We've already got a perfume glossary, but among the many things on my (out of control) to do list is a lexicon of the slang terms used on the various perfume blogs and forums (or fora, for those of you anxious to preserve the Latin plural form). Here is a start, and I'm hoping that anything I've missed will get added in the comments:
Blind buy: a perfume purchased without smelling it first, also known as "buying unsniffed".
Box of Eels: Now Smell This slang for Chanel Bois des Iles. A reader's husband asked what perfume she was wearing, she answered Bois des Iles, he misheard the response as "Box of Eels".
Decant worthy: a fragrance that is worth having in some small amount, but that you don't love enough to justify buying a full bottle. See also: how to decant perfume.
Donatella: usually a reference to Donatella Versace, who is the imaginary host of the damage polls (polls in which we discuss what we purchased) at Now Smell this.
Enabler pin: an imaginary award bestowed when you've "enabled" another reader's perfume purchase.
EO: Essential oil.
Evil Fragrance Twin (EFT): someone who loves all the perfumes you hate, and vice versa. EFTs can be useful — you follow them around and try whatever they can't stand.
FB: Full bottle.
Floralated: I'm cheating here as this is not a widely used term. Floralcy is ad-copy-speak for "smells of flowers", as in "a burst of floralcy", and it is a useful term as many fragrances do, in fact, smell of flowers without smelling like any flower in particular. So we need a generic term, but floralcy sounds too much like what it is: ad-copy-speak. I once used florified, March at Perfume Posse suggests the more elegant floralated. If you've a better idea, do comment.
Fruitchouli: a blend of fruit and patchouli.
Full bottle worthy (FBW): a fragrance so wonderful you need the full size.
Holy Grail (HG): just as the quest for the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend is thought to symbolize man's quest for perfection and wholeness, so in perfume terms, a Holy Grail is a perfume so perfect that it precludes the need to continue searching for new fragrances. It is often used to characterize a favorite scent in a specific category, as in "I've found my HG citrus" or "Iris Silver Mist is my HG iris".
LE: Limited Edition.
Lemming: lemmings are small rodents, said to look like fat furry hamsters. They are believed to blindly follow their crowd, even to the point of throwing themselves off a cliff if everyone else is doing it. This behavioral pattern is mythical, but the word is used on many fragrance forums and blogs to describe the feeling of intense longing generated by reading posts about a product or fragrance; in more simple terms, it just means to want a perfume. Sometimes converted to the verb form, "to lemm".
LOTV: lily of the valley.
Perfumanity: the community of perfumistas (see below); in other words, the portion of humanity that cares seriously about perfume. I believe this was coined by Marina at Perfume Smellin' Things.
Perfumista: someone who cares seriously about fragrance. Some use it as a feminine term, with either perfumeo or perfumisto as the masculine, others (like me) use it as a neuter term. See: Becoming a perfumista.
Pinkified, Pinkification: when fragrances are lightened, sweetened, and fruited-up to make them more girly, as is often done for flankers.
SA: sales associate.
Scrubber: a fragrance so bad it must be removed from skin, the sooner the better.
SOTD: commonly used on fragrance forums for "Scent of the Day" threads, where you simply post what fragrance you're wearing that day. SOTE is "Scent of the Evening".
Skanky: a fragrance with animalic or other "sexy" notes. Skanky has pejorative connotations in "regular" slang, but among many perfumistas, it is meant as a compliment. The use of the term to apply to perfume was popularized by March at Perfume Posse.
WIFFY: this is a term coined by Sara at MakeupAlley. It has never caught on (so I'm cheating again), but it should. It stands (vaguely) for "worth the f-ing freight from France", in other words, a perfume so wonderful you'd pay to have it shipped from Paris.
YMMV: your mileage may vary — a way of saying that your experience may differ.
Commonly used brand abbreviations:
AdP: Acqua di Parma
AdV: Aedes de Venustas
AG: Annick Goutal
BK: By Kilian
CBIHP: CB I Hate Perfume
CdG: Comme des Garçons
CSP: Comptoir Sud Pacifique
DK: Donna Karan
DSH: Dawn Spencer Hurwitz
EL: Estee Lauder
ELPC: Estee Lauder Private Collection
FM: Frederic Malle
HdP: Histoires de Parfums
JM: Jo Malone
LAP: L'Artisan Parfumeur
LL: Lolita Lempicka
LV: Lorenzo Villoresi
MFK: Maison Francis Kurkdjian
MPG: Maître Parfumeur et Gantier
NV: Neela Vermeire
OJ: Ormonde Jayne
PdN: Parfums de Nicolaï
PG: Parfumerie Generale
POTL: The Peoples of the Labyrinths (usually refers to their scent Luctor et Emergo)
SJP: Sarah Jessica Parker
SL: Serge Lutens
SMN: Santa Maria Novella
SSS: Sonoma Scent Studio
TBS: The Body Shop
TDC: The Different Company
TF: Tom Ford
VCA: Van Cleef & Arpels
VP: Vero Profumo
YR: Yves Rocher
[Note: a number of additions were made to this post in April 2017.]
I think that florified is worthy to be on the list as well. It sounds better than floralated.
WIFFY says it all, nomatter where we have to order our stuff from.
Ha! Great glossary. At the end of “skanky” you should add, “see also, barnyard”.
Aside, what was most confusing to me when I started reading here regularly (and still is, sometimes), were all the abbreviations used for perfume lines and even specific scents. It's a virtual foreign language trying to decipher: “For summer, I like TDC's Bergamote, but not as much as Hermes UJsLN, although neither of those can hold a candle to anything in the FM, or SL lines. Some perfumes by CdG, PdN and L'AP are all runners up.”
Joe, that is so true, and I remember well how confused I was when I first starting reading MakeupAlley (MUA!). Another for my “to do” list…
True!
“Floraled”? Saves a precious syllable, anyway.
This was a treat to read, Robin. And, see? It's the bloggers, not the pros, who have created this whole grassroots, not-so-secret (anymore) society of interesting/interested fragrance fans. That's where the real action is, I find — far more than in books and magazines. I'm just starting to branch out now and enjoy the wonderful writing from your friends Marina, March et al. I feel amazingly connected by kindred spirits. We're a strange, sensitive, and lovely breed, I think, just like the fragrances we're “lemming” (!)
This was all new to me just a short time ago. I'd seen FBW, for instance, all over the place, and I think it took me a whole year before I finally figured it out. Fallen By the Wayside was the only thing my little brain could fathom, but that certainly made anything but sense in context!
When I found myself bent over a running faucet for the first time a couple of weeks ago, desperately grinding away at my wrist with a hot, soapy SOS pad, I suddenly understood the full meaning of the term Scrubber. Perfect.
Hee hee! I feel honored to be included in your list, which holds an august place among the, uh, perfume fora.
Could *not* resist.
Would you laugh if I told you I still email Patty occasionally and say, what does such-and-such mean? And I wish I could remember but there was a term Marina used, like BTW, once in an email to me and I spent half an hour trying to figure out what fragrance line she was referring to.
what's wrong with just “floral”?
Then you worked out it was Bottle of Toilet Water, yes?
AFAIK, IMHO, IIRC, that's what it means…
I'm confused by “floralcy” as it seems a bit redundant. Doesn't the phrase “a burst of florals” convey the same meaning when used to describe a fragrance? “Floral” refers to flowery smells and not a particular flower, no?
I saw my name on the list and felt positively aporific. Could *not* resist either.
There could be more words to be added to the list.. I suppose?
Excellent read. Have now added WIFF to my vocabulary.
Hilarious!! This is only my second comment, though I've done lots of reading here and I must say this post is among my favorites.
WIFFY is too good not to add to my everyday vocabulary.
What good timing! I have a question that has been needing this thread so I can get an answer. What is HG? As in when people say, “It is my HG fragrance.”
Fallen by the Wayside! See, that shows good imagination, I like it. And we could use such a term for all the many fragrances that were once “hot” on the boards, and are now forgotten.
SOS pad — ouch!
Gosh, sometimes I can't figure out the acronyms either. Usually I forget them before I have a chance to ask anybody, now I'll know to ask Patty.
LOL at “Bottle of Toilet Water” — it *ought* to mean that.
Resistance is futile.
Now don't go being reasonable, LOL! Floral is unsatisfactorily un-jargon-like.
HA, all you reasonable people! See my answer above; it is unsatisfactorily un-jargon-like. Sometimes we need a little redundancy; also, floral is hard to turn into a verb and we need a verb form, hence florafied and floralated.
Well yes.
Everyone needs WIFF, it is so convenient. I am very surprised it did not get more traction on MakeupAlley.
Holy Grail! I can't believe I forgot that. Will have a full explanation in th post w/i an hour or so.
WIFFY is so perfect — and given how the dollar is doing, more apt than ever.
Done.
What a relief–thanks! Don't know why that one was taking up so much brain space….
Make that WIFFL, in my case. Worth the effin' freight from London.
LOL — but now you'll have to fill that brain space with something potentially more troubling
Or to be more specific, WIFFOJ, right?
Yes, I think I might put some Mathematics in there :))
Busted.
That's what I thought, too, but seems we need complication.
How about floralesque? Florabundant! Fleuriscious or Floralent (short for redolent of flowers)?
Hmmm….
Oh man, I forgot I invented WIFFY! Congrats on a great piece–Daniel Webster would be eau so proud!
cheers, Sara
Great read! When i first started, i thought all perfumistas used text messaging, as i don't know many of those abbreviations, either. WTF, I'd think. (What's With The Floralcy?)
I kind of like flora-licious and florabundant, IMHO.
I laugh to note that Holy Grail only ever applies to *categories* –I'm fully satisfied that no true perfumista could ever simply come to a scent that abrogated the need for all other scents.
Can you please make a post about french words in perfume? Bois, Voile, Cuir, Chevrefeuille, Poivre, Epices – these are all words we see often but I know I have to try and hit a french translator to figure out what it means!
Fruits, there is some complaining about the omnipresent of fruits. Fruits can be brutal, strawberries and cherries can cause some irritation to the nose coconut and banana are big nono's too and can cause nausea, therefore I suggest the word FRUITAL – as for brutally fruity..?
A FRUITAL is a severe case of fruit overdosed perfume.
I think the clever Samuel Johnson would appreciate your compilations even more, Robin.
Just FYI (couldn't write this without an abbreviation, could I?), Daniel Webster was a nineteenth century American politician. Noah Webster is the one who made a dictionary. Is Noah the on you're referring to?
Floralent! I love floralent.
S, it was perfect! Hope to see it added to the language yet.
Thanks
And there are so many brand abbreviations! I will have to do all those another day. Sniggering at “Whats With The Floralcy”
KV, properly speaking all of those ought to be in the official glossary — I do have some translations for French terms there, but not many. Will add all of yours to my “to do” list.
Friutal — lovely!
LOL — true, I'd say by definition, if you've got a single holy grail, you're not a perfumista.
Extra useless piece of trivia: orator and statesman Daniel Webster is a distant cousin on my dad's side.
R, just popping in to say that I love the way you talk and I get at least a laugh a day from this blog… Today's is “fora, for those of you anxious to preserve the Latin plural form” and my all-time favorite Robin moment went something like “(w00t!)”.
I LOVE WIFFY! So true! Robin this is a wonderfully funny and true article.
Hey, we'll take useless trivia! That's cool.
Ok, added some brand abbreviations, and will try to think of more later.
Hey you! Still trying to find a post where I can work in “Oh Snap!”…ha ha ha ha.
Thank you, but thank Sara for WIFFY
Hmm, I dont' know–I smelled Chanel Bois des Isles today and OMG (is that in the list, lol).
Use it as you wish!
HA — I cannot be responsible for generic terms like OMG, can I? I'm just sticking with perfume words. But yes, BdI is absolutely lovely — if you were going to settle down to just one perfume, it would be worthy.
I'm stealing that. btw. ;-P
I am chuckling here reading this post and the comments.
Great list!
Hey, no chuckling at work
I saw Box of Eels listed as a SOTD recently and spent more time than I care to admit googling to try to figure out which House had released it and find a description. 🤦♀️