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Fragrances im currently exploring

novicewetshaver

novicewetshaver

Sr. Shave Member
As of late i have really been getting into the fragrance side of this hobby and really enjoying all the different fragrance houses out there. I have been thinking about taking a trip up to neman marcus to check out some of the more finer fragrances they dont have at the local nordstroms/sephora, but L.A. traffic sucks so i haven't quite made it up there yet. i thought i would compose a list of frags im currently looking at.

Penhalligon's: halfeti cedar and halfeti leather.
Parfum's de Marley: Herod, Oajan, haltane, Althair, Habdan
Tom ford: tabbacco oud, tuscan leather, Amber Absolute
Zarahoff: signature tabbac
Doir: savauge eilixer
Montale: honey oud
Mancera: Red tabacco
By Kilian: black phantom, straight to heaven
this is my small list so far, i know theres lots more fragrance houses to explore. i will post here as i find more. any suggestions of things to get my nose on would be greatly apreciated. take it easy cadre!
 
Expensive tastes! 😜

The frag world is a fun and very deep rabbit hole! Visits to department stores and official retail shops for the different houses, along with sampling, will be your friend.

You have a lot of warmer, darker, and heavy scented frags listed. Might want to consider lighter, brighter things too.

Penhaligon’s Sartorial or Blenheim Bouquet

Tom Ford Beau De Jour or Mandarino Di Amalfi

Dior Homme Cologne or Sauvage EDT

Etc.

Interested to hear what things you end up liking one you get your nose on them!
 
GearNoir said:
Expensive tastes! 😜

The frag world is a fun and very deep rabbit hole! Visits to department stores and official retail shops for the different houses, along with sampling, will be your friend.

You have a lot of warmer, darker, and heavy scented frags listed. Might want to consider lighter, brighter things too.

Penhaligon’s Sartorial or Blenheim Bouquet

Tom Ford Beau De Jour or Mandarino Di Amalfi

Dior Homme Cologne or Sauvage EDT

Etc.

Interested to hear what things you end up liking one you get your nose on them!
Click to expand...
ill look into those for sure! for whatever reason i can never find bright scents that really wow me. i tend to stick to the darker scents. Aqua di gio and SV's 70th i really like but i havetn really found those bright scents that i really like unfortneatly. i will say tho i really love versace man Eau fraiche, i wear every night for hot yoga. keeps me smelling nice and fresh. really love this frag, on my second bottle of the stuff.
 
Was looking at different fragrance videos this morning and came across bond no 9, bleeker street looks like a really intresting scent. need to try this one out!
 
been looking at xerjoff and argos, they have some good scents and really fancy looking bottles, was also looking at centauri elixir. that one looks like really tempting, love the scent notes on it. Fancy bottle as well.
 
Came across some nassomatto videos today on youtube today and black afgano and pardon look mighty tempting as far as scent notes go. also was looking at Centauri oom intresting scent notes. Baraonda also has some intresting notes to it, but i havent really tried out to many rose style fragrances, might blend well though with the other notes. just my thoughts tho.
 
Was looking at some more videos today on fragrances and came across roja parfum's enigma and house of sillage n. 001, i like the note break down in these ones so im going to put them on this list so i dont forget what im looking. So many fragrances to get, Thanks @BarberDave for getting to go down this rabbit, love tryin out new fragrances
 
I've also been looking at Initio parfums. not sure if i would like any of those particular fragrances, but i really like the way their bottles looks. really catches the eye
 
GearNoir said:
Expensive tastes! 😜

The frag world is a fun and very deep rabbit hole! Visits to department stores and official retail shops for the different houses, along with sampling, will be your friend.

You have a lot of warmer, darker, and heavy scented frags listed. Might want to consider lighter, brighter things too.

Penhaligon’s Sartorial or Blenheim Bouquet

Tom Ford Beau De Jour or Mandarino Di Amalfi

Dior Homme Cologne or Sauvage EDT

Etc.

Interested to hear what things you end up liking one you get your nose on them!
Click to expand...
Just saw Chiris' post, that was my first thought as well, but of course, expensive is relative. There are a lot of less known niche houses out there with just as good, if not better quality scents for half the price though. Mancera and Montale being the exceptions on that list.
If you haven't give Lemon Line or Lemon Aoud a try.
Since you're in LA, see if you can get to a Scent Bar there, it's a niche nirvana.

I'm not sure what the situation in CA is with fragrances, living in Europe, I often buy direct from the house, and always make sure to get as many samples from them as I can. I just need to wear fragrances before I can really tell, I find it even better than going to a store and trying on test strips, but of course there's a lot of value in that too! If there's a new house that's piqued my interest first thing I do is see if they have sample sets. Often the houses will even send a discount code to be applied to your next purchase against the price of the samples.

If I buy from an online dealer, I always prefer the one's that include samples, unless of course I can get it steeply discounted.

Lucky Scent will also send samples, and might be one of the best one stop sample sources out there.

That's not to say I never blind buy, but it's an assigned risk, I have some loves and some duds. In fact I was this close to getting Jusbox Visionary Eye from all the hype, and digging the brands aesthetic, but lucked into a sample, and truly hated it.
 
HMan said:
Just saw Chiris' post, that was my first thought as well, but of course, expensive is relative. There are a lot of less known niche houses out there with just as good, if not better quality scents for half the price though. Mancera and Montale being the exceptions on that list.
If you haven't give Lemon Line or Lemon Aoud a try.
Since you're in LA, see if you can get to a Scent Bar there, it's a niche nirvana.

I'm not sure what the situation in CA is with fragrances, living in Europe, I often buy direct from the house, and always make sure to get as many samples from them as I can. I just need to wear fragrances before I can really tell, I find it even better than going to a store and trying on test strips, but of course there's a lot of value in that too! If there's a new house that's piqued my interest first thing I do is see if they have sample sets. Often the houses will even send a discount code to be applied to your next purchase against the price of the samples.

If I buy from an online dealer, I always prefer the one's that include samples, unless of course I can get it steeply discounted.

Lucky Scent will also send samples, and might be one of the best one stop sample sources out there.

That's not to say I never blind buy, but it's an assigned risk, I have some loves and some duds. In fact I was this close to getting Jusbox Visionary Eye from all the hype, and digging the brands aesthetic, but lucked into a sample, and truly hated it.
Click to expand...
the problem with area im in is you only really have to choose from whatever either sephora, nordstroms, or whatever department stores have in stock atm in the mall and they dont carry all the fancy niche brands. For that you have to go down to the beverly hills area which wouldnt be a problem but the l.a. traffic sucks depending on what time of day you decide to get on the freeways around here. thats the only thing that has stopped me from makin the trip up that way.
 
novicewetshaver said:
the problem with area im in is you only really have to choose from whatever either sephora, nordstroms, or whatever department stores have in stock atm in the mall and they dont carry all the fancy niche brands. For that you have to go down to the beverly hills area which wouldnt be a problem but the l.a. traffic sucks depending on what time of day you decide to get on the freeways around here. thats the only thing that has stopped me from makin the trip up that way.
Click to expand...
You might try visiting some of the places that carry a bunch of knock off or "smells like" scents to test sniff some of the current hot scents. The knock offs aren't always the same as or even close to the brand name but they often have the general character or represent the wheelhouse well enough to let you know what you might be able to remove from your list or out higher on you list.

Another idea is to get decants or samples. You used to be able to get a bunch from ebay but I think there are sights dedicated to buying and sellign decants that might be more reputable. It is often much more expensive but if you are looking to try many different scents it can allow you to get a bunch of small samples for the price of one full bottle. Then you can look for people selling 'used' partial or tester bottles of the frags you really like.
 
CBLindsay said:
You might try visiting some of the places that carry a bunch of knock off or "smells like" scents to test sniff some of the current hot scents. The knock offs aren't always the same as or even close to the brand name but they often have the general character or represent the wheelhouse well enough to let you know what you might be able to remove from your list or out higher on you list.

Another idea is to get decants or samples. You used to be able to get a bunch from ebay but I think there are sights dedicated to buying and sellign decants that might be more reputable. It is often much more expensive but if you are looking to try many different scents it can allow you to get a bunch of small samples for the price of one full bottle. Then you can look for people selling 'used' partial or tester bottles of the frags you really like.
Click to expand...
this sounds like a good idea, ill give this a shot.
 
With summertime here ive been tryin to lean more towards brighter scents. ive really been enjoying tom ford's neroli portino, (i have this one in a scent oil), it pairs well with noble otters monarch and gives off a very clean fresh scent for going around town. i tried out auod forest on friday that stuff was pretty good, also in scent oil version. ive been enoying versace dylan blue as well lately. i didnt like it at first but once my nose got accustomed to it, its a very nice fresh scent. gonna see what other freshies i can find. been thinking about checking out insider parfums insidious. seems to have gotten very good reviews and is very close to what creeds original version of aventus smelled like. really been enjoying wearing seraphim blue as well, very nice scent. very smooth and not overbearing or sharp. the cedrat boise i got a few weeks back smells pretty good, but the strength/time it lasts is very light. i guess after the reformulation its better to get the intnese version. may try that one out. stuff still smells good, wish it was stronger and ligngered a bit more though. still looking at things for summer as well. i think my freshie/summer time scents are still on the small side.
 
trying to figure out what fragrance to go with next. i was thinking about maybe acqua di parma colonia. im thinking of picking up a few more freshies/blue scents or even aquaitcs before summertime is over. if there are any suggestions to try out feel free to post them here and i will get some samples to check them out. thanks
 
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