Not properly a newbie but...

[Palicao]

I guess here is the place to start and say hello to the community!
I found this site long time ago to be true, but only today I decided to join it! ^_^

I am into perfumes since I have memory. My mother was used to wear Poison and she got all the version during the years (I bought her the Tendre and Night version, even if her favourite is still Hypnotic). I always had a very keen sense of smell (which more then a blessing usually is a problem ahah) and I started to smell perfumes for fun looong time ago.

I would say that my first perfume was a Les Copains fragrance... long time lost in my memory ( I actually just remember the bottle and some citrus notes it had) but then arrived Opium for Men and was love at first sight.
After Opium, CK Be was the next one. Both went easily too much popular for my tastes, to be true, but I insisted wearing CK be for a while, since it was so easy to wear and so simple, and on my skin it changed a lot.
Then a day I woke up and I decided I would wear a Chanel perfume. I found then Allure, which was my fragrance for a lot of time. Classical and beautiful even if not so lasting on my skin, I liked the calibration and the subtle notes.

In the meanwhile I smelled a lot of fragrances, just for fun. I found I liked a lot Euphoria Intense, Dior Higher, Prada Ambre pour Home, Prada Man, Kouros Body and the list is too big to continue.

But the hunt for my new signature perfume started in August and still I'm near to nothing.
Allure became in the end to be too classic, I suppose. I started to want something more sensual, more oriental maybe... kinda sweet but still masculine somehow (even if I guess I could wear something really odd, if I like it... I'm a modern dandy with a strong baroque soul hahah). Something to say that I like secrets and dreams and night, something charming and unusual. Maybe simply exotic without being bold.

I tried again some old classic and new perfumes as well. I was shocked actually by One in a Million and Black XS, even more than Fleur du Male or 212 Sexy. Maybe they are not perfumes I would wear as my signature, but I'm quite shocked they were created as male fragrances. I love them, they are so strange and different, and I might buy them when I will have a bit more money. Actually I'm wearing 1 in a Millione on the right arm and 212 Sexy on the left. And they are still so vibrant and sweet.. they are a feast for my nose
even if looks like 1 in a Million is the best seller ever (which is not good... I don't want my perfume or fragrance to be popular... I want to be mine eheheh)

So, as anyone any advice? I can't decide if I want to go for something blatantly flowery, something woody with spices and an oriental taste, or something more sea-like.

It's so difficult to find the right perfume, isn't it? There are a lot of nice fragrances there, and they all smell wonderfully but mine is yet to be discovered.
Is still out there waiting for me to find her!

[odysseusm]

Thanks for your note, and welcome! We are always glad to hear from new and not-so-new folk.
You are presenting many complex facets. Here is one suggestion. Try to sample the Comme des Garcons Incense line. These are complex, moody, intriguing scents. They are a bit niche and yet not "out there." There are several different ones, you may find one or more to you liking.
I love Kyoto, Zagorsk and especially Ouazarzate.
Cheers,

[silverbullet]

From your current fragrance preferences:

Iceberg Twice
Hanoi Mori
Habit Rouge
Givenchy Gentleman
Zino Davidoff
Annick Goutal Sables
Dunhill Desire for a Man

Good luck to you and welcome aboard

[Bigsly]

Well, if you're not sure which genre you like most, you might want to just get a bunch of different "cheapos" that have gotten excellent reviews here on BN. This is what I did. One obvious suggestion: Adidas Victory League. It's selling for next to nothing these days, is sweet but spicy, and is unique. It's well balanced but complex and dynamic. Not much more you could ask of a frag !

[Palicao]

Thanks very much to everyone... sorry for the late reply but I'm without internet since ages! ; ;
It's soooo difficult to post and I have so little spare time...

but here's my story!

following the reviews and my nose, I went to debenham a dozens of times... and love was for a quite strange perfume like Black XS. Such a sweetness but also strangely and mysteriously masculine (maybe the patchouli? who knows the secret? lol) that I couldn't resist.
it was an error though, in the end. it took me just a week to develop a kind of hate. such a wonderful fragrance with such a dull texture... it never changes at all, from head to base is just the same.
so I left my first love and I went out to hunt, again, for a perfect match.
The next one was hiding behind a mysterious and gothic lady with too much jewellery: Dior Intense pour Homme. The normal one was very nice but when I heard the intense was a limited edtion I told msyelf I had to have it (aaaah my fashion victim side played here a big role) and it was on my skin for a few week... then everyone started to ask:" is that Dior Homme? it's so nice, it melts to perfectly with your style and normal smell (??? what does it means I still have to understand LOL)" and so on... basically in a couple of days I was rather unhappy again with my perfume and I went out to buy something else. something better.
debenham again (thanks for the credit crunch sales!) and this time I was desperate... I bought something young and unusual to learn I'm less young and unusual than I thought... I bought something exclusive and chic to find out it was known more than the last gossip about the beckams and my disillusionment reached its peak when I didn't see anything I could like...
but then a funny lady dressed with reindeer horns, showed me a secret hiding in her part of the shop: a discontinued perfume: Yve Saint Laurent M7. It was perfect, it was love. I bought the biggest possible and I went home happy, finally.
After that, to be true, all my collegues (esp. ladies) started to ask me what was that perfume, that was so nice and so masculine and yet inspiring. M7 is indeed a wonderful fragrance, I must admit. It's sexy but that kind of sexy that doesn't scream out... is a kind of woody sensuality, mixed with the strong base note that gives this perfume an horrible scent in the bottle and something heavenly on my skin, changing from the morning to the afternoon and becoming more dark and interesting while still lasting long. I learnt with M7 that perfumes need to be tried, always, no matter how horrible they are on the bottle!
But something happens a few days after, and it was destiny I think...
Walking the streets with a friend, I was a bottle, 16£ only and I said myself: why not to try a blind buy?
That was epiphany. That was Obsession Night for Men, from Calvin Klein, and was something I was trying to find without having the words to express it... something nightly but yet kind of fresh, something watery but still somehow oriental, something fruity without being too sweet.

At the end of this travel in the world of perfumes, on a path that I'm afraid is very distant from being complete, I just realized that nope, I won't find my signature. Never.
what's a signature if not something for others, something not just for me but for people around me to smell and remember me? what's that if not a kind of silly vanity?
the real sin is perfume per see, wearing it like the perfect dress, for the right occasion...
it's like I found my base notes but now I know I can add something to the mix

I've got M7 to help me when I want to be stunning
I've got Dior Intense Homme to cherish me when I want to be chic
I've got Obsession Night for men to be on my wrist when after a day of work I finally go to sleep

Now I just have to find something to add a sparkle to my punk side and I will be happy.

And maybe I will have to try to do something with Black XS >,<
somehow