Comments on: Random Thoughts

By: Jeannie Regan

Jeannie Regan — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 04:43:51 +0000

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.

By: dinazad

dinazad — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 13:48:03 +0000

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!

By: chaya ruchama

chaya ruchama — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:37:28 +0000

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 !

By: dinazad

dinazad — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 07:48:23 +0000

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…

By: Flora

Flora — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 05:54:04 +0000

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.

By: Ina

Ina — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 02:49:08 +0000

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!

By: eaumy

eaumy — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 01:38:44 +0000

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.

By: annE

annE — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 22:08:04 +0000

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!

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 21:00:36 +0000

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!

By: Tigs

Tigs — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 20:56:37 +0000

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.)