This is an open thread for participants in the Monday Mail articles to share their experiences, and hopefully let us know if they found what they were looking for (or went bankrupt trying). I'm sending out emails tonight requesting feedback from everyone who took part between May and August of this year, so check back over the next few days to see what we can find out.
Here are links to the articles for each participant:
Tracey, Lavonne, Rae, Sandra, Phyllis, Ines, Gregorio, Jenny, Chantelle, Tracy, Julie, Zoe, Ksenia, Namita, Rachel.
Thank you to Natalie for suggesting the open thread!
Note: image "Letter box in a house-wall of San Giorgio in the community Resia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy" by Johann Jaritz, via Wikimedia.
Hi, this is Jenny. I was just thinking about you guys and appreciate all the help and suggestions I received. I was looking for a sexy nighttime scent. The challenge for me here was to stretch myself beyond the light, fruity-floral scents that I normally favor. I wanted something heavier yet not masculine or obnoxiously strong.
I was made a list of the the scents that were recommended and sounded good to me, then sought them out. With quite a few scents, I was able to find them in stores and I immediately commented on the original post to give my opinions. A few of them weren't available in stores and I ordered samples online.
So far the only contender is Tumulte by Christian Lacroix. I like the warmth and spicy sweetness of it, and it's really different from a lot of other scents. I also just happened to sample another scent while out shopping the other day – the new Guess by Marciano. It's slightly more woodsy than I would ordinarily go for, but it's very feminine and sexy. So I may decide between those two.
Thanks everyone!
JENNY, TUMULTE WAS MY RECOMMENDATION!!! YEY!!! SO GLAD YOU LIKE IT!
Hi everyone this is Sandra. I had enormous fun with my thread but only ended up with a list of fragrances not available here. I have tried a few namely by Tom Ford or L'AP – close but no cigar.
One thing I learned here is that I should be very lucky to like a recommended fragrance. I learned that a compatible-sounding list of notes does not guarantee the final result will be up to expectations. Moreover, my tastes changed and now I go for fragrances that would have been unthinkable for me six months ago.
Even so, it is a good idea to feature a reader every week, because it is a topic that encourages all sorts of readers to contribute, end especially those who try mainstream fragrances. There is a snobbish disdain here for mainstream fragrances, and that's fine if one has all those lovely niche fragrances to compare them with, but if not, then it is simply not interesting to watch unknown fragrances being dissected here day after day.
All in all I am still with my old fragrances and considering a new purchase that was not on the list and whihc I hesitate to name here because it is a mainstream fragrance, albeit by one of the grands parfumeurs.
It seems to be a common feeling that these blogs are only interested in niche. I find that there are many mainstream fragrances that receive love here. Many niche fragrances are not getting love here either. Robin herself says about 40% of her collection is mainstream. I have many mainstream fragrances which I love and wear often. The niche offerings just add another interesting layer to the perfume experience. Niche is not offered in the stores where I live either. I look on sample sites for scents that have notes I like and go from there. I also schmooze many free mainstream samples from the Sales Assistants at Sephora and Nordstrom. I can get many wearings from one small sample, which makes my investment in samples worthwhile. I have enjoying layering different samples to arrive at an even more personally appealing scent. Sampling has also helped my taste in fragrance expand…not neccesarily excluding old loves, but simply adding more layers.
Sandra, I hope you are able to find the scent that makes you swoon! Actually I hope everyone finds their swoon worthy scent. It just makes life so fun! Thanks for letting us know how you are doing in your search!
Oh! And please, please tell us your possible purchase. I would love to have another mainstream scent to try, and I may even already own and wear it! '~)
Hi Jenny, thanks for posting, and glad you found at least 1 scent you like!
Sandra, I'll admit I'm sort of confused — you specifically asked for recommendations from niche brands you might not be familiar with, and indicated that you didn't mind buying samples online so access wasn't a problem for you. I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding and you were actually hoping for more mainstream recommendations.
From an email from Gregorio:
I apologize for have taken so long to respond, but do have a final answer, I have chosen to stick wtih L'Instant du Guerlain Pour Homme. After weeks and weeks of visiting stores I would have never walked into – Niche stores in the village, Bergdorf's and Sak's on 5th – I became wildly informed on fragrances and disconcertingly comfortable in these stores. Perhaps my favorite part of the experience was walking into stores where the key demographic seemed to be +60, European women and seeing the staff's look of disdain turn to amazement when I knew the difference between L'Artisan Navegar and Divine's L'Homme Sage.
In any case, after much deliberation I narrowed it down to Thierry Mugler A* Men and the L'Instant. I honestly liked the TM a tinge better but felt that the Guerlain was something I could wear for many more years to come. I love my new fragrance and consistently got compliments on it, that is until I tried to bring it on a plane over fall break only to see it confiscated by a large heavy-set Airport Security officer. So I am now waiting to garner enough beer money to replace my bottle.
Thanks again Robin, and thank you everybody for their feedback,
Gregorio Urbina
L'Instant de Guerlain Pour Homme
Gregorio, thanks for sending the feedback, and so sorry your Guerlain was confiscated!!! Hope you'll snag another bottle soon.
I hope that at least the large heavy-set Airport Security officer is wearing your beloved scent. ;~)
I like the women's L'Instant…must try the men's next time I am in Sephora, which may well be later today.
Oh my gosh, that's heartbreaking that airport security took your L'Instant away — “… but … but … that's my HOLY GRAIL, officer!” I hope you doused yourself and all your belongings in it before it was confiscated.
For my audience I admit I try to review niche frags because you do not find them easily. Going to a big department store and get mainstream frags is possible for the most of the readers, but it is maybe more important to inform about things that do not get so much PR / attention / advertisement.
It's all personal taste of course, but II like the men's better than the women's. Wonder how they'd be layered?
I would've been so tempted to break the bottle and pour its contents into my carry-on…
You can have my l'instant when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!!
Hey this is neat- I hope a bunch of folks fess up! Jenny! Glad you found a winner!
Hi guys, it's Zoe. Great idea for a feedback thread! Robin, sorry if I ignored your email, it must have got lost in my inbox, which is a mess these days.
The monday mail feature left me with 60-odd recommendations for a heavier evening scent, and I've made a proper dent in my to-try-list. Can't say I've found any single scent I'll stick to for a significant amount of time, but I must say that the recommendations I received helped shape the “education” of my nose. It's now perhaps easier for me to say what will and won't work for me – AND I've come to appreciate things I didn't before. For me, half the fun is in the exploring anyway, so I'm chuffed.
The greatest winners from the suggestions so far have been Parfum Sacré and Ambre Sultan, both of which perform admirably in colder weather. Perhaps the Sacré is a tad soapy for my taste, but I still love it. Completely unrelated finds since that cry for help have included CdG Ouarzazate, Diptyque Tam Dao (yes, done a complete 180 on that one, /and/ on woody fragrances in general), OJ Woman and Hermès Equipage. Also, completely against my own better judgment, I've been seeking out indie lines with mixed results. I've tried samples from Ava Luxe (50-50 love-hate) and Possets (don't sit right on me, somehow), and have an order from Andy Tauer coming in as we speak.
So I consider it a success story: I have gained a lot of knowledge on my likes and dislikes, and have succeeded in challenging my own tastes. Perhaps the notion of finding one scent to stick with is a vain enterprise in my case, anyway.
Thanks for all the feedback!
It is ALL about layering for me, Robin. '~)
I checked at my local Sephora while I was in there today, but they didn't have it. I will check at the other Sephora I go to occasionally and see if they have it, next time I am there. Or maybe my Nordstrom's has it? I didn't check today…too short on time.
So cool that you have discovered the joy of playing with scent! Have fun, Zoe!
Zoe, thanks so much for checking in! Actually I think the coolest thing is that you mentioned Tam Dao as a no, and now you love it — plus Ouarzazate, which is another of my own favorites. That's great that you challenged your own tastes.
And for anyone who missed it, Zoe also left a detailed update at the end of the comments to her post giving individual feedback on many of the scents that were recommended by readers.
I can't remember if my Nordstrom has them. I know Neiman Marcus does.
Hi everyone, this is Namita. Thanks so much for the recommendations- they really helped in making me better versed in what's out there. But more importantly, what I found after trying them was that none of them compared to Bond No 9 Chinatown (which I was already wearing. Not to beat a dead horse, but this is my HG fragrance). So after having tested all the frags on my list, I started trying to come up with ways of making Chinatown smell the way I wanted it to smell. I devised a way of spraying it that countered the top notes, and BAM. I had what I wanted. My perfect fragrance. The poll really helped though, because I was exposed to a LOT of frags I had never tried before, and a lot that I may consider sometime in the future if I ever get tired of CT. But thanks to everyone who made me sure that I loved what I already had.
Hello, everybody, this is Julie. A big thanks to all who offered up suggestions for my quest for a holy grail fragrance. I've been trying as many of the recommendations as I can, and so far the front runner is Andy Tauer, both L'Air du Desert Marocain and Lonestar Memories.
But I have to say, the search goes on, because I'm having too much fun with it!
Namita, thanks so much for chiming in, and that's a kind of cool ending — you stuck with your HG!
Julie, thanks for the update! Very interesting — I can see how you might go from Obsession to the Desert Marocain especially. And I like Lonestar Memories too!
There is a NM by my other Sephora store. I will check there. Thanks!
Zoe, I love how this turned out for you! It is funny how we can scoff at a scent, revisit later and love it!
And I feel like I have won a piece of trivial pursuit pie for recommending the Parfum Sacre…
You know, the saddest thing is that it's so wasteful — I asked one time when something of mine was confiscated, and the guard said all the stuff ends up in a warehouse. It makes me wonder if they're off and selling our stuff on ebay!! Or whether it's all just going to rot. I was very nervous the last time I travelled and only put tiny samples sizes in my carry-on, and was afraid for my FBs in luggage.
I don't carry FB's in my luggage anymore. When I travel, I carry one bottle that's nearly gone so if it breaks or is confiscated, it's no big deal.