A Perfume Addict’s Diary 03: March

TLDR; Paris was very cool but also overwhelming. No more blind buys. I love lavender more than I thought. Samples are great, but I won’t finish most of them.

Paris
So first I want to tell you how great Paris was. There are perfumers literally everywhere. Designer houses, niche houses, department stores, perfumeries. I left there with the feeling I was cooked in a pressure cooker. On the one hand, two days was way too short. On the other hand, I was quite overwhelmed by everything. The three stores that really stood out for me were:

• Nose: A store with quite a large selection of perfumes in all prise categories. I bought "Tony Iommi Monkey Special | XerJoff" by Xerjoff and The Dandy by Penhaligon's there and got a huge amount of samples.

• Printemps: A huge, HUGE department store covering three buildings. First time I got there, I had only seen the lower floor, which already had a lot of brands represented like YSL, Dior, Chanel, Hermes. Next day I discovered there was an entire floor above that with niche stuff. Mind was blown. My son bought Althaïr by Parfums de Marly there and also received a shitload of samples, all 5ml sprays. I also bought Tobacco Memories by Chambre52 for my wife, also came with an entire selection of samples.

• Jovoy: A candy store for fragheads. Of course they have their own brand but that’s just a tiny part of the store. They have a lot of brands, even more than Nose. It can be quite crowded there.

No more blind buys
Remember I bought a bottle of Lalique White in Black just before I left for Paris? I had so much regret from that purchase! What I learned from it is that I won’t trust any more reviews (especially from Youtube influencers!) telling that cheapy A smells exactly like niche and expensive perfume B. Next time I’m tempted to blind buy anything, I’ll just remember White in Black and pull back.

Lavender love
Spring is in the air, and I live near an open water. So I have a bad case of mosquitos. Mosquitos hate lavender or so I heard, so I just had to test if Caron Homme was something for me. To repel the mosquitos right? 😇 It’s basically a lavender bomb, so…. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did! The lavender is really pungent in the beginning but it dries down into a wonderfull smooth vanilla. Luckily my wife and kid remind me all the time that I’ve just been to France. It’s on top of my wishlist though.

Sample sample sample
I buy quite some samples and discovery sets. Initially my idea was to finish everything before buying new stuff but I let that go. Why forcing myself to wear something if I don’t really like it or feel uncomfortable wearing it?

Some final thoughts
It’s something special to buy a perfume while on vacation. It reminds you of that place, it’s a souvenir. I want to keep doing that. It makes the holiday and the road that leads to it more fun. And it stops the craving to buy full bottles here. A littlebit.