Sondra wants to find a new perfume with “significant green notes and some floral notes”. She can spend up to $150, and while she doesn’t have great access to perfume shops, buying online and sampling through decants is her usual method of trying fragrances anyway. Here is what we know about Sondra:

She’s a therapist in her early 50s.

She’s an outdoorsy person who would rather spend a day hiking or with a book than at the mall or indoors.

Most of her clothes come second-hand, partially because she likes the aesthetic of gently used things. Her favorite articles of clothing are preppy, but not in a polished, chirpy way, more in a slightly worn and comfortably rumpled way.

Sondra likes galbanum, rose, hawthorn, lilac and heliotrope…

Read the rest of this article »

We’ve cleared through the waiting list for the Monday Mail — if you’d like other Now Smell This readers to help you find a new fragrance, this is a great time to sign up.

Today we’re helping Eleni, who was a subject in the Monday Mail back in 2011, and says she absolutely adored the experience and discovered some real gems. She’s since gone through a difficult breakup and wants to find some new perfumes that don’t have any “olfactory baggage”. She’d like to find an optimistic but sultry “let’s start afresh” fragrance, ideally one that can transition from day to evening wear. If money were no object, Amouage Epic and Opus IV come close to what she wants, but she can’t afford them (she can pay up to about €120). Here is what we know about Eleni:

She’s in her late 20s, and living and working in Bucharest, Romania. She’s a freelance theater director and also a stage manager at the National Opera…

Read the rest of this article »

Today we’re helping Chelsea, who wants to find a replacement for her everyday signature scent, Miss Dior Chérie, which she does not love so much since they reformulated it — she liked the original 2005 version, and she’s hoarding what she has left. She can pay up to $150, and would love to find something unique, but she doesn’t yet know much about notes. She’s interested in learning about chypre fragrances, peony, vetiver and suede.

Chelsea is in her early 20s, and is majoring in marketing at Clemson University.

She was raised in the South, and will be moving to New York City when she graduates.

She loves travel and trying new things, and being different from the crowd, and she would like her scent to reflect that.

Chelsea likes fruits (orange), florals (jasmine and rose), musk, amber, patchouli and sandalwood…

Read the rest of this article »

The Monday Mail is recovered from the holidays and back in action: today we’re helping Andrea, who currently wears Prada Infusion d’Iris for work, but wants to find a fun signature scent for her off-duty hours. She has reasonably good access to perfume stores and can spend up to $150. Here is what we know about Andrea:

She’s in her mid-30s, and owns a funeral home with her husband in a small town in Ontario. She also has a 3 year old daughter who already loves smelling perfumes with Mommy.

Andrea loves fashion and beauty, and is currently a lifestyle columnist for her town’s newspaper. She says she is artsy yet practical, and loves to write but would never have the patience for a novel. If she’s not dressed for a funeral (in dresses, not suits!), she’s wearing jeans, cool boots and a novelty t-shirt.

She also enjoys cooking and wine – and working out, as a result!

Their lifestyle is a little eccentric, and they don’t fall into the sad, somber stereotype of funeral directors. They’re young and they like to do fun things, like enter floats in the town’s Santa Claus parade, play badminton and tennis, do karaoke, and participate in small-town life.

Most of Andrea’s collection is gourmand; they tend to work great with her body chemistry…

Read the rest of this article »

This will be the last Monday Mail for 2013 — it’s about to take its annual holiday break. If you want to get on the waiting list for January, follow the instructions here.

Today we’re helping Paula. She wants to find a signature fragrance — she likes the concept, but she also has Asperger’s syndrome, and that has complicated her search. Price is not important so long as it doesn’t get Clive-Christian-spendy. Here is what we know about Paula and her scent preferences:

She’s in her late 50s, and her clothing style is usually soft knits with dramatic jewelry.

She describes herself as intense and introverted.

She is fascinated by perfumes, and loves to sample new scents, but is prone to sensory overload…

Read the rest of this article »