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Scent/Fragrance of the Day thread

patrickBOOTH

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Speaking of vintage... I just got a modern version of BaV to "go with" my older one (left). They are pretty similar, but it seems that the older sticks around longer. Surprising since there are probably more naturals. The only thing that bugs me about the modern is the fact that the color is fake. Ingredients have a lot of color additives. Downside of synthetic reformulations, I guess.
CE1A7AA9-FE4E-4F1C-9B1D-1100F36CCFF0.jpeg
 

patrickBOOTH

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I'm going to Perfumerie in NYC tomorrow evening with my girlfriend. It seems kind of awesome. They have flights of like 20 something fragrances on tap and you blindly smell them and write your notes and such. At the end you get a 5ml sample of your favorite and at the end of the month they reveal what they all are. They have a new flight each month. Seems kind of awesome, but I fear I will be fatigued smelling 20 fragrances in a sitting.
 

jdp234

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I'm going to Perfumerie in NYC tomorrow evening with my girlfriend. It seems kind of awesome. They have flights of like 20 something fragrances on tap and you blindly smell them and write your notes and such. At the end you get a 5ml sample of your favorite and at the end of the month they reveal what they all are. They have a new flight each month. Seems kind of awesome, but I fear I will be fatigued smelling 20 fragrances in a sitting.

Sounds awesome! Though if the few times I've done serious flighted wine tasting are any indication I'd be totally shot after smelling three or four.

SOTD was Lapidus Pour Homme, can't recommend this stuff enough particularly at the price point, it is basically free. One of those frags that, wrapped in nicer kit and sold at 10x markup, would be feted in all corners. Exceptionally weird in a good way, with an almost bubblegummy pineapple-floral structure on top of a patchouli-civet base, nuclear strength, what is not to love.

This evening got a few spritzes of silver-stem Dior Homme from a newly acquired decant; I haven't smelled it for probably a decade when I last owned some and immediately had powerful, vivid memories of all sorts of random events from back then. Scent memory is a funny thing. I will never stop being tickled and delighted that a major house put this out as a flagship masculine, it is so blindingly obvious that it is a feminine and not even a particularly unisex one. Smells great though!
 

shoewarma

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This evening got a few spritzes of silver-stem Dior Homme from a newly acquired decant; I haven't smelled it for probably a decade when I last owned some and immediately had powerful, vivid memories of all sorts of random events from back then. Scent memory is a funny thing. I will never stop being tickled and delighted that a major house put this out as a flagship masculine, it is so blindingly obvious that it is a feminine and not even a particularly unisex one. Smells great though!
I don't recall how the silver-stemmed bottle smelled, but I don't think it was all that different to the black-stemmed bottle. The older formulation probably has more of the waxy iris because my 2011 bottle has a more amped up cardamom note. Either way, it's a great scent, but I disagree about it being overtly feminine. It's certainly not the most masculine scent out there, but I wouldn't called it feminine. It's right in the middle. I seem to be in the minority but I think it has some gourmand properties. It reminds me of walking into a very cozy, rustic coffee shop with French pastries, but there's obviously no coffee here. It's more of a hot chocolate kind of scent. I don't wear it much, but man, do I appreciate the hell out of it. Also, I think it's way better than Intense, which I consider to be much more feminine.

Today's scent is Guerlain Vetiver Extreme. Man, vetiver is just a hell of a note. Thank you, Mother Nature.
 

jdp234

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I don't recall how the silver-stemmed bottle smelled, but I don't think it was all that different to the black-stemmed bottle. The older formulation probably has more of the waxy iris because my 2011 bottle has a more amped up cardamom note. Either way, it's a great scent, but I disagree about it being overtly feminine. It's certainly not the most masculine scent out there, but I wouldn't called it feminine. It's right in the middle. I seem to be in the minority but I think it has some gourmand properties. It reminds me of walking into a very cozy, rustic coffee shop with French pastries, but there's obviously no coffee here. It's more of a hot chocolate kind of scent. I don't wear it much, but man, do I appreciate the hell out of it. Also, I think it's way better than Intense, which I consider to be much more feminine.

Today's scent is Guerlain Vetiver Extreme. Man, vetiver is just a hell of a note. Thank you, Mother Nature.

Totally agree on the gourmand angle, it has a cocoa-powder effect not too far from Borneo 1834 or Coromandel (with iris as the counterpoint rather than patch).
 

shoewarma

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I haven't smelled Borneo 1834, sadly. It's been a while since I've smelled Coromandel too, but I remember it being a much smoother, less dense A*Men by Thierry Mugler.

As an aside, Dior are a bit of a joke now. They got rid of an absolute gem of a fragrance to replace it with a sterile, spineless shadow of itself with the new Dior Homme 2020. Hell, it's not even similar at all to warrant having the same name. I don't take them seriously anymore, which is also why I don't wear my 2011 DH very much anymore for fear of not being able to replace it.
 

jdp234

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shoewarma

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I'm not one to hunt or collect vintages, but I'm actually interested in trying some old Guerlains. Where are you guys finding all these, and how much do you spend on them on average?
 

patrickBOOTH

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Niiiiiice. Color looks good. How's it smell?

I think I've posted this, but I get great results layering old extrait with current EdP as a means of stretching my little 1/4oz out. Also it is definitely thin enough to spray through an atomizer if you don't like dabbing. I decanted mine into a 10ml spritzer.

plastic is stillaround the lid, haven’t cracked it yet!

you’ve mentioned your layering old with new, it’s very intriguing and a good way to stretch the old. I’m going to try it.
 

jdp234

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I'm not one to hunt or collect vintages, but I'm actually interested in trying some old Guerlains. Where are you guys finding all these, and how much do you spend on them on average?

eBay for me. Going rate for 1/4oz of Mitsouko extrait is ~$70-80 for a “available today and buy it now” sale, which isn’t cheap by any means but actually a great deal cheaper than current production Mitsouko extrait for which Guerlain charges f-you prices. Better deals of course available with patience, discernment, risk tolerance (though avoid the cheap sales from Russia, is the word on Base

Going rate for other old guerlains varies a lot, last couple times I checked vtg Shalimar was more than Mitsouko but not by a ton, and vtg Jicky was crazy expensive relative to both. My bottles of Habit Rouge EDC and Heritage EDT were in the $60-70 range for unopened early 90s production if memory serves. So more than current production through a discounter but not bad at all compared to virtually any current niche.

On that subject, wearing vtg Heritage EdT today. Making me wish I owned a pinstripe suit, not that it would get much use anytime soon.
 

shoewarma

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eBay for me. Going rate for 1/4oz of Mitsouko extrait is ~$70-80 for a “available today and buy it now” sale, which isn’t cheap by any means but actually a great deal cheaper than current production Mitsouko extrait for which Guerlain charges f-you prices. Better deals of course available with patience, discernment, risk tolerance (though avoid the cheap sales from Russia, is the word on Base

Going rate for other old guerlains varies a lot, last couple times I checked vtg Shalimar was more than Mitsouko but not by a ton, and vtg Jicky was crazy expensive relative to both. My bottles of Habit Rouge EDC and Heritage EDT were in the $60-70 range for unopened early 90s production if memory serves. So more than current production through a discounter but not bad at all compared to virtually any current niche.

On that subject, wearing vtg Heritage EdT today. Making me wish I owned a pinstripe suit, not that it would get much use anytime soon.
Yeah, I see a lot of deals too good to be true from Russia. Trust me, I know to avoid these like the plague. Patience also isn't one of my virtues, and I haven't seen many great deals for vintage Guerlains when I browse eBay occasionally. I have seen some Vintage Heritage EDTs lately, and I thought about grabbing one, although I have the current version and it really is no slouch.

I guess I have to keep looking, but I find the current EDP formulations of Mitsouko and L'Heure Bleue to be very good and worth them $50-60 that they sell for online. I've come close to buying them, but I'm thinking that if the vintages are available for reasonable prices, why not go for them instead? I know for a fact that I won't wear them that much due to their lack of versatility, so buying vintages wouldn't be a big financial hit it the long run anyway. They're not as cost-effective as new bottles, but they would be exceptions.
 

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