(apologies to Matthias son of Deutoronomy of Gath for the title)
Hello All,
Yes, first post. I have been just reading the site for a while, taking in other peoples opinions and suggestions, and driving my wife mad every weekend when I come home smelling of yet something else I had a test spray of in House of Fraiser
I have been trying to 'train' my sense of smell, by smelling as many fragrances as possible (but only trying one at a time on my skin!), but I've come to the conclusion I may never 'get it'.
Part of this is because a great many scents smell completely different on me than on the paper, so I can only try them one at a time. Really, I know many people mention they have strange body chemistry, but it is like my skin is unbalancing or unblending the frag.
A good example of this is the mistake I made that led me to find BN in the first place... Allure Homme Sport. I've loved the smell of this one on the test strips for years, still do. Made the beginners mistake of not smelling it on skin before buying... first time I wear it, I cant really smell it, its become so subtle its not there, but my wife tells me she can smell something racid in the house... and it turn out its the Allure on me! I had to give it away, which made me very sad, because it still smells great on the tester strips
GPH II does something very odd too. I can have it on a tester and my wrist side by side, applied the same amount and time, On the tester it smells delicious, the violet leaf thing I like, the spices, the sweetened tea. On my wrist, all I get is a less strident version of the GPH cedar note, plus a faint bit of Lapsang Souchong underneath - all the delicious bits have vanished. I notice Diamondflame's review of GPH II says similar things, but at least for him GPH II doesn't turn into cedar instantly.
But thats not my main problem, oh no, my main problem is that my sense of smell seems to be oblivious to some notes, and overwhelmed by others! So not only is my skin unbalancing the fragrance, but my nose is too!
Yesterday I went smelling L'Instant PH edt, Hypnose Homme, and L'Instant PH edp. And I've put them in that order, with the Lancome in the middle, because I was smelling one very pleasant thing on all of them, just at different strengths (too little, too much and just right). This one smell was very engaging and familiar, too familiar. I decided to spray my neck with the Hypnose so my wife could have a sniff when I got home and left House of Fraiser.
10 minutes later, it hit me what all these frags had reminded me of - my wifes Le Baiser du Dragon! And I am aware that Le Baiser du Dragon is really strong on patchouli, and all 3 frags I had tried have it, so thats what must be going on, the reason why these 3 frags (4, if you count my wifes) that should be different all smell the same to me is because I can smell the patchouli and only the patchouli.
At least I thought my wife would be sure to like the smell when I got home, but oh no, no such luck. She hated it. So I got her to put some Le Baiser du Dragon on, and let it dry down. Then I got her to sniff me, and then her perfume on herself, and she told me they smelt nothing alike. I tried, and again, dead ringers for each other!
Can anyone suggest what is going on here? Am I a lost cause?
Andy
Hello All,
Yes, first post. I have been just reading the site for a while, taking in other peoples opinions and suggestions, and driving my wife mad every weekend when I come home smelling of yet something else I had a test spray of in House of Fraiser
I have been trying to 'train' my sense of smell, by smelling as many fragrances as possible (but only trying one at a time on my skin!), but I've come to the conclusion I may never 'get it'.
Part of this is because a great many scents smell completely different on me than on the paper, so I can only try them one at a time. Really, I know many people mention they have strange body chemistry, but it is like my skin is unbalancing or unblending the frag.
A good example of this is the mistake I made that led me to find BN in the first place... Allure Homme Sport. I've loved the smell of this one on the test strips for years, still do. Made the beginners mistake of not smelling it on skin before buying... first time I wear it, I cant really smell it, its become so subtle its not there, but my wife tells me she can smell something racid in the house... and it turn out its the Allure on me! I had to give it away, which made me very sad, because it still smells great on the tester strips
GPH II does something very odd too. I can have it on a tester and my wrist side by side, applied the same amount and time, On the tester it smells delicious, the violet leaf thing I like, the spices, the sweetened tea. On my wrist, all I get is a less strident version of the GPH cedar note, plus a faint bit of Lapsang Souchong underneath - all the delicious bits have vanished. I notice Diamondflame's review of GPH II says similar things, but at least for him GPH II doesn't turn into cedar instantly.
But thats not my main problem, oh no, my main problem is that my sense of smell seems to be oblivious to some notes, and overwhelmed by others! So not only is my skin unbalancing the fragrance, but my nose is too!
Yesterday I went smelling L'Instant PH edt, Hypnose Homme, and L'Instant PH edp. And I've put them in that order, with the Lancome in the middle, because I was smelling one very pleasant thing on all of them, just at different strengths (too little, too much and just right). This one smell was very engaging and familiar, too familiar. I decided to spray my neck with the Hypnose so my wife could have a sniff when I got home and left House of Fraiser.
10 minutes later, it hit me what all these frags had reminded me of - my wifes Le Baiser du Dragon! And I am aware that Le Baiser du Dragon is really strong on patchouli, and all 3 frags I had tried have it, so thats what must be going on, the reason why these 3 frags (4, if you count my wifes) that should be different all smell the same to me is because I can smell the patchouli and only the patchouli.
At least I thought my wife would be sure to like the smell when I got home, but oh no, no such luck. She hated it. So I got her to put some Le Baiser du Dragon on, and let it dry down. Then I got her to sniff me, and then her perfume on herself, and she told me they smelt nothing alike. I tried, and again, dead ringers for each other!
Can anyone suggest what is going on here? Am I a lost cause?
Andy
Whether or not you are sensitive to certain notes, the more you continue sampling, wearing and reading, you will not only become good at this, your nose will eventually catch up to your head knowledge.
In particular, the Jasmine has come through really strong, all the sweetness of the Tonka and Benzoin has been defeated. Seems like another case of lost notes. Although just about now, the patchouli is fighting an 11th hour rearguard action 
