Dark, not too sexy florals? (aka: Maybe I could like florals?)

So can I blather on in a picky, high-maintenance way, asking for advice on a floral or florals?

The summary is: I'm looking for un-"pretty", un-"fresh", fairly intense, fairly dark, but not too sexy florals, to fill the floral gap in my collection. If you want to skip the rest of my babbling and just recommend something, feel more than free.

But if you're willing to read on, the details are:

I've declared in the past that I don't like florals, and I have very few of them. But I suspect that I just may not like the florals currently in fashion and available at the department stores, and since I seldom send off for samples of florals, I'm not smelling anything else. "Pretty", or fruity, or aldehydic, or powdery florals generally put me off.

I'm feeling a craving for florals with substance, a little darkness, opacity. If that makes any sense. Maybe in the flower itself, maybe due to association with darker or more solid notes.

I do like some clear, bright, green florals, but that category is happily filled for me with Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint and, recently, Chanel No. 19. (If this violates the aldehyde dislike...well, I'm puzzled. ) So I'm looking to fill the darker category now.

On other assorted preferences:

Tuberose is lovely, but makes me feel like I'm my mother, so tuberose as a defining note is not a good thing.

I'm over quota on leather fragrances, so I shouldn't get any more, though I do love them.

I love orange (the fruit; I seldom like the blossom in perfume), cedar, sandalwood, tea, tobacco, smoke, some incense, some spices, nutty or cereal notes, some vanilla, some chocolate. I love convincing, thick, syrupy rose. I have a moderate tolerance for civet.

I dislike oud wood (I think), clove, basil, too much cinnamon, and some incense. (On the incense, I love Serge Noire and I'm near to disliking Tam Dao.) Amber smells exactly like green olives to me, which is a fine smell, but not one that I associate with flowers.

I have no problem with unisex or men's fragrances.

For some specific examples:

I like Black Orchid - it has the darkness and opacity I'm looking for - but I'm not looking for something that sexy.

I love CB I Hate Perfume Tea/Rose, at least in the absolute. It's the first successful entry in the category that I'm after, I just want more items in the category.

I like Paestum Rose, but I don't consider it a floral; there's too much incense for me to really perceive the rose.

The Elizabeth W florals are mostly very nice, but simpler and lighter and prettier than I'm after.

So, any suggestions? I'm looking to fill a LuckyScent and/or Perfumed Court sample order with a number of possibilities.

Thanks very much,

Crayfish

Thanks! I'll put Czech and Speak 88 on the sample list.

After you mentioned it and I mentioned it, I thought I'd give Black Orchid another try, so I sprayed on from my sample vial. (I don't own more than a sample yet.) I liked it very much, found it less femme-fataleish than I remembered, detected a note that reminds me of one of the notes that I liked best in Sushi Imperiale ... and then just as I was falling in love with it, I got a headache that intensified with every snjiff. Grr. I'll give it another try, in a few days.

Crayfish

I have, but I tried it in my "I don't like florals" phase and may not have given it a chance. There's a shop a twenty minute walk from my house that carries most of the Fresh line, so I'll go spray some on and give it another try. Thanks for reminding me of it.

Crayfish

Thanks! I'm putting Midnight Violet and Mauboussin in my sample order. I do love violets in real life and in memory of violet perfume, but it's been years since I liked them in a perfume, because they tend to be powdery. A darker violet may be just right.

Crayfish

Ooh! Hey! I almost missed the reawakening of this thread.

Thank you all so much for the suggestions. I will report back, but I'm _still_ recovering from the affect that my recent cold had on my sense of smell! It's been...um.... about six weeks now, and some of my favorites are still annoying me. (Others are "working" again, though, so things seem to be improving.)

So I can still accumulate samples, but actually sampling them is largely a waste of time, because I'm counting on my nose and sinuses getting back to normal. Eventually. I hope. (Yikes!)

Crayfish

My Theorema sample came! This was one of the ones kindly recommended in this thread. I've been wanting to try it for a while, since I went on an orange craze.

And while I like it, I increasingly suspect that there are a number of notes, or maybe I mean a number of fragrance chemicals, to which I am asnomic. I smell no oranges at all! I smell a nice gingery kick, very similar to the nice gingery kick that I get in Sushi Imperiale. There's a fraction more darkness and food-spiciness than in Sushi Imperiale but otherwise, they're almost twins to my nose. And I don't think that that's normal.

So the good news is that I haven't fallen in love with a discontinued classic, and the bad news is, well, the same thing. I wanted to fall in love with it.

Crayfish

Edited to add: But I will be trying it again in a couple of weeks, in case it continues to be All My Nose's Fault.

Oh, no! I don't like Czech & Speake 88!

I expected to like it. I wanted to like it. I was planning to like it. But I really don't. There's a very distinctive note that makes it Not Work for me. It's interesting enough that I'm going to keep trying, repeatedly, to see if I have one of those sudden reversals and love it. But it's not happening so far.

I can't figure out what the part I dislike is. The only description I can come up with is citron with a dab of civet, though I know that neither of those are listed notes. I like civet, I like citron, but citron is edible while civet is emphatically not, and they're both very strong rich smells, so the combination makes me queasy.

Crayfish