EXILED! The stories from Defected Fragrantican Members

I was on Fragrantica couple of years ago and had to stop posting due to ill health. I felt really shy about going back when I was better and so lurked for a while and planned to start posting again once I felt more confident. But then I was truly shocked by some of the prejudice and bigotry on the site. I saw a thread where a girl was basically bullied due to her sexuality. Those that came to her defence were mocked and told that they were being rude and unacceptable. I don't know what happened to it, I gave up reading it after a while and went searching for another site to make my home.

I am on BN as well but I don't participate there due to it always feeling rather elitist. So I was so glad to find Parfumo! This place is so friendly and I love the way I can blog and post pictures of my collection in an album and to the individual perfume pages! This is a great site, thank you to whoever came up with the concept, I shall be remaining a while.

If it helps, DarkMatter, I don't think intolerance would ever be countenanced here based on what I've seen.

Welcome Darkmatter. While I don't think any community full of people passionate about a topic is immune to drama, Parfumo is certainly the most friendly and respectful of the perfume forums I have frequented.

Thank you both! I just believe that everyone should respect everyone else and I get that vibe from Parfumo. Fragrantica seems to have descended into bitch central unfortunately. I have no time for bad behaviour, I'd rather spend time with people passionate about perfume that are mature and respectful. I'm glad I'm here now, I'm getting really stuck in! LOL

You know, I signed up on parfumo the last time there was another break out of either the old lady wars or the LGBT wars, I no longer remember. I wouldn't give up on fragrantica for a few reasons: I am so lazy and I didn't want to rebuild my collection; I still had friends there; and they had attacked me enough times that I was feeling stubborn, like you peeps will have to KILL me to make me leave.

Then there was the ridiculous front page article attacking vintages, I cam over to parfumo then, read some of the response here. So today we have two "issues" the first is another article by Elena V called "Extinguishing Scent Remnants" which ostensibly was a column on how to get rid of perfume that really clings to the skin, which I thought was an interesting topic, but wait... this column soon devolved into this bizarre essay on personal hygiene advice:

" Naturally human bodies produce smells as a matter of course. Intimate genital smell, armpit sweat, smelly feet, bad breath, sebum accumulation on scalp ...The solution unless there's a medical condition is usually a good shower. Wash your scalp rubbing gently, also behind your ears, where glands produce a sebaceous secretion that can smell intensely and which mix with the perfume you are trying out to produce a much more potent blend that might turn "waxy" or rancid.

Use a neutral deodorant under the arms, but no deo of any way in your private parts because it's considered damaging to the good bacteria in the area (just dry your skin well, and if you need to get to skin folds use a hair dryer on cold setting).

" The following routine is of course known to all but it bears repeating: Opt for clean underwear and clothes (preferably line-dried to avoid the tad musty smell of indoors drying). Brush your teeth, brush your tongue too (an often neglected spot) and rinse with some soda water instead of mouth rinse (those are full of alchol and further dry out your mouth which continues to smell bad after a while). Use that Listerine instead for a foot soak, diluted in warm water: it will make dry skin fall off and keep soles clean-smelling. Let your shoes bask in sunshine; it kills fungi and the clean air will have them thoroughly dried out. If you need to have your shoes deodorized and fungus-free use boracic acid in powder form (or Daktarin powder), sold at your chemist's. "

And everyone just loves this article, I was stunned, but everyone else is just like, great article.

I feel like I am losing my mind over there.

today on fragrantica there is a big brouhaha that has broken out over long reviews, basically a bunch of folks that dislike "long" reviews and at some point someone said they popped balloons of long reviews.

I honestly didn't think anyone was that dramatic or mean-spirited on either side, but there was a skirmish any way. The sad part to me is that the anti-long review peeps really have the writers on the ropes. The writers of long reviews are being described as wannabe writers, as pretentious, as long winded, as attention seekers, etc.

Meanwhile, most of the good writers have abandoned Fragrantica precisely because the quality of reviews has deteriorated so dramatically. There is increasingly a culture that really dslikes and rejects anything more substantive than (all caps: I LOVE/HATE THIS!!

I am just feeling sad about it all.

Aaaaahahahaha! That is too funny, Cybernoir! It reminds me of the hilarious type of things you find on wikihow:

www.wikihow.com/Take-a-Shower

never saw that wikihow before.
i suspect she was being paid by the word.

Yeah, and probably paid extra for each cringe-worthy word or phrase (intimate genital odor, waxy, rancid).

and I suspect lots of wikihows are meant for newly arrived aliens inhabiting human bodies for the first time:

www.wikihow.com/Get-Dressed
www.wikihow.com/Make-Breakfast-in-Bed

Okay, you are very funny, and for some reason this has cheered me up tremendously. I guess just knowing hat someone else sees the weirdness.

as for the aliens, i think you are onto something...

That's a shame about the balloon-popping of long reviews over there. There are people who are reticent in most settings but pour their heart out in their reviews. Anyway, glad you're here, Cybernoir.

I just read the forum about the long reviews, which is turning into an argument and love/hate fest. One person even mentioned limiting reviews to "100" characters, which is less than a tweet. Imagine how much you could learn about a perfume in less than 100. Reviewing perfumes isn't "Headlines 101".
It doesn't matter to me how long/short a review is, as long as it makes a valid point that I can use about the perfume in my decision buying. Or, if the writer waxes poetic, and I enjoy their writing, so be it.
So glad that this site isn't full of such hate-mongers whose days are filled with glee when they can brew trouble over a simple question. Then again, insecure and immature personalities don't seem to run rampant here. At least when they attempt to, they soon leave. There isn't any room for them and they are quickly bored.

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Abraham lincoln

Did said person limit their post re: short reviews to 100 characters or less? /exactly100characters

Hi there,

I am new here and left Fragrantica a day ago. I made a some great friends there and met some nice generous people, so in this regard it was a positive experience. However, the aspects of frequenting the forums and replying to the threads proved troublesome due to the negativity and unnecessary arguments which were being provoked. My reason for leaving the forums was simple: too much drama, too many trolls, and not enough serious discussion. I felt like people were being much too emotionally invested in the forum.

People would get offended at the most innocent things and post aggressive personally insulting replies. I was a target of aggressive replies/PMs many times on there and paid no attention, but honestly this time I just got tired of it. I am done dealing with such immaturity, which is why I am no longer posting there. A lot of my posts got deleted for no apparent reason, and I have a hunch it's because no matter how truly benign they were, someone found them offensive. Same goes for reviews. There are haters who will disagree with your negative review of a scent and down vote you so much that your review disappears. Negative reviews can be just as helpful as positive ones, when will people understand this?

There are also ridiculous threads which keep popping up like, "what perfume should I wear to take my dog potty?" yet serious threads asking interesting and important questions get ignored. I made a thread once asking the differences about the Niki de Saint Phalle EDT and EDP. The three replies I got were basically people saying they didn't know. At least they were thoughtful enough to reply! Yet ridiculous drama-starting threads get hundreds of replies.... It's childish and I am just done posting there.

EDIT to add: The truly offensive replies never actually get addressed or even deleted. I don't get it!?

Hello DarkMatter,

I've seen this happen a lot on Fragrantica. As I mentioned, people get offended over someone not liking their favorite perfumes and these replies get deleted, yet seriously offensive replies such as the ones you mentioned are allowed to get posted and even encouraged? What gives?

Parfumo is cozy.

Basenotes is a bit impersonal.

Fragrantica is Romper Room - Sleep over party.

Hi NaughtyKitty, welcome to Parfumo. As I've mentioned above, I've not been a member of those other sites but am always gobsmacked when I read about others' experiences.
Bullying is not tolerated at Parfumo, although intelligent debate is always welcome. The forums here are probably not as lively and there may not be as many participants as elsewhere, but at least the responses will be civilised!

Yes, one the one hand it is a bit of a pity that the international forum is quite empty, but on the other hand it's still clear and the same threads don't pop up everyday.

If we would combine the forums, you'd be surprised how lively the german forum is, but you will hardly understand anything But believe me, there is drama there too here and there. Especially over deals and off topic discussions.

It's probably something that will never be erased 100%, but the people here responsible try the best. On fragrantica, the forum is so confused, I never wanted to post anything, because threads disappear so quickly and nobody gives answers.

on Fragrantica give the members a chance to start a mini-blog. People who have their regular professional blog, spread out their personality already on their personal blog site and don't need the venue.

Basenotes also has member's blogs, perfume-related.

The Personal Blog space on Parfumo is well used and provides an opportunity to write.

We should mention on the German twin site the interesting topics here, like ScentFan's Sniff Fest.

We should mention on the International twin site the Interesting topics on the German twin site, such as endless discussions about skin chemistry (yes or no), but as not many here read German, the only choice is to run those worthwhile topics through a computer translator which may be too confusing.

I don't consider myself exiled from Fragrantica as I still post over there and have some favorite acquaintances there.

Ever so often, the cry emanates on Fragrantica, "where did so-and-so go, I haven't heard from that member for a long time" and the truth of the matter just may be that the real life took over and people lack the time to spread their three cents on Fragrantica.

I am currently annoyed by how many topics are being recycled, as it has been brought up on THIS topic time and time again. Some of my replies feel like deja vu. I'm not the most technologically savvy, but it's really quite easy to look up a topic as fast as it is to post one. But I feel that people want a topic tailored especially to their needs and wants. I am guilty of that too.

LOL! For real? I'm sorry if it seems like I'm making light of your post -- I really don't mean to -- but that's hysterical.

Yes, Cryptic, questions like that are true. I guess it all depends on my mood, too, when I visit F. If I'm in a mood that needs a quick pick-me-up for a good laugh, I'll take a look at the forums. Sometimes there might be a valid post, of course, but many, many times there are questions that make me roar with laughter. They honestly do.
One topic tho, that I do really like is the "finds at your local TJMaxx, etc.". It gives me an idea of what's out there currently.

There's no need to apologize, Cryptic. It's true! People post questions all the time asking about which perfumes to wear for the most ludicrous of occasions.

Thank you for the welcome! I don't mind the forums not being so "lively". Too much liveliness can also breed trolls who wish to feed their hunger for drama.