One Step Behind?

Well,you know about my falling out with 24 Faubourg,Warum!While I have had my flirtations with loud white florals in the past,I think I can safely say my taste for them is mostly gone.There are some loves that have remained constant,such as Shalimar,since my teen years.As I get older,I find my tastes going back to my beginnings;I'm still loving iris,vanilla and bergamot along with rose and violet.I think what happens is a streamlining of our tastes with all this sampling.I do have several fragrances I would now give up for one excellent scent,so yes,I think my wardrobe has some catching up to do as well!

When I first decided to sample as much as I could, I knew pretty much nothing. The scents I liked were usually sweet and fruity, and I spent a lot of time trying women's fruity florals and weird things that I liked at the time and don't appreciate so much now. And there is a significant portion of my wardrobe in a bag in a closet that never gets touched, which I largely have to show for this.

Hard to say what happens to one's tastes over time and experience; it seems to be highly individual. I started off loving Chypres and still love them best. I also love Orientals and keep adding to my list. Original favorites like Aromatics Elixir and Knowing have gone into, and out of, and back into my collection multiple times.

The note of black pepper has gone out and stayed out. Patchouli and sandalwood remain mainstays. Amber and vanilla are newer loves.

Chanel, Guerlain, and Montale keep amusing me. Profumum, the Italian company, impresses me more and more. I still enjoy the occasional, unusual Madini.

All-natural perfumes continue to attract me. I judge them by a wholly different criteria from synthetics. I appreciate each for what they are.

Perhaps the biggest change is that I realize that my collection must remain small in order for me to enjoy it. I don't want to rotate through 20 bottles anymore. I'd rather have only a few at a time. The more I get, the more I want, and the more I end up wishing I had bought others instead, and it gets out of hand. So, I keep it small.

I have always loved fragrance.....Even as a little boy I loved to smell good.....I would always want to wear my Dad's Cologne and that's how it started.....I even remember taking the time to smell all of my Mother's and GrandMother's perfumes.....I knew they were not for me but still enjoyed taking the time to smell each one!!!
I've always had a pretty good collection over the years but I must say that my introduction to Basenotes back in 2003 was a great turning point!!! This is when my collection really grew.....I was also introduced to Niche Fragrances here which has also helped me to the next level of fragrance.....Great Thread!!!
gary

It's interesting to learn of your present perspective, purplebird.

Like you, Warum, I'm a fairly recent inductee, and the journey continues to wobble all over. I'm surprised by everything — how some juice remains in my affection from first exposure, how others rise and fall because of wearying notes or change of season or having been one-upped by a better formulation, and how unimagined fragrances have wowed me. Ordering samples almost proves fruitless. It seems like I blunder upon revelations better than I can seek them out.

I think of my present status as "coasting" rather than "stalled" and trust that new pleasures will come about somehow.

Hello Warum, (I always want to call you by your real name!!!) You and I found perfume the same year. Yes, I wish I wouldn't have bought as much as I did in 2009, however, my very first bottle ever, Bois D'Armenie, is still a big ol' love. And my second bottle, isavaraya, is still high up there.

But at this point I really only want Guerlain and Caron; and Fidji. Old School chypres, with oak moss the way nature intended. Here are my current 'this is all I really need' frags:

-Fidji. Vintage. I would knock someone down for this.
-Pour une femme. Parfum. My signature scent.
-Bois D'armenie. The scent that took my perfume virginity. I'll always be fond of it.
-Apres L'ondee. I'd give up dark chocolate for this.
-Alpona. Best representative of my skin-profile preference (woody green).
-Vintage Narciss Noir. This is the best perfume of all time; I'm too embarrassed not to list it here.
-Vintage Nuit de Noel. I cried when my sample came in- it's solid gold
-Nahema Parfum. Nothing says 'Yes, I'm that kind of woman' like Nahema
-Mitsouko. No comment needed.

PerfumedLady - I wore 24 Faubourg for years and then I fell out of love with it too!

My tastes have changed with my perfumista journeys. I know for a fact now that no matter what - at the core of my tastes lies forever Guerlain. Then Chanel.

I learnt to love white florals madly and desire gourmands and sweet scents too. However the one thing I've learnt about myself is essentially I like dry and classic fragrances. Sort of full circle for me.

I began with Chanel No 5 and Mitsouko many years ago and here I am again with these two.
I also learnt to never say never to any fragrance.

Warum, I also started very late in my life, in 2007, and knew nothing and had worn very little perfume during all my earlier years. My taste has changed and my ability to smell has developed since I started. The truth is that my smelling ability is very poor, but I started this perfume hobby anyway and I have learned and experienced so much in these few fragrance years. I now can get some notes from perfumes, from the beginning I just got smell. Recently I wore Parfum Sacré again and I thought that there hade to be cedar in it - and yes I checked the notes and I was right. Now I have learned that cedar is a very difficult note for me, most times I have tried perfumes with cedar they have been impossible for me to wear but the cedar in Parfum Sacré works. After a while I also started to wear my perfumes for at least five days in a row, and when I do that I get to know them in a deeper sense. When I now wore Parfum Sacré again for a week I did'nt only get the cedar, for the first time I also got the incense. It's so lovely to wear those fragrances that develop and behave differently and surprises you some days.

My taste has also changed. The first perfumes I bought in 2007 were 5th Avenue from Elisabeth Arden and J'adore. I don't think I would buy them now when I know so much more about perfume. I don't mean that I would think that they were awful, but there are so many lovely and interesting perfumes in the world and I realize that I never will be able to wear them all. However I still am at the flowery side so flowery perfumes and florientals are my favourites.

So much has happened during my 3 1/2 perfume years. I'm very fond of Nicolaï perfumes and I'm so happy that I bought my three Grossmiths. Nearly from the beginning when I learned about reformulations I got interested in how perfumes would have smelled earlier in the 20th century and 19th century. I don't want to buy vintage perfume on Ebay but the houses of Nicolaï, Grossmith, and I think Amouage wich I slowly have started to explore, give me the opportunity to smell something resembling the old formulations. Always when I read "like in the old days" on perfume boards I get interested. So when I realised that Frederic Malle Le Parfum de Therese was created in the 1960s I had to sample it. That was a difficult one, it took some time before I liked it, but after a while I did and bought it.

Oh, have I ever written so much at the same time here on Basenotes?

Well, my answer is that I have changed and developed a lot since I started and I think this process will continue. Isn't this a wonderful hobby?

Yes! If ever there is a Basenotes song, that should be a line amongst the lyrics.
So glad to see you posting, Novis. I don't remember you're writing that much at one time either.

Hmm...we both hate Euphoria,both love Mitsouko(now,anyway!),both had broken affairs with Faubourg-and you mention another I have recently learned to love,No.5.Are we possibly scent sisters?!I think I need to raid your wardrobe!

This is a wonderful thread-great idea,Warum!I'm really enjoying all the varied responses!

This really is a good thread, Warum.

My wardrobe was one step behind. I've gone through a deep cleaning this year. One fume I said goodbye to was one I didn't love, but liked enough to wear pre-BN, and mostly because I didn't know anything better existed! lol. I was big into gourmands at first for that same reason. I still like them, and enough so to keep a couple in my wardrobe, but that is no longer a genre I actively seek out. I ended up growing out of one gourmand I felt sure would always be a constant in my wardrobe.
I discovered that I like spicy orientals, oakmoss, and Caron. That was two years ago, and now I still prefer orientals but have lost my taste for oakmoss, and sort of fell out of love with the Carons. I cut the number of fumes from that house in my wardrobe in half, and purposed to use up an oriental I felt was redundant. I've kept my two oakmoss-heavy scents because I suspect I'll come around on those again.
I learned early on of the brilliance of leather, incense, and aldehydes. Tabac Blond was a revelation for me, and the only Caron I can't really live without. Chanel No. 22 left me giddy. If I had to narrow it down to two, these would be it. In all the flux, my mind has not changed on either of these.
I tried to play the vintage game, but found that while those fumes are fun to find and fun to try, they're just not my thing, for a number of reasons. So I gave a bunch of those away, too (and passed recently on one of those round bottles of Shalimar with the pointy top. That was a little hard, I'll admit.)
This summer I had my first positive experience with an amber, so I've been curious again about this note, especially upon learning it can be herbal or spicy, and that it's the herbal iterations I have trouble with.

My wardrobe is really in a constant state of refinement. I'd like to have it under 15 some day. There are a couple in there that I don't wear much but need to stay put for personal reasons.

I couldn't handle how greedy I had become. It was disturbing to feel that way--that I could not be satisfied.



Sunnyfunndy did it too. And it felt good, didn't it? Cleansing. Liberating.

I'm like that, though. I hit saturation point, and I have to fly. Guess it's the bird thing.

When I first joined Basenotes I was overwhelmed by the types of fragrances and terms and, of course the vast array of brands and choices within the brands. Early-on I developed a love for the classic fragrances like Mitsouko and although Mitsouko is still my best friend I have dabbled in niche fragrances. I have little love for designer fragrances, with some exceptions, of course. Of late I have become very involved with niche, most especially Parfumerie Generale and Sonoma Scent Studio. So, yes, there has been evolution going on in my fragrance journey and likely much more to come. I fully recognize that the idea that the more I know, the more I know how little I know, certainly applies.

[QUOTE=Warum;2055868] My favorite white florals are lily and LOTV which brings me to another point you're making -- about going back to beginnings. LOTV was my very first fragrance, given to me by my Granny, and I am still delighted when I can catch a whiff of it in my new La Collection Climat. [QUOTE]

Oh,Climat is very nice,congrats on a lovely purchase!I went through a bottle myself back in the '80's.Lily-of-the-valley is one white floral that hasn't turned traitor on me,as long as it's balanced with other notes.I like my florals on the complicated side,too(I suppose because I'm a chypre/oriental kind of girl);Une Rose from our recent Malle sample pass is a good example of what I mean.It really does smell just like a rose on the bush,yet it's complex-sort of a "soliflore plus more".Having said that,sometimes a perfectly linear soliflore that is a true impression of the flower it represents is just what my nose and soul need!No olfactory challenges,just enjoying the scents of nature!How wonderful that your fragrance journey will always be linked to your Granny and the scent of sweet and tiny L-O-V flowers!

It felt very good. I've had this thing-- if I want to buy a new one, I have to get rid of one. Ideally, I would have a nice, compact wardrobe composed of only scents I wear on a regular basis and I feel reflect me. If it hasn't been worn in a year, it no longer reflects me and it doesn't need to be taking up space. But I had a thought last night. It's okay for me to keep some I don't wear much, if at all. There are still a few that don't need to be in there, but the Cool Water flanker my DH gave to me on Valentine's Day, the clean, cold floral I wore on my wedding day, the two vintage Avons that take me back to my young perfumista years... those reflect me as much, if not more than, my top five.


I remember going through your wardrobe that day and being surprised! Good on you, friend. Watching your senses change, develop, and grow is pretty cool.
Incense is so fascinating, isn't it! I've got a couple CDG Incense Series samples I can't part with because they are so very... different. No food, spice, or plant-based scent has the ability to transport me to another place and time like incense scents. They feel more personal to me. There's one I've been on the fence about for a year and a half, not because I don't thoroughly enjoy it, but because I can't bend my head around wearing it in public, and my downtime is minimal; I'd want to wear it more than I have the occasion to.

As I've just been into the hobby for one year, I'm still a hummingbird -- I'm sniffing and acquiring and flying from bloom to bloom (frantically sometimes!), sucking up all the nectar that I can!
I acquired A LOT in the past year. I spent a zillion hours and, in spite of many ebay and discount bargains, a big chunk of money doing it!
So, with the new year, I did take a step back -- and reviewed my wardrobe. Added lots of items to swap list -- actually, I plan on selling or gifting most of these.
My fragrance resolution for this year is to stop acquiring full bottles ( of course I made several exceptions: some backups of a few discontinueds, several items I've been waiting to get, and some matching lotions) -- because I need the time to settle into my wardrobe and play with what I've got. I've been trying out small decants, and resisting the urge to buy otherwise. So far so good.
I think it's too soon for me to restrict to 10 or 20, though I like the idea of being able to do that. But right now I'm still in love with 40 or 50!

This is so....me. I've been enjoying the journey for almost a year now. The perfume that I wore for years and years as a signature scent - Liz Claiborne's Realities (in the orange triangle box) was discontinued, and for a couple of years I tried different things that the SAs in the mall stores recommended. Then I found Basenotes, and my perfume world expanded exponentially. One of the first things I did was to order that Realities on-line. And I recently gave it away, because it seemed so...well, not me anymore. I bought way too many things that now don't seem to fit me as well. In the beginning, I thought I loved "greens" - and I do, but not as much as I love ambers, and spices, and vanillas. A year ago, I would have been totally bewildered by Bois de Paradis and Fille en Aiguilles and Ormonde Jayne Woman but now they are my new loves. Like Purplebird and her chypres, I have always loved citrus and I still count them among my favorites. But now there are so many to try that I never imagined!

Like many who have posted here, I am looking at my stash and deciding not to buy full bottles for a while (except one that Evangeline introduced me to that I have to have as soon as possible - bad Evangeline. Bad, bad Evangeline). I'm going to get rid of some things that I thought I loved, I'm now into decants to decide if I like it well enough to think about a full bottle, and I still haunt Ebay and the other fragrance sites, but I feel like I'm more discerning now. I am still delighted by samples that contain things I've never smelled before. But I've found I don't have to buy a bottle immediately.

I've grown.

I had very broad tastes in perfume when I was in my teens and 20s and didn't shy away from heavy hitters.

Then in my 30s I started getting headaches from most scents, and started wearing soliflore perfumes, which became the bulk of my collection. However more recently I've begun enjoying amber, incense, cassis and today I wore and loved a scent based on on chocolate and cognac (a DIY by wooznib). At the same time my enthusiasm for violets has dimmed considerably.

As to my collection, there are a number that I would not (or could not) replace, and when they are gone, there won't be more. Some I don't wear often, but I don't feel they are irrelevant to me or that I have to get rid of them. Even if I only wear them occasionally, they have their use.

The journey definitely continues.

I have been interested in perfume for as long as I can remember, but things turned more "serious" in 2002 when I found fragrance forums. At that point I was mostly into Orientals, especially ones with amber, sandalwood and vanilla notes. Then I wanted to learn more about Chypres and slowly but surely explored a great variety of scents and learned to love notes I hadn't liked before, for example vetiver.

My wardrobe expanded until I reached the point where my wishlist suddenly shrank, and it has been over two years since I bought any perfume. Though my taste has definitely changed (or perhaps "expanded" is a better verb), I haven't stopped loving anything I have loved in the past and I revisit my old favourites every now and then. Thus I see no reason to get rid of scents I still love, even if I don't wear them as often as I used to. I like the fact that my wardrobe has many layers and tells a story about my perfume history.

More about my journey in my blog: http://www.basenotes.net/entries/146...y-So-Far-vol.1

Every now and then, yes. The only reason I avoid sampling is that I can't afford to get "I MUST have this!" reactions.
I guess I wear my full bottle scents about 95% of my time.

I feel like my general taste keeps getting more varied, I can appreciate a much wider range, while I may be becoming more fickle and particular about what I really love - which is probably a sign of health.

I have been absorbed by this for five or six years by now, I think, and was fascinated by perfume before that, occasionally obsessed by some fragrance or other. My taste was fairly narrow and specific; orientals and heavy gourmands, spice, wood and incense, I didn't enjoy much of anything else. During those early years, when I was most likely to accumulate a lot of bottles, I simply couldn't afford to; so the collection was kept nicely in check. I only got a few things that I really, really loved, fragrances that wouldn't let me sleep at night. I'm still glad to have all of them, and at least one of them I bought again recently.

The last two years have been hectic, last year especially - I had more time, energy and money to spend on myself and my own passions than I've had in many years, I became seriously interested in vintage fragrances and all of a sudden, I could enjoy, appreciate and even wear fragrance families that I would have felt uncomfortable with only a year earlier - suddenly I enjoyed the brisk, soaring citrus, rose and incense of Shaal Nur, not just the musty, dank myrrh of Messe de Minuit; then I found that I could actually wear and feel like myself in Chanel N°5, not just appreciate it intellectually. All of a sudden the bitter, oily greenness of Bandit made sense, became enjoyable and revealed the leather at it's heart. Agent Provocateur and Youth Dew taught me that I do enjoy that uncompromising, somewhat anachronistic austerity (and the sensuality underlying it) of classic perfumery, while Parfum Sacré taught me that I enjoy not just rose, but powder too.

I conquered a dreaded note that used to make me recoil in at least one fragrance, the heliotrope in L'Heure Bleue, and learned to enjoy it. I began sampling raw materials, picking out individual notes and thinking in terms of aromachemicals that I enjoy - hello isobutyl quinolines, hello Bandit, Aramis, Cabochard, Aromatics Elixir and Azurée! I smelled civet and ambergris and discovered that I love animalic notes, even straight up.

I bought a lot of bottles, compared to the previous years, but I only spend serious money on things I truly, madly, deeply love; if it's vintage and cheap I tend to get it just because, though. Sometimes I learn something, some of it I will probably end up passing on to someone who will love it better, sometimes I find love. I began hoarding a little - I am watching myself acquiring multiple bottles, vintages and concentrations of a few older favourites. That worries me a little.

I think I will accumulate a lot of bottles and samples this year too, but I have found that I really need to take my time over them, or I start to get indecisive and revert to just wearing old faithfuls - bit of a bummer, that. Oh, well...

This is exactly right. I'm getting obsessed with citruses right now, though. I'm probably just wanting summer. I definitely will be putting aside the ambers and spices when the weather warms. I also enjoy some florals, and the greens will appear occasionally, but a nice fruity-citrus would probably carry me a long ways into summer!

Pimpinett, what a fabulous essay! If there were to be a book of collected posts that personify the fragrance experience, I would put your six paragraphs on the back cover to well represent what this smelling business can be all about. It's like you sent us a postcard from your perfume journey.

Oh my, thank you! I am enormously flattered. I thought I rambled.

Thank you!
Yes, I can have a lot of variety in what I wear. I'm happy I splurged so much on scents when I still could. Every coin has two sides and the positive side of not being able to make purchases nowadays is that when I revisit scents I haven't worn in a long time, they feel "new" to me and sometimes I notice things about them I never did before. There have been some lovely surprises.
So even without new scents the journey continues...

What a wonderful thread, Warum. Thanks for this.

My fragrance journey is still in its very early stages. I went for nearly a decade without wearing anything other than the occasional B&BW lotion, and then on my 40th birthday last year, I just decided that I had been too long without perfume. But by that point, I had no idea what I liked. So where to start?

I didn't know about basenotes, I didn't know about niche, I didn't know about anything, so I ended up at the department store perfume counter with a SA who seemed to have a little more knowledge than the average sales clerk. I think she found me to be a bundle of contradictions because I discovered that I didn't like Angel at all (she was surprised), I hated all of the Chanels (except for Coco), Paloma Picasso was OK, I didn't care for Opium, I liked Bulgari Omnia, I liked Ysatis, I was fascinated by Alien, I hated all of the Ralph Laurens and most of the Estee Lauders, I liked Amarige, but the one I liked most of all was Euphoria. (Yes, I cringe a little now.) But I wanted to know WHY I liked that one and not the others. So I started researching and discovered basenotes.

Wow! A brave new world lay before me. I could research and sample a whole world of fragrance at (I thought) a fraction of the price of buying full bottles! (The fallacy of that thinking was quickly obvious as I accumulated more than 100 samples in less than six months....) After a couple of missteps with impulse full bottle purchases (Creed Original Santal, Prada), I discovered that I'm hooked on sampling and less concerned about buying full bottles until I know that I REALLY REALLY love something. So my collection is made up of a bunch of 1ml samples. If I like something, it graduates to a decant. I don't buy a full bottle of anything unless I continually return to the decant. I've been very disciplined about that since the first few ill-advised FB purchases. I currently have about 15 decants and about that number of full bottles.

So what I did I find that I currently love? I think my profile is pretty well-defined, at least for now: amber, incense, wood, spice, honey, smoke, leather, and musk, with the occasional dirty jasmine or tuberose thrown in for good measure. I don't love vintage, but I definitely appreciate having sniffed them and smelling their inspiration in some contemporary fragrances. I am quite firmly in niche, and I find that I am a bit of a slut when it comes to Serge Lutens (ok, a lot of a slut). I also gravitate toward Parfum d'Empire, Parfumerie Generale, and Sonoma Scent Studio.

I don't know how much my tastes will evolve; I suspect I will gain more appreciation for chypres but mainly at the periphery. I am so drawn to the warm, syrupy, spicy, woody, and smoky scents, particularly (but not exclusively) in the fall and winter. I will probably be wearing more dirty/indolic florals as the warmer weather comes on because my fragrances choices do seem to be influenced by both weather and my mood. I just sampled Malle's Une Fleur de Cassie, and I foresee that one getting a lot of wear in the spring.

So I definitely have a few bottles in my collection that probably don't belong and that I rarely wear and should swap. However, I will probably keep Euphoria around for sentimental value, if nothing else, because that was the one that got me started.

Goodness! I just realized I've written a short novel -- sorry for droning on and on. I've just found all of this so fascinating. I suppose it's a corollary of self-discovery, isn't it? Thanks for indulging me.

For me that was Messe de Minuit, especially - it took me several months of being happy, almost giggly just thinking about it to cave and finally buy a bottle, it seemed so difficult to wear and so hard to justify. And it is, I rarely wear it, but I am so glad to have it.


That sounds fantastic. I got some samples of this and that - civet, ambergris, musk and a bunch of other raw materials, mostly woods - from a friend, I've managed to sniff some other ones here and there, and I'm about to order that Perfumer's Apprentice kit with another friend. I am really looking forward to that, I'm beginning to find sniffing the raw materials and trying to pick fragrances apart almost as fascinating as the perfumes themselves. I'm not good at it, but I enjoy it.


Absolutely. I have to make more of a conscious effort to remember to wear samples, that's a weekend and spare time activity for me - I want to do that more.

You're spot on with the sample/decant thing. Sometimes the samples fool me into thinking I like something more than I do, which is why I get the decants. It's like a quality check. Too, all of my samples are dabbers, and I get the spray version of decants, so the difference in application may have something to do with it. I try to make note of fragrances that I prefer dabbed to sprayed. And if I find I like something better dabbed, then I won't get a FB, just a bigger 1.5ml dabber sample.


Right again. I don't love Euphoria any more as a fragrance. There is something synthetic in it that I now smell every time I wear it. I don't know if it's the pomegranate or the "wood accord," but the only times I wear it now are the occasional Saturdays when I'm cleaning and, by comparison, it doesn't smell nearly as synthetic as the cleaning chemicals.

Ha ha, love that quote!

Oh, by the way, my story is similar to ExtremeKF's, except I messed up and bought a bunch of bottles right from the start. Some of them will slowly go away but I do really like much that I bought. I've been sampling much more than I did initially, and don't always find much that I like better than what I already have. I'll do some decants most likely, unless something really wows me.

I’ve just passed my first anniversary as a serious fragrance-lover, so am probably still in the ‘honeymoon period’! I think it was a combination of circumstances that bought me back to fragrance after a long dormant period: a latent interest in scents since childhood, at long last a little time to myself after years of combining motherhood and full-time work, and some spare cash in the bank! In the past year I’ve amassed about 60 fragrances and probably another 40-50 samples, minis and so on. I still like all the fragrances in my wardrobe, and wouldn't consider getting rid of any, but I’m aware that my tastes are changing and that I’m becoming more selective. I keep going back to fragrances I didn’t like on first sniff to see if I can at least learn to appreciate them (this worked with L’Heure Bleue and Shalimar, but no luck yet with No. 19 or Rive Gauche, amongst others). Since getting into Basenotes, I am trying many more niche scents, although living in the sticks means they are not easy to come by.

I expect at some point I may want to scale back my collection, if nothing else simply to create some space, and I worry about the potential waste (I could probably live several lifetimes and still not use up all my perfumes). But for the moment I’m happy to continue searching for new things, adding to my wardrobe and just trying to learn more about this wonderful world of scent. Most of all, I don’t feel guilty about my hobby or think it frivolous. Scent makes me happy and has helped me deal with some stressful times over the last year. Ultimately, I think I’ve earned a bit of self-indulgence! And you can laugh at my wardrobe all you want - I'm not ashamed of anything in it (not even Cool Water Wave Woman!)

What great input on this thread! I love hearing how everyone views their hobby and their collection.

One thing that I have learned over the last several months is that my tastes are cyclical. What I loved 6 months ago I do not love so much today...but I may love it again in another 6 months. My aim is to keep a fragrance around long enough to test it fully under different conditions - rainy and cold, warm and sunny, cold and clear. I believe there is a big difference in how something like Lolita Lempicka smells in cold, crisp, winter air and in humid summer-time heat.

I've cycled through several samples and really only missed one that I sent off. That's how I know I must really want to buy that fragrance.

But at over 200 samples and 40 or so full bottles, I think I need to put the brakes on....

It's available from http://www.perfumersapprentice.com/, no affinity with Mandy Aftel that I know of. Good amounts of everything and lots of synthetics, which I'm very interested in.

Absolutely true for me as well! Cyclical and seasonal. I can't give up on fragrances too quickly.

I will also wear one scent to death and then have to put it aside for a time, before I "miss" it again.

I have my scents divided physically between warm to hot weather and cool to cold weather.
Then mentally divided into catagories of "daytime, nightime, good mood, bitchy, REALLY bitch, need a break, sexy, soothing, brings back memories of ______" etc. I rarely wear anything two days straight. I"m a bit ADD and not the same myself any two days in a row.

I definitely agree! I've bought fumes for certain weather only to find that they work best in the opposite. My winter wardrobe grows while my summer wardrobe shrinks! I bought Fracas and Le'a thinking they'd be perfect summer scents, a sexy, wet tuberose and a lush, cool plumeria, but Fracas likes early spring, and Le'a likes late fall and winter. Hypnotic Poison was intended to be a cozy, curl up by the fire winter scent, but I learned just this past September that HP is at its best in early fall, before the weather gets too cold. So I guess more than my tastes being cyclical, I've had to rethink the parameters I've placed on certain scents.
I'm curious, too, about LL in summer. Bal a Versailles, too. I was brave enough to try No. 22 one particularly hot day a couple years ago, and as tenacious as that one is in the cold, it was magnified in the heat, and almost too much for me (which is saying a lot.)