how much has your tastes changed?

how long have u been into frags and did your tastes change drastically?

I have been into fragrances for about 7 years and my taste has drastically changed. Started out with super sweet VS & BBW fragrance mists. My favorite perfumes used to be Love Don't Be Shy Perfume and Bare Vanilla, now it's Musc Ravageur Eau de Parfum and Portrait of a Lady Eau de Parfum 🤣 Crazy how much taste can evolve and change.

I purchased my first perfume when I was 15 yo, in the mid 80’s. After trying the bottles that were in my parents’ house and not finding something that I liked, i purchased Vanderbilt Eau de Toilette in a supermarket. I still remember this powdery-musky scent that brought me so many compliments at school. After Vanderbilt, Intuition Parfum became my signature scent for years and years until it was discontinued. Since then, my taste in fragrance has of course changed over the decades. To change our preferences is a natural development as one gets older and try and test new scents. This leads me to my next argument. I also think my taste has changed due to the introduction of new ingredients and aroma chemicals which allowed me to discover new beautiful fragrances with scent profiles that I never new existed. How could I not like these new gems? On the other hand, some my old favorites have been reformulated (Samsara) or discontinued (Intuition), in this sense I was also “forced” to evolve in my taste. However, you will not catch me crying over these gone beauties. There are so many offerings out there to discover.

thats really reassuring. sometimes i fear my favorites will stop producing and i wont have all the money to buy 1000s as a collector item. but thats probably getting ahead of myself

I only became a fan of fragrances around 2020-2021, when the pandemic hit, however my tastes have changed drastically since the first time I started wearing perfume (around 15-16) to now. Now, I had always liked different scents, but not necessarily perfume scents; I loved incense or laundry detergent that smelled nice, nice shampoo scents, body sprays and all that, but I was never big on perfume.

I initially never liked most women's perfumes because my family always bought me very floral, powdery scents that did not suit me and felt cloying. Then a friend purchased me a woodsy perfume that I absolutely fell in love with. I also purchased a cheap perfume in a cute bottle at a market, which was probably a dupe for Black Opium or something, and that was one of my favourites for a while, too. Then I discovered gourmands and it kind of changed everything for me, and I started be a bit more open to smelling and testing various perfumes in shops. I am still not the biggest fan of powdery scents, but I love florals now and there are even some powdery scents that I like, but they have to be subtle and not too strong in how powdery they are.

Of course out tolerance and likes and dislikes in scents will change regardless, because that is human nature. Much like we won't always enjoy the same notes in every perfume; I love vanilla and jasmine, however there are many vanillas that do not work for me as a perfume because of how powdery they are, and sometimes the jasmine in a perfume cannot save the scent itself thanks to the other notes it has been paired with.

Dear Bunnyshaped, 

When you like perfumes it’s easy to succumb to the FOMO. Get one back-up bottle of your favorite frag and if they do discontinue  it…. Let it go the way of the dinosaurs 🦖 🦕 

I think it's changed a bit since I was a in my latest teens/early 20s. I was very into the goth indie sleaze image so I loved patchouli heavy scents like Angel Eau de Parfum and Let it Rock but now I tend to steer away from heavy patchouli as it can get a bit cloying. Now I'm into all kinds of scents but mostly powdery/vintage florals, warm spicy ambers and clean/lactonic scents.

I've only started wearing perfume, in my 30s, in the last couple of years. I grew up in a fragrance-free household so I'm trying to educate myself and my nose to sort out what I like. Even across that short period of time, I've been surprised by some of the things I thought I would/wouldn't like. And when I retry scents from six months or a year ago I think quite differently about them -which is really helping ward off FOMO!

I've been into fragrances since childhood and I could say perfumes have been my hobby 25+ years now. In my childhood I absolutely loved ambery warm resinous fragrances and fresh florals. During my teenage years I started to enjoy most citrusy and aquatic fragrances. In my 20s I loved both dark woody and super sweet gourmand perfumes. Now in my late 30s I'm mostly gravitating towards aquatic, marine and tropical fruity fragrances. I'd say that my taste has changed that way that instead of being into only one genre of fragrances, I'm now loving so many different genres, and it's also completely random what I might be craving each day, so my taste has become more and more eclectic over the years. 😅 Also it totally depends on the weather/season/situation what I'm wanting to wear. For example certain things that I absolutely love at winter I just can't stand at summer and vice versa. When I was younger I remember my cravings being less seasonal.

I've been into fragrances since I was seven (lol) trying my mother's perfumes. Loved Fidji (1966) Parfum at that age. Later when buying my own fragrances I loved Boucheron (1988) Eau de Parfum and a few, sadly discontinued fragrances like Escada (1990) Eau de Parfum ; L'Eau de Monteil and Boudoir Eau de Parfum (I've heard they are bringing that one back, I'm very curious about that reformulation!) and so on.

I think my taste only has changed slightly, I've always hated strong vanilla's and gourmands but there are perfumes I don't like that much anymore like Boucheron and other, more opulent 80's style perfumes. I still - and think will always - love L'Air du Temps Eau de Parfum and Mitsouko Eau de Parfum and many others.

One perfume I never liked is N°5 Eau de Parfum, but I love that one now, provided I use it light handed. Maybe because their latest formulation (of which the bottle is not yet in the database here) is brighter and less 'waxy' to my nose, less remeniscent of Arpège (1993) Eau de Parfum which I hate.

I'm also noticing that every time that I have worn an opulant, lush perfume, I get weary of it and crave something like Infusion d'Iris (2015) Eau de Parfum This didn't happen to me in the past.

I've only been into this hobby for five years now.  Before that I only had one or two colognes at a time.  I find that I'm very open minded and tend to appreciate most everything.  For scents I'll wear I tend to stick to traditional unisex to masculine but I do have a few that most people think lean feminine.  What I wear from day to day highly depends on the season and occasion.

Im very thankful that I have a broad appreciation for fragrances because I like to blind buy deals and usually I like them.  In the past five years there has only been one cologne in a hundred that I disliked enough to trade it off and I have a feeling that if I had kept it, it would have grown on me. 

I’ve been into fragrances since I was about four or five, playing with my grandma’s bottles of Opium and Poison. But I got serious about this hobby around six years ago. I often hear people say that the more they smell and collect, the pickier they become, but for me it’s the opposite. I’ve actually become less picky. My horizons have broadened, and I now enjoy more fragrance families. I used to dislike vintage profiles, now I love them. I couldn’t stand strong rose before, now I seek it out. I like everything, which honestly feels like a bit of a problem. I’ve grown more accepting of weird compositions and scents that once felt unwearable. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but it’s definitely overwhelming.

I started my collection and journey as most , by getting a simple mass appealing blue frag, that was Versace pour Homme Dylan Blue Eau de Toilette , but as the years go by i've became more inclined to somewhat less sweet and more old-school like scents or profiles that are a little less common in the mainstream. My 2 latest favourite additions are Antaeus Eau de Toilette and Égoïste Eau de Toilette , 2 amazing fragances for me but they could be considered old timey so to say

I started my fragrance journey as a huge white floral fan and my favorites were the mass-appealing "perfumey" perfumes. And I've changed so much! Nowadays I prefer unisex woody, herbal and earthy scents. 

I’ve been wearing perfume since I was about 20 or so. But I didn’t start exploring and building a wardrobe until I was 26. So, that’s been going on for about a year.

The gist of it is that I’ve been on a long hunt for a very specific smell. The best way I can describe it is a mix of violet, sandalwood, vanilla, spices, and possibly honey and patchouli. My childhood friend’s house smelled just like it. My first two perfumes that I actually wore captured that same smell for a while. Unfortunately, I can’t pick up that scent from either fragrance anymore.

The upside of that loss was that it prompted me to go out and explore.

Interestingly enough, I don’t really like gourmands and vanillas that much. That special house scent combo is my exception. But it did take a while for me to realize that.

I think my most dramatic taste change as of yet has been with Girl of the Year. Last year, I absolutely loved it and made it my signature. It represented the cool lady I always wanted to be. Now, I can’t even stand the smell, even in the winter. Ideally, I would have preferred that this change of heart happened before I shelled out good money on a 50 ml bottle. But as Alanis Morissette wisely said, “you live, you learn.”

To give you a general idea of my signature scent progression:

20-22: Honey & The Moon No. 10 Eau de Parfum

23-26: Moonshine perfume oil by Ginger June Candle Co.

26-27: Girl of the Year

Now (27): More or less a tie between Jacomo de Jacomo (2011) and Jasmin et Cigarette, but nothing set in stone.

I have noticed that I lean more towards jasmine scents now ( Tragedy, Jasmin et Cigarette, Olène) so we’ll see where that goes!

My first perfume I ever bought myself was Nude Eau de Parfum as a little kid. I remember smelling a bunch of other perfumes at the Macy's counter and then my eyes landed on the then new "Nude" perfume. I sprayed it fell in love and gave the cashier my entire savings to get the gift set which included a lotion and body wash. You couldn't tell me anything after that, haha.

I then moved on to Good Girl Eau de Parfum some years later which wasn't like the fruity perfumes and body mists that made up my small collection. I made another sharp turn down the road and landed on Santal 33 Eau de Parfum. Honestly, I bought it because I kept seeing perfume bloggers making a big fuss about it back in 2019 and I loved that I could have my name added to the bottle. By then it was already a popular perfume in New York, but no one smelled like it in my small hometown.

A few years passed by and I began amassing a big collection of gourmand perfumes. It wasn't until last year that I gave white florals a try after falling in love with Blanche Bête. And then again this year with Jardin de l'Orangerie. I still really love gourmands but I'm now very open to trying perfumes with notes that don't have any semblance to sweetness. 🌼