Unexpected scents in fragrance

When I was a kid I always used to pass time on airplane rides by reading and rereading those advertisement magazines they stick in the seat pocket, specifically the fragrance section. So I was visualizing scents I'd never even heard of, with notes I'd never smelled before, since day 1. That was sort of my gateway into fragrance interest.

But since I hadn't been able to buy my own fragrances or sample them until pretty recently (a year or so), I'd always scroll official brand websites or public frag sites (i.e. Fragrantica) to peep the notes and think really hard about what it was actually like. Reviews helped a lot.

Naturally, I had no idea what certain notes in perfume smelled like until recently.

The first of which is vanilla. I've always adored the scent of vanilla. When I was younger I would literally dab vanilla extract on my wrists and dump some in a lil spray bottle to spritz on myself (don't do this, the performance is terrible). My own proto-fragrance, if you will.

I thought vanilla notes would smell like my beloved vanilla extract. No they do not. I would sample fragrances and be like "where's the vanilla?", and then everyone in the reviews would be like: vanilla vanilla vanilla, vanilla fragrance, omg vanilla yum. Eh? It smells like something alright, but factually no, it's not vanilla. Don't call it that. Keep my waif's name out ya mouth.

That reminds me. Y'know when people talk about "vanilla literacy", yes it's in the gutter. Neither Goddess Eau de Parfum nor Vanilla | 28 Eau de Parfum (actually straight vanilla extract, yum) smell like "vanilla cupcakes". No no no. Neither are cakey in the slightest. When will my pure vanilla cupcake fragrance appear... your damsel in distress has been waiting her whole life to wear you... (I've been a day 1 gourmand fan #Prefired, my Christmas Cookie Yankee Candle hated to see kid-me coming, I think I hard-sniffed it so much I have brain damage, perhaps)

Anyhow, the next note is incense.

Since I'm half Chinese and have always lived in seasia, I have always associated the word "incense" with the smell of burning joss sticks (which I love). These thangs are burnt everywhere in Singapore, you'll catch a whiff even if you've never visited a temple (though that's what's pictured below, and where you'll smell em the strongest).

Well no, that's not what incense smells like as a note in fragrance. I had never smelled any other variant of incense in my life other than joss sticks up until the time I started sampling fragrance, so I wasn't expecting it to smell like that... dry, coppery, even a little pickley(?) in some cases. The note also showed up as unlit incense often, not the smoke I expected. Hm. Well it made me a bit more wary of incense, since this type of incense is hit or miss for me. I definetly prefer a smoky lit incense scent over dried incense, and I'm especially wary of frankincense.

I find I like this type of incense in fragrance for wearing when it's more subtle... see Armani Privé - Santal Dān Shā. I sampled that fragrance and I like it a lot, the milkiness from sandalwood and the cedar(!) carries it for me and the incense isn't too strong, or pickley or anything, it just rounds out the scent. Nice stuff.

Also some fragrances just smell nothing like advertised, not even on my skin or anything. Like I got a paper sample of Eyes Closed because people said it smelled like carrot cake (I love) and cuz the notes suggested something of the sort, tell me why I take a big whiff and it smells like you're chewing sugar-free mint gum while chainsmoking cigarettes. My mother sniffed it too and agreed. And then the guy at the counter was like, yeah that fragrance smells like shisha, er, hookah, it reminds me of hookah (and then he offered to give directions to a place where we could smoke it). Respectfully and factually no it doesn't smell like shisha. Shisha smells good man, I've sniffed it off the road when walkin by those shisha lounge cafe things with the big obelisk talisman type machines you guys made for puffin it. I'd want to wear a shisha fragrance, I don't wanna wear Byredo EC.

Sometimes I debate smoking shisha in the future, dude it smells sweet and nice and apparently it tastes good and the machines look crazy man. Nobody knows for sure why they make the machines look like that. Oh and also I guess there's the nicotine buzz yknow the whole drug thing but whatever irrelevant honestly I'm not interested.

Anyhow I guess the main message of this article is... your own biases and experiences and bodychem are always going to make scents surprising or not... so everything's worth a sniff, because it often doesn't turn out anything like what you might've predicted. That's my philosophy. Also sampling is fun cmon. Let's all sample. Let's all sample stuff we think we might not even like because it's a unique experience and it might subvert your expectations. Or maybe it'll smell terrible I dunno. Don't hold me liable for that, but also it's good to step outside your comfort zone, so if you have a transformative experience then I'm glad. We should all have more of those.