Scary Perfume Notes
October 31st, 2006
A little while back we shared our favorite perfume notes. Today, to keep up with the spirit of Halloween, let’s talk about the scary notes. You might laugh but I’m actually scared of peony. Every time I see peony mentioned as a note, I cringe. I don’t mind the actual flower. I just dread peony in perfumes. Same goes for freesia. Tons of fragrances created these days are high on peony and freesia. If you don’t believe me, just check the Sephora’s What’s New section. I’d much rather smell of deadly patchouli and rigid oakmoss. I also dread grapefruit - 99% of the time it smells like cat urine on my skin. What perfume notes scare you?
Entry Filed under: This and That
27 Comments Add your own
1. Judith | October 31st, 2006 at 6:15 am
Cherry is a very frightening note. So, too, is strawberry. They are almost always sickly sweet and artifical smelling on me. BTW, I like to eat these fruits.(
2. chaya ruchama | October 31st, 2006 at 6:32 am
You guys are SO silly !
I love it.
I agree w/ your choices -
Surprisingly, [although I adore them] whenever i see or hear mention of magnolia, gardenia, and tuberose, I instinctively flinch…also coconut !
Ironically, when utilized skillfully, they are masterful- and when abused, vomitous.
Nothing can hit me with a sledgehammer faster…
3. Elle | October 31st, 2006 at 6:47 am
Ce***y. Can’t even type out the whole thing. Love to munch on it w/ some dip or cut it up in soups, but in a scent? Olfactory arsenic.
Lavender can also be a little scary in some scents, especially when it’s turned up to give a full blast of sinus clearing power. I grow lavender and love it in the ground…just not in ‘fumes.
Grapefruit is indeed a scary note usually - way too sharp, but I do adore Dammuso.
4. March | October 31st, 2006 at 6:50 am
What Judith said. Adding: anything that could be in a tropical drink. Vetiver and cedar in large doses both smell like B.O. to me. Poorly done rose smells like Glade, and I do not mean that as a compliment.
Peony! I reviewed Stella in Two today. Gad, it was wretched.
Angelica/hawthorn. Almost a guaranteed ugh.
5. houseofstone | October 31st, 2006 at 6:55 am
P-p-p-p-p—-Patchouli! Sounds like a cat’s sneeze, smells like college. Unwashed hippie. Booohahahaha! Evil.
6. Marina | October 31st, 2006 at 7:25 am
“Aquatic” notes
Anise / licorice
Lilac
Often grapefruit
Often freesia
Scary stuff!
7. Patty | October 31st, 2006 at 7:51 am
Black currant — it’s nice enough, but that you can’t swing a dead black cat without hitting in in every perfume out there is enough to make it scary.
Patch (a little goes a loooong way)
aquatic notes
8. greeneyes | October 31st, 2006 at 8:47 am
Grapefruit, peach, cinnamon (which I love, but not when I smell like a Red Hot). Sometimes I’m afraid of vetiver. Like when I’m alone in the night, and it’s dark.
9. Sara | October 31st, 2006 at 9:15 am
okay here’s my “Chamber of Smelly Horrors” list:
Grapefruit
Cherry
Tea Rose–instant meltdown
Almond
Aquatic/Marine
too much cedar also does me in!
10. Ayala | October 31st, 2006 at 9:31 am
I can’t think of a scary note in perfumes in the sense of what your are talking about - a dreaded note that is always means a bad think in a perfume if I see it listed. There are notes that are often abused and misused (i.e. fruit and marine notes that repeat themselves in myriad permutations in the last decade).
The only note I have in my perfumer’s organ that is downright horrible to the point that I have no intention of using it ever is tomato leaf absolute. I love the scent of tomato leaves, such a summery happy scent!
The absolute of tomato leaf, however, smells like tomato plants that were pulled violently from the earth, only to be cooked in the sun or in a witch’s pot until rottenning point.
Another natural smell that I can barely tolerate is fresh green fava beans and their plants. It makes me see black and almost faint. I am dead serious. Now that you know my achilles heel all you need to do is find me and stick a branch of fava bean in front of my nose LOL.
As for a spooky Halloween note - licorice it is. There is something so strange about all the licorice notes (anise, fennel, aniseed, tarragon) - something mysterious, peculiar; it’s hard to say if it’s warm or cool, sweet or bitter/dry; It’s a magical note in my opinion, and I personally like it. Most perfumes that have a licorice note are very original and unusual (think l’Heure Bleue and Apres l’Ondee, and also Eau de Reglisse and Lolita Lempika).
11. eaumy | October 31st, 2006 at 10:46 am
Nancy’s dreaded House of Horrors:
marine/aquatic
cherry
gardenia
lilac
curry/tumeric
too much cedar (the dreaded b.o. note)
Play Doh
ugh.
12. violetnoir | October 31st, 2006 at 11:37 am
Actually, Ina, I love freesia….Bwah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah!!!!!!
Have a freaky, fragrant Halloween!!!!
Bugs, not hugs!!!!
13. IrisLA | October 31st, 2006 at 11:41 am
Scary note: Banana. Love to eat ‘em, scares me in fragrance. I would like Patou Sira des Indes if not for that dreaded note.
14. Tom | October 31st, 2006 at 11:49 am
Peach, because it usually has this gagging industrial smell to it that has about as much to do with the smell of a ripe peach as fertilizer does to flowers.
Heliotrope. Ugh.
Play Doh. You know who you are.
Rose. Because of the cheap, craptastic rose attar everybody had in the 70’s. March, I agree. Glade. Oy.
15. Teri | October 31st, 2006 at 11:52 am
Funny how much in agreement we are today.
I’d rather wear Eau de Garlic (Dracula, are you listening?) than anything with cherry (theatrical scream), peach (theatrical gasp), more than a light touch of vetiver (shudder) or wintergreen (hooooowwwwllll).
Happy Halloween to all.
16. Giselle | October 31st, 2006 at 11:57 am
banana
“sport” scents
17. benvenuta | October 31st, 2006 at 12:37 pm
strawberry, cherry, black cherry, blueberry (I run from blueberries, blueberry cakes, blueberry aromalap oils etc. in real life too), coconut, tropical fruit, almonds. and that synthetic note that is used to make certain scents sickly sugary sweet, so sweet, that I cannot smell any other notes (Hypnose, Brit, L…).
18. SilkySmooth | October 31st, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Great topic today!
Scary notes for me:
Coconut
Aquatic notes
Lemon
iirrrkk =P
19. Twibbet | October 31st, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Play-doh (does anyone really want to smell like Play-doh?)
Banana
Peach
Cherry
Almond
Coconut
and especially BABY POWDER! Yikes!
20. CindyN | October 31st, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Many of mine have been listed already–but here goes:
Peony
Freesia
Most roses
marine notes
21. Tommasina | October 31st, 2006 at 4:30 pm
- Powder (do I just mean Heliotrope, perhaps?)
- MARINE / ozonic / acquatic notes - ACK!!
- whatever ’sharp’ thing in Carriere and Love in White, for example, that grabs the back of my throat and won’t let go (anyone have a clue?)
- peach *sounds* as if I shouldn’t like it; but, in fact, I’ve been horrified / amazed / humbled to find how bad my nose is, in that a few of the things I like have it as an ingredient…
- likewise, my ignorance is such that it *may* be oakmoss I don’t like in some things; certainly, sthg in what I’ve been trying recently has made me literally *very* nauseous…
- leather if too strong (which is probably not even strong *enough* for many of you hardy beasts here!). Sadly, while I like Femme on my mother, on me it’s an instant headache and nausea-inducer that lasts ALL day (so back that bottle goes to Marshalls!)
In addition to a LOT of scent education, I think I need a skin-chemistry alteration; surely they’ll come up with that possibility soon? No? …
22. Ina | November 1st, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Thank you, everyone, for your comments! Glad to see so many like-minded people here.
23. Flora | November 2nd, 2006 at 12:34 am
The usual suspects: Marine/Aquatic/Ozone, baby powder, Play-Doh sweet ( I almost fainted the first and only time I smelled Pink Sugar!), “melon” especially in cheaper scents since it never smells real and always has that catch-in-the-throat metallic edge to it, fake cherry, raspberry & strawberry because they violate my love for the REAL thing, overly strong Patchouli though I love it in moderation, and finally, whatever the heck “secret ingredient” makes Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds so gagworthy, as though I were suffocating under a blanket of it and my throat is closing up. Anybody know?
24. mireille | November 2nd, 2006 at 9:38 am
Pineapple. Has anyone mentioned pineapple? Also the marine scents. Anything salty. Or too sweet. As someone else mentioned, I’d rather have the morose quality of oakmoss than the Las Vegas showgirl artificiality of fruitiness. bleh. xoxo
25. assorted raisins | November 2nd, 2006 at 2:24 pm
I’m getting in a little late on the game but it’s interesting to see so many common notes. A very scary perfume would contain
cherry
mango
anything cotton candy
play doh
fake rain
marine oceanic notes
laundry smell (like “cotton”)
white musk (like BBW moonlight path) EWWW
too much vanilla
anything too sweet
I repeat, UGH!
26. SniffQ | November 2nd, 2006 at 10:22 pm
I’m a little late coming in on this, but I had to chase children down the street with threats of “healthy treats.” OK, fragrances that scare me:
Peach (the stuff they claim smells like it has a half-life, not a shelf life.)
Marine accord. Please. Smells like the Navy to me.
Aquatic is the same thing to me.
Cedar. Yikes. Old tree kept in a dirty sock drawer.
Patchouli. I am an old hippie and had plenty of it back in the 60s.
Musk. Either weird chemical stuff (why would someone want to imitate the smell of an ox’s butt?) or the real stuff which smells like a dead ox’s butt.
“White Flowers” read: compost heap. In the sun. In July. In Washington D.C. where the humidity is 90%.
Cherry. Real ones are nice, but in perfume, they’ve been dissolving LifeSavers in vodka again.
For that matter, when a fragrance says it is “Fruity/Fresh” it will smell like Fruit Loops soaking in grapefruit juice.
Cumin. Which I think means “armpit.”
Rose. Remember “Tea Rose”? in the 80s? I’ll never get the smell out of my nose. Always smells like overripe potpourri.
Chocolate. No. I quit wearing food once I figured out how to feed myself.
On the Potentially Scary List:
Saffron. Better off pollinating the crocus.
Honey. Tastes great, smells. . .ummm. . .sticky.
Lemon. A chancy thing, can slide into Pledge quickly.
Surprising that I am such a perfume addict, isn’t it? So many accords, so little skin to try it on.
27. eau de lapin | November 2nd, 2006 at 10:26 pm
more Scary notes: marigold
ozone
lotus
apple
chocolate
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