48-year-old woman seeks recommendation for daily scent!

Welcome to the forum! With green, citrus, and lavender being favorites, it sounds like you might find a lot to like in some old-school masculines and unisex colognes.

Three fragrances come to mind immediately to recommend...

Guerlain Jicky ( in eau de toilette or eau de parfum - the pure parfum is more rich than fresh )

A very historic, classic fragrance based around citrus and lavender. Great in hot weather and dates back to 1889.

Caron Pour Un Homme

Very pleasant lavender, lemon and tonka - wears lightly for a fougere, and is great in hot weather. Dates back to 1936.

Chanel No 19

Leafy green aldehydic classic - the youngest of this bunch, but very highly regarded. Dates back to 1971 - if you can get this in an older vintage, you're in for a treat.

Welcome on board, captain ... ai ai!

You're after fresh old-schoolers ... a bit to the obscure site, hmm?!

I'll second N°19, modern Eau de Parfum is my choise of juice - deee-licious!
L'Air du Temps (1948) de Nina Ricci is a classic, which is perfect for daily use.
You might wanna check out Miss Dior (1947) and Dioressence (1969) too.

This was exactly the one I was thinking of: "Caron Pour Un Homme

Very pleasant lavender, lemon and tonka - wears lightly for a fougere, and is great in hot weather. Dates back to 1936." Formerly Galamb_Borong

I wear L'Air de Temps sometimes and love it (mine is circa 1982), but I don't find it green or fresh, more light and airy floral, a bit powdery, with a prominent sexy wood/musk base. Yum, now I wish I'd worn it today!

I love green frags! Here are some of my favorites:

Le Temps d'Une Fete -- opens very green, blooms into a rich golden heady but fresh floral with a hay note underneath. Might be overpowering in very hot weather or if you hate florals, although it's not a very sweet floral.

Vent Vert -- green, green, green! Opens bracingly sharp, then softens, but green throughout.

Cabotine -- Lovely crushed fresh freen leaves and cut juicy ginger root. Try before you buy; some people HATE it.

Estee Lauder Private Collection -- lush green, well-blended and long-lasting. Gorgeous, smells incredibly luxurious.

Definitely try Chanel No. 19, Cristalle, and Cristalle Eau Verte.

True, but the lovely captain asked for something antique'ish,
and L'Air du Temps sure is old ... no?!

Cristalle or Eau de Campagne are good ones to seek out at your department store.

Or you can buy Nicolai's Le Temps D'Une Fete online at Luckyscent for a good price.

I love all of the discontinued Jean Patou fragrances, which are still available here and there. I suspect that if the Cap'n sticks around us she'll soon discover that one scent is not enough!

Sampling is the best way to go to avoid getting stuck with "just one" that isn't the right one.

Try O de Lancome. It isn't expensive, widely available and a perfect summer scent. Light and citrusy. I love it.

Top contenders - green and old-fashioned in a good way:
- Chanel No. 19
- Chanel Cristalle eau de toilette (The eau de parfum is just not the same. And if you have a choice between new stock and something from a couple of years ago, get the older stuff.)
- Balmain Ivoire. Lovely, green, soapy, intelligent-feminine Inexpensive from discounters.
- Lancome Climat - Discontinued, but not too hard to find from the discounters.
- Estee Lauder Jasmine White Moss. A nice old-fashioned-style green, sniffable in department stores.

Other good greens:
- Issey Miyake A Scent - sweetish modernish green floral. Sniffable in department stores and absolutely worth a try.
- Balmain Vent Vert. The new version is Perfectly Nice and I do recommend it, but it's the vintage version that's glorious. The new one is inexpensive from discounters.
- Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint - green, sparkly, mint, yum. Sniffable in some department stores.
- Creed Original Vetiver - A men's fragrance; I don't know if you care? I don't. A nice friendly green vetiver. Available from discounters, but Creeds are widely counterfeited, so go with a trustworthy one.
- I'd kind of like that other Cristalle flanker thingie if it didn't have the arrogance to name itself after Cristalle.

Not green but refreshing and not cloying:
- Parfumerie Generale l'Eau Rare Matale and Harmatan Noir - glorious tea fragrances that I think of as fraternal twins. Expensive, though. Maybe decants?
- ElizabethW Sweet Tea - might be too sweet, but it's so lovely and so inexpensive that it might be worth a blind buy. Samples are hard to get, but last I looked, the travel size was available from the ElizabethW web site for $20.
- L'Artisan Parfumeur Fou d'Absinthe - Medicinal, in good way.
- Hermes Hermessence Osmanthe Yunnan - Uncloying tea/floral, lovely in warm weather, boring sugar in cold weather, alarmingly expensive.

Oranges, because that's the only citrus I really like:
- Robert Piguet Cravache - another men's fragrance, but nice. The lavender put me off, but you _like_ lavender. Give it a try.
- Fendi Theorema - discontinued, but grab it if you see it. Lovely spicy-orange, more for winter than summer.
- Caron Alpona - also discontinued. Very distinctive soapy/marmalade/animalic, worth a sniff, decants available from Perfumed Court.
- Pacifica Tuscan Blood Orange solid (ignore the liquid) - available (online and Sephora) and cheap and lovely.
- Strange Invisible Perfumes Fire & Cream - I'm starting to fall in love with this one, but I still can't describe it.
- Hermes Terre d'Hermes and Eau d'Orange Verte - Nice enough, available heavily discounted, probably not the solution, but it's worth walking into a Sephora and giving them a sniff. Men's fragrances again.

Reverting to citrus in general, if I liked citrus I might still like:
- Fresh Lemon Sugar - candy lemon. Probably too sweet, but fascinating and it's pretty easy to find a tester for a sniff.
- Fresh Hesperides - I used to love this grapefruit fragrance, and then something happened to my nose and I didn't like it at all any more. But you might like it.
- Annick Goutal Eau d'Hadrien - but I hear rumors about reformulation, so make sure you can return it if you don't like it, because a sample or tester may not be identical to the bottle you purchase.

Veering all the way to the wrong side for some fairly strong florals that are worth drowning in, sadly almost all requiring mailorder sample purchases to get a sniff unless you have a really good perfume seller nearby:
- Parfumerie Generale Tubereuse Couture
- Serge Lutens Tuberose Criminelle
- Serge Lutens Un Lys
- Serge Lutens A La Nuit
- Parfums de Nicolai Number One

Hello, Captain Disgruntled! Adding my vote for Caron Pour Un Homme, Sisley Eau de Campagne, Nicolai Le Temps D'Une Fete, and Issey Miyake a scent.

I agree that No. 19 could be perfect, but if you like "green tea" scents and are looking for something a little less costly than Chanel, you could try Kenzo Eau de Fleur de The. And if you don't mind hunting for something that's been discontinued, you might like Shiseido Murasaki. It's nowhere near as heavy as the packaging suggests.

Most vintage, or maybe only 2 years old formulations, are better in strenght and overall smell
than the recent one. Frags keep being changed in the smallest of ways, therefor, if one fall in
love with a vintage parfume, then one will almost always be dissapointed when one buy a modern.

Parfum can last forever, if kept under the right conditions, and dark brown parfum from the
glorious days of the 60s and 70s, are almost always still superb. Of course, some will have gone
rancid, but many will still be as potent and gorgeous as ever!

It's dangerous to use a vintage formulation of anything before using the modern ditto,
one will almost always crave that exact vintage smell!

Cap'n Disgruntled, you've ordered some great samples. Enjoy, and I hope you'll find some new favorites.

A couple more suggestions. I know, I'm late to the party, but in case you'd like a few more to add to your list:

Paco Rabanne's Calandre

Dior's Eau Sauvage

Annick Goutal's Le Chèvrefeuille.

Keep at it! When I started sampling, I was lucky to like one fragrance out of ten. As I learned more about the notes that I liked, and more importantly the notes that could single-handedly ruin a scent for me no matter what else was good about it, my hit rate got much, much higher.

I absolutely hated Citrus Paradisi!
A few more for you to try if you are around a Sephora:
Guerlain Shalimar Eau Legere is citrusy and light, and despite the vanilla -fresh. I like it a lot and I think it would be apropriate in an office.

Bulgari- Green Tea, White Tea, Red Tea. Poor longevity on me but I think they are so nice in the summer.

Guerlain Terracotta-it is discontinued but not imposible to find. It is floral but I think it has the potential to change your mind about flowers.

Iris fragrances are great in the hot weather too. Prada Infusion d'iris is available in many stores and it can give you an idea whether you like iris or not.

Let us know when you find your future perfume(s).

And Cristalle! Don't forget Cristalle! (The EDT.)

It's like No. 19's younger, bubblier, more affable sister.

Edited to add: But not sweet. It's still very crisp.

Oh, but it is good, madame, damn good.
Too bad you didn't get that Dioressence!

I second all of these and also wish to add Infusion d'Iris by Prada. A safe work scent.

I am guessing it's civet. Usually I don't like grapefruit in perfumes but this combination was the worst!

Try Escale Ã* Portofino from Dior.

Get the 19, get the 19, get the 19. I only wished I was a boardroom diva so I could pull this one off in public. It is to die for.

Un Jardin en Mediterranee by Hermes
Diorella by Christian Dior
Youth Dew Ambre Nude by Estee Lauder
Tea Rose by Perfumer's Workshop
Bal A Versailles by Jean Desprez
Habanita by Molinard