Scent Stories: This and That

In this edition of Things Adina Currently Likes to Obssess About, I am presenting you a grab bag of perfumes I’ve added to my collection in recent months. They do not represent, by any means, the entirety of my new additions. Instead, I chose these as representative of some of the different approaches I’ve taken in pursuing my perfume hobby. Let’s call them Thrift Finds, Cheap Heroes, and Hedged Bets.

The first category is fairly self-explanatory.

I am very happy to buy perfumes secondhand; provided they’re stored properly, away from bright light, perfumes can last a long time (past their expiration date) without completely losing their profile or potency. To ensure that is the case, if buying online, I try to stick to bottles that are still in the sealed original packaging; if I’m buying at the thrift store, a quick spray and sniff usually tells me if the perfume is still good. I would love to thrift more perfumes but, like everything else, they’re becoming increasingly pricey. Anything with a recognizable brand name, even if unboxed and/or partially used, tends to be priced minimum $30, and often upwards of $50. Given the existence of discount online retailers like FragranceNet, such prices are hardly an attractive bargain.

Sometimes, though, a gem manages to fall through the cracks.

I didn’t recognize this bottle immediately, but I picked it up for a sniff because it was the only one priced attractively at $15. The scent intrigued me, so I flipped the bottle and — lo! — I saw that it was Jo Malone. I know enough about the brand to realize that this was a bargain. And I had a coupon, making it a whopping $10. A real “start the car!” moment. As I was checking out, a sales associate spotted the bottle, recognized it, and came over to chat. When she heard what it had been priced at, she remarked it was “practically highway robbery” or something to that effect, and I had a moment of panic when I wondered if she would try to change the price on me. Thankfully, she did not — although it’s something I’ve heard happens with some regularity at thrift stores these days. She did have a point — this was a HUGE steal — but at the same time, it bears remembering that Value Village got this bottle for free, so they’re making a profit regardless. If you’re wondering how much of a steal it was, well, the original retail price was somewhere north of $350CAD; it’s a limited edition perfume, 175 ml (most of it still in the bottle). It was part of a 2016 collection based on tea — this one is called Darjeeling Tea.

The first blast of scent is one of refreshing tea — not citrussy (like many other tea-forward perfumes) but herbal and slightly soapy. The tea note does not last, to my nose, very long at all, though. It quickly becomes a fresh, white floral scent with a strong, herbal kind of soapiness to it. Other reviews mention the jasmine note coming through most strongly, but to me, it’s the herbal, green, slightly bitter soapy note. I think this is the artemisia, a note I had not encountered in perfumes before. I am going by the information on Fragrantica on this, which describes artemisia as a “bitterish, herbal and strong-smelling plant note known as wormwood which aromatizes absinth and vermouth.” It is a very unique scent, in any event. I wouldn’t say that Darjeeling Tea is one of my favourite perfumes in my collection, but I appreciate its uniqueness and enjoy wearing it when I want a fresh, zingy, not-too-floral, not-too-sweet scent.

At the other end of the scale from bougie Jo Malone, is one of my fave Cheap Heroes — a perfume I got for $22 at Shoppers Drugmart: Guess Seductive Noir.

I’ve mentioned before that I love discovering inexpensive perfumes that punch above their price point, and this is one of them. I didn’t buy this completely blindly, having spent a fair bit of time reading reviews of it online beforehand, but I did buy it without actually smelling it. Top notes are sage, bergamot, and peony. Middle notes are iris, jasmine sambac, and lily-of-the-valley; base notes are vanilla, vetiver, and velvet. Somehow, the scent transcends (or defies) my expectations based on those notes. The name, Seductive Noir, is somewhat misleading, imo, as well. It’s not what I would classify as a “sultry” scent, though it possesses a subdued elegant allure. I have seen it compared to Mon Guerlain by Guerlain, and having tested the latter, I can attest to the similarities.

First impressions: slightly smoky, lavender-infused amber. (The fact there is no lavender listed in the notes blows my mind a little bit). It develops into a beautiful, rich blend of aromatic, floral notes, and vanilla. Once or twice, I could have sworn I picked up a whiff of the lily-of-the-valley, but usually the florals are too well-blended to stand out individually. The combination really does have the soothing qualities reminiscent of lavender; I often spritz a little on my wrist before I go to bed, because it’s such a calming scent to me.

Lastly, in the Hedged Bet category, may I present:

The OG Lolita Lempicka was another Cheapie Hero I got at Shoppers months ago, and it quickly became one of my favourite perfumes. The brand has a good rep in the frag communities I frequent — lovely fragrances, reasonable prices — so I started to do some more research on it, and came across another one of its offerings that struck me as having potential to appeal to my nose. This one, to be precise: Lolitaland. (Sidebar: the only thing I hate about this brand is the names. I’m pretty sure that having “Lolita perfume” in my Google search history has placed me on some kind of FBI watch list.) I am not much of a gourmand girlie — and Lolitaland is all gourmand — but I was intrigued by the chaotic note menu (which includes, but is not limited to, Bellini, orange, mandarin, lemon, grapefruit, pepper, white peach, plum, black currant, two kinds of jasmine, magnolia, rose, vanilla, licorice, musk, and sandalwood) and the descriptions of the perfume in online reviews. Did I mention that it was created by Francis Kurkdjian, he of Baccarat Rouge 540 fame? I am not about to pay hundreds of dollars for a FragTok “it” perfume, but given the opportunity to sample an artist’s work at an attractive price, I will always take it. I got my 75 ml bottle of Lolitaland on FragranceNet for about $50, and it was definitely worth it.

First impressions: orange crème brûlée. To my nose, the orange and the peach compete for attention, with the peach pulling ahead as time goes on. There are definitely dessert vibes involved here, but it’s a very smooth blend — fruity, but not too fruity; sweet but not cloying. There is a slight smokiness to the vanilla but I would not put this perfume in the same category as, say, Replica By The Fireplace.

Alright, that’s enough perfume talk from me for now. If you’re down, share your recent buys and new (or old) faves in the comments, and stay tuned for another collection update coming soon!