Comments on: People Who Like Perfume and People Who Love It

By: Angela

Angela — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:09:47 +0000

A true scent lover! Thank you for sharing these terrific stories.

By: Elara

Elara — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:22:39 +0000

You sound like me! I make my husband laugh and he calls me the bloodhound because I will hug him and then say, have you been at your mothers today?

He will say, “Yes,how did you know? and I will tell him that I can smell her soap on his hands. He just can’t believe it.

I like your story about the old man and shaking his hand. I have also had the opposite happen to me though when I bought a carton of milk at the store and the man ringing the sale had an atrocious( to me anyway ) cologne on and it got on the carton and I couldn’t stand it.

Glad to hear from other scent sensitive people like you!

By: Elara

Elara — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:11:36 +0000

Is there a record for longest comment thread on a blog post? I think you broke it!
I found this article after visiting the perfume counter last night and trying the Bond collection for the first time ever. The assortment had me quickly hooked. I have a whole perfume cabinet of collected favorites. I usually prefer oils because they are so soft and smooth on the nasal passages, but there are a number of fine parfums and eaus out there that I love for their ease too. I am definitely a scent geek, but a sensualist of every sort as well. I remember getting out of a car with a friend on a spring day and stepping into some really soft bluish grass and having to take off a heel to put my toes in it. She laughed at me and said I was a very sensual person. I said I just had to “try” the grass because it reminded me of a patch of grass that grew in the yard at my childhood home and I used to do the same thing with my toes.
It is so interesting to see the chord that this article struck with so many people and how passionate they are about scent. My dad’s side of the family are all like this. The first thing that my dad and I will do with anything is to pick it up and smell it. Pencil erasers,newly printed brochures and books, fabric, my cats head, the dirt in a potted plant after it has been watered, one of my favorite smells is a sidewalk after rain or the smell of wetted slate. It is so instinctive for me to do this that I have to be careful at work because I don’t want to look weird when I smell things out of the blue! I have a million different ways to describe the scents of things and I get puzzled looks from people. I have to be careful though at the perfume counter because some of my descriptions come out sounding less than classy and it makes me look like a philistine to the perfume counter snobs. I described one perfume as having a note that smelled like Dr. Pepper the other day and the lady gave me a look of mild horror. Well, I’m sorry but it does! So I had to defend my nose reputation by throwing in that it also smelled of melons;) What I didn’t try to explain to her as a defense was that like wine and grapes, perfume scents will share a chemically similar structure to things we are familiar with. Which is why nitrate gas smells like bananas, and why a fine ruby port will smell like coconuts and pineapple without having had those things added to it. The chemical compounds in the grapes and the oak barrel create the impression of myriad things. I guess I must give my scent geekiness much more credence than I thought.
As for favorites, I really love Armani Jade, and it’s also one that gets me the most compliments, it must mix well with my skin. But my number one all-time favorite is actually a ” hippie” oil called Krishna Musk. It has a sweet depth to it that reminds me of wood mold or wet earth in forest floors. It is so soft and enchanting.

So last night at the perfume counter was my last stop in shopping, I was parched and starving after traversing 3 floors of the Mall of America, ready to collapse, you know that feeling when you are so hungry that you feel like a ghost of yourself. The lady at the counter offered for me to spray some on before I left ( it was the New York Oud) and I kept smelling my wrist as I drove home, in total ecstasy and I realized I had forgotten all about being hungry and had a smile back on my face. What a testament to the power of scent ! No wonder the perfume counter is near the door . . . .

By: Angela

Angela — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:44:17 +0000

You really nail it when you talk about how fragrance connects to memories, emotions, time, and more. I suppose there are people who can look at fragrance in a vacuum and experience it solely on its construction and notes, but I’m not that person.

Can’t wait to see your scented story!

By: Nile Goddess

Nile Goddess — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:46:20 +0000

Wow! Delighted to see people still post here.

Now do I like fragrance or do I love it? Hard to say. There are notes I can pick up and notes I can’t, as you dear Angela know very well from my comments. Sometimes I go with the fragrance rather than the parfumeur, and am not shy to display irreverence if a fragrance disagrees with me. I won’t take abuse from neither mass-market muppets expecting me to “fit in” nor from snobbish perfumistas wrinkling their nose at my choice of a fabulous perfume that just happens to be mass market.

For me fragrances are attached to people, places and moments. People change, and so should their fragrance choices. Places change, and so does the atmosphere and the right scent. Moments change too, or our memory of them does, and so nothing is more elusive than “l’air de temps” even though the eponymous fragrance remains the same.

Very occasionally I am asked to help a friend select a fragrance. Those who have done so still wear my recommendation regardless whether it was made yesterday, last year or five years ago. It’s part of them now. I have lost count of the times I’ve been asked to work in a fragrance store, but i love the freedom of my scented soul – and my real job.

Am in the process of writing a scented story – stay tuned.

Still, not sure whether I like perfume or I love it. Perfume is a powerful weapon. It can be a friend and an enemy. It is, however, not a god, and thank God for that!

By: Angela

Angela — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:09:42 +0000

You’re welcome!

By: Capucine

Capucine — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:17:58 +0000

Thank you for your words and for choosing Diorissimo to express yourself: I guess I am a lover, even if I don’t match drinks with it!

By: Angela

Angela — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 14:59:34 +0000

There you go–you say it yourself at the end of your comment, you ARE a perfume lover! You sure sound like one to me, at least. I’m lousy at identifying notes, but I still count myself a perfume lover. Maybe you’re just not a perfume geek. But a perfume lover, yes!

By: Admara

Admara — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:25:03 +0000

I just had to register and comment on this, you see, as much as I’d love to be a perfume lover, I have to admit that I fall into the category of perfume likers. Why is that, when I do love, not merely like, perfumes; and I enjoy reading reviews and even “perfumista” blogs; and I am NOT merely content to own a few bottles? I understand the depth of fragrances and their power; the language of fragrances absolutely enthralls me, which is why I always return to read descriptions of perfumes written by true lovers, yet I cannot be one of them, because I do not have the skill of detecting and identifying notes; or of articulating any kind of response to any of the aspects of a perfume. I’m the woman who says “this perfume is so pretty”, but I DO love perfumes.

By: Angela

Angela — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 01:33:41 +0000

So, maybe the love of perfume is genetic? Sounds like a good theory to me! It certainly sounds like your daughter has inherited your love of perfume. I’d love to see how she develops as a perfumista as she gets older–it should be fun to watch.