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've sent out emails requesting feedback from everyone who took part between September and December of 2012, so check back over the next few days to see what we can find out (or, check out this post about the subjects from May through August). We'll check on the early 2013 participants in a few months.
Here are links to the articles for each participant:
Candice, Tiffany, Elena, Lauren, Gabby, Michele, Jennifer, Kathie, Kirsten, Catherine, Nikki, Kisa, Melissa, Liz, Pamela
Note: image "Letter box in a house-wall of San Giorgio in the community Resia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy" by Johann Jaritz, via Wikimedia.
I wanted to thank everyone who responded to me. I got about 10-15 samples from the suggestions immediately after my turn, and sampled one or two… unfortunately for perfume sniffing, but happily in every other respect, I was in my first trimester of pregnancy with my second child, so my sense of smell was incredibly sensitive, and I HATED almost everything that I wasn’t already used to. I stopped testing new things to avoid forming negative associations since so much made me feel sick. I’ve only begun wearing perfume again in the last few weeks. It’s nice to have quite a few samples just waiting for me to test when I’m sure my nose is back to normal!
Congrats on your pregnancy, that’s great!
yes, congratulations to you!
Ah, fun for a dreary Monday–getting to relive the (enormous) fun of Monday Mail!
In final tally, you guys were AMAZINGLY generous with your encyclopedia perfume knowledge, offering about 125 individual recs (not counting general suggestions of lines to try and discovery sets!) Of these, I’ve sniffed about 75 so far. I think that probably means the big winners in my Monday Mail bingo card were the ones who predicted that what I’d like more than anything is the hunt
Solanace, Alyssa, gvillecreative, JolieFleurs, and austenfan: well-spotted!
The continuing hunt of course has not stopped me from finding many individual things to love along the way! Some of these hew pretty closely to what I was envisioning (something warm and alluring but edged up a bit, thus a little more adult, self-possessed); others are quite different from what I had in mind (mostly in terms of being gentler or more cheerful), yet I love them nevertheless! Some of my favorites, along with credit for the picks:
* Bvlgari Black – Sweetgrass
* Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur – Cybele, friede, CM, and dolcesarah
* Frederic Malle En Passant – Alyssa
* Gucci by Gucci – Sapphire
* Jo Malone Blackberry & Bay – Lucy
* L’Artisan Dzing! – sweetgrass
* Le Labo Rose 31 – sugarvenom
* Maison Francis Kurkdijan Lumiere Noir pour femme – Squirrely
* Bottega Veneta Eau Legere – the original was lusher than I could handle but the love it garnered from Kristinacologne, Helenviolette, Alyssa, Lucy, Sapphire, pampampam, and CM made me think I should def take a run at the Eau Legere to see if that could be “my” BV and I’m so glad I did!
* Ormonde Jayne Champaca – for this credit goes to Alyssa, gvillecreative, and austenfan who suggested the OJ discovery set, which was a big winner!
And as I say, I’ve got another 50 recs to try, so I send my heartfelt, on-going thanks to everyone for providing so many wonderful scents to occupy myself with. Really I can’t tell you what it’s meant to me. Very gratefully yours–C
75 — kudos, that’s amazing! And sounds like it panned out, so that’s great. Thanks for the feedback.
Turns out perfume hunting is highly compatible with the migration patterns of the urban grad student
Trick is to find libraries or cafes to work in near well-stocked department stores–then you can get two on the way in in the morning and two more on the way out at night. You can smell a lot of perfume pretty fast that way!
(And in all seriousness I find having an unfamiliar scent on my wrist tends to make me more alert and able to keep my butt in my chair working for longer, so, my dissertation also thanks everyone for their assistance!)
I went to grad school in the wrong place, LOL…
Haha. We all make mistakes! … don’t tell anyone but I actually lived in Paris for the better part of three years without trying even one perfume. Tragic!
Thanks for reporting back. It’s nice to see that this was such a success for you.
Thanks so much for your input! The OJ set has really been so wonderful, awesome suggestion.
I’m just sorry that I wasn’t quicker on the draw with my list so more of the people I’m indebted to might have seen the update!