After sniffing a couple of samples with missing or damaged labels, and being surprised at how few notes I could ID without knowing what to expect, I decided to run an experiment: when I visit my family for our weekly family dinners, I would wear my current favorite fragrance sample and see what they made of it.
After noting that they had classy taste (my mother kept insisting L'air du Desert Marocain was the best of any of my 'fume samples, and I should wear it again; my baby sister fell in love with FM L'Eau de Hiver), I found that they generally only perceived a couple of notes at most. Douce Amere was "something you would cook with, like herbs" (accurate enough), and they insisted Aomassai smelled only of vanilla (this matches a lot of reviews I've seen, though not the official notes).
The really odd one was for Etat Libre d'Orange, they of the Madonna-the-singer's marketing school. All three of them said that Encens et Bubblegum smelled like "flowers," "floral", and "very feminine." (Notes: peach, raspberry, vanilla, lily of the valley, orange blossom, musk, incense.) None of them could smell bubblegum, even when prompted, though that seems to be most of what pre-prompted reviewers smell.
Anyone else run blind sniffing tests?
Sidenote: there was an interesting research paper I found that even professional perfumers had dodgy accuracy at picking out more than 3 notes from a blend when blind sniffing; I find that interesting.
After noting that they had classy taste (my mother kept insisting L'air du Desert Marocain was the best of any of my 'fume samples, and I should wear it again; my baby sister fell in love with FM L'Eau de Hiver), I found that they generally only perceived a couple of notes at most. Douce Amere was "something you would cook with, like herbs" (accurate enough), and they insisted Aomassai smelled only of vanilla (this matches a lot of reviews I've seen, though not the official notes).
The really odd one was for Etat Libre d'Orange, they of the Madonna-the-singer's marketing school. All three of them said that Encens et Bubblegum smelled like "flowers," "floral", and "very feminine." (Notes: peach, raspberry, vanilla, lily of the valley, orange blossom, musk, incense.) None of them could smell bubblegum, even when prompted, though that seems to be most of what pre-prompted reviewers smell.
Anyone else run blind sniffing tests?
Sidenote: there was an interesting research paper I found that even professional perfumers had dodgy accuracy at picking out more than 3 notes from a blend when blind sniffing; I find that interesting.
)
