How it all began

My friend Mike (HLCcrazychrystal2) got me into this scene. I liked to smell good and I owned a few. I had Boss Bottled, Cool Water, Polo Sport, Moves. I loved the way things smelled all the time and I never really noticed how much I commented on things like that. I guess Mike was a lurker here and so he told me about the site. I didn't care for it much because I wasn't interested at the time. I built up my passion by going out with him and smelling stuff. We finally signed up and it is just a day apart that we did it and he knew about it for so much longer. I am sad to say that I was a regular noobie. I asked what was the best and feel so dumb now thinking back on it.

So, I guess it was through the knowledge of a friend who got me hooked on this stuff. He always knew more than I did but now I think I might have surpassed his intellect. I practically live on this site and constantly take in information. So, that is how I got into it and I guess basenotes was my first real motivational shove to get into fragrances...

I have to thank my dad for the love of frags. He's my hero and he always has great stashes of colognes. He's now 85 and still wear's all the good stuff. I suppose it's all about the emotional connection to me and the love for my dad.

He was a banker and was likely one of the first men to wear original Paco and Polo Green when it first came out. Of course, I always borrowed some for my dates when I was a kid and while most boys at that time were wearing Jovan Musk, I was into something more unique and the girls loved it.

I'm still a Paco fan today but have since fell in love with XS but hold a special place in my heart for the original. He now keeps his Polo Green at his lake home -- and I always make sure I lather up in Polo at the cabin! Why not!!! ;D

Cheers to our dads!

Fragrance was all around me, it was cultural you might say. It spoke that you had arrived (in more ways than one, lol!) and that you can afford small luxuries. My father never really wore scents, but my mother would love to lavish on, primarily Avon stuff, Yeccch!, but I quickly set her right and got her a bottle of Oscar de la Renta for Women for her birthday after smelling those pre-scented blotters that came with her department store bill. But she was a practical sort, one bottle or two was enough to satisfy her beauty regimen. Funny how Oscar became the scent of all my aunts after they smelled it on my mom!

I was 12 or 13 back in '80-'81 when I purchased my first bottle of Polo Green for $12.99 with my own allowance money. That had set me apart from all the kids dousing themselves with Brut after Phys Ed. class. The passion of seeing all those scents in the display cases at the local department store started a curiosity and frenzy, always curious what each and every one smelled like. Imagine a 14 year old at a fragrance counter at least twice a week checking to see if there's a new scent put out, and asking for a sample. That was one way for someone who had no money to wear a new scent! I was always trying my hardest to look like a kid with money so that the SA would take me seriously and give me a sample. Sometimes it was the excuse that I was looking for a scent for my dad's birthday, other times, it was because I wanted to buy a new bottle with my allowance coming to me next week, LOL! Anything to get a free sample vial!

I remember the hardest scents to try was Van Cleef & Arpels and the Cartier scents, very expensive and wasn't on the counter to spray willingly unless you looked like a bank VP or an Executive, which I naturally wasn't wearing a generic polo shirt from Sears and corduroys, hehe! :-/

So the passion hasn't ended since, and a paycheck and credit card is making it a little too easy and accessible to buy whatever was denied to me in my youth.

Funny how what brought me to Basenotes was a Google string looking for CKone Summer I think (of all things!), looking for the notes that differed from the original.

Now I'm a Basenotes Junkie and probably a pestilence here for all I know! LMAO! Regardless, it's always interesting what others think about a certain scent. Also good in knowing that I'm not the only crazy one who carries a wardrobe of more than a 100 scents! They aren't a small luxury anymore, but definitely bordering in excess, but just a little! LMFAO! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Good stories guys.

I have always had a certain fascination with colognes...I would see them in their attractive, exotic bottles and wonder what they smelled like...my interest in scent has been more or less intense at different times in my life, but I've ALWAYS (well, at least since around 9!) had a few or more bottles around. My interest in fragrance also extended to burning insense, though it started off as a way to cover the pot smoke--lol! I remembered, just a few days ago, that when I was 12 or 13 I was buying and wearing Chanel's original (and only) male fragrace, which in America was called "Chanel for Men" and has morphed in to the current Chanel PM Concentree. Others I remember from my childhood include the local barber splashing on Pinaud's "Clubman" after a haircut, and that stuff is still made...I also went through the whole unfortunate Canoe/British Sterling/English Leather/Hi Karate period, but there just wasn't very much out there at the time for men...at least for a young kid growing up in the metropolis of Apex, NC.

As an adult I would have anywhere from 10 to 15 frags at one time, but that was BBN ("before Basenotes&quot and now the collection is over 250 bottles and decants, which is insane, but I'm still ok with it. I just ordered 5 bottles tonight from Parfum 1 and have three coming in the mail any day now.

I found this site through my good friend Julian. I was overjoyed to find that there were guys who loved scent, and saw nothing wrong with having large collections. It's a hobby for me, and a very fun one, but I've never met anyone in the "virtual world" who shared my enthusiasm for cologne, and finding Basenotes was almost like a validation/permission to enjoy my hobby without feeling alone. It's also vastly intensified my enthusiam for scent and introduced me to fragrances that I never have found on my own.

I didn't respond to a recent, silly thread from a member who asked why anyone would want a large collection (over 50 bottles, I believe) because I didn't think it was a serious post and was meant more to create controversy than anything...but before I found this site, I MAY have asked myself that, because I didn't know there were that many fragrance enthusiasts who saw nothing wrong...in fact, thought it a FUN thing...to have a large collection of scent! I mean, let's face it...fragrance collecting is KIND OF an odd hobby, in the sense that it's not a "typical/ordinary" activity that people would think of if they made a list of hobbies. So B'notes has provided me with a "strength in numbers" feeling of security and has connected me with people as passionate, or even more so, about scent as myself.

Interesting. Everybody knows how it started, but nobody knows where it's gonna end .... :-/ ;D

Ever since I was a child , ruining my mother's perfumes by mixing them and putting them one on top of another.......

I devoured every single article on the topic in my teens , collected minis and samples and requested perfume as gift and then started reading of books on the subject. Then I became even more entranced. :

It's an on-going hobby and I sure hope it will not cease any time soon , it brought me much joy in my life.

Gucci PH.

I was reading for reviews of it and came upon this site. Been hooked and thoroughly enjoy smelling things much more. I also am very interested in the science of olfaction and current research.

I think for me it was my grandmother buying me a bottle of Tuscany on a shopping trip. I would have been about 16 at the time.

Much like the OP, I was attracted to perfume by the over-use of supermarket toiletries >(that's where my hatred of Lynx/Axec omes from...). And I never really smelled people with perfume often, so I set out to discover perfume. I stumbled upon this site, bookmarked it and lurked the forums until I decided to make my first perfume purchase, once blinded by the spell of BaseNotes. Now I'm going broke.

BN influence=BAD! BAD! :P

It was year 1998 I first got interested in scents, after that I had a long break from the hobby. I guess basenotes triggered the potential to be a fragrance freak, one that I always had, to express it in Aristotelian way.

I was 15 when I first spent a long time at a fragrance counter. I kept on sniffing different scents, and in the end chose to buy Le Roy Soleil...

...OK, I admit, my mother bought it to me Â*:P

Now to think of it, I'm not at all sure if I bought it because of the bottle, the fragrance itself, or because I liked Dali alot that time. My friends didn't like it at all, thought I smell like rotten fruits, I didn't mind, and used the whole bottle quite fast. I liked it quite alot that time, and have smelled it just once after that. I guess it would be an interesting experience to wear it again after all these years and after all the countless fragrances I've used since.

Six years goes by.

I found basenotes maybe little more than two years ago, and searched the directory for interesting fragrances I could buy tax free from these boats that travel between Finland and Sweden. I narrowed my interests to maybe some seven or eight scents here, and after intense testing, I chose to buy Mont Blanc's Presence for myself and Laura Biagiotti's Roma for my girlfriend.

Soon after I got interested in niche scents, ordered my first samples. That experience changed the interest I had into something I would call a hobby. I really don't think I would be here if it wasn't for niche scents.

My cousin gave me a Hai Karate Cologne-After Shave set for my 14th birthday in 1967.

I would try different scents, mostly from drug stores until I started making fragrance shopping a big part of my Canada vacations in Eatons, Simpsons and the Bay.

Great thread.

from me it came through my parents. Not that either are frag addicts. My motehr has the standard colledtion of gifted-and-barely-used bottles, along with her daily Lancome. My dad is a solidly faithful Grey Flannel wearer. But from a very young age, I always got colognes as gifts- Benneton Cold, Perry Ellis America, Polo Sport Blue... basically stuff that my parents went into a store and asked "What should I get for my 12, 14, 16 year old son?" From there it kinda blossomed; I wore Drakkar throughout highschool and started experimenting in college. Then last fall I discovered Bnotes. Been here daily ever since :P

I was always fascinated by the glamourous bottles of perfume my mother and female relatives owned, although I started getting seriously interested in my early teens. It's a wonder I know so relatively little on the subject really.

Like many of you, I have enjoyed exploring all different kinds of smells since I can remember, flowers, food, perfumes, etc. I started off with the likes of brut, english leather, and old spice. Then, in college my best friend started wearing Polo and I really liked it. I went out and bought a bottle and a hobby was born.

Once before a big dance in sophmore year, my date lectured me that I needed to wear a cologne. I remember I went to a specific friend's house before the dance because he had offerred to let me use his. That cologne was Adidas Moves. :-[ I was very dissapointed when after the dance I had asked my date how my cologne smelled, because she said she couldn't smell it. However, she had mentioned how she kept wanting to dance near this kid that we both hated, but she loved his scent. It was aqua de gio, and I loved the scent too (It was the second cologne I had ever smelled and it is at least better than moves). Later that year for a birthday present I asked my gf to buy me a cologne, and I had kept hinting that I really wanted ADG. However, she preffered Allure and bought me that. I was very dissapointed at first, but later realized the subtle beauty of allure.

In college this year, I had the oppertunity of meeting a kid (chrystlal, same kid that Envyus knows) who noticed my desire of good scents and showed me that he had over 30 colognes in college with him (at the time I was a little weirded out). But one day when I smelled M7, I knew I had to buy that. After M7, I bought A*men, then M7 Fresh... then The Dreamer.... and now I am trying my harderst not to become a flat out addict (I have less than 10, so it's worse than everyone in the real world, way less than everyone here)

I have really enjoyed reading of peoples first experiences of fragrances and this is my first post so this seems a good place to start. I first remember fragrances when my dad would wear Old Spice when he and my mum were going out. But my first experience as a user was when I lived in Madrid and well dressed and groomed Madrileno males would walk passed in a sillage of Paco Rabanne or Eau Sauvage. This sent me to the Corte Ingles to buy some. Since then I have worked my way through Kouros, YSL, Lacoste, Issey Miyake, Bvlgari BLV, Hermes Racoba, Jazz. I have tended to be a one bottle at a time guy and would not buy a new fragrance until I had finished the old one. I tended to have no real idea of the classification of frgrances and if I liked it in the shop I bought it, which often ment I bought on the impression of the top notes. My wife would bring some back for me when she had travelled abroad, so blind to me. However over the last few months as a result of finishing my bottle of Racoba i have been sampling more fragrances and studying more of the subject and came across the site. The other Â*spur to action came from and article about Les Senteurs. I now buy samples from them and this has opened me up to full bodied fragrances. I still do not have scores of fragrances but do have then for different occassions lighter fresher for workand day wear such as Â*Neroli Sauvage and rich heavier Tabac Blond for evening wear. My visits to town now always result in my coming home with fragrance cards in my pockets which i use as book marks. Love the site and have become a regular visitor. Cheers.

Welcome to the boards walney!

I've always had an obsession with smelling good, but I know I knew next to nothing about colognes. I started doing a lot of research and ended up finding basenotes. This was about 2 years ago. I mainly used the reviews until I discovered the "community" and the boards. The rest is all history

In the beginning the hardest part was trying out the different scents. I know I didn't really know that much and I suspected the SA's to know more about selling the fragrances then what smells good. I gained insight by reading basenotes reviews and asking different females their opinions. Most of all, I just went with what I thought smelled good. In the beginning I was trying to find one Signature scent. I guess the basenotes creed of never smelling the same rubbed off on me because I now try to have a different scent every day or for different occasions at least. I still have a ways to go, but couldn't be happier. ;D

It all started back in middle school, i recall grade 7 or 8. My science teacher was very talented, she made her own perfumes. Often she would bring her own creations to the class and let us smell them. And she even offered to show us how to compose a fragrane if any of us was interested. She was the hottest teacher i have ever seen, just about every guy in that science class had a deep crush on her. After that i always associated perfumes with her. But when i got into grade 9 i started to like colognes, often i would catch whiffs of nice-smelling colognes on other guys in the school, so i wanted what was popular and was trying to pick up girls like most other guys. Thus, my first fragrance, Polo Sport came into my life. And a new enthusiast was born. I turned pro two years ago and joined the elite and never looked back. ;D

Oddly enough, it was a magazine fragrance insert for CHanel Allure Sport. Â*I had been contemplating getting some cologogne for a while, so I was vulnerable to their advertising I guess, but I smelled that insert and thought I really needed to get some. Â*So I bought a bunch of samples of the stuff off the Bay. Â*I grew tired of the Allure Sport after a short while, though, and so went to Dillards, and started sniffing around. Â*I'm ashamed to say that I ended up with a bottle of Aqua di Gio. Â*Anyway, within weeks I was looking for something else again....and...well...I discovered Basenotes, and since then have sampled at least 100 fragrances, bought several bottles, and purchased dozens of decants from various Basenoters. Â*Ahh...good times.

And it all started early last summer. Â*

You guys are cute . I've been wearing perfume/cologne since 7th grade. My first frag was Sweet Innocence from Avon. Then I wore stuff that I could get @ Alco like Ex'cla'mat'ion, Tribe, I.C., Aspen for Women, Ghost Myst, Vanilla Musk, Charlie Red, etc. In college I wore Lucky You (women's), Vanilla Fields, Banana Republic W, Eddie Bauer Pure, Eddie Bauer Balance, and Lancome Miracle. A couple years ago I realized that most of the womens' frags out there just didn't smell good to me. I was at the Clinique counter one day getting some more makeup & the SA was having trouble finding the exact tube I was asking for. She went to the back & I was left @ the counter. Out of boredom, I picked up the men's version of Happy and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was the best thing I had ever smelled (at the time). I sprayed some on and enjoyed it for the rest of the day. I picked up a bottle the next day. I've been a fan of men's frags ever since.

For me it reaches way back in the early childhood, my mom always liked to own a quality fragrance no matter how poor we were. Playing around, my younger sister and I emptied her entire mini black bottle of chanel 5, she got pissed at us and it smelled around us for days, still remeber that 'make-up-y' sort of smell. She has worn many fragrances through the time but only one simple cologne she remebers till today (it was called 'Ibiza Cologne' it came Â*in a white frosted bottle with a white cap and smelled herbally, watery almost like a men's cologne) was purchased somewhere in Germany in the late 70's -early 80's. Since she is my hero (struggling through life and raising alone two kids), I tried desperately, countless times to find that cologne and surprise her, but never managed to dig it out (I don't think it was an expensive kind either).

I always wanted to smell good, in my search for a perfect scent I became an addict myself, at a point of time it was an escape, a piece of designer luxury one could afford and many other memories bound together. So I might say I got it from a mom, a hero!