However it's interesting that wearing the same fragrance year in and year out can also be ageing. Why? Well, because it evokes a faint mustiness that is anything but youthful. It also deprives you of the energy and buzz that wearing a new scent may bring to you especially when others pick up on it.
— Who knew? Read more at Ageing disgracefully, fragrance at Australia's Herald Sun.
“Most of us discover a new fragrance with every decade”–maybe, if decade = ten days…
Lol! Where is that “like” button? 🙂
Which means, if you follow the logic of the article, that most of us are (look? seem? smell?) incredibly young.
So if you wear several frags a day as a result of sampling, is that equivalent to discovering the fountain of youth? I look back on my first fragrance love–Givenchy’s Fleur d’Interdit which I got for my seventeenth birthday–with a lot of love and awe at the simple prettiness of that fragrance and think it has still held up pretty well.
I don’t know… A casual friend of mine in her mid-fifties wears Poison and says she has been doing so since it came out, and I aspire to be even a wee bit as fun and vivacious when I’m her age. 🙂
And I have to disagree with the quote about Joy. It certainly isn’t just ‘another floral scent’ to me, but one that still smells absolutely gorgeous and romantic with few to rival it even now.
Joy is a masterpiece 🙂
Well, no wonder time seems to be just wizzing by – I’m living my decades in month long cycles, lol. I think I just living three decades in two weeks. Maybe that should be the new quarterly report: how many decades have you lived this quarter?
Narcisco Rodrigues for Her and Mitsouko? Not seeing that comparison.
Nor am I! And having trouble with the idea of Je Reviens being forgettable, then recommending you try Lady Million. Ha.
I snickered at those particular comments as well!
I’d have to guess that the author of that article timidly raised her hand when the editor shouted at a room full of writers, “Who likes Perfume!? We need a Perfume Article!!”. 🙂
LOL…probably.
Unless the perfume smells musty, how can it create an air of mustiness. Oh, and the only perfume I know of which claims to have a slightly musty air is “In the LIbrary” by CB I Hate Perfume (which I have not smelled so I am only going by the copy) which is considered a very modern innovative scent.
Outside of perfumanista circles, most people haven’t a clue as to whether a fragrance is modern, several decades old, or a classic. (If I just bought some Shalimar, and the scent is new to me, is thay “musty”?)
People don’t say, “gee she (or he) is wearing a perfume developed in the 80’s, how dated, how musty.?”
People will either notice that (1) you are wearing too much perfume (which they probably would think if you were wearing too much silage or simply wearing a scent they don’t like) (2) you smell good (3) you seem to wearing something which smells good; (4) you smell like a strawberry or (5) you are a teen age boy who should stop wearing Axe or (6) you are a teen age boy who should learn that Axe is not a replacement for soap
What she said!
You expressed my opinion entirely.
LOL #5 & #6 !!!! 😀 😀
A new exciting smell can always spark excitement. I am not sure it will make you younger, but if it makes you feel younger than that may be all you need.
I think trying anything new can spark excitement and make you feel younger. I know so many people who are totally set in their ways and only wear, eat, read, watch, listen to, visit, and do the same (usually limited range of) things that they have been doing for years. These people really do seem old (and boring) to me.
Wow! If every fragrance I discover added ten years to my age, I’d be more ancient than the entire cast of True Blood!
That being said, I understand what the author means. There is something like “L’Air du Temps”, not so much the Nina Ricci fragrance but the spirit of the year captured in a fragrance released that year. It may not change much year-on-year, but after a few years a new wind blows from somewhere and the atmosphere changes.
For example, my beloved Hypnotic Poison has moments when it feels like 1998 instead of 2010. Not the Eau Sensuelle. Altough I still prefer the original HP, it’s the Eau Sensuelle that draws compliments nowadays.
Still, if the fragrance suits you, I doubt there will truly be an air of mustiness no matter how classical the fragrance is. You just may feel that way, in which case by all means go and buy yourself something modern. It costs less than any plastic surgery 🙂
Hello Nile Goddess,
I have been wearing HP since November 1998 and it is probably in my top five fragrances of all time. I am curious about HP Eau Sensuelle, could you perhaps compare the two? Also, where did you purchase HPES? Thanks in advance for your reply.
Ni Bear,
Me too got HP for Christmas in 1998 and have been wearing it ever since.
Eau Sensuelle is practically a different fragrance. It has an exotic floral note (I always think of Euphoria but no idea why since I don’t wear that one) a potent orchid note that dominates the first 4 hours, with a bit of non-foody vanilla and some vague hint of the original in the background. Eventually the original HP takes over but it’s a lot more ethereal rather than potent and sexy. It didn’t replace the original HP in my affections but it is a very modern and wearable fragrance and I got too many compliments wearing it to count.
Actually I wear this to work because it’s more elegant than provocative. Monica Bellucci is the right image – a gorgeous, mature, extravagant woman, too confident to be provocative but managing to turn every head nonetheless 😉
Oh, and I bought it in Europe, on the Prague airport.
Thanks Nile Goddess!
Hopefully it will make its way to the USA.
::Insert Bronx cheer here:: I think the writer was told by her editor to fit in the names of as many brand new (boring-derivative-fruity-floral-screechy-fresh) releases as possible in order to please the advertisers.
Yep, as well as to make readers feel bad about themselves if they don’t go out and buy a new bottle of something.
She lost me the first time she wrote ‘Narcissco Rodrigues’ (it’s spelt that way twice therefore not a typo). And then…, ‘At a recent event, former Miss Universe, Jennifer Hawkins not only picked up on it but told me that it is her favourite scent too you can hardly get a better recommendation than that.’ LOL!
LOL…I was meaning to make sure that Jennifer Hawkins liked my perfume 😉
She desperately needs a copy editor! “With a corset-clad Kate Moss the poster girl for the scent and making love on a bed of roses on the gobsmacking cinema commercial Parisienne has been described as the perfume for those who adopt the city of love but are not necessarily from there.” Huh?
“Has been described”
… as in the ad copy, ha ha.