Scent/Fragrance of the Day thread

[HORNS]

What does Ambroxan smell like? I'm a fan of GPM.

It's hard to describe. It's one of the chief components of ambergris and adds quite a bit of radiance to a fragrance. I think that L'Air du Desert Marocain would be a blobby mess without it.

 

[L'Incandescent]

If you ever get a chance to smell Not A Perfume by Juliette Has A Gun, that's ambroxan. (AnOther 13 by Le Labo is also mainly ambroxan, but with a few other minor players as well.) To my nose, ambroxan has a sharpness that is a little bit reminiscent of cedar. But it's also a little peppery. I would definitely describe it as warm and as somewhat bittersweet.

I'm wearing Papillon Tobacco Rose today. A very earthy rose that's also plush and velvety. The tobacco part is sharp, and smells more like hay to me. Definitely on the masculine side. I enjoy it, but I don't love it.

 

[dieworkwear]

Chanel Bois des Iles: Revisting this after having it sit in my drawer for a while. For some reason, I remembered this being a fresh island-like scent, but it's nothing like that at all. Opens with a heavy blast of orange rinds and aldehydes, then becomes this powdery, soft rose with some white florals in the background. Drydown is musk. It's OK, but not crazy about it.

Guerlain Tonka Imperiale: Wore this last night and it's great. Sweet and smooth almond with a bit of vanilla. Pretty linear. Smells a lot like marzipan. Interested to try Dior's Feve Delicieuse for comparison, which I hear is a bit more complex and interesting.

Also ordered some more samples from La Via del Profumo, which I'm looking forward to receiving.

 

[dieworkwear]

Mini query for you guys, I'm a débutant in the fragrance arena, but am fortunate to have a decent collection. Some of my favorites are Dior Homme, Terres de Hermes, Aventus, Dior Rose...something, and Chanel Egoiste.

That said, the only colognes on which I get compliments are Creed Aventus (constant comments), Creed Irish Tweed (almost constant), Creed Santal (occasional).

I don't want to be a brand whore, and I realize I wear colognes also to interest myself, however, is there really something that special about Creed? (I of course notice the price is at a premium!)

I don't know if there's something "special" about Creed, but they're undeniably good scents that are also meant to be crowd pleasing. Other perfumers may be totally fine with pleasing just a niche market.

My one gripe about Creed is that they don't last very long on my skin, which is kind of disappointing given the price. And GIT has a citrus-aquatic accord that can feel a bit overdone at this point. Sometimes I get flashbacks to '90s Coolwater wearing that thing.

I've sold off most of my Creed, but the one I still reach for occasionally is Aventus.

 

[Parker]

Wore Yohji Yamamoto Homme today. Can a scent give you music references? Because I got a distinct Duran-Duran vibe.

 

[am55]

What does Ambroxan smell like? I'm a fan of GPM.

I think one way to think of it is as MSG to ambergris' parmesan. Both provide the "ummami" dimension to food.

Or maybe salt. Salt "tastes" salty (whilst ambroxan and to a lesser extent ambergris don't "smell" per se as much as affect smell) but if you add it to unsalted food you will "unlock" a ton of flavours that were not present beforehand. Professional chefs salt like crazy for that reason (and Marco Pierre White even admitted at one point that all professional kitchens have stock cubes somewhere, so they're not averse to MSG either).

The only reliable way to get hold of ambergris I know of is AbdesSalaam (profumo.it). It's priced appropriately, unfortunately. If you're fortunate enough to fly through Oman you can get the raw stuff where it's picked up, either on the shore or in one of the local attar shops.

@dieworkwear I hate to disagree with you, but I think most of the Creed line-up is unremarkably mainstream, using cheap ingredients (e.g. linalool, limonene, citronellol - that stuff is used to scent wet wipes...), unoffensive but not on par with the niche perfumery that is generally discussed in this thread (Uniqlo to CM's Kiton if you will, or maybe the equivalent of an Armani quartz watch). Yohji mentioned on the same page is an example of how to do this half-synthetic "cheaper ingredients" designer style well, as it has, at least creative spirit and taste and balance in it.

 

[James1051]

If you ever get a chance to smell Not A Perfume by Juliette Has A Gun, that's ambroxan. (AnOther 13 by Le Labo is also mainly ambroxan, but with a few other minor players as well.) To my nose, ambroxan has a sharpness that is a little bit reminiscent of cedar. But it's also a little peppery. I would definitely describe it as warm and as somewhat bittersweet.

I'm wearing Papillon Tobacco Rose today. A very earthy rose that's also plush and velvety. The tobacco part is sharp, and smells more like hay to me. Definitely on the masculine side. I enjoy it, but I don't love it.

Its been a couple of years since I tried Tobacco Rose, but I liked it then. Liz Moores does a nice job with her stuff.

 

[James1051]

Mini query for you guys, I'm a débutant in the fragrance arena, but am fortunate to have a decent collection. Some of my favorites are Dior Homme, Terres de Hermes, Aventus, Dior Rose...something, and Chanel Egoiste.

That said, the only colognes on which I get compliments are Creed Aventus (constant comments), Creed Irish Tweed (almost constant), Creed Santal (occasional).

I don't want to be a brand whore, and I realize I wear colognes also to interest myself, however, is there really something that special about Creed? (I of course notice the price is at a premium!)

I've tried a lot of them. Aventus, which is loved by many, didn't do much for me. I liked Green Irish Tweed, but my wife HATED it, so out it went. MI, pretty good, but not worth the dough. Most Creeds have been passes for me.

Two that stuck--Jardin d'Amalfi and Royal Mayfair. JdA is pretty good, I have a small bottle, not sure I will replace it when empty. RM I like very much, even more than its much hyped predecessor, Windsor. Keeper

 

[James1051]

Last night I wore vintage Havana. Starts out rough but develops over time (goes 18 hours for me) into a beauty. Allegedly a tobacco scent, H strikes me as more a celebration of bay rum, although you can find some tobacco notes in it.

Today I'm wearing another alleged tobacco scent, vintage Dolce & Gahanna PH. This is one heavy on mandarin orange, pepper, cardamom and yes, tobacco. Its surprisingly zingy and fruity for a tobacco scent. The fruity notes remind me as much of spiced apple as orange. Late summer fruits.

 

[losrockets]

Incendo by la curie again today. This is such an interesting scent. Going strong at 10 hours, feels like a fire slowly burning in reverse, sweetening as it dries.

 

[dieworkwear]

@dieworkwear I hate to disagree with you, but I think most of the Creed line-up is unremarkably mainstream, using cheap ingredients (e.g. linalool, limonene, citronellol - that stuff is used to scent wet wipes...), unoffensive but not on par with the niche perfumery that is generally discussed in this thread (Uniqlo to CM's Kiton if you will, or maybe the equivalent of an Armani quartz watch). Yohji mentioned on the same page is an example of how to do this half-synthetic "cheaper ingredients" designer style well, as it has, at least creative spirit and taste and balance in it.

It's definitely mainstream, but I don't know ... there are worse mall scents out there.

For some reason, I think of things like Aventus and GIT the way I think of Allen Edmonds' Park Avenues. They're perfectly nice, and if I had to recommend something to a random person, I'd probably say start there. But then you try other stuff and those things aren't that interesting anymore. I don't think of Allen Edmonds (or Creed) as being lesser or greater than other things. I've just find them kind of boring.

 

[hendrix]

The Creed bottles are just so ugly and tacky. I usually wouldn't care about that sort of thing but they're intrusively bad.

 

[L'Incandescent]

I've tried a lot of Creeds over the years, and there are very few that I really enjoy. I do like Acier Aluminium quite a bit: it's a weird metallic, sweet banana bread scent. And I think they hit it out of the park with Aventus, even though it's not really my cup of tea. I wanted to like Creed because when I first got into fragrances, everyone was talking about them as if they were the best of the best. But I just never saw it. And yeah, I think the bottles look tacky too!

I'm wearing Fils de Dieu by ELDO today. It feels like summer here today, so it felt right to wear it.

 

[dieworkwear]

Creed bottles are uniquely bad.

S'why I buy bottles of Roja Dove's Haute Luxe, pour out the juice, and decant my GIT into those.

 

[dieworkwear]

Annick Goutal Les Nuits d ́Hadrien: Wearing this today. Opening has a nice hit of citrus that lasts for about fifteen minutes. After that goes away, you get a mix of cypress, sandalwood, vanilla, and ylang-ylang. Kind of a soft floral mixed with woods and vanilla. Stays close to the skin. Safe, good, and affordable, which is always a nice mix. Has a comforting quality to it. Hard to beat for ~$70.