Your tender mercies . . .

Welcome, Andrew. It is nice to meet you (sort of). I'm not sure if this counts as an appropriate term for two people to properly be introduced to one another.

Anyway, I have the perfect scent for you. This is my opinion of the perfect scent so don't be worried if you are turned off by it. It is Tea for Two by L'Artisan Parfumeur. It is a unisex fragrance, but a little more on the masculine side, IMO (in my opinion). It is an amazing blend of smokey tea leaves that gives a light yet captivating hold on your nose. It is sweetened up and smoothed out by a lovely honey note. There is a little bit of a woody spice to give it a pleasent kick. It is not too strong though. It is a drifting fragrance that gives off a low and constant sillage that does not agrivate the nose nor make you feel sick when you smell it for hours. It is a very romantic scent.

This fragrance is a little on the expensive side but worth what you pay for it. Retail is usually $75 for a 1.7oz and $110 for a 3.4oz. I've never seen it sold on Basenotes in full bottle form. I assume it is because everyone who owns it, loves it. It happens to be my favorite scent of all times. My girlfriends have loved it. It is my special dating scent. It's only appropriate for special moments with me. I don't want to waste it. It is appropriate for any situation though. It is very versatile.

This is the single fragrance that I suggest to you. I hope you enjoy it.

Russell

I think you need to play up the "gravitas" and also go unmistakably French. Perhaps a guerlain like habit rouge? Or possibly a vetiver (Guerlain, Creed 1948 or Vetiver extraordinaire by Malle) or tobacco (Creed tabarome, vintage or milisime).

I don't know tea for two but I can see where envyous is coming from.

Best advice is to pick a few and obtain decants/samples from people here on basenotes, try them out and enjoy the process of seeing what works for you.

Good luck, please let us know what you decide.

"Leftist" to what degree? L'Anarchiste?

Andrew/Beanxx,
I can't help but agree with the previous post here by Hirch. Follow that advice and you can't go wrong, but let me add a little on the process of finding a scent that inspires confidence.

Scent selection is a personal thing. We're lead on the smell-wearing path by our very own noses. All members here can tell you a list of scents they think will fit you and the situations you describe, but each of those scents on each of those lists is one the member has found to fit to his or her personal taste and personal taxonomy of which scent belongs to what circumstance. We could list names until you're blue in the face, you could pick the most mentioned of them and buy it and wear it and be happy, same as if a friend bought you a scent as a present. But if that's what happens then it's like we are getting you a present but you're the one paying for it with your own money. That's no fun. If you want to pay for it yourself, you should have the fun of trying it out and picking it yourself so that you know it is you that has both picked it and paid for it. That's confidence building, and it makes the smell YOURS and not ours.

There are thousands of scents out there though, and you need help beginning to find something you'll like. Fortunately you live in the SF area, and SF has some of the best scent shopping opportunities in the country. Awful as big stores are, the major department stores by Union Square have ranges of plenty of things you can smell and test without purchasing. That's a great resource and you should use it.

I say start off with the offerings for men by the great scent houses that are easily available. Go somewhere and smell the men's scents from Guerlain: Vetiver, Habit Rouge, Heritage if it's available, and the new one, L'Instant pour Homme. Get to know what those are like. You can't go wrong wearing any of them and if you pick one of them you're showing great taste and wisdom. (Guerlain has made a few other men's scents that are older or harder to find, so I don't mean to give you an exhaustive list or one of preference--if you find other men's scents by Guerlain try them with the same weight as you do the one's I've listed.)

Four scents to pick from is a nice range, and all from a high quality manufacturer. Next, pick another manufacturer. Pick Chanel's scents for men, for example. Chanel Pour Homme Concentrée, Egoiste, Egoiste Platinum, Antaeus, and even Allure pour Homme. See if any of those are the olfactory costume you can see yourself walking around in for days in the life. Could be, could not be. But which of these, or the Guerlains, is best for dates, and which for workdays, weekends, parties, shaking hands at functions where you're trying to win people over? Ack! Which will fit best? Help me decide! I don't know and don't want to shoot myself in the foot!

Well, you'll be surprised how you do know the answers to these when-to-wear-what questions. Smell Guerlains, which will work in all of the above situations, smell the Chanels, most of which will also, and you'll see yourself in each smell costume in the situation you imagine. Same as you imagine what you'll be like in all those different situations, imagine yourself in a smell and you'll figure out which smell will fit best.

After Guerlain and Chanel, smell the men's scents by Hermès. Bel Ami, Equipage, Rocabar, Eau d'Orange Verte (this one doesn't last long on the skin), and maybe Eau des Merveilles or the new one, Terre d'Hermes. You can't go wrong or be any sort of fool wearing any of these. You smell them, you pick the one you like best. You'll know which is for you when you smell it.

After those houses seek out the harder to find but still widely available scents for men by Caron. L'Anarchiste is the most recent, Pour Un Homme, Yatagan, and The Third Man ("3e Homme") are spectacular in their individual ways.

If you follow this program you'll be men's scent literate. You'll know scents better than 99.9% of the population. The above listed scents are of such quality and individuality that you'll probably remember each one long after you've given it a shot, and thus they probably won't run together in your mind. After you know and have picked the ones you like from this list of houses, and I'll be shocked if you find nothing in these houses that pleases you, branch into anything out there. Smell women's scents. Smell some of the new high-fashion small producer "niche" houses, smell some of the gamut of recent foody-smelling dessert scents, and smell the abundance of oceanic, ozonic, and citrusy scents out there. Anything that appeals to you, no boundaries.

Rememer that when you're at a fragrance counter the sales person behind it, from whom you're going to ask to see the range of Guerlain scents for men, is going to try to get you to smell anything out there that he/she can sell you. Maybe he/she gets a greater commission on something the store is trying to promote that week, whatever. He/she is going to try to keep you smelling whatever "the latest" or whatever he/she says is going to surely appeal to you or fit your work/romantic needs. Bullshit. I strongly urge you to reject all those other smell tangents he/she trys to take you onto. Save those for once you've tried Guerlain, Chanel, Hermès, and Caron, or until after the Chanel class, I don't really care, but I strongly urge you to stick to the classics I've listed for now. Once you know them, and this is important, you'll know what a quality perfume product is and you'll be able to see how poorly any of the tangent scents out there measure up against the gold standards. Remember, only one in twenty, maybe one in fifty, scent sales people is any good. They're out for themselves, they aren't scent literate like you're going to be, and in contrast to them, here at Basenotes we gain nothing by the advice we give you. Well, we feel good about ourselves when we try hard and lead someone to a beautiful scent costume, sure, so we do gain something.

Good luck, and think of all the nose candy you've got the pleasure of waiting to explore. How many times I wish I could discover Caron's products all over again, as if they had never passed my nose before.

Very best,
--Chris

L'Anarchiste is a fragrance for men by Caron. Stuigi was likely playing on words and the joke that it would be if our scent's names truly matched our politics.

There are some good suggestions here, and I almost think DustB's post should be reprinted and given to everyone before they even start checking anywhere else. The classics are classic for a reason, and are a solid place to start, rather than the shifting sands of whatever is new and popular.

Nonetheless, when I read your self-description and what you were looking for in a fragrance, Bond No. 9 New Haarlem came to mind. This is a unisex fragrance with many modern elements, yet warm and interesting as well. Notes include bergamot, cedarwood, coffee, vanilla, patchouli, and lavender. It's a feel-good fragrance, but also stimulating and could work as well in political discourse, as in more romantic settings.

Welcome!

I recommend the following:

Eau Sauvage Extreme by Christian Dior
Jicky by Guerlain
Paco Rabanne XS by Paco Rabanne
Scenteurs de Patchouli by Molinard

Welcome aboard Andrew!
First of all congrats for the nice and open introduction of yourself, hoping it to be followed by many other nice posts here.
Speaking about smellies, you'll learn and grow in experiencing as everybody did here, but for sure some important advices in chosing a good scent that suits yourself have been given here. Just be curious and let your nose be the judge.
Said that, what I can advice you to try is Etro Palais Jamais: it seems to exude the qualities you look for. Starting green it gives a perfect appeal for all day wear, moreover projection is good but not overpowering. Then the heart is slightly floral with leather hints giving a not too macho impression and letting the door open to some romance and leisure (good even for the 3rd date... ). Then the base has a woody warmth with smoky hints that exude self confidence with a touch of mystery and sexyness. Moreover the whole allure this scent exudes is not a posh sophistication but more of an alternative "radical-chic" class. That's why here this juice has maybe not many but deeply afficionados among both men and women.

DustB -
Your 16 October post (the long one) is just about the best thing I've read on this forum. It should be mandatory reading. Kudos!

Only "Posner Pour Homme" will work.

Xeryus?