Quote:
Originally Posted by
SteelerOpera 
(...) Hated it when I sprayed it on my wrist then hours later I fell in love and had to bide my time till I could get back tot he store and buy it.
I know that feeling and your sentence describes perfectly my initial impression of many of the scents that are now my favorites. When you first start getting into fragrances, you're familiar only with the ubiquitous array of mass market scents (clean, fresh, unoffensive, generic, etc.) and other types of scents often strike you as incredibly dirty, bitter, outdated or ugly. I initially felt that way about things like
Encre Noire,
Eau de Gentiane Blanche,
Etro Patchouly,
Eau d'Hermès, etc. and today I really enjoy those and find them totally safe to wear. Among the things I own and wear all the time are a number of so-called "challenging" things like
Leather Oud,
MKK,
Route du Vétiver,
M/Mink,
Mouchoir de Monsieur, and
Villoresi Vetiver. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed scents like that 5 or 7 seven years ago, and I realize that it's really only my experience and sensitivity to smell and the quality of ingredients and blending that's changed since I started out, nothing else. Today, my rule of thumb is almost that if something smells strange, unusual or bad in a conventional sense - give it another chance. So much on the fragrance market is simply too easy, just pretty and without that "wow effect" that makes you stop and actually
feel something - whether that feeling be horror, wonder, amazement, or whatever.