Perfume reviews
71 comments
·July 17, 2025ericmay
impish9208
Sounds like a product description out of the J. Peterman catalog.
Lorca wrote here, Picasso sketched here, Buñuel and Dali schemed to shock the world here. Even today, you'll still find ideas hanging in the air at Madrid's Cafe Gijon-along with the pungent smoke of Ducados.
Stir sugar into your cortado and watch the room unfold in the nearest mirror. There are so many, reflecting into each other, you can see everything from one spot.
Are those young ladies debating García Márquez? It's perfectly acceptable to stroll over and get involved. All it takes is confidence-and this jacket. Spanish Café Linen Blazer.jfengel
Huh. Sounds like a pleasant smell, but not something I'd want as a perfume.
The way I see it, perfumes should replace your scent. They should complement it. They should go together like wine and food.
Axe Body Spray covers your natural scent -- the entire marketing is "You smell bad so you should smell like something else". That's how we've marketed fragrance in the US since forever. Somebody finally figured out that we could sell it to boys as well as to adult women.
dylan604
Absolutely. What the scent smells like in the bottle, or on a wafting stick, or on the forearm of the sales assistant letting you sniff like you're Clark Griswald does not tell you how it will smell on yourself or the person you are buying it for. I've spent quite a bit of time around "scents", and there have been several that I was unsure about until after trying them on for a bit.
ericmay
Yes for this specific perfume, that was my impression as well. Not something I’d want to wear, but fascinating and accurate nonetheless.
lelandfe
(you probably meant should not replace your scent)
eej71
Interesting! Good to see they have a sampler pack one can buy for a reasonable [1] price.
https://www.orizaparfums.com/en/ultimateproduct/170/coffret-...
[1] reasonable within the context of their prices... YMMV.
the__alchemist
Thx; ordered 6 somewhat arbitrarily; not omitting the OP's one. Came out to 60 Eur with shipping to USA.
ericmay
If you purchase I’ll be curious about your thoughts. I have no affiliation with the shop.
ggm
My partner complains that the economics of scent mean your signature smell can be deleted on a whim. She fell in love with a very unlikely scent, got 10 years, it's gone. It's actually happened twice to her, and these are not marginal brands either, Cacharel and Beckham, who (probably because they are ruthless with otherwise underperforming product) prune their range.
If the containers were uniform, it could be a robot production line and small runs wouldn't be an issue given the inputs are somewhat universal.
It's paint blending for the nose.
"War paint" (2003) by Liny Woodhead about Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden is a fascinating read. It was a book before a stage production.
bravura
1) Internet commentary is generally pretty low quality, but perfume nerds seem categorically to all be the most interesting person you would ever invite to a party: https://basenotes.com/fragrances/no-5-by-chanel.10210628
every single comment on that website is amazing.
2) I hate perfume. I met an avant garde perfumist called Christopher Brosius (label: "I hate perfume") and waited 20 years to buy his samples. They are AMAZING. So approachable. Everyone who has let me dab with his fragrances has been blown away. "In the library" smells like old books. "Wild hunt" has rotten leaves as an ingredient. "Walking on air" smells like fresh cut grass. I hate perfume but I am obsessed with his smells: https://www.cbihateperfume.com/
Scene_Cast2
Oh, perfumes are a great hobby. If you're in SF or LA, definitely hit up one of the boutique perfume shops (Scent Bar and Ministry of Scent).
There are also bunch of sellers who package samples (aka "decants" - buy a 100mL, split it into smaller bottles). I found that 1-2mL is plenty to get an idea. I've had great experience with LuckyScent (mentioned in the article), Surrender to Chance, as well as random reddit swaps and highly rated Ebay sellers.
The perfume scene is super wide and diverse, and I found that although there are general trends, it's hard to even know all the popular brands, and everyone's nose is unique. Skip stuff like Aventus and Sauvage and buy some discovery sets (surrender to chance puts together some good ones).
There is definitely a spectrum between "wearable crowd-pleaser" and "avant-garde storytelling" - Afrika-Olifan comes to mind - love it for the creativity and execution, but it would be rude to go outside wearing it. There's also some storytelling - Black March, for example, starts off with grassy fresh earth after a rain, then turns into flowers.
mk_stjames
Sometimes this website feels like Adderall is somehow being directly rendered into Source Serif type, displayed through the browser.
Clamchop
Perfumery is much maligned and misunderstood. It is, ultimately, an art form, a kind of human expression like music or painting, that is rarely appreciated as such. Many would happily see it banned, knowing nothing about it other than that some people wear too much. That'd be like banning music because your neighbor's TV is too loud.
Lucky Scent (mentioned in this article) has a boutique in LA. If you're nearby, you can go in and sample to your heart's content. Perfume boutiques are unfortunately rare but most large cities will have something and they're accessible and inviting in my experience. There really is a _lot_ more out there than what a Sephora or Macy's will ever show you.
Nice article. He correctly notes that vocabulary for describing odors is limited for most so reviews and descriptions trend quite "purple" and abstract. There is a vocabulary, though, but it'd take some time spent with some books and a perfume organ to make progress on that front.
lmm
> Many would happily see it banned, knowing nothing about it other than that some people wear too much. That'd be like banning music because your neighbor's TV is too loud.
Eh, we get pretty angry about people going around with music in public spaces (and tend to require licensing for it) and I think we're right to.
nick__m
I belong to the ban perfume group. I am allergic to most of them, it feels like someone is hitting me from inside my sinuses. And it is not because someone wears to much or smell to intensely either. Sometimes I barely smell it but it feels equally violently bad.
I wish I knew what is so irritating in so many perfume so I could militate to have that substance banned instead of being in the no perfume militia!
jsbg
> And it is not because someone wears to much or smell to intensely either. Sometimes I barely smell it but it feels equally violently bad.
I don't understand how this is distinguishable from random smells going about life, like traffic, fresh rain, flowers, cooking, grass, etc.
o11c
For me at least, most of the other debilitating chemicals appear in predictable and semi-avoidable contexts.
Traffic chemicals appear strongest on busy motorways with stagnant air, where people outside of cars don't spend much time.
Flower chemicals can cause problems but usually dissipate within 10 feet or so.
Fresh rain primarily eliminates free-floating chemical attacks and does not cause one itself.
Cooking is self-regulating because the person actively triggering the chemical emission is exposed much more strongly than people elsewhere even in the same room.
Grass can only be crudely avoided or mitigated during the seasons where it's problematic. (Thank God for COVID bringing awareness that masks make it physically easier to breathe.)
But perfume? You never know when you'll run across a person who chooses to be a targeted, walking violation of the Hague Convention. There's no way to mitigate this other than avoiding people entirely (which some people do choose to do, but which has negative side effects).
That said, in recent years I find the perfume from cleaning supplies or laundry supplies to be more problematic than the perfume from people.
CrazyStat
I’ve had allergic reactions to perfume twice in my life, years apart. Both times it became very difficult to breathe, like an asthma attack. Both times it was very clear exactly which person’s perfume was triggering it. Both times it resolved within a few minutes of leaving the room to get some fresh air. The first time I wasn’t completely sure what had happened, so I went back in and experienced the exact same thing twice more before giving up. The second time I was wiser.
It would be extremely annoying if that was a regular occurrence. Luckily I only seem to be sensitive to something rarely used.
kulahan
It isn’t, but it seems less necessary, so it’s easier to single it out
michaelcampbell
VOC's?
viraptor
You can go to an allergy specialist to not only identify what exactly affects you, but likely also try to reverse the problem.
o11c
"Reverse the problem" is severely overstated. Admittedly it can be useful for people with potentially-fatal allergies, but otherwise it's often the equivalent of building scar tissue.
AnimalMuppet
My wife and at least one of my children are sensitive to perfume. They get headaches, at a minimum.
A bit east of Elkhart Indiana, there's a place that claims to sell "natural perfume". Does anyone who is perfume-sensitive have any experience with that? Is it possible that the chemicals used in "non natural perfume" are at the root of the sensitivity? (I haven't dared to test it on my wife, so I'd be interested in any reports.)
sharphall
It's unlikely "natural" has anything to do with it. Compounds that occur naturally are often synthesized, but it's the same molecule as found in nature. (example: vanillin) There are some scent molecules that are totally new and not found in nature outside of our production, but "naturally occurring" is a broad category that can include all sort of things individuals are likely to be sensitive to even after removing all the "natural" chemicals that are actual poison.
zdragnar
Plenty of essential oils (what tends to be used in these) are aggressively irritating unless diluted to people without allergies. Even when diluted, I am allergic to some, and my wife is allergic to others, though we get different symptoms than "unnatural" perfumes.
Instead of migraines, it's closer to hay fever type allergies.
ujkhsjkdhf234
Do you get this feeling from scented soaps as well? If not, I wonder if you having a reaction to the alcohol in perfume.
nick__m
Most of them but not all of them. Dove and even Irish spring us ok (not that it smell great) however my wife had to throw away many fancier soaps she received from a cosmetics sampler subscription.
Essential Oils like fir needles, black spruce, orange, rosemary... don't affect me, I even like them (but I find lavender repulsive but it's not hurtful).
And I don't feel like going to an allergy specialist for something as superficial as this is a good use of my time since my coworker, friends and family are not into perfume.
cyberax
Scent is a unique sense, it is not decomposable.
Taste is just a combination of 5 basic tastes, vision is a combination of 3 primary colors, etc.
function_seven
While (human) vision is 3 colors, reviews of visual arts obviously can't just describe the colors of the thing. It also has shape, depth, style, etc.
Food reviewers don't note the levels of salt, sour, etc. They describe flavors and textures and parings.
But also, I don't buy that taste is just the composition of 5 components. This sounds like a reference to that diagram of the tongue we've all seen. It's as complex as scent is. There's no way you can define the taste of cinnamon by specifying some sort of 5-tuple.
kulahan
I believe he is correct. The misunderstanding is from the old chart that showed certain tastes were only detected by certain parts of the tongue.
It’s still true that we can only taste salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. All other flavor complexities come from scent simultaneously giving us information. It’s why everything tastes so boring when you have a head cold.
BurningFrog
Scent is part of the taste experience, despite being produced in the nose.
Food also has a universe of possible consistencies.
brokencode
Scent is decomposable. There are many different scent receptors, but finite.
Hearing is quite similar in that there are numerous different length hairs in the ear drum that can sense different frequencies of sound.
cyberax
There are anywhere between 200 and 400 scent receptors in humans.
Sure, this is a finite number, but for practical purposes it's not really decomposable.
viraptor
There is a huge number of olfactory sensory cell types, but it's all still decomposable. Smell is not unique here.
tmp10423288442
@gwern, did you mess up your inflation calculation here?
> I couldn’t get all the ones Nguyen highlighted from LuckyScent and some sampler packs were sold out, but I settled for 39 samples total on 8 February 2021. (Which cost $153 [2021; $190 in 2025], so amortizing to $3.90 [2011; $6.03 in 2025] each.) At that point I felt I had gone a bit overboard, so I didn’t do an additional order from CB I Hate Perfume, which Nguyen praises for doing the most interesting ‘abstract’ perfumes, to pick up ones that LuckyScent didn’t have in stock.
AYBABTME
I spend a lot of time in Seoul and there's an entire street in the Sinsa neighborhood dedicated to perfumes and scents. A lot of experimental work going on, it's kind of fun. Worth a try if you come by.
DobarDabar
This is the weirdest thing to see here. However, if you want to fix nose-blindness, just smell into coffee beans. Most perfumeries have a glass of coffee beans.
harimau777
If anyone's looking for suggestions, I'm a fan of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab:
spapas82
I used to try and buy a lot of perfumes some years ago. Unfortunately I concluded that it isn't really worth it since beyond some classics (Fahrenheit , terre d Hermes, declaration, narcisso for him, dior home, ysl m7, armani code, zv this is him, ck eternity, chanel egoiste platinum and of course aventus) there aren't many truly unique scents. Most perfumes try to copy another existing, mass appealing one.
Also male perfume nowadays is either too weak or too sweet (or too expensive if you go the niche route). So either I'll wear a perfume that will smell for 30 minutes and nobody will notice or I'll bite the bullet and wear a club perfume that will suffocate people (and not even smell good).
bboygravity
Maybe try a Montale? Pretty sure that doesn't smell even remotely close to anything you mentioned there and definitely also not sweet at all.
te_chris
+1 for Terre de Hermes and Dior Homme parfum
tpm
Yeah the sweetness is a real issue but there are a lot of niche fragrances that don't follow these trends. And it's still possible to find powerfull stuff too, doesn't have to be that expensive.
There is lots of interesting brands that don't go for mass appeal, for example Pineward.
v5v3
Most will be aware, but Basenotes is a leading community for this https://basenotes.com/community/
One of the coolest perfumes I’ve come across is Relique d’Amour by Oriza Legrand https://www.orizaparfums.com/en/eaux-de-parfums/20-relique-d...
Here’s the description:
When I visited the site in Paris, which was a lovely experience, we did sample this perfume among others and were quite impressed. Something weird happened in America, maybe the Axe Body Spray takeover, where at least those with a working class upbringing thumbed our noses at such frivolous things but now I have come to appreciate fragrance a bit more.Funny enough, we actually randomly had dinner with the founder of a perfume shop who was visiting Paris with his wife and it was fascinating to learn a bit about the industry.