An episode on the fragrance journey

Good day everyone,

I started the perfume journey around a year ago. I mean the real journey: the one you know there's more to spraying something just not to smell neutral, or just having perfumes coming from Christmas gifts.

I have dedicated most part of this journey to getting decants and testing out as much as I could. I am also in a Spanish group where we help each other, swap, and sell for friendly prices, just for the sake of sharing our hobby. 

But the last two weeks I felt not wanting to discover anything else. This happened to me after I tested a couple of perfumes I hated with all I got. But it's not about the perfumes, because I can discard them and that's it. I can't really tell what happened to me, and that's the reason I am writing here. 

Then, there are the perfumes I test from the decants I get from said group for a good and reasonable price. There are hundreds of them I like, but 98% of them end up being just that: perfumes I like: NOT PERFUMES I LOVE. I do havemy list of perfumes I love, so I definitely know how that feels like, in the same way I know I haven't been feeling it when I test new perfumes lately. 

Is there a problem with me? I don't think I am bored. I love perfume just the same as the first day of my journey, but I certainly feel reticent to try anything at all. I even wore perfumes from my collection again, and now I want to sell half of them. Oh, yeah, they are different propositions and also got ratings above 8.0 in Parfumo and other websites, but they won't make me smile or wake up wanting to spray it with pleasure.  

It makes me feel bad that I want to kick them from collection, and this feeling comes along with the discouragement I'm talking about. It's like I've become impatient and closed-minded, considering the massive newcoming fragrances. It feels... overwhelming? Have you had a similar episode on your fragrance journey?

I thank you in advance for spending your time reading my words and feelings, and all the answers you may write. Thank you.

Attentively,

Bodomic

It's similar for me in that I only want to buy a full bottle of about 5-10% of what I test, but the result for me is the opposite; it makes me want to try even more to see which fragrances I'm going to love enough to make a commitment.

The reason might be that you are basing your choices on what to test on what others have liked; generally, I've found that the higher rated something is on average (thousands of ratings and 8.0+), the more "basic" it's going to be. It's going to be a "common-denominator" fragrance; one that everyone likes, but no one really loves. Aventus, Layton, Imagination, "XJ 1861 Naxos | XerJoff", Herod all fall into this camp for me. Designer/department store fragrances also pretty much fall into this category with a few exceptions, so I generally stay away from those. The fragrances I tend to really love sometimes have ratings as low as 6, but the ratings are split between people who gave it a 10 and people who gave it a 1.

I did end up selling about half my collection a year or two into my journey, so that makes sense. I had bought many bottles that were merely "likes" that were cheap and easy to justify buying. Nowadays, I sample 20 or 30 perfumes before buying even one. I definitely think it's ok, and maybe even preferable to have high standards.

Maybe if you were to post your "loves" here we could suggest some similar fragrances for you to try or predict what genre/brand to explore next. Also, I'm curious to find out what two fragrances you tried that were so horrible they made you lose interest!

Hi @Omnipotato, thanks a lot for your answer. I'll really hold on for a while on your "I did end up selling about half my collection a year or two into my journey, so that makes sense.". You'll get it when I say it's tough to make this decision, but they are just "okay" fragrances.

I had thought about including both collections: the ones I truly love and the ones I disgust, but I didn't want the post to be too long or boring.

Fragrances I love and I want them to stay or to come in a near future:Aventus , Apple Brandy on the Rocks , Dior Homme Parfum , Light Blue pour Homme Forever , Halloween Man X , "Oud Stars - Alexandria II (Parfum) | XerJoff" , Allure Homme Édition Blanche Eau de Parfum , "Join The Club - 40 Knots | XerJoff" , Kenzo Homme Eau de Toilette Intense , Ombré Leather (2018) Eau de Parfum , Replica - By the Fireplace , Elysium pour Homme Parfum , Tantrico , Déclaration d'Un Soir , Terre d'Hermès Eau Givrée , Isola Blu Parfum , L'Homme Idéal Sport , Colonia Essenza Eau de Cologne , Angels' Share , Eros Eau de Parfum , The Moon , The Night , and Smokey Jazz, which I can't tag. I sure know I love easy fragrances, but I consider none of them irrelevant.

Curiously enough, I understand your point on the basic and popular fragrances that are super easy to like, which I honestly happen to find irreplaceable, no matter how many thousands of clones are released. No offense regarding that simplicity whatsoever: I know and understand the role of those fragrances: 🤑.

The four Horsemen of my apocalypse:Bloody Smoke , Kenzo Jungle , "Join The Club - More Than Words | XerJoff" , Laudano Nero .

I have a few "challenging" fragrances on my back, and as much as I may tolerate and like them, it's not enough to be collection-worthy for me. I totally relate to your point "I only want to buy a full bottle of about 5-10% of what I test". For those thousands of likeable fragrances that won't make the cut I like to keep 5ml / 10ml, and that kinda solves my dilemma.

Also, the last fragrances I have tested and I was disappointed in, in the sense that I expected to love them are: Habit Rouge Rouge Privé , Aquila Absolute , The Voice of the Snake , Night Veils - Tobacco Mandarin , and Quetzaly , for example. Just stating the last ones. They are just great, I'd like to wear them a couple more times. But they don't connect with me.

I'd conclude all this by saying I'm hating getting disappointed over and over again by something I live with passion.

Thanks for your time.

My journey has also had a few dull moments. That changed when I stopped randomly trying whatever came on my path. By giving some direction to my journey I kept trying perfumes that were relevant to me. In between I changed direction now and then because of what I tested and they opened my eyes to something new. So I focused on specific perfumers, genres fit to my taste (greens, animalics, florals, chypres) or more occasion-based selections (formal wear, office-appropriate).

Of all perfumes I test I think around 20-25% becomes a purchase. Most of them I sell later on to rotate my collection and to keep it a manageable size. I did end up with a collection that is growing more and more meaningful to me.

I've only been collecting for a few months, and I already feel slightly overwhelmed; I can only imagine how much worse it must get. I started out blind buying and following the opinions of fragrance reviewers, but luckily I realised pretty fast, before it became a problem, that wasn't sustainable. So now, to keep things manageable for myself, I've come up with a system for how I explore new fragrances. Even though I haven't been collecting for as long as you, I share this with the hope it might help you too.

Firstly, while I find it interesting to read about new fragrances as they pop up, and sometimes one of these will lead me to purchase a sample (for example, I bought the new Penguin sample today), I do not try to "keep up" with new releases. I also don't listen to what the majority of the fragrance community says, as I've found that some of my biggest failures have been perfumes that everyone loved and hyped up. I still read and watch reviews, but I don't place a lot of value on other people's judgements of quality or pleasantness; I mainly do it to get different interpretations of the scent. I prefer to pick things based on notes that I know I like, and then I read/watch the reviews AFTER I've tested it myself, and compare my interpretation to that of other fragrance lovers...always an interesting experience, as I often have vastly different scent associations to the majority of people.

Right now, I'm focusing on having representative fragrances of certain notes or styles in my collection. If I find a fragrance I really, really love, I don't feel the need to try any other fragrances that are similar. For example, I've already found my perfect rose, so I don't need to try any more roses (unless they have something really unique and different going on). I have a list of notes that I want to find my "perfect version" of - tobacco, gardenia, narcissus, leather - so I actively search for and read reviews of perfumes in those genres, and shortlist any that I think may be worth sampling.

I also like to buy sample sets from specific houses that I find interesting; right now that's Zoologist, which is actually why I bought the Penguin sample, not because it's new but because it's a Zoologist fragrance and I thought the notes looked like something I would enjoy.

Last but not least, I have a list of rules for myself about when and why I should buy a full bottle of something, or even order new samples. This is partly to keep within a budget, and partly so that I don't end up with an overwhelmingly huge collection of mediocre fragrances that I never wear. My rules include selling on or giving away bottles/samples I don't like, and making sure that I've tested everything in my collection at least once before acquiring anything new.

On another note, I wonder if things are not smelling as good to you anymore because you have a bit of olfactory fatigue? I recall someone else on here needed to periodically take a break from smelling fragrances in order to appreciate the scents properly. Even if that's not the case, a short break could be what you need to get that sense of excitement and discovery back.

Thanks, @Kurai and @ScentNebula for your contribution to the post. I will certainly try to think it through before I decide what I want to sample next. Probably I've had a sort of bad strike with discovering new scents, and I also may need a short break.

@ScentNebula , you can leave your Penguin impressions here if you want: I know the brand, and I've always wanted that (super) expensive discovery set of theirs! Not possible at the moment, specially in this moment.

I had also thought about trying to find the perfect representation of note-based perfumes. Anyway, now I'm just going through my whole collection and kissing good bye the ones I'm not vibing with, in comparison to my most precious ones.

Thank you all for your words,

Bodomic

@Bodomic I got my zoologist samples today and tested them all on paper. Sadly I was disappointed by Penguin, not because it's a badly crafted scent - quite the opposite - but because of the associations it brings to mind for me. It smells EXACTLY like a dentist's office! Cool and sterile, antiseptically minty, with the slight powdery sweetness of latex gloves. I know that I've sat in doctor's waiting rooms that smell like this. There's a rather nice suede note that starts to come out, but it doesn't change the sterile medical impression at all for me, if anything it adds to it...doctor's leather bag...I think that it lacks an aquatic/sea note to ground the things you're smelling in a natural environment. However, I've seen some reviews where people say it definitely has an aquatic note, so maybe that's something that comes out on skin. I won't write it off immediately.

I also got a sample of Snowy Owl and the two definitely have something in common, but Snowy Owl smells more earthy, floral and natural rather than antiseptic to me.