...

The Lab's oakmoss seems to start out *very* intensely green. As it ages it picks up that golden ambery kind of scent that's characteristic of some of the classic chypres. Most chypres have a base that includes oakmoss, vanilla or amber, and musk. They'll also tend to have middle notes that include rose and jasmine, and top notes will almost always include bergamot.

It's not unusual for chypres to have patchouli, sandalwood, vetiver, cedar, tonka bean or other similarly green/woodsy/vanillic scents in the mix.

Since the Lab's scents are very fresh, if you're looking for a scent with a classic chypre feel it may take some aging. I'm finding it takes around 8 months for an oakmoss heavy scent to develop the ambery feel that it ought to have. So far, every scent I've tried with moss in the description has turned out to have oakmoss in it, so this search may help you out.

Different POV here. If you've got an actual allergy (ie, you'll go into anaphylactic shock when exposed), it doesn't matter where the exposure comes from. You will react, and it will not be pretty. The mild version is you get itch and maybe get hives. If it's enough exposure, your throat will swell up and left untreated, you'll *die*. Do not mess around with anaphylactic shock, please. If you're dealing with someone who has a genuine allergy, take it seriously. With some allergies, a few molecules of the allergen is enough to kill the person.

Most of what people call allergies are not technically allergies. There are a lot of perfume components that can trigger migranes or regular headaches in people. Another large chunk can trigger asthma. There are others that will give people contact dermatitis. And of course, the ever popular sneezing and snot fountain reaction. All of these are very unfun if you experience them. It's not very kind to give someone these sorts of reactions, so if you're aware of the problem, be gentle.

You will also run into the occasional drama queen who claims to be allergic to get attention. The favorite claim is headaches, tho sometimes a drama queen will claim asthma. I have no advice on how to tell a drama queen from someone with a real problem. If someone comes to you and *politely* brings up that your perfume is making them sneeze, feel itchy and break out in hives etc, take it seriously. It's polite and it's kinder. If someone makes a big fuss and is not polite to you, continue being polite, but don't go out of your way to be more than polite.

It doesn't have tea in it. Most kinds of tea have a citrus vibe, and ginger does as well. Many people serve tea with honey and milk. Ends up that Sudha Segera smells like unto a tea scent, but is not. Since people in recommendations are usually looking for ideas on *what* something smells like, things like Sudha usually sneak onto lists . Heck, I half think Maiden shouldn't be on the tea list, even tho it has it... it doesn't *smell* anything at all like rose tea (which I have an on-again off-again love affair with). It is a very refreshing rose scent due to the tea tho so...

Kalli

Sorry if this has been asked already, but the thread is six pages long, so...

 

Anyways, I'm looking for a rose scent that's not too girly and flowery and not too musty, just...rosy. A light scent, rather than a heavy scent. Red rose sounds like it would have been perfect, but since it's no longer available, is there a buyable scent that's similar?

On me, Whip is the winter version of what you're describing. It smells a lot like Lincoln roses, with a new leather purse somewhere in the background. Very green and red feeling.

Maiden is a lovely fresh summery rose. The tea adds a citrussy element, and the carnation makes it a bit more old rose feeling.

I separate these two scents by season because on my skin, they behave very differently based on the season (which is a laughable thing to say in southern California but...). In the summer, Whip is liable to go FOOMP and smother you in roses and leather, even if you dab it delicately. Maiden will feel much less overwhelming. In the fall and winter, Whip does pretty delicate things, and Maiden is liable to go FOOMP and be a stiffling scent.

Kalli

It sounds like your dad likes tuberose and jasmine, and he likes 'em prominent. And honestly it sounds like he really doesn't care for the foodie scents you like.

Muse is a tuberose, lotus, jasmine and lemon blend that he might well like.

You *might* find he'd object less to you wearing Sed Non Satiata, Peitho, Pannychis or maybe Euphrosyne. Those are all blends with some of the sweet things you like and either tuberose or jasmine that he likes.

Kalli

The Lion is my favorite amber as well. I'll be no help on no 19, since it's one of those frags that is full of allergy triggers for me *sigh*.

Kalli

That sounds... backwards. Quite literally. Is this a more green and woody feeling scent, or a more sweet amber feeling scent?

If it's mostly green, I'd lean towards Incantation, The Music of Erich Zahn and Azazoth to start off with. Not sure what to try if it's mostly amber in feel.

Kalli

I'd probably use Basenotes over Scentagious. I just tried a couple classics on Scentagious, and broke their search engine each time... Basenotes may not *have* anything on a given classic scent, but at least their search engine doesn't break so easily.

Kalli

Well I said Scherezade didn't go powdery but I am taking that back. So far about all of my first order smells like powder. I am sooooo bummed. I waited so long for it to get here and I can't wear any of them. I have two babies and smell powder all day so I wanted to smell like a woman, not a mom. Well here is the offending list for anyone else with this problem.

 

Snake oil (very strong Chantilly type powder)

O (honeyed baby powder)

Morocco (coying spicy baby powder)

Dorian Wonderful at first. (Lemony beautiful goodness. Dry down= powder)

Scherezade Beautiful and incensey at first, (dried down to a White Diamonds type powder smell)

Blood Rose (wonderful rosey, wine then dried down to powdery rose)

 

Sigh~~~~ I hate my chemistry.

That sounds like musks go to powder on you. You've got pale musk, skin musk, red musk, and some mystery musks in there (Snake Oil has musks and it's a matter of some debate which ones are in there). You may also turn amber to powder (O), and roses to powder (Blood Rose). There may be unlisted musk in those tho, as Minilux alluded to.

Since there's something like 20 musk descriptors used on BPAL's website and IME, they do behave differently, you may yet find a musk that will work.

Kalli

My comfort scent is Embalming Fluid. It echoes tons of good memories of shopping for perfume with my mom, trying to find one she liked and that didn't bother my allergies. It also brings back memories of getting big hugs from her, helping her decide what to wear for a special occasion... Since I love my mom a lot, this is very comforting.

So if you have very good memories associated with a specific scent, you might find that comforting.

Kalli

I don't detect most of the notes in this. That's ok, even if it makes me slightly sad. I love lavander and vetiver, and them not showing up in this is sad-making.

I get an intensely fruity citrus, backed by a powdery musk. No real hint of green or woodsiness. Just something akin to how an orange blossom scent *ought* to smell and never does because orange blossom wants to keeeeeeeell me.

It also smells amazing on the creature. Good unisex scent, and he rather likes it.

Kalli