Just around the corner is Valentine's Day, and you might already be thinking about what scent you want to wear for the night out. Maybe you even want to try something new. I asked two fragrance experts, Amy Yang of Luilei in Brooklyn, New York and Lisa Slavik of Beautycafé in Plano, Texas, to weigh in on the best perfumes to wear on Valentine's Day. (Both stores sell over the internet, too.) Today's post focuses on the best scents for a full-bore romantic evening. Tomorrow we'll discuss the best scents for a tentative romance and for people who aren't in relationships but plan to go out and have a good time anyway…
Profile of a Perfumista: Diane
You might know Diane as “Dragonfly00” on MakeupAlley, or as the owner of Dragonfly Scent Me, an ebay store selling perfume samples and decants. Either way, if you know of her at all, you know her as a real perfumista — or, as she calls it, “perfume junkie”. She's a native New Yorker and former therapist now living in Georgia, and she laughs easily as she talks. Here is a little more about her:
Getting Started. Diane played around with perfumed oils in college, but she credits hormones with kickstarting her serious interest in perfume about four years ago…
White Flower Failure
For most of us, certain perfume notes may not sit well on our skin. For instance, berry notes can sour on me. I have had the painful experience of standing at Aedes in New York, waiting for a spritz of Parfums DelRae Bois de Paradis to settle on my skin (“My favorite!” the salesman said), and then having the salesman lift his nose from my arm with a firm, “No”. Similarly, on me Molinard Nirmala might as well be bug spray.
But beyond the chemical aspects of perfume are its aesthetic properties, and some of these don’t sit well on some people, either. This is where I have White Flower Failure. Tuberose, gardenia, and lilies smell just fine on me, and I adore them when I smell them on others. But when I wear a tuberose-based perfume, what I see in the mirror doesn’t match up with what I smell. I smell delicious, creamy flowers, and depending on the perfume, maybe purity or maybe a sexy, ladylike aroma, or maybe something else. What I see in the mirror is a slightly messy redhead wearing a rumpled vintage cashmere sweater, with no makeup but for red lipstick — that is, what didn’t wear off with her morning coffee. What I experience is dissonance…
Lanvin Scandal ~ perfume review
I’d been yearning to try Lanvin Scandal for a while now. It seemed like references to Scandal turned up everywhere: in a list of leather scents, in my research into perfumes made in the 1930s, in other perfume blogs. The problem was that Scandal was discontinued in 1971. At last, in a swap, I got my hands on three precious milliliters of it. Now I just had to hope I wouldn’t fall in love with Scandal…
Perfume Resolutions for 2007
The new year is coming up, and I’ve resolved to give up some of my bad perfume habits and pick up a few good ones. Now Smell This is the perfect place to post resolutions, in the hope that if everyone sees them I’ll be more likely to stick to them. Here, then, are my perfume resolutions for 2007:
Don’t buy unsniffed. Buying bottles of scent based solely on an alluring description has caused the most heartache of any of my bad perfume habits. For a minute, I thought I might tally up how much I’ve paid this year for perfume I’ve bought unsniffed and regretted, but I can’t bear to see the hard facts. I tell myself that a particular perfume is a bargain, that it’s had terrific reviews, that Catherine Deneuve wears it, and presto! I’m online with my credit card. I must remind myself that the perfume I’m so eager to have won’t go away overnight, and that I have time to order or swap for a sample and make a smart decision.
Clean out my perfume collection. Thanks to my bad habit of ordering unsniffed, I have bottles of scent that I either don’t like at all — or more often — just find so-so…