Say hello and/or introduce yourself (if you like)

Hi everybody,
I am Pia and I live in Denmark. I am happy to have found this site with all its features, especially all the great reviews and info on perfume. I go here everytime I hear about a new fragrance. And it feels so great to know that there are others out there sharing my so far solitary hobby/interest/passion. Need I say that people find me a bit nuts, having more than 200 bottles of perfumes? Not to mention their reaction when they find out that I actually intend to buy more? Well, I know for sure I have come to the right place.
I have collected perfumes for some time now, and the best thing about it is that everybody seems to have an opinion about the topic. We all have our favourites and dislikes. My list of dislikes is very short but it exists. I am not very good at dissecting the fragrances into notes, but I love the experience of smelling something new and different.
I am married (9 years now), have three kids, 18, 17 and 13 and have three dogs, all male West Highland White. I teach language and love my work.
Hopefully I will meet loads of fellow parfumistas in here and we will have a great time

Welcome, Pia. Westies are such great little dogs... spunky and sweet at the same time. I only have one right now. He'd probably like a buddy, don't you think?

Oh definitely! That is the thing with pets, you become so attached to them. I love my little ones. Actually, I notice that a lot of the people in here have pets. That is so nice

I only just noticed this topic! Everyone has been so welcoming so I feel I should introduce myself.

I live in London, UK with my husband, two children (girl 14 and boy 11) and a budgie called Lucifer. Lucifer turned up on our doorstep about three weeks ago, someone lost her! Anyway, we have been advertising everywhere to let people know we found her, but somehow she ended up with a huge cage, lots of toys and the children named her Lucifer as it means something similar to "angel of light". She's a beautiful white lady, so the name stuck!

I have about 180 perfumes and as Pia says in her post (hiya Pia!) I am not finished buying perfumes yet! My mother used to collect old (empty) perfume bottles and she always had certain perfumes she wore at different times of the year and for different occasions. I love all sorts of types of perfume and can't ever tie myself down to certain groups. At the moment I'm starting to discover some sweet gourmands which I never thought I would. I suppose if I had to narrow it down to my absolute favourite type it would be anything that has a "dark and sensual" soul.

I don't display any of my perfumes at home. I have specially bought storage drawers for them. This is why I love the way I can submit photos here as I can enjoy the beauty of my collection without having to risk them. I very often wear more than one perfume during a 24 hour period as the weather, time of day and my mood shift.

I am a member of Fragrantica, some of you might remember me as DarkClarissa, but I was ill for a long time, so wasn't there for a long time. I have only just got my socialising online back on track. I'm disabled so the internet is a lifeline for me to meet new and interesting people. To be honest, I'm enjoying it more here as I like the set up and the people!

Here's a picture of our baby girl:

That was honorable of you to try to find her owner with advertisements. I would've been tempted to call it fate, her showing up on my doorstep, and skip that part.

Very nice to see you here DarkClarrisa. Im glad you are feeling better and back to perfume hunting.

Hello!
I'm a law student from India. Always loved fragrances, slightly obsessed with them since about 6 months!

Hello, DarkMatter. I'm fairly new here, too, and I've been enjoying your posts, especially your suggestion of the fabulous Aoud Queen Roses by Montale. I know I'll end up with a bottle.

Welcome, Kasks, to Parfumo.net and to the obsession.

Hello, Pia. Your post reminded me I had the best fresh strawberry sorbet of my life years ago while visiting with a colleague in Denmark. Welcome to Parfumo.net. I thought my collection would be under 100, but I flew buy that number. Fun, isn't it?

Scentfan, you collection is gorgeous, so who cares if you accidentally bought a few more than intended? That is what I love about being here: you are actually considered normal if you have a collection that has more than your three favourite scents in it. We all know the fact that we shall never use all our perfume - but that is not something we care about. I went to Copenhagen yesterday to meet with two people to buy some scents. One of them, when finding out that I at the moment have more than 300 scents and that I collect the stuff, was totally flabberghasted. She insisted on keeping my phone number because she wanted to be part of "this crazy project" as she called it. She said she had loads of friends who would love to donate items to "my nutty business" so I was happy.

Hi everyone! I am new here, although I have been on other perfume sites for a while. I only recently found out about Parfumo. Since October of last year, my perfume collection has grown from maybe 7 perfumes to around 100 currently, and I am always on the look out for new additions and great bargains. I collect both perfume bottles and scents, so it's not always about "loving" a specific scent to me personally. It's more about the sensory experience of perfumes. There are scents I find extremely intriguing yet not wearable, and I collect those as well. My other hobbies are riding motorcycles and my kitty cats, of course. So far my experience on this site has been great, everyone is very nice.

Hello, I am glad to be here. A little about myself: my username, LicoriceRain, was partly inspired by my current *favorite* fragrance, Black Vines by Kerosene (2014), a fragrance I describe as a medicinal licorice with a wintergreen vibe (the drydown reminds me of Eau des Baux). To me, there is something therapeutic about it. I can’t get enough of this addictive, intoxicating smell! But about *other* frags I wear, I don’t buy or wear anything just to be “cool”; at age 50-something, I’m not about to start pretending to like something that I don’t. I only like what I like!
Here are some other favorites:

• CK One Shock for Him by Calvin Klein - juvenile packaging/marketing, but awesome cherry/ basil accord.
• Piment Brulant by L’Artisan - red pepper straight from the garden, not the average-smelling fragrance. Different, and yet, familiar.
• Plum Japonais by Tom Ford - other-worldly plum/cinnamon/incense accord.
• Fields of Rubus by Kerosene - raspberry jam and patchouli/ lumber; a nice happy smell.
And going back to 2002:
• Bora Bora for Men by Liz Claiborne - a very under-rated old cheapie with an awesome fig & ginger drydown.

So those are my favorites smellies, but I am also interested in animal rescue, and especially caring for cats. I look forward to meeting others with similar interests.

Hello everyone, I am new here arriving after a bad experience with Fragran_ica. I am looking for a place where my opinions will not be censored and rude admins won't interfere. Is this site the right place for me?

I do hope so TPV. Welcome to the forum, I will look forward to reading your posts.

In my experience, yes. It's why I've stayed.

I have been absent from Parfumo for a while and it is nice to be back. I too am involved with other boards and groups as well as working on my own. But I am retired and was working with an overflowing plate till recently and have decided to pull back my plans and do a little more retiring.
I love to meet new people, share what I know as education is a BIG deal to me and I love gardening as well.
Shortly after the fragrance obsession hit me, I became devoted to mostly vintage frags but I am currently moving forward in my fragrance 'time-line'. However, vintages will always be top on my list.
My profile hasn't been updated yet but the personal frag stuff is still fairly accurate. I love all fragrances, not just masculine ones. I probably have more feminine frags though I don't care to count because it's not important. I just wear whatever happens to make me happy and if that's a big ole floral from the 80's, well so be it. My favorite quote has always been "Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.".

Welcome back, Scentimental! Good to see you again!

Thank you sir! I am pleased to see you overseeing the site as when I first joined! I noticed some projects underway. Can I be of assistance? Let me know if so.

Happy Holidays Apicius!!

Sure you can, Scentimental! It just depends on what you would like to do and what you are interested in.

I was thinking about roses. I could swear that in some of my better perfumes and samples I could pick out if a rose used was a Taif rose or Bulgarian rose, and I think I actually prefer the Taif. I wanted more info on the types of roses. The notes section on roses in Fragrantica didn't help. So I did a google. I found a blog by ScentFan that broke it all down. It was so well done. I was able to confirm that I was definitely smelling a difference (and not making it up as sometime your senses can do).

Then I read a few reviews. Then a few more. It was the reviews that really dragged me back here. The quality of the reviews are pretty high on this site. I need more information when deciding on a scent, especially a blind buy. A simple. It waz gr8t is no help. After a bit, I started poking around some more at other parts of the site. I liked that the forums were a bit more quiet. The threads here have more information that I find useful without having to weed through a million crap threads that drum up traffic to an AD based site.

So I made an account. And then started to put up my collection and I noticed something awesome, I could put in my minis and decants! I also like that I can make a folder to put in my 200 or so samples. I just need to figure out how to do it.

This is a site that expands my knowledge of perfumes (ScentFan is great). I have been a bit reticent to post new topics (Fragrantica has made me a tad gun shy) but I think I can feel a bit more comfortable here to post some of the different questions I have been collecting in my head these past couple of years for discussion. There seems to be enough serious perfume enthusiasts to intelligently answer my questions here. I would really like to have some intelligent discussions about different scents, materials, etc.

Apicius, I was so relieved when I saw that this site isn't AD based and not commercial. Perhaps It's because I'm an American (and a civil servant), that I am so heartbroken to see everything in my society being broken down to a price tag. Every single aspect of our culture seems to be inundated by how much money one can get. It feels like nothing is genuine or appreciated because it has value outside of money. There is no room for helping someone because they are human and need help. They must be deserving of the dollar before it can be spared. Heartbreaking. Perfume is so personal (scent memory and all that) that it's refreshing and uplifting to have a place to discuss my hobby, and how It evokes what it does, where I don't have to worry about the admin deleting or editing my thoughts and ideas because it's not profitable for me to express them. It also make it easier for me to take the reviews more seriously because I know that you aren't getting kickbacks to ensure that only positive reviews for a scent are easily read. It all feels more genuine and safe from the over commercialization of the rest of my life. Thanks for that.

I have no idea how you afford to keep the site going, donations? If so tell me how to give.

Welcome to Parfumo Briarthorn, glad to hear you like us:) Look for the RED heart on the Home page, right side. I will look forward to reading your posts.

Briarthorn, welcome to Parfumo! The sentiments found in the final paragraph of your introduction are stated so well. Thank you!
I know that the forum can get a little quiet but as you've noted it is often a case of substance over quantity. Honestly? I prefer living in a nice quiet neighborhood. That way everyone has a chance to heard.
Hope you have a wonderful time here

Hello and welcome, Briarthorn, and thank you for the kind words about my writings as i learn perfume. I happened to be listening to inspiring music when I saw these words you wrote: http://www.altusmusic.ca/elements-earth/. I'm American, too, though travels have opened my eyes to the world. My mom used to be a civil servant, when she wasn't being a poet, and she once wrote a poem about help. Must run at the moment, but I'll be back to tell you a true story you might like.


Hi, again, Brianthorn. Your comment brought out my motherly instincts and I was going to tell you a true story, but I realized it might violate someone's privacy that I know, so I'll message you.

Sorry, Briarthorn, for not answering earlier but I was a bit busy this weekend.


Yep, that is exactly what we want to achieve!

We take effort in maintaining this site, and we appreciate it if the users also take a little effort in writing reviews. People who start with three-liners soon feel encouraged to try a bit more, just by the the example other reviewers give them.


I see you use the standard collections so far. Not sure if you have already noticed but on your Settings page you can customize your own collections. As an example, just have a look at my profile page and scroll down a little.


We all here are volunteers including DonVanVliet, the owner of this site. Nevertheless, I found his promise to keep Parfumo International ad-free a bit courageous. As far as I know, there are ads for not logged-in users, and on the German site there is an ad in the Souk area.


Yes, it is donations and the few ads we have. This covers up the costs for the server rent and a few additional services that Parfumo needs. There is a donation button on the starting page where you will find the bank account data. However, I found out recently that the banks charge enormous fees if you want to send money from the US to Europe or vice versa. So, before you donate, please check back with your bank if that would make sense at all.

We had a paypal link installed once on Parfumo.net but due to a technical problem, Paypal would display the pages in German to you. The issue is still on the ToDo list.

Thank you for your offer and your kind words!

As soon as you get the paypal stuff figured out be sure to let me know. I'll make a monthly allowance for you guys. I'm sure I can budget $10-$20 a month to help keep things going.