What was the last perfume you didn't like?
Fresh Rose Morning Eau de Parfum, which I only bought because I love the scent of Fresh’s rose skincare, and this is so “perfumey” to me… not like fresh roses at all.
— Christine
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It was a sample, luckily.
By Kilian Good Girl Gone Bad, it just did not sit well on me and of course was blasting big sillage.
their cannabis rose perfume is a longtime fav– the musky cannabis offsets the sweetness of the rose nicely.
Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille. Loved the base, but ultimately too spicy for me.
Rose Morning was so disappointing!
Jo Malone….It was either the Myrrh+Tonka or the EnglishOak+Hazelnut. I can’t remember which. It smelled amazing and perfect for me in the bottle, but literally a minute after applying it to my skin in Sephora all the notes were eaten, chewed up, and what was left was horrifying. Just straight cloying sharp old lady smell that was RAAAANNNKKKK. Most perfumes don’t work for me; either my nose doesn’t care for them or my skin eats them up until all that’s left is the gross powdery base, but I still get bummed out when something smells good in the bottle or tester paper and then my skin destroys it.
Same,like 70% just end up smelling powdery on me, which unfortunately is one of my least favorite notes,then of the remaining 20% most just smell like cotton candy/sugar to me. I also seem to amp up patchouli, which more recently I can enjoy in small doses in certain fragrances but do not like as anything near the main notes usually(same goes for rose) It also seems recently that my skin has just been eating most scents up and most are not lasting on me for some reason as well and that’s also frustrating especially since a lot that I do end up liking usually TURN INTO something I like and it’s not from initial smell that I know.
Oh and some weirdly get a pickle brine scent to/on me. That’s fun. I haven’t been able to figure out exactly what it is yet but Book by Commodity,Thank U Next by Ariana Grande and the Eve Lom Time Retreat Radiance Essence all did it to me that I remember so I have to compare and see if there is a common denominator.
Jo Malone Pomegranate Noir – smells like a fruity sort of nightmare before Christmas on me, it reminds me of the old Dior Hypnotic Poison (in the red bottle) which was also a disaster for me.
One that is super popular; Maison Margiela By The Fireplace. It just smells like smoke and burned marshmallows on me. Must be something in my body chemistry or something. At first, I thought that I was imagining it, so I looked at the reviews on Sephora, and sure enough, there were quite a few others who had the same bizarre effect. Yet, most who use it don’t, so I know it’s not a “bad” perfume. Just a finicky one!
Everyone hypes the Replica series by Maison Margiela, but I never liked anything. I had the highest hopes from Coffee Break, but it doesn’t smell like anything coffee to me. 😅
The only ones that I have really loved by them are two that evoke nostalgic scents for me; Beach Walk and Bubble Bath! The rest of them smell nasty on me for some odd reason. 🤷🏻♀️
Coffee Break has notes of coffee, milk, and lavender, so I think it’s supposed to represent a lavender latte. Maybe the lavender is all your nose can pick up?
Indeed, the lavender topped all the other notes and I’m not a fan of that scent and I never associate it with coffee. But I’ve seen coffee syrups and creamers with lavender, so I guess for some people it’s a natural association.
Yeah just smells to me mostly like smoke and burning(maybe a touch of cinnamon?) and way too strong the times I wore it and I didn’t care for it. BUT…I got complimented at least once every time I wore it and apparently didn’t just smell like smoke on me to others so I guess it agrees with my body chemistry but not my nose! Same for another one I had a sample of from them (was so long ago I can’t remember the name but I know it had “red lipstick accord” as a note)
I wanted to try several flankers of Juliette Has a Gun, the vanilla and the pear ones seemed my vibe. I didn’t like any of them.
Glossier You, everyone seems to love it but on my skin it smelled like freesia and I overdosed on that in the 80s with Liz Claiborn Sport.
Serge Lutens Fille En Aiguilles perfume that all the reviews said smells like pine needles and Christmas. And since I love Serge Lutens perfumes and was excited about the holidays I foolishly blind brought it. Big mistake. On me it just smells like tar. I returned it. Blind buying is always a big risk but occasionally I’ve got some great perfumes on a blind buy. But I usually get a sample first.
I heard a lot of hype surrounding the Maison Francis Kurkdjian Baccarat Rouge 540 perfume so I bought a small sample to try and I can honestly say it’s one of the most awful smelling perfumes I’ve ever smelled, I’m not sure if it doesn’t mix well with the oils in my skin or what but I just don’t understand what everybody loves about this fragrance, I found it rather sickly and extremely nauseating…
I agreed with everything you said.
Guerlain Mitsuko. Loved it at the beginning and even the middle, then the patchouli reared its head and it was curtains …. enter the Advil. I ‘get’ this fragrance and appreciate the notes, I just can’t handle the slightest whiff of patchouli of any kind.
I didn’t purchase this, but Maison’s By the Fireplace was one I really didn’t like. Also I got an Oscar De La Renta perfume some years ago that turned out to be awful – the lingering dry down scent was way too sweet for me.
Oh goodness, I’ve had bad luck with Fresh perfumes. The brown sugar one was god awful. I’m not a fan of sugary sweet perfumes, but that one didn’t smell sweet or sugary. My daughter described it as the smell of the hallway that leads to a hotel pool, lol. It was just confusing! :p
There are so many perfumes I have sampled through sites and friends, and I generally appreciate the diverse tastes and preferences of all people, however when I smelled Cloud from Ariana Grande, I thought I was being pranked—like what I smelled was actually gross to my nose. Then I went on to smell Baccarat Rouge 540, which Cloud is said to be a dupe for, and it definitely left me with the same feeling. I just don’t like those scents. I know so many people love them, but then just as many hate them, so it truly seems like a biological thing. I tried everything to experience what the lovers of BR540 were smelling, like smelling the sample at different times of the day, etc., and I just could not appreciate it at all.
Christine, have you tried British Rose from The Body Shop? It’s a light, airy kind of rose that sounds like what you are looking for. You should go on the site Fragrantica in their message boards for recommendations, if you’re on a fragrance kick. There are many lovely, super knowledgeable people there.
Oh, have you tried any rose scents from Jo Malone or Serge Lutens? I know Francis Kurkdjian is considered the king of roses, but the fragrances he was the nose behind that I tried were too sweet for me. :). Seeing your fragrance preferences, I bet you’d love Parfait de Roses by Lancôme. It’s so beautiful, and it’s sad they discontinued it!
The Strange South’s The Emperor of Ice Cream. I just didn’t pick up the notes right (I wanted the note of strawberry ice cream so much!) and then it completely disappeared off my skin with wear.
I tend to like most perfumes I buy or test, but I’ve had a few doozies. The first thing that comes to mind: I got an Atelier Cologne Clementine California sample in a Sephora online order once. It either broke and smelled awful or smelled awful and then broke. Either way, it got all over my hands and saturated the sample transport card it came in, and I had to throw it out that night!
More recently, my mom placed a Sephora order for me for Christmas and enclosed with it the samples she got. One of the samples was a Jo Malone English Pear & Freesia fragrance. Not only did we hate the scent, but it contaminated the bag it was in and a plastic baggie I touched to apply another fragrance stored inside! (The other fragrance still smelled fine when I wore it for family Christmas that night, but I had to air the bottle out and replace the baggie.)
She also doesn’t like Shawn Mendes Signature when I wear it, but I don’t have a problem with it and neither did anyone else in my family when I wore it to a holiday gathering.
Mfk baccarat 540. I had a lucky scent sample and liked it but got the full bottle was anosmic which I didn’t like. Bloomy’s has a great return policy.
Going to add Roses On Ice by Kilian. Given samples at the weekend and just tried today. It is an aquatic and group I really dislike.
Vera Wang Princess was the only one I truly hated out of the sampler I got recently and that’s maybe saying something since one in the bunch gave me a slight scent of pickle in it(That one was Thank U,Next by Ariana Grande).
I got none of the notes in the description besides a touch of vanilla. Also is nothing like the description states on me “Radiant and whimsical…sheer fruity floral rich with vanilla and brimming with exotic flowers and succulent fruits”
To/on me- heavy,cloying with not a single note of any fruit that I can tell,powder with a hint of vanilla, I guess something in it could be “floral” since that is pretty broad and then to top it off something in it triggered a headache and of course it was one out of the bunch that actually had decent longevity and silllage on me.
I like to buy from this indie perfumer Little & Grim, and for April Fool’s Day she likes to do weird scents. One of them, Leather Soda, was such a surprise hit that she decided to bring it back later in the year and I decided to buy it. It smells interesting in the bottle, but on both me and my spouse, the leather fades away entirely and the effervescence that is supposed to be reminiscent of soda smells like those toilet cleaner tabs that clean every time you flush. Like the industrial ones you’d find in a big box bathroom. And it’s REALLY strong, way stronger of course than any of the scents I love from the brand.
I need to post in the FB group for the brand and see if I can send it to someone who loves it, because we’re definitely not gonna wear it in this house.