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Bad Choice?

post #1 of 34
10/2/07 at 10:59am
Thread Starter 
Have you ever made a really bad choice for your scent of the day? Perhaps you were testing out a new fragrance? What was it like and what did you do?

Today was that day for me. I changed my mind at the last minute and decided to go for Reverie au Jardin. I thought, "Hmm...it's raining. Perhaps a 'garden-like' scent will do." I hadn't worn it before, so I gave it a go. Very bad choice. I smell like a garden of buttered popcorn.

What's poppin', you may ask? That would be me...in the worst possible way.

If only L'Antimatiere could be used as a cover-up...

So, any stories out there?
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post #2 of 34
10/2/07 at 11:15am
Wow, that's funny, I was actually thinking about a time I put on Reverie au Jardin and regretted it, right before I clicked on this thread! I like Reverie, but not all the time.

The most recent regret was testing out Mazzolari "Lui". It's so animalic-musk intense (and not in a smooth, natural way - it was too obviously synthetic) that within 10 minutes of putting it on I regretted it, but then someone called me to make plans (with a female friend), and I knew I had to go shower again to wash it off because I couldn't see anyone while smelling like that.
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post #3 of 34
10/2/07 at 11:33am
Today. Jicky EDT. Not a bad choice as such,but I fear I may have to leave it on the shelf,for a while. I had to visit the dentist. Turned out that I needed a filling,lucky me he could do it today!! Great As I lay there being assaulted,I kept getting a smell of Jicky,"activated" by the water spray used by the dental nurse to clear out the debris,splashing on to my person. I will now asscociate Jicky with discomfort and assault (For a few days anyway )
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post #4 of 34
10/2/07 at 12:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Latch35 View Post

Today. Jicky EDT. Not a bad choice as such,but I fear I may have to leave it on the shelf,for a while. I had to visit the dentist. Turned out that I needed a filling,lucky me he could do it today!! Great As I lay there being assaulted,I kept getting a smell of Jicky,"activated" by the water spray used by the dental nurse to clear out the debris,splashing on to my person. I will now asscociate Jicky with discomfort and assault (For a few days anyway )

Same effect when I wore Pomegranate Noir during a nasty bout of intestinal distress. It's been several months since, and only now am I able to wear it again.

Anotehr case: I once sampled Miel de Bois before a board meeting. Not only was the stuff vomitatiously vile on me, but it had monster sillage and lasted forever. I wanted to melt into my seat. Still smelled of it the next day - even after showering!

The moreal of the story? Never test a fragrance when you'll have to appear in public!
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post #5 of 34
10/2/07 at 12:37pm
All of my bad choices have been sillage monsters (A.maze by POTL, Neroli by L'Occitane, Black Orchid by Tom Ford to name a few) that I overapplied right before being with people in a closed space.

So embarassing.
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post #6 of 34
10/2/07 at 12:46pm
Thread Starter 
These are some funny stories. Why is it always the really bad scents have the best sillage?

And like you, Maxwell, I sprayed mine within minutes of heading out the door. There was no turning back.
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post #7 of 34
10/2/07 at 1:56pm
Never wear Musc Ravageur to a long and boring charity board meeting -- not unless you really want to f-ck the nice but dull board members you have to serve with.

I made the mistake of spritzing some MR on about a year ago prior to such a meeting in Ft. Worth, and I just about went out of my skin for the duration.

MR makes me, well, shall we say more than a tad randy. (Literally -- it has an aphrodisiac effect on Yours Truly. So does cheap old Monsieur Musk; so does Chergui, albeit to a lesser extent.)

Well, there I was, sitting in a dry but necessary board meeting, spritzed generously with Musc Ravageur and trying desperately to think of anything other than S-E-X.

Needless to say, it's never a good idea to wear a "moose on the loose" frag of any kind in a dull, tedious, businesslike setting -- not unless you happen to work in a bordello.
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post #8 of 34
10/2/07 at 10:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeperez23 View Post

All of my bad choices have been sillage monsters (A.maze by POTL, Neroli by L'Occitane, Black Orchid by Tom Ford to name a few) that I overapplied right before being with people in a closed space.

So embarassing.

That was me today! I wore vetyver oriental layered with terre hermes, and was called intoan emergency meeting as soon as I got into the office. A small conference room and my monster sillage for 6 hours!
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post #9 of 34
10/2/07 at 11:10pm
I agree with the various sillage stories. To me, the actaul scent doesn't matter as much as the degree to which others smell it in a confined space. Made the mistake several times with Terre d'Hermes. It's one of the scents that you think can't possibly be THAT strong. I mean, it's a citrus, basically. BUT IT IS, SO BEWARE. I've had similar situation with Gucci PH, Bel Ami (yikes!!!), and a few others.

I've learned my lesson. I develop an acute sense of exactly how strong my scents are at all levels of application before I wear them to work or school.
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post #10 of 34
10/2/07 at 11:28pm
Yesterday I wore something to work that had worn off by early afternoon.
On the way home from work my wife and I stopped by our local DS and I thought Id spray Acqua di Parma 'Colonia Assoluta'.

I regretted it perhaps 15 minutes later as it didnt gel with the smell of my surroundings (walking past the restaurant and cafe strip), and just didnt sit well with the scent I already had "up my nose" through the day.

When I reached home, I showered immediately and applied my Platinum Egoiste.

I will give C.A another shot on a day where Im a "clean palette".
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post #11 of 34
10/2/07 at 11:51pm
Can't spritz as much as i want to at my new restaurant job. I'm always in close contact with the chef, servers and customers. Need to avoid embarrasment at all costs!
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post #12 of 34
1/15/13 at 3:09am
i was loughing out loud reading this!!

i was thinking too, we try to have most interestingscents, pieces of art, and then you get embarrased with some of them, while they are really not appropriate for every occasion, on the other hand "clean" scents are allways appropriate but not interesting....

i remember wearing Gold by Amouage to work,on an mild Autumn day,and around 10 o clock when temperature rose, i started suffocating ...and i was thinking oh what a lovely luxury scent and it doesnt work well now!
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post #13 of 34
1/15/13 at 4:35am
I sprayed Portrait of a Lady on my shirt. The scent itself wasn't a bad idea; Spraying POAL on my shirt was a bad idea.
It stayed on my shirt through 4 washes and a month. It was one of my favorite shirts, too! I kept wanting to wear it but knew I couldn't layer anything with that frag, so I just tossed it in the dirty clothes bin whenever I smelled it.

The shirt still smells like POAL over a month later, but it is dull enough to at least wear another frag over...
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post #14 of 34
1/15/13 at 10:04am
Personally never made a choice I regretted.
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post #15 of 34
1/15/13 at 10:16am
In terms of under performance, yes. Thankfully not the opposite. I live alone so I have no issue rocking strong fragrances when i'm at home, and I do so regularly. But I tend to p*ssy out if I know i'm going to be around other people and go for something light and inoffensive. Often TOO light and inoffensive.
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post #16 of 34
1/15/13 at 10:33am
Azzaro Pour Homme. Basenotes reviews showed it to be a perfect scent. Apparently not for me.
The anise smell is amazingly overpowering for me. Headaches
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post #17 of 34
1/15/13 at 11:13am
Ive done this with A men Pure Malt. Co workers were saying "Whats that smell? "Whos baking cookies" Then they realized it was me and kept saying I smell like a bakery.
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post #18 of 34
1/15/13 at 11:27am
I wore Coney Island to my sons play and the ac broke.
I started sweating margarita in a packed house.
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post #19 of 34
1/15/13 at 11:53am
I've wore a few frags which I overdosed on the sprays. The tricky thing with fragrances is they may not seem to project to strong until it's too late. We live and learn!
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post #20 of 34
1/15/13 at 12:01pm
This isn't really a bad choice of fragrance but bad way of wearing...

Beginning of fall season last year, I was so excited to wear L'Instant Extreme. So, before leaving my apartment for work I sprayed on each side of my neck, but it caught mostly the collar of my shirt, which resulted into an anise bomb.
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post #21 of 34
1/15/13 at 1:07pm
The other day I sprayed a pretty heavy amount of M7 in my apartment preparing for an early evening of cozy studying when suddenly one of my friends asked me to get them from the train station... I don't think they enjoyed the car ride back home.
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post #22 of 34
1/15/13 at 5:49pm
Decided to wear LDDM because I needed to finish off my sample. Was a bit warm in the office that day and when someone from IT had to come to my cubicle to set something up it beat up her restrained fruity floral perfume and was probably the cause of some coughing.
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post #23 of 34
1/15/13 at 7:26pm
The only bad choice I've ever made was over-spraying Pure Malt (5 sprays on a hot night).
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post #24 of 34
1/15/13 at 8:46pm
I wore Musc Ravageur on a date once, and she hated it. It was a second date, and she wouldn't get near me, after being all over me on a first date. She told me later I smelled horrendous. Luckily, we had a third date, and I wore MI; things went happily back to normal.

The first time I wore Spiriteuse Double Vanille, I made the mistake of applying what I thought was a "typical" number of sprays. Several people greeted me with a "WHOA!" Were you baking a cake? sort of remark.
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post #25 of 34
1/15/13 at 8:48pm
I wore three sprays of Aventus when I went to do my taxes once. Needless to say my steady stream of lies made me sweat and it started to project like a beast.
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post #26 of 34
1/15/13 at 8:57pm
I was testing Silver Mountain Water one morning before class, and I may have had a little more than enough on (hard to tell with the sample vials), and all during British Literature class I thought I was projecting across the damn room. I swear a girl moved over the next class period because she thought I'd smell like that again. Good juice, but after that I like it better on women and in concept than on me.
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post #27 of 34
1/15/13 at 9:19pm
A few times I have had a difficult time choosing between a couple fragrances, flipped a coin, put one on and gone about my business only to later realize that I had really wanted to wer the other instead. Not true regret but I do now almost always go with the first thought, that nearly always serves me well.
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post #28 of 34
1/15/13 at 9:23pm
I tested Bijan for Men without a hint of what it was like by spraying myself with it rather liberally before leaving home, I want to say it was at least four sprays, but not more than six (I have dry skin, and liberal application is usually what it takes). Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Bijan for Men, but that was a bad day. Lots of coughing from others and my own nose never quit smelling it, it overpowered everything. I did what I could to tone it down, but I was pretty much stuck for a good six hours nuking everybody within a rather large radius of me.
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post #29 of 34
1/15/13 at 9:27pm
I over-sprayed black aoud and went to my CPR recertification class. Thought I was going to admin CPR on people lol
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post #30 of 34
1/15/13 at 9:39pm
I was at a store when I tried Kuros for the first time. Two sprays on my arm. I never smelled anything like that before. I felt embarrassed by the smell, like someone who doesn't take showers and everyone notices body odor. The funny thing is that I'm curious to give it another try. It can't be as bad as I remember. It may be fun.
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post #31 of 34
1/15/13 at 10:26pm
I wore Lancome Sikkim one day last spring when it was warm and humid, and found out the hard way that it goes completely sour on me. That day I also went to Angela Flanders and tested two or three fragrances, and afterward found that the combination of smells on my left arm bore a striking resemblance to Secretions Magnifiques. Not to dis Angela, mind you. Her fragrances are lovely. It was just an unfortunate combination.
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post #32 of 34
5/4/13 at 11:53pm
Acqua di Parma Oud Concentree. I bought a full bottle and thought I'd use up the 2ml sample I still had in the drawer. There was about 1ml left... and I dumped it all on me, before going to bed. OMG, it was so strong I could not fall asleep. I was up all night. Had to get up at 5am to shower, get the scent off, and catch couple hours of sleep. This stuff is nuclear strength if over-applied!
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post #33 of 34
5/5/13 at 12:50am
Somewhat similar story here, last summer I had my first sample of Jubilation XXV but it seemed to have almost ZERO projection the few times I tried it, so with about 1.5ml left in the sample I rage-sprayed it all on me as I was determined to get at least one decent wearing out of it. Hot summer night cruising in my friends car, no air conditioning, I was radiating a jammy incense catastrophe that got so cloying I felt like I was having trouble breathing. We eventually swung back to my place so I could shower real quick but it didn't make a dent in the Jubilation. That was an unfortunate night.
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post #34 of 34
5/5/13 at 1:37am
Not really. I like most of the scents chosen as SOTD, yet the feedback towards them makes me sometimes question my choice (while also acknowledging however that I don't wear fragrances primarily for compliments, even if compliments are the "icing on the cake").
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