What are your favorite perfume notes?
Amber, sandalwood, tonka bean, patchouli, coffee, rum, oud, cardamom. I also really love lavender but am pretty picky about it.
— Christine
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I used to be attracted to citrus scents, but the last few years I’ve found that white florals (jasmine, tuberose, gardenia) have caught my interest more. I also love aldehydes, although they have lost popularity in the last, oh, 60 years 😉 , and very few new fragrances contain them.
Both Mariella and I love Jicky, anecdotally the first major scent with aldehydes. WGAS about eras and current favorites? Today’s fruity and gourmand choices seem a little puerile, sweet, and simple to me. About as appropriate for me now as Sour Patch Kids.. I’d go for a big old (older than me and I’m 73) chypre.
Grossly, two families. For the warmer time, ‘nichey’ salts like Heeley and Brosius’s North Atlantic. These can lean dry (driftwood-ish) or wet (seaweed.) Watery like the Regime Waves and Falls. Citrus, but picky…usually as in men’s colognes. For winter, it’s Vetiver, amber, powdery, oakmoss, firs and woody greens. See why my fave bargain in scent was 450$ from CosBar on Creed? Via Isabella, of course.
Patchouli (I’m a child of the 60’s, what can I say?) and put patchouli oil on an old face cloth and toss it in with my laundry! I also really love vetiver. Things like rose smell lovely to me too but I actually have a hard time identifying “notes” in fragrance – I can just tell if I like a scent or not…
Unless you’re in the position where you need to describe scents to people for any real purpose, whether you like it or not is all that REALLY matters 🙂
That’s how I feel about it too, Christine. I’m not one who researches notes in fragrances I love. If they smell truly delightful and give me an uplifting mood, or harken a specific mood that I’m feeling on a particular day, I’ll wear it.
My nose only knows what it likes not the name of notes or the other accords in the perfume. I know Guerlain puts something in their perfumes that I don’t like so I stay away from that brand.
It’s funny to read similar comments/reactions. A few years ago, I bought Elizabeth Arden’s White Tea (a lovely warm-weather scent) and then reading about it, learned that it contains musk or maybe white musk. I don’t like musk…I was surprised I liked a fragrance that contains musk. All I know is that it smells lovely and light and fresh.
As for Guerlain’s perfumes, I’m the same. I remember as a pre-teen, seeing ads for L’Heure Bleu and other legendary scents and the photos and copy where so beautiful and I thought “one day…”. As a teen, I did have a bottle of Jicky (Pattie Boyd wore it and I wore my mom down enough that she bought me a bottle – insane!) I do own a bottle of Shalimar which I only got within the last 2 years at Costco for a ridiculously affordable price but I only wear it in cold weather and only in certain circumstances.
I love it when violet and iris are used in a perfume together. That’s why I love Love, Chloe (criminally discontinued).
I love beachy scents with salt, ambergris, florals, wood, and musk. Ellis Brooklyn Salt, CK Reveal, and Armani Air (old version) are best for that theme.
I also love the Narciso fragrances, and that musk DNA
I love beachy perfumes! I haven’t tried many aquatic or woody ones, so I was happy to read your suggestions! Thanks for sharing xx
Palo santo, tobacco, leather, patchouli, hay, sweetgrass, and from the right perfumer something sweet like cardamom, vanilla, lavender, coffee, oude, clove
I love this combination! What are some of your favorites?
I’ve had better luck finding perfume with indie niche companies. Like For Strange Women had a simple “tobacco + leather” fragrance for a long time that’s just divine and I frequently layered it with softer fragrances to “beef them up” a bit. Horse was another. Decadence and Debauchery is a general catalogue fragrance with patchouli and helichrysm (my skin amps that note like crazy).
Possets just stopped offering their Yules until next fall/winter and Hungarian Rhapsody is tobacco all day (so strong too!).
Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille is a sweet, lightly woody glory, though it’s a bit softer than I lean toward these days.
Outside of Desert Resins (a For Strange Women limited edition release) I haven’t yet found a palo santo perfume that catches my fancy. Though Humble Brands deodorant in palo santo is quite good (and strong enough to be my scent for the day). I adore the smell of the burning wood SO MUCH and haven’t found that captured in a fragrance yet. The essential oil, while nice, has a bit of a rubber/liquorice thing going that…….isn’t Palo Santo’s best moment.
I’m constantly on the hunt for fragrances in real life that smell like what my mind’s eye wants, you know?
Spicy – cinnamon, clove, anise, cardamom, bitter orange, undertones of patchouli.
Tart fruits – cherry, apple, citrus.
Musky – burnt wood, tobacco, bourbon, coffee, leather.
With dark florals there’s not specific floral scents I prefer, I tend to go for blends like NEST Black Tulip.
Orange blossom/neroli, lime, salt, dry coconut, lily, jasmine OR smoky oud, bourbon vanilla, musk, raspberry, violet, vetiver. I guess those are my 2 moods haha
Not a category that I’m good at! All I know is that if I really love how something smells on me, then I’m definitely buying it for myself. However, I am super picky. Whatever notes are in Tom Ford Black Orchid, YSL Black Opium Nuit Blanche, Maison Margiela Beach Walk, Fresh Life, and Avon x Christian LaCroix Absynthe would be my favorites! 🤷🏻♀️
In my twenties I was a lot into floral but now most make me nauseated. My preference in this phase of life is musky/woodsy fragrances and the notes I like are oud, amber, sandalwood, tonka bean, musk, bergamot, cedar, vanilla lavender, rose and jasmine!
Vanilla, vanilla, vanilla… and a dab of more vanilla… 😅
I like gourmand notes like cacao / dark chocolate, coconut, caramel, coffee.
From the fruity notes I only like pear. Although I like cherries as a smell, I never encountered a cherry based perfume I liked.
From the floral notes I like blossom (cherry, pear), peony, freesia.
I’m not really good at picking out the particular scents of a perfume that I like – bergamot is one, ylang ylang, sandelwood etc. Like Clinque’s Aronmatics Elixir.
Amber, labdanum, benzoin, rose, incense, plus spring florals like LotV, sweet clover and Hyacinth. I, like you, adore TF Amber Absolute as the perfect Intimate, Warm and Embracing fragrance.
I love jasmine, tuberose and gardenia. I love vanilla as a second note.
In my 20s I used fragrances I cannot smell today, I am 45 now.
My sense of smell has changed a lot and when I test a perfume, sometimes I get a headache.
I recently bought the Tom Ford soleil neige perfume. It was the only one that smelled good in my opinion. I like Chloé and La vie est belle. In my 20s I loved the D&G Feminine but the discontinued the product.
Sometimes I smell a scent on somebody and want to have it and on me it smells differently that I don‘t want to have it anymore.
Depending on the fragrance and how it’s balanced, I like the following notes: lily, violet, orchid, rose, gardenia, jasmine, raspberry, cherry, lemon, chocolate, coffee, caramel, cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla, salt, peppermint, musks, and very occasionally, tobacco (Maison Margiela Jazz Club uses it in just the right amount where it enhances the scent profile without overpowering it or smelling bad).
Peach!!! 🍑 my favorite fruit also!
Almost all my fragrance has been blind buy and they all have peach in them and I’ve liked them all!!
Pear is a big like all. I should mention I don’t like sweet ones.
Love: gardenia, cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate, leather, orange blossom. When I was younger I was obsessed with amber, but now it’s too powdery. Also, I wear aldehydes, but I like them for how they interact with my skin, not how they smell on their own.
Hmm…coffee, cardamom and oud…Christine, have you tried ‘The Bewitching Yasmine’ from Penhaligons? It has all those notes, you may like it!
My taste tends to lean pretty heavily in the gourmand direction these days. I’m acquiring lots of vanillas and creamy scents.