best mens mag for frags

I don't think you'll find that any widely available magazine has consistently worthwhile
commentary on fragrances.

Magazines like Vogue and GQ will have many, many advertisements for fragrances.
Each advertisement will show you an image, often an overtly sexual one, and that
image is intended to sell the fragrance but not necessarily to tell you anything useful about
the fragrance itself. Of course, it does at least make you aware of its existence, so there
is some usefulness there.

My recommendation is to read the threads here on the Basenotes forum for a while and
participate in the discussion, while frequently going to a department store and sampling
fragrances mentioned here. This will allow you to associate a smell with a description of
particular fragrance notes. This does take some time.

Please learn from my mistakes. I bought way too many colognes, way too early.
I now rotate through about 20 of my 75 bottles, and the remaining ones mostly sit in the
drawer unused. My advice to anyone starting out is to sample a fragrance repeatedly
(three or four times), and if one really smells good, then write its name on a list and go on
looking for others. The next one you sample may be even better. Do this for a few
weekends until you find two or three you think smell fantastic. Then buy them and
enjoy them.

Basenotes will get you interested in all sorts of scents that are not being marketed in magazines
and that smell better in every way than the significant majority of new releases. Just don't buy
too many too soon.

Welcome to the boards, and best wishes.

Tim

I don´t need a fragrance mag...I got basenotes :-)

I've found the best frag is the one YOU try and like, No BS magazines, just try frags until you find the ONE for you.

No Substitute, try until your find your 'WOW' scent. Magazines are too advert driven, if it smells good to you, then wear it....

Welcome to Basenotes, chuckpolzin!

I don’t recommend any of those magazines for information about fragrance. The fact is that just about anyone who has been spending time on Basenotes for even a few weeks probably knows a lot more about fragrance than the people writing those columns.

Writers for magazines are often paid to churn out copy to fill in the blank space around the advertising, which is what is really important to the publishers. But how much experience with fragrance do these writers actually have?

How many different fragrances have these writers actually worn on their skin? There are a lot of Basenoters who have tested literally hundreds of fragrances on their skin.

How many fragrances do these writers test every day? It’s not unusual for a person on this board to test several fragrances in one day --- and then repeat that several days in a row.

How much time, effort, and money do these writers spend researching fragrance, and searching out and acquiring fragrance? Many of the folks on this board are willing to spend a lot of time, effort, and money researching and acquiring fragrance.

If you want knowledge about fragrance, my recommendation is that you just start reading the threads in the Basenotes discussion forums.

A couple of writers that I do recommend are Luca Turin and Chandler Burr. Use the Basenotes Search Function to search for threads with "Luca Turin" in the title, and the Search Function will return a lot of threads with information about Luca Turin's writings and interviews.

For some information about Chandler Burr's writings, see these Basenotes articles:
http://basenotes.net/articles/200801...ect-scent.html
http://basenotes.net/articles/200801...me-critic.html

In fact, see all of the Basenotes Articles at: http://basenotes.net/features/Articles

While a fragrence newbie (well, never got interested until recently, but always had 2-3 I liked) - I would tend to agree - sampling, trying and winnowing down keep the bottle collection under control!

I have never seen such good information as here so don't need the magazine pictures anymore! I do find a well done advertisement, packaging and bottle design all can enhance the aesthetic experience, though this is only if the fragrance lives up to those supporting roles.

(For instance, I LOVE the packaging & bottle of Hermes, makes you really feel like you bought a quality product - and thankfully the product lives up to it on my skin - but I sampled a lot!)

A lot of 70's & 80's frags can be found advertised in mens mags ..
Playboy - Hustler - Mayfair etc etc ...
Quite nice full page colour adverts and perhaps collectible too I would think ?
Off topic yes .. but worth a mention .

I know a good one...


www.basenotes.net


Websites are the magazines of the naughties. Updated daily, with a wide range of writers, and no commercial interests. Look no further my friend, you have found your answer right here.

The problem is that the fragrances that you will see in pretty much any magazine will be extremely mainstream ones. It's all about who pays the magazines to get their fragrance in there.

The South African version of Men's Health has been very consistent in doing "reviews" on fragrances kind of every 3rd month. I got the latest one yesterday and they had another interesting article. It mentioned Amber PH as well as Tom Ford for Men, which are (to me) the more unusual ones when compared to the usual suspects. (Make no mistake, Hugo Boss XY also featured, but then again the masses has to be pleased somehow!) If anyone is interested, I'll try and add an attachment - the article is not available online.