Heya Perfume Posse, I was reading through Posse back catalogue today and was laughing to myself at this wonderful Candy FAIL post by March in Feb 2010. Basically the premise for the post was that once a frag house had released a couple of stunning fragrances are the ensuing ones bound to be fragrance failures by comparison. GENIUS! We have all had it happen, loved the first and second release from a house only to be massively underwhelmed by the next or the flanker or whatever. Maybe a blogger was raving about something and when you went and tried it the frag was putrid for you, or cheap ingredients, lasted 20 seconds or maybe it was nothing like what you read, maybe they was just fragrance failures….
Fragrance Failures, let us bitch.
Photo Stolen Flickr
So now is the time where you can vent your fragrance failures, no one will take offense, everything works differently and on different levels for everyone. We are not here to just say Blah Blah is a piece of shit, I want backup. Why didn’t it work for you? Did it smell like oven cleaner, budget mall scent, dog vomit or unwashed ballbag? What note punched you in the face or screamed at you for hours? I want a tirade.
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Gris Montaigne Dior: Yes I know so many of you loved this but on my skin it was a sticky, sweet, yucky hot mess fragrance failures. The berries that aren’t even in the notes list screamed at me and buzzed out my olfactory bulb before turning into a blah symphony of laundry fabric softener. Two hours of fine fragrance skin time wasted.
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Lotus Blossom and Water Lily Jo Malone: Another well loved fragrance that smells absolutely and utterly toxic on me. Considering how light and water logged it is you think it would be easy to ignore. NOT SO! It thrummms in my nose and gives me an almost instant headache while smelling like mosquito repellant. I think it singes my nostril hairs too. Thank goodness in under an hour Lotus Blossom and Water Lily has completely disappeared from my skin. Small mercy, very grateful.
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Cartier L’Heure Folle X: I have L’Heure Convoiteé II and Jin adores L`Heure Brilliant VI and both are absolutely spectacular for us. L’Heure Folle X is a serious one of my fragrance failures though (as it was for March, how I found this post of hers. She writes: There is an unfortunate canned-grapefruit note (sour/metallic) on my skin I can’t quite get past. If you’ve ever eaten tinned citrus you know what I’m talking about.) L’Heure Folle X starts out fabulous, cold, metallic and fresh like snow in your mouth but very soon it all turns queer and I couldn’t place what was irking me till I read March’s review. It smells like canned citrus from a VERY old can. Ptomaine poisoning anyone?
Should you wish to try any of these for yourselves do pop over to Surrender To Chance
There, I have outed them. Three fragrance failures that violently disagree with me. I am lucky that usually I can smell anything, anytime, no worries but sadly these three do not sit well at all. If you liked this then come on over to Australian Perfume Junkies. We love International Visitors, say HI while you’re there. XX
What are your SCARILICIOUS fragrance failures that send you scrubbing?
Portia xx
That S perfume one is one I want to try (supposedly signed by Sophie Grojsman ) . I never knew that there were two (2 ???) 100% LOVE fragrances . Awhile back unknowing this pertinent bit of info I bid upon and bought a full bottle of 100%Love ….. by Rampage.
Not the same .AT. ALL. the Rampage one is a very soft fruity-floral-musk . Think Burberry woman or Fancy Love and go SOFTER. Sorta osmanthus-y musk I guess.No chocolate fighting roses dissonance. phooey!
BUMMER! Naughty of them t5o re-use names Jennifer Smith. How annoyting.
Portia xx
I’m late to this party but the worst for me have been:
Olympic Orchid Kyphi – I was actually emotionally scarred by it. I have never had a perfume trigger a panic attack like that before and I have no idea why it was such a problem but it is in a baggie and properly isolated now.
Lonestar Memories – I’ m so glas Texas doesn’t smell like that. I would have to move.
S perfumes 100% Love – Sooooo gross. Rotten banana pudding with cheap cherry car deodorizer. Truly awful. I think someone else mentioned the vomit note and I have to agree this one has it all.
WOW! Super strong reactions LizK,
Yes, though I adore Lonestar Memories and had a bottle it is certainly a polarising fragrance.
Portia x
By Kilian Back to Black is a failure on me and my daughter both. I can remember receiving the sample set that Kilian sent out to those who registered with them through their Facebook page. We eagerly sat on the sofa, read the descriptions and agreed that BtoB was definitely the first fragrance to try. We spritzed and joyfully sniffed for about 2 to 3 minutes. Oohing and ahhing and then…. The sweet, spicy, balsamic scent turned sour, rancid and worse. It smelled like honey mixed with rotting vinegar on our skin. We couldn’t run fast enough to the laundry room to reach for the Boraxo powdered soap to scrub it off. Not sure what note turns on my skin. But turn it does.
OOOOH, terrible shame. Back To Black is one of my two absolute favourite by Killians Tatiana.
It makes me laugh how many of you have trouble with some super winners from my skin, and still some people don’t believe chemistry plays a part.
Portia xx
A Lab on Fire’s Rose Rebelle (aka 100% Love). Vomit…and worse. Oddly, Rose Rebelle Respawn is a very well-behaved carnation/rose with hints of ivy and mint. Beauty and The Beast.
VOMIT!!!!
Outrageous Farouche. I am laughing.
Portia xx
Oh Lord… I had forgotten that Rose Rebelle was 100% Love… that one I liked for an hour, and then it was this horrid stabby dusty-patchouli beast.
One of my worst scent memories is from an early sampling spree that included one of Burberry’s women’s fragrances (I’ve blocked out the exact name). The stuff curdled into a horrendous synthetic fruity-floral foghorn on my skin; I scrubbed it off and tossed the vial in the kitchen wastebasket.
The next morning my entire kitchen smelled of the stuff (the vial wasn’t even broken or leaking). So I wrapped it in three or four layers of plastic bags, put tape around it, and put it in the trash bin in the garage.
I walked into my garage the next day and was greeted by a wave of… That Smell.
Fortunately the next day was garbage day, so I wheeled the bin to the end of the driveway and prayed that I wouldn’t be blacklisted by the trash collection company (I almost left a note apologizing to the truck driver about the smell).
No more Burberry for me, oh no, not ever.
Hilarious Stina.
Portia x
There are two that stick out in my mind – one a while back and one just recently.
The one a while back was Parfumerie Generale’s Bois de Copaiba. It smelled as though someone had regurgitated a Mexican meal on the floor of an already dirty public restroom and then tried to cover it up with a gallon of that ubiquitous orange industrial cleanser.
I sprinted for the bathroom and jumped in the shower to get rid of this monster. Afterwards, I double-Baggie’d the sample vial, put it in my car trunk and then deposited the baggie in a trash can at a local park.
Just a week or so ago, I tried a sample of Atelier’s Vanilla Insensee and while it wasn’t as violently ‘wrong’ as the Bois de Copaiba, it was urinous and rotten-smelling enough on me that I had to scrub it off immediately. This sample got the same double bagged, park trash can treatment.
Gladly I have tried neither of these Teri but they do sound entertaining.
LOVE your disposal method.
Portia xx
m/mink – URINE. unabashed pee pee. apparently the drydown is godsent. never made it that far.
this breaks my heart to say but most of the olympic orchid fragrances. i won’t even mention the fragrances out of respect to the perfumer. there’s something about the base that just smells cheap, shrieky & uncomfortable on my skin, like being asked to sit on a barstool in a very short skirt (stole that quote from the turin/sanchez book).
any of the sweet gourmand profumums that the boys sing about: confetto, acqua e zucchero, etc. holy sh*tballs. absolutely horrendous. i suppose growing up as a young girl, already having been exposed to body products & shampoo that smell like cotton candy, cheap milk chocolate & orange disinfectant, i have no desire to go back there. and OMG – they’re IMPOSSIBLE to scrub!!!
freshies of any sort. ugh. xerjoff’s nio & 1861 made me use the scrubbie part of the dish sponge along with dish soap – “out, out damn spot!!!” FOUL to my nose.
I do really love OO’s Ballets Rouges, but it seems very unlike the others I’ve tried from the house, which were all rather horrifyingly sweet on me.
I hate Prada Candy. It’s the only perfume I have ever actually hated. I never put a perfume on my skin without sniffing it first. I spray in the air or put it on something neutral. It disgusted me to the point of actual nausea! I don’t even know what it smelled like. The nausea was that strong. I checked again after a few days with the same result. Never did skin test it. I threw it in the garbage.
Interesting Maya,
There must be something, a chemical perhaps, that completely disagrees with you.
Portia xx
Howdy, Portia! I was sure I would find love with Byredo’s M/Ink, as I have been in the newspaper business for more than 25 years and ought to have at least a little ink in my veins. But nooooo … it turned out to be a sharp, nearly nausea-inducing chemical mess on my skin and I really had to scrub like the dickens to try to get rid of it. And still it lingered, so in desperation, I drowned it under no less than three other scents. Sheesh, even the memory of it is making me feel a bit queasy 🙁
Yes,
M/Mink is sometimes heaven and other times hell for me. Depends totally on its own mind too.
Portia xx
Also I had to pass along a purse flacon of vintage Jicky perfume. I just about hear the gasps and horror. ( hey stop now ! I passed it on to someone across the country who actually LIKES it. I didn’t throw it out.) well, Jicky was in the a bit too ,…um well it reminded me of visiting the zoo with the hay and a big load of herbivore manure ( not horse more likely giraffe or elephant) . Now I could sorta have worked on acquiring some appreciation for it and suss out various aspects of it to appreciate…but for one thing. One twenty plus pound thing. Who finds strong civet to be threatening to his rule of claw in the house. My boy kitty hated it. And he’d let me know.( massive amounts of laundry and some ruined shoes he’d let me know. ) it just wasn’t worth the difficulty level for a scent that wasn’t even quite a like at first sniff much less a Love. By the way my area has some well off retired folks. Thrift finds can be AWESOME! The Jicky perfume was only like $6 in box too! Currently miffed that someone’s upping the prices at one store, otherwise I’d’ve got a big almost full bottle of Guess in the twisty Hypnose style bottle. And a few others the Guess was about $40. Grrr.
Totally can understand that Jicky could be a problem, though fortunately she plays very nice on my skin.
Portia xx
And I assume that either your home is a cat less one or they don’t feel threatened by Jicky to the point of giving any examples of ” fresh civet”.
1) Van Cleef & Arpels Muguet Blanc was thoroughly nasty on me and I couldn’t find a washroom with soap to even try to wash it off. NOT my replacement for the old Dioressimo.
2) Fancy Nights smelled like a bad Emeraude and stank up my bath room for hours. I had to run out of the house and deposit it on a nearby bench because I was afraid the bottle would break in our dumpster.
OH NOOOOO AnnieA! I love Fancy Nights. What a shame it turned nasty on you.
Portia xx
I just put on some Inis Or for my scent of the evening before I started reading the blog here! On me, it smells good. There is a lot of citrus that might not agree with everyone.
MaryK,
Most of what people don’t get on with is PERFECT for the majority, that’s why it’s so amusing. Through this list I keep shaking my head because some people don’t get on with my faves. It’s all about chemistry.
I have a few things I didn’t get along with, though I don’t think I’ve had anything quite as bad as some of the previous posters.
1. Annick Goutal Folavril – this was just weird. It smelled like green beans (fresh ones, not canned, so I guess that’s something) with a touch of wet dog for good measure.
2. There was this obscure Irish brand that I tried in a shop that sold UK imports – Innis Or was the name – it smelled like I had just peed on my hand and tried to cover the smell with baby powder. Ick.
3. FM Noir Epices – Drydown smelled like overheated electrical equipment. And I smelled it while I was driving, so at first it had me in a panic thinking something was wrong with my car until I realized that the smell was coming from me.
4. SL De Profundis – I so wanted to get it, but all I smelled was Juicy Fruit gum.
5. TDC Rose Poivree – Was nice sniffing from the sample vial, but once I got it on my skin, it was a weird bait-and-switch where I thought I was getting roses and got melons instead. And a whole lotta skank. Not that I mind a bit of skank.. just not skanky melons.
Also, I totally though MKK smelled like unwashed ballsack when I smelled it on a blotter. Fares better on skin, I think.
Overheated electrical equipment!! Funny. I mean, not THEN… but now. 🙂
Oh it was funny then too, after that first initial moment of panic.
You know, I’ve been sampling things on a conscious self-educating basis for five years now, and I have this enormous stash of samples piling up at this point. I hardly ever throw any of them away unless it’s empty. I even kept a drop or two of the horrendous Secretions Magnifique (double-bagged and marked with USE EXTREME CAUTION). I have, however, thrown exactly two samples away: Hors le Monde Lady Shiloh*, which was unbelievably, horribly fecal, and Guerlain Insolence EdP, which shrieked at me like an entire parking lot full of blaring car alarms. I mean, seriously. If you’re familiar with Fwoopers from JK Rowling’s “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” well, Insolence was Fwooper song. I put that sample right into the garbage can outside. couldn’t stand having it in the house.
* I should have liked it. I generally like white florals – it wasn’t a case of that sort of thing being not MY sort of thing.
Recently, I tried Oriza L LeGrand’s sample set and disliked most of them, but I will say that Chypre Mousse, which has turned out to be the darling of fume bloggers all over, was so horribly vile on my skin that people would jerk their heads back from it. Heeeeedious, as dear March used to say. I mean, Holy Swamp Thing, was it laughably bad. Tania Sanchez used the phrase “staggered back spitting curses” in her review of PdN Fig Tea (which I got on fine with), and that perfectly describes what happened to me with Chypre Mousse. Rotting vegetation plus the dirt – not potting soil dirt but DIRTY dirt, a dank earthiness and a bitterness I can’t explain. I mean, horrid. Nightmare stuff.
holy cats and crackers, mals! You crack me UP! This was so funny I am tempted to fly (or drive. or walk) to your house and make you put it on, so I can have what you’re having!!!
xoxoA
Well, come on over! We have a new doggie… a rescue. 9 month old puppy (Lab mixed with… God only knows… SOME kind of scent hound, based on his behavior, possibly some pit bull, maybe a touch of German shepherd). Adorable. And exhausting.
I will put on the Chypre Mousse just for YOOOOU. And then I will write a review of it so everyone will know the horror. It’ll be like… like Frankenstein. Or Dark Shadows.
You girls! I WANT IN ON THAT AFTERNOON!!
Portia xx
Light Blue by D&G . What ?!? You say , that lovely light fresh little thing that You have and bought as gifts ? Yep. Noxious Stink Bomb from The Other Place that Ain’t Heaven. Mind I do have a mini ( came with a Sephora set that you could upgrade one to a full size ) kept for reference. Here’s my experience with it . I was minding my register at work and doing a bit of tasking right next to it ( security sensoring new product) when the door to the store opened about sixty feet away . Within a minute a strong chemical woodsy miasma hit me , thickening to near eye watering levels by the time she reached the counter ( two minutes later? ) . Now mind ,I LOVE woodsy scents and spices and citrus ( Opium and Samsara families will have Permanant residence in my wardrobe) . I had to wait on her ,and managed to ask what she was wearing that day. Light Blue -because it’s SOoooo light and fresh. If I lied and agreed with her it was from lack of oxygen to my brain cells . But I think I just non committal Umm-ed . I think the problem is that the top notes ARE rather nice ,but they don’t last long at all . The woodsy dry down ends up getting compounded as re applications add to it for the top note “hit”.
Jennifer Smith,
I never have twigged why Light Blue is so popular. I have a few friends who wear it but it never gives me anything. That it had this terrible reaction for you is so weird.
Poor you because it’s practically ubiquitous.
Portia xx
At least most people don’t bathe in half a bottle …usually.
Way back when, when I first stumbled upon Amouage, I was getting samples of all of their women’s line, I badly wanted to love Ubar. But that was a no go. It smelled of bug spray, old lady with some flowers peeking through. Fast forward a few years, I tried it again and I still hate it. My second is Jubilation 25 and it smells like rotting fruit to me. It’s kind of sad because I love the Amouage classic stuff and those are classics.
Oh, Jub 25 nearly fricking killed me too. I have desperate difficulties with fruity chypres for some reason – they always smell curdled/rotting to me. Femme… So Pretty… Mitsy… Jub 25… all of them, pure disaster on me.
oh, lawd! You poor thing! Some of the loveliest perfumes on the planet, too! My nose cries for you. Cries! Now gimme alla dem perfumes! 😉
AdP Profumo too, disaster.
You may have dem. (Okay, I lie: I passed the samples on already. Oh well. )
Oh, Ubar, so very foul! I felt like Pigpen from Peanuts, with wafts of stank coming off of me. Made the huge and unforgiveable faux pas of wearing it to Pilates class. The instructor asked me not to wear it to her studio again. No fear! I would have dipped myself in an oil barrel full of sheep dip to wash that one off, and it lasted through a wash on my clothes.
I find most Annick Goutal pretty ‘swampy’ (except for Songes *sighs*), but I bought Ninfeo Mio on impulse – that first sniff had my knees buckling, I thought it was amaaaaaazing.
Anyway, I get to the exit door of the department store with my purchase all wrapped up, feeling mighty proud of myself, but then I start to wonder what the god-awful smell is. I look over at the homeless guy selling Big Issue charity magazines outside the store, curl my nose up and think to myself “poor guy must be snuggling up with some feral kitties at night”. I hand him some change and walk a little further down the street and think, “Nope, that smell is definitely not going away. OMG it can’t be! *sniff sniff* Jeez!!! It’s me! Nooooooooo”. I stank like a filthy tom cat that had been on the razzle for three days straight.
I was too ashamed to take it back, so it lay in my perfume cabinet for months, still sealed – scolding me every time I looked at it. I eventually evil-bayed it for a best offer of £20 (before the seller fees). I hope whoever bought it wears it and unwittingly stinks like cat wizz.
The first 20 minutes of vintage Jicky are a bit of a wild ride, but if you can get through it that stuff is stunningly beautiful.
Love the post Portia ! x I now have a new sample list to try 😉
OMG guess what my SOTD is today!! On me it is figgy citrus. I howled with laughter reading your tale.
I’m so jealous of you Tena you lucky thing ! 🙂
That is a WONDERFUL frag tale, even though it wasn’t a happy one. I can just imagine that homeless guy thinking, EWww!
Portia xx
Portia, you crack me UP!
three people here want to know exactly which perfume smells like unwashed ball sack. go figure.
so it sort of feels like throwing someone’s beloved perfume down the drain, but here goes:
Joop! (men) . It’s a pink bottled migraine for any occasion. The 90’s and gay bars. wow. “no, you can’t buy a drink and could you move as downwind as possible?” i only have such venom for it because it makes me react so physically violent. watery eyes, intense headache, maybe i wanna see your shoes covered in my dinner kind of aroma.
EL Tuberose Gardenia. well, here it’s not so much the scent (although i didn’t care for it at all, i understand how popular it is, especially with my mother when she and Fracas have a falling out)– i could NOT… NOT …. NOT get it OFF me. i scrubbed with perfumers alcohol, rubbing alcohol, soap and water, i think i even admitted to a lil comet and bleach. nope. still a haze of estee lauder stank on me. most frightening experience with perfume. WHY WON’T IT COME OFF?! WHAT’S IT DOING TO ME??? exaggeration? um.. sure ok. i’d never get that freaked out by perfume.. right? *ahem*
White DIamonds. (do i have to back this one up?) ok, well… if a tampax were a spitting cobra and venom was perfume… well, that would have made Elizabeth Taylor the deadliest snake in the world. (oh calm down you queens, of course i lover her. it’s an analogy!! *narrows eyes at the queen laughing at the word “analogy”*) it’s suffocating. ever been in an elevator with it? stairs never looked so good… even if you’re on the 20th floor.
ok, those are the ones that come to mind. i agree, much more pleasant to just remember the good ones!!
and if i have offended anyone’s beloved, i apologize.
Excellent! I loved those early Joop days when EVERYONE smelled like that. Clearly I was in the gay bars sniffing around.
Portia x
Heh. I rather like White Diamonds, if it is delicately applied. Unfortunately, it’s usually not, and I keep running into mushroom clouds of it in the grocery store, billowing behind Ladies of a Certain Age.
As for sweaty scrotum – PdN Maharanih. Somewhere deep in the drydown. Swear to God, I called my husband over to check. (“Honey, can you come here a minute?”)
OMG “If Tampax were a spitting cobra”. O.M.F.GEEEE! lol! and every other acronym I can’t think of for laughing. xoxo
For me it’s Lutens’ Bas de soie. I don’t know the particular notes that caused this reaction, but here is the review that I left on the LuckyScent site for it:
“Sorry, this is a cold, gray metallic mess, scraping up against another cold gray, metalic mess creating a high pitched shrieking, soulless scream. Just run away.”
This was 3 years ago, and I still shudder at the memory!
WOW Sassa,
That reads like fragrant car crash. Now you’ve got me interested, its one of the SLs that I haven’t tried.
Portia xx
I can think of two, this early in the morning before coffee: Aromatics Elixer and Coco Noir! One I wanted to love for the history and the glowing, cult-like reviews, the other for the freakin’ cool bottle. Both hated me on contact. Thankfully, I was in Nordstrom, so I found the Clinique #4…
Hey Rina,
I wrote a big reply but the computer ate it. Essentially it said. Hilarious!
A good thing to use to remove scrubbers is a food oil, it’s the oils you are trying to remove, they tend to grab the frag and take it away.
Portia xx
Hah, Coco Noir was instant hate on me too… which is odd because Chanels normally sit well on my skin (unlike Guerlains).
But one dab of CN and I almost puked – think industrial-strength bathroom cleaner + rotting moldy fruit + a touch of hydrochloric acid. *shudders*
I get queasy just thinking about it.
Aromatics of Doom. Every now and again I lose what’s left of my natural mind and decide to try it. And every. stinkin. TIME! I have to take a Vicodin. You’d think I would figure it out by now…you’d think.
Damn shame because it’s a fascinating scent. But not if it lasers your brain. y’know?
xooxA
OH NOOOOO! One of my favourites Musette.
Can you bear it on others?
Portia xx
I sort of hate that one too. But every time I go by the fragrance counter (not often. Maybe twice a year) I have to torture myself with it.
It’s really gorgeous on fabric, a day later, I find – very floral, rich, friendly. But freshly spritzed, it’s like urine on a rose hedge. No, not cat pee. Human. Skeeeeery.
HA HA HA MalsNano86,
Man wee on a rose bush. HA HA HA!!
Portia xx
Never have I desired a perfume so much as the My Sin sitting on my mother’s vanity table. I still remember the label of the woman with the small child. Of course I had no clue what it might mean. My mother wore it with grace. When I tried it, I lost my innocence about perfume. You may love a perfume but if it doesn’t love you back–it’s hopeless.
Shirley Munoz,
That is a bum of a story. Did you find a Lanvin that worked for you at all?
Portia xx
Lys Mediteranee was my most epic fail of all time. No other perfume has ever made me panicky and nauseous, all within 5 minutes of applying. If Barney’s sold saws I would have gladly removed my right hand to get it away from me (and I’m a massage therapist so my hands are my livelihood). It was also near impossible to remove– it was impervious to disinfectant wipes, makeup remover, hand sanitizer, 4 or 5 handwashings. I finally vanquished it by the third application of Sephora nail polish remover
Hi TheGoddessRena,
WoW! I can’t imagine Lys Mediteranee acting up like that at all. Boy oh boy, you are unlucky.
Portia xx
Sadly, Portia, TGR is not alone. I wanted ….OH…I WANTED! to love Lys. But there is that musk note underpinning those gorgeous lilies. I nearly fainted. And poor Kristina, torn between wanting to comfort me and, as the Malle rep, wanting to rip my throat out, bless her heart. And here’s where ‘excellent materials’ rears up and bites you in the patoot. Excellent Materials are a beast to wash off. …and Barneys is too suave for any of their lines to have an industrial-strength toner like Clinique #4 (which can remove Opium!!!). So I was well and truly squooed. xoxoA
Just tried this yesterday before I read this and I’m so glad it worked for me. I might have been afraid to try it had I read this before. Sorry it didn’t work but there were a couple FM I smelled that I could see in this category..
Massage therapy (was one of those too!) and perfume aren’t exactly symbiotic. even when using essential oils for therapeutic reasons, one has to constantly be aware of how you smell and how it is affecting your clients.
a scrubber can wreck havoc on a full day of appointments!
putting the nail polish remover trick in my memory for when it happens to me again! thanks!
Hermes Bel Ami, with enough raw sage to fill a turkey. Then there is the coconut, the leather, the citrus and other notes, which show up frequently and unpleasantly on my skin. One of the only Hermes I truly hate. Jardins d’Ecrivains George. Poor George must be a lonely man if he smells this atrocious!
JanLast,
You are Hilarious.
Portia xx
Jour d´Hermès. I really like Terre and the Jour bottle is beautiful. I so wanted to love it! But it´s too white, and makes me feel like Regulus, with my eyelids ripped off and my naked eyes facing the Sun.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-regulus-n00519
Not that I don´t love Fracas, or that Rifah Ozbek sample Musette sent me. But there is a weird freshness to Jour d´Hermès that makes the white flowers too bright, and I feel I might attract all the night insects in the neigbourhood.
Hey Solanace,
Jour d’Hermes lasts all of 12 minutes on me. Never got to smell the sun.
Portia xx
Okay, you know I love Smell Bent. Incensed and Incensed Short Fuse are high on my list of favorite incense perfumes. Love the house, love the concepts, love the quality, love the price point. But. Prairie Nymph. Oh god. Have you ever gone to somebody’s house – say, a cat lover with, um, more than 5 cats and only 1 litter box? Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE cats. Three of the little furballs rule my world. But Prairie Nymph makes me smell like I’ve been rolling around in a litter box that hasn’t been cleaned for weeks on end. So, I’m not just saying cat pee. I’m not just saying old cat pee. I’m saying, old cat pee, in decaying clumps, chemically interacting with litter, left for days to decay in the house of a crazy cat lady blessed with major anosmia. Everybody else? On them, it smells like Christmas clementines dipped in honey. Go figure.
Lisa, I’m glad to know this about Smellbent, haven’t tried any yet. I think my tastes are similar to yours regarding incense scents… is it wrong that I want to smell Prairie Nymph now more than ever? 😉
I’m with Rosarita,
Prarie Nymph is DEFINITELY on the sniff list now.
Portia xx
Me, too!….oh, you betcha! Which is why we are completely, utterly batshit crazy over here! 😉 xoxoA
He He he. Musette, you know it!
Portia xx
Deliciously demented, each and every one of you.
I’ve had lots of nasty experiences with real scrubbers, but the strange thing is that this morning I can’t think of a single name … perhaps my brain has consigned them to oblivion! What I do still remember is that I can’t stand the laundry musk note nor sour/synthetic rose nor cumin. Oh – something’s slowly coming back to me (and so it should as it was only last night) – I didn’t care for Acqua di Parma’s Rosa Nobile (sour/synthetic rose) and while I didn’t wash it off, I did spend a lot of time moaning about it.
And now I shall spend the rest of they day worrying about my memory!
Ha Ha Ha1 Only remember the good Jillie.
Portia x
You’re repressing the memories..lol
Only repressing the bad ones, I try and keep as many good ones as possible.
Portia xx