Aromascope

31 Comments

• 1. shifts  |  September 28th, 2006 at 5:02 am

  My true interest in fragrance began with the purchase of Helmut Lang Cuiron back when it was released. I didn’t really start collecting and searching back then, but it was the first fragrance that spoke to me on a much deeper level than any of the Lacostes, Acqua di Giòs and CK Bes hade done prior to this one.

  I’ve always loved fragrances though and remember getting small minis from my grandmother (who always spoke highly of musk as the most luxurious and finest smells/ingredients of all, plus that she solely wore YSL Opium) which played with, mixing contents from the different minis creating rather horrid results. I smelled MKK for the first time yesterday and thought instantly for my grandmother. It is something in the fragrance, but not something that will stop me from wearing it, rather wear it with pride.

  Well, maybe it wasn’t with Cuiron it started. That was the time I realized what fragrance could be. The time it started was when I bought Comme des Garçons Odeur 53 online and noticed how all fragrances I’ve only read about were waiting for me at the click of a left mouse button…

  Thanky You Ina!

• 2. Vimal Solanki  |  September 28th, 2006 at 6:14 am

  purely business compulsions [honest, i am looking for a break]!!

• 3. chaya ruchama  |  September 28th, 2006 at 6:20 am

  My love of scent began very early, when I learned to compensate for my poor visual acuity by developing excellent olfactory and auditory abilities-

  It ties in with the need to be hyper-vigilant, in an unsafe home environment.
  I could literally tell, by smell and hearing, who and what was coming next, amd their intent.

  My father was perfume intolerant, but, regardless, my mother had a dressing tray with Arpege, Shalimar, Sortilege, Scandal…
  My aunt loved Replique, Crepe de Chine, Chant d’Aromes, Ma Griffe, Le Dix…
  I was forever in trouble, burying my nose happily , in all those bottles of treasure !
  Well worth the many beatings…

  At age 12, I purchased a bottle of Mitsouko for myself [from babysitting money]- my first fragrance ! Love at first sniff.

  I have always perceived scent as a great source of comfort and personal expression, a way to convey the many complexities of my [ overtly sunny] nature without having to verbalize them-
  Also , as a means of conveying profoundly troubling sexual communication…

  Too intense, too early, for such revelations, ma belle?

  I always jest with my colleagues that I only look like a cheerful, well-groomed, superficial person…
  Underneath, I am the most terminally earnest woman going…

  Love you, Ina-
  Rest that lovely brain !

• 4. Christina H.  |  September 28th, 2006 at 6:40 am

  well, I love reading your blog and appreciate the time that it takes you to write about fragrances, new releases, and your impressions on them.Your reviews have helped me pick out some new scents that I didn’t give much serious thought to before such as the Rosine Pousierre Rose which I have fallen for hard.
  So, please don’t forget, that even though I may not post comments everyday, I have not forgotten or have quit reading your blog.I appreciate everyone who takes the time and effort to share their love of fragrances and write about them.Many, many kudos go to you and everyone who writes about perfume!

• 5. Leopoldo  |  September 28th, 2006 at 6:57 am

  I don’t coment here (or I don’t think I have yet) but I read you regularly. Love your work…

  This new lease of life for fragrance adoration came about this time last year. I’d always been into fragrance, but in a low key way. In August 05, I got seriously ill, smells warped and became objectionable (coffee in particular would make me vomit – and although I can maintain control over my stomach, it’s no longer a smell I love unfortunately). I then got worse and ended up in hospital with severe pneumonia and pleurisy in both lungs. I left it too late; I nearly died. Imagine then, my wonder at the world when the fever and the inability to breathe subsided.

  One of those wonders was smell – all smells. And there you have it.

• 6. Elle  |  September 28th, 2006 at 7:00 am

  My parents entertained very frequently and my father started taking me to greet guests when I was about 5 or 6 so that I could sniff their perfumes and he’d whisper to me what each woman had been wearing. He’d also take me scent shopping so that I could get better acquainted w/ those scents and we’d buy great perfumes for my mother, despite the fact that she was utterly indifferent to them and actually hated wearing them. Anyway, my father and I had a wonderful time bonding over perfumes, so it was pretty inevitable that I’d become a scent sl*t.
  I love your random pieces. Mwah!

• 7. chaya ruchama  |  September 28th, 2006 at 7:30 am

  Oh, Leopoldo…
  I LOVE you…
  and I truly know how you feel..

• 8. Patty  |  September 28th, 2006 at 7:38 am

  Random is always good.

  Perfume was always a love, but I stayed in a lot of the high end department store and some niche lines, but not too much. My fatal plunge into the hard-core niche stuff was last year sometime, I think because my nose was grown enough to really start appreciating things that weren’t just pretty flowers in a bottle.

  I blame the turn on Gucci EDP, which I’ve had since it came out. After that one, I just didn’t want to go back to pretty flowers in a bottle anymore.

• 9. Marina  |  September 28th, 2006 at 8:08 am

  I thank (blame too) my mom for my perfume addiction

  I heart Aromascope and it author. Mwah!

• 10. Kelley  |  September 28th, 2006 at 9:31 am

  My love affair started with a glimpse at my true competitive nature when I asked my uncle Steve what he was wearing and he wouldn’t tell me. I knew he traveled back and forth to Dalas, Texas on business. After one too many glasses of wine, my uncle slipped and mentioned the store he loved in Dallas, called Stanley Korshack (which is in the Crescent Hotel). On a trip through Dallas, I stopped in…determined to find that wonderful cologne (at that time, I thought men only wore cologne). Behind the counter was a lovely woman with a hurt foot. We struck up a conversation and she told me all about her foot surgery. I told her why I had come in and that I was in search of a bottle of cologne that my uncle wore and that….by the way, my uncle had just had foot surgery. She paused and asked if my uncle was Steve Kelley. Well, it turns out that they are good friend and yes, she knew the fragrance (it was L’Artisan’s Incroyable –now discontinued).

  About every couple of months a package would show up in the mail with a couple of bottles of fragrances…Premier Figuier, Sanguine Muskissime, L’homme (csp’s version), among many others. I would try them and if I didn’t like them, I would send them back. This was a great way to shop but then I only ever returned one bottle over all those years!

  I miss Babara terribly. She knew so much about fragrances that she had clients all over the world. When she moved up with the company, I was on my own. And, that was the beginning.

  Hello, my name is Kelley, and I am a scent-a-holic.

• 11. March  |  September 28th, 2006 at 9:44 am

  Wow, how fun was that, reading the comments?

  I have no idea. It came out of nowhere. Two years ago I couldn’t have cared less about fragrances. I particularly hated the perfume area at the dept. store (I still hate that cheap, generic smell). Now I’m trying to smell them all. It’s cheaper than crack (I think) and less annoying to my husband than an affair…

• 12. Giselle  |  September 28th, 2006 at 9:45 am

  When I was about seven I started wanting the empty perfume bottles my aunts had around. They weren’t too generous with them, but I managed to scrounge a few, and one was Shalimar. There was no way I could afford to buy any, but I craved it. I liked all the other scents around me, and my mother wore Joy, and Chanel, so I already had those empty bottles.
  The scent of Shalimarmade me start saving up for a bottle. When I finally did buy the EDT at Macy’s I paid in rolled coins and singles, and the lady clerk was so nice to me. I was eleven years old at most, and she probably thought I was buying it for my mother.
  I sprayed it on, and that was that. By High School I was into as many Guerlains as possible, liking both the EDP and EDTs, In college I stuck with just Shalimar for budgetary reasons, until a boyfriend started buying me lots of high-end variety. I began to sample… it is a sickness now.

• 13. Wendy  |  September 28th, 2006 at 9:58 am

  My grandfather was a perfume chemist. He started my addiction!

• 14. greeneyes  |  September 28th, 2006 at 10:00 am

  Ina, I learn so much from reading your reviews. You write so simply and clearly, yet with such care about the fragrances you review. I aspire to know as much and review as well as you do!

  I first got into all this last spring, after reading an article about blogs in the New York Times. The article was actually about beauty blogs, but by clicking through other people’s blog rolls, I found the perfume blogs, and I was instantly hooked. I had no idea this world of niche fragrances even existed. After reading the blogs for a few weeks, I got up the nerve to order some samples. I remember making that first list and trying to decide on what I should buy. Really, I had no idea what the list of notes meant, so I simply tried to go by reviewers’ impressions, with help from the readers’ comments. (Sidenote: The people who comment probably don’t know how much more information they really offer the other readers…I’ve learned from them as well, so thanks to them all!) I finally decided to order the sample pack from Ormonde Jayne (wise decision), followed by a sample order from Aedes that contained SL Douce Amere, SL Datura Noir, Idole, Mona di Orio Nuit Noire and Carntion, Philosykos, and L’Ombre dans L’Eau. After receiving and sniffing, I was instantly addicted.

  I kept ordering samples and trying them, writing my impressions in a journal. My husband kept pestering me to start my own blog, but I felt shy and unsure (still do, frankly). I finally worked up the nerve and started Sweet Diva. The more I sample, the more I realize I need to learn. I’m absolutely committed to it now; there’s no turning back. Even on days when I get no comments and I feel like I’m sampling alone, I keep doing it for the perfume! I love it! I may not be able to share expertise the way you and Marina and so many other of my favorite bloggers do, but I hope I can at least convey my passion.

  I’ve always loved fragrance. I’m one of those people who can leave the house without makeup, but feels naked if she’s not wearing perfume. Until the last six months, I wore Estee fragrances, Chanel, Opium, and Calyx…a couple of Clinique scents. My whole world has shifted a bit since starting this project…so many scents, so much art, so much to learn. Plus, I’ve met so many wonderful people. It’s a real adventure.

• 15. nikki c  |  September 28th, 2006 at 10:38 am

  i adore your blog. it’s so informative, lively, lovely. perfume became real for me last year living in france. if i knew then what i know now … man! i wish i had taken more advantage living there.

• 16. Teri  |  September 28th, 2006 at 10:55 am

  I honestly cannot remember a time in my life when I wasn’t interested in fragrance. My mother, aunt and maternal grandmother were all perfumistas in varying degrees, so in my case, it’s genetic! lol

• 17. Jennifer  |  September 28th, 2006 at 11:56 am

  For me perfume was a way to connect with my french heritage and my mother who died when I was five. My mother came from France and was a kind sweet woman who I know so little about. I had always been as a child someone who was constantly smelling things and because of that had always loved to smell fragrances, when I learned of France’s impact on the history of fragrance it made me feel closer to my heritage. learning years later that my mother’s favorite fragrances were Shalimar and Paloma Picasso made me feel closer to the woman I barely knew.

• 18. violetnoir  |  September 28th, 2006 at 12:49 pm

  Ina, I think your blog is wonderful. I knew from the moment I “met” you on MUA (do you remember that first package that I mailed to you, my friend?), that you would develop into a perfume maven of the highest order. I was completely right! :)

  Basically, my grandmother got me interested in perfume. I adored her and everything about her. When I was a child, my beloved Gram was my best friend. She wore Joy and Escusson and L’Air du Temps, but her signature fragrance was Diorissimo. She introduced me to my first serious fragrance when I entered college, Chloe. And then, my interest just developed from there.

  My best friend in college was also into perfume. Back then there weren’t the number of perfume releases that there are today, so it was easy for us to stay current. When we moved to NYC, we had easy access to all the new perfumes, including Opium, Ivoire de Balmain, Nahema, Lauren, and No. 19, just to name a few.

  Life moved on, and so did we. She now lives in the South and I am on the West Coast. We keep in touch at the holidays and on birthdays, but I wonder if she kept up her perfume obsession like I did.

  Hugs!

• 19. Flor  |  September 28th, 2006 at 2:42 pm

  I read your blog all the time, but this is the first time I comment. As long as I can remember I have loved perfumes. I used to collect miniatures from aunts and friends. My Mom used to use Anais Anais, and Diorissimo. My step Mom only wore Chanel 5. My father always wore musk oil. I think he was more into his perfume than my mom and step mom. I remember seeing him put it on every single day. It’s one of the things I remember most about him: his love for powder and perfume oil. Everyone in my family always wore perfume. My mother gave me Anais Anais when I turned 11, my first grown-up scent, and I have been obsessed ever since. When I was pregnant with my first child, all the perfumes I had made me nauseous, so I went on a campaign to find perfumes I could wear on a daily basis without getting sick. I chose Lauren and O de Lancome. I’m very proud to say that since age 11 I don’t think I’ve gone a day without perfume. My taste in perfume has changed over the years of course, although the ones I remember from my childhood will always have a special place in my heart.

• 20. Amy  |  September 28th, 2006 at 3:29 pm

  Ina,

  Thanks for asking this question! It’s lovely to read everyone’s comments.

  My mom wore Chanel 5. So I wore it, my sister’s wore it. The smell of it still reminds me of my mom getting ready to go out… We (sisters) got a little racy – 2 went to Coco and I branched out to Chanel 19.

  A few years ago I somehow bought a bottle of 24, Faubourg. I ADORE it. In many ways it is my HG. Then 6 months ago I started reading your blog and some others. Katie bar the door! I am awash in new scents and my family is unsure what to think! Your reviews are perfect and I often order bottles unsniffed based on yr insight (The JPG Classique is fab!)

  SWAK. Amy

• 21. Tigs  |  September 28th, 2006 at 3:56 pm

  A great and interesting random topic Ina – and everybody’s responses have been so varied! I got into perfume through my first and greatest addiction: reading. I read an article in Vanity Fair about Jo Malone and was interested enough to take out some books on perfume out of the library, where I worked. One was the “Emperor of Scent” and I got totally hooked on Mr. Turin, which was how I found Now Smell This through Robin’s interview with him about two years ago. (My mother had always liked fragrance but only really wore one at a time – Boucheron all through my late teens.) The first fragrance I then bought for myself was Angel, followed by Ormonde Jayne Champaca. I learned that I could read and research perfume endlessly *and* get all kinds of exciting mail (I’ve always loved getting everything except bills in the mail.)

• 22. Tom  |  September 28th, 2006 at 4:00 pm

  My mother wore Antilope, Bandit and Joy. My dad wore Kolnisch Juchten and Eau Sauvage. I guess this apple didn’t fall very far from the highly scented tree!

• 23. annE  |  September 28th, 2006 at 5:08 pm

  Ina, thank you so much for a topic that has provided fascinating insights into our fellow perfume lovers’ development. I’ve loved reading them all, and I love reading your blog; no matter what else we all may, or may not, have in common, we’ll always have conversations to share!

  I always remember the sense of smell being very important to me, although it never occurred to me that I could do anything with it. I just loved smelling things, from the bottles of Arpege and My Sin on my mother’s dresser to the clean sheets hanging out on the line in nice weather.

  My real obession didn’t start until I was searching for a fragrance online a couple of years ago, and I kept getting hits referring to MakeUpAlley. So I wandered over and fell into a world I didn’t know existed, where other people loved fragrance as much as I did. What a joyjul discovery!

  Thanks for adding to it. Mwah!

• 24. eaumy  |  September 28th, 2006 at 8:38 pm

  Ina,
  I love your blog and I love reading the comments. It’s such a lovely way to get to “know” others in the cyber universe. My interest in scents began relatively recently. I’ve always had a few bottles of department store fragrances that I was more or less indifferent about. One day, I found something that I really liked and looked on eBay to see if I could find it at a good price. I stumbled upon decant seller Parallax (may he rest in peace). I was stunned. What were all these scents I had never heard of? And, his descriptions were marvelous. I started ordering decants unsniffed. About two years ago, I read a mention of Luscious Cargo’s sample program in a magazine. Zap! Another opportunity to find out about scents I’d never heard of before. And, I found myself becoming obsessed with sniffing everything available. I rarely bought a bottle. It was all about the sampling. Finally, about 18 months ago, I found a link to Now Smell This is a literary (!) blog. From there, it was a hop, skip, and a jump to MUA. My credit card balance will never be the same. But I smell gooooood.

• 25. Ina  |  September 28th, 2006 at 9:49 pm

  Thank you everybody for sharing your stories! It’s absolutely fascinating to read! I was gone most of the day, and it was a real treat reading the responses over a bowl of pasta. My own fragrance interest appeared out of nowhere, from what I can remember. I just always liked nice smells, and although my mother never wore any classic French perfumes, she always wore some perfume, usually by our local Latvian brand Dzintars or the Russian Novaya Zarya. I clearly remember a stage of being obsessed with scented aerosol deodorants – I had a whole collection at home. I also remember having a (relatively) bad habit of sniffing other people’s perfumes in other people’s bathrooms, sometimes to the point of actually peeking in the drawers. Shame on me! But I swear it was all part of the plan. My very first perfume that I bought with my own money was Davidoff Cool Water, and my second favorite was Sunflowers by Elizabeth Arden. After that, I went through an array of mass market scents (212 by Carolina Herrera, Iceberg, Oh de Moschino!), and after I moved to the U.S., every time I traveled home, I’d buy a scent at London airport duty free that’d last me a whole year (till my next trip). When I came upon Makeupalley.com, that’s when the real deal started. That was 3 years ago, and here I am now, blogging about perfume.
  Thank you again!

• 26. Flora  |  September 29th, 2006 at 12:54 am

  I discovered at a very young age that I had an unusually sensitive sense of smell – which has been both a blessing and a curse. When you ar a child and have little or no control over your environment, it can be very difficult. Bad smells that were merely annoying to others made me sick, and I often had to leave the house if someone was cooking food with a strong odor. On the other hand, I took extraordinary pleasure in things that smelled good. I loved flowers and gardening, and I still do. I also found that I enjoyed some rather unusual aromas that others did not – but I swear I am not like the main character in the book/movie “Perfume”.

  When I became an adult, I realized that I could control my own surroundings, and thus things like smoking and horseradish were banished from my home forever. I always loved perfume, but I had no idea what to look for or what to compare them to, growing up in a small town. I moved to a large city in my early twenties. I experimented with various drugstore and department store fragrances, finding some I really liked – Anais Anais was my “signature” for some years. Then one day a REAL European style perfume shop opened up in my city, and on my first visit I stayed about three hours! Life has never been the same since. I discovered the world of fragrance blogs less than a year ago, and I was so thrilled to discover so many people like me – I never realized it before. This of course also led to my finding out about niche lines I never knew existed, and the special online shops that carry them. So I in turn thank all of YOU for being here for the perfumistas to read and enjoy, and for providing a refuge for those of us who long for beauty and fragrance in our daily lives.

• 27. dinazad  |  September 29th, 2006 at 2:48 am

  I don’t have a particularly keen sense of smell, but I always did like the way things smell – the particular dusty smell of the merry-go-round in the park, the smell of the city streets, the smell of the farmers in their Sunday best (a mix of soap, milk and manure), my mother when she dressed up to go to a concert (Blue Grass)…. so naturally, I wore perfume as soon as I could afford it, and I gravitated towards the masculine – minis of Pino Silvestre accompanied my teenage years. But until about three years ago I was of the firm opinion that three bottles of perfume were all a girl needed, one for summer, one for winter, and one for special occasions. And then they discontinued one of my favourite scents, I met Judith, who would drag me along on cosmetic and fragrance testing jaunts, and all of a sudden I had to clear large spaces in my closet to make room for my growing collection of scents. Haven’t looked back since, but I do try to pare “la collection” down to a managable size every now and then! Anyway: it’s all Judith’s fault. I was perfectly normal until I met her. Going out to lunch with her today…

• 28. chaya ruchama  |  September 29th, 2006 at 6:37 am

  Mold on there, Ms. Dina-

  If you’re meeting Judith, and Judith says she lives in New England, then you can’t be too far from me…

  Can it be?

  I’d love to contact you further, if it interests you…
  Ms. Ina has the 411 on me…
  Love to hear from you !

• 29. dinazad  |  September 29th, 2006 at 8:48 am

  I’d love to, sweet Chaya, but my Judith lives in Switzerland, just like I do……. Count on me, though, as soon as I win that lottery and invade the US!

• 30. Jeannie Regan  |  January 6th, 2007 at 11:43 pm

  I’ve owned well over 100 full bottles of parfum, edp, or edt. I have since given away (some) and built up my collection again and again.

  My first bottle was Je Reviens by Worth, next was Youth Dew by Estee Lauder. My own first purchase was Diorissimo by Dior.

  I am unusually sensitive to fragrances which have a profound affect on my mood.

  Alas, I am addicted. Have worked two jobs to keep in new scents, ever looking for the Holy Grail!

  I am not alone.