Re: I can't wear Lutens ... why oh why oh why????
11 years ago
Coutureguru: I would dearly love to be able to wear Lutens and I have tried a significant number of them. For some reason they just turn on my skin ... every last one of them I have tried ends up smelling like I've not showered in months!!!
.
First, full disclosure: Serge Lutens is the one house -using terms found throughout this thread- of "eccentric", "chaotic" fragrances I can actually wear. I just have to find the right time to wear them, as I'll eventually explain.
But I do appreciate and fully understand your phrase, "turn on my skin." As odd as this sounds, I'm happy someone has finally described this phenomenon so succinctly!
Here's the typical scenario: I read about a fragrance that seems to possess every quality suited to my personal tastes and character. I shell out my shekels for a decant and anxiously await it's arrival because I just know this is going to be THE ONE. Further full disclosure (can there be such a thing?) I'm a hopeless optimist.
The magic elixir finally arrives, I spritz it on and the worst possible thing happens. No, not that it smells terrible immediately. As a matter of fact, for an hour, maybe even two it smells wonderful, just as I hoped it would. But then slowly it begins to happen: the potion of my dreams "turns on my skin". As much as
God Luca Turin decrees from his exalted throne that body chemistry has nothing to do with how a fragrance smells, it damn well does! There is something in the formula that turns to skank and now I smell as though I doused myself in the stuff a week ago and haven't bathed since.
I feel your pain, brother, I feel your pain. From now on if I write a review that involves having to describe this unfortunate occurrence, I'm not going to get out my thesaurus looking for just the right adjective to uselessly detail the stink. I'm just going to say "it turned on my skin".
Now, back to my original point of finding the right time to wear a Lutens. Something I've discovered about two of my favorite fragrances, Fille en aiguilles and Chene, is that they're very environmental. That is to say, the day has to smell like the fragrance in order for me to wear it. For instance, the city where I live is full of oak trees and on damp, rainy, fall and winter days the air is perfumed with the woody, sweet tobacco scent of oak leaves mouldering on the ground. That's when I wear Chene. If I wear it on any other day, then I feel like I smell conspicuously "eccentric" and "chaotic".
Last edited by Greysolon on 06.01.2013, 16:58; edited 1 time in total