Regrets, I Have a Few

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Many of my perfume regrets have one thing in common: I never smelled them first. I trusted the people who wrote the descriptions. I believed the copy, the reviews, the poetic shorthand that promised restraint, balance, or “just enough sweetness.” I assumed that when multiple experienced noses agreed on how something behaved, it would behave that way on me.  It turns out that trust was often misplaced, and my shelves are littered with the ghosts of blind buys that arrived sounding beautiful and left me disappointed.

Blind buys aren't the only perfume purchases I have bemoaned. Regret comes in many forms, including the heartbreak of lost or leaked bottles, the exasperation of customer-service nightmares, or simply the fading of excitement over time, as well as the betrayal of advertising copy.

Balmain Ambre Gris is Exhibit A in my shrine of blind-buy horrors. When it launched in 2008, it was spoken of as a salty amber, mysterious and coveted. I managed to snag a bottle from a discounter for about $60, a minor miracle, but the victory was short-lived. On my skin, Ambre Gris didn’t whisper elegance. It screamed bad breath. I’m talking the kind of olfactory assault that makes you imagine the scent of someone who forgot to brush, floss, and maybe even rinse for a week.

What I do not regret is selling that bottle on eBay for $250. The market may be irrational, but at least my nose is safe from smelling that smell on my skin again. Ambre Gris taught me two things: first, that blind-buy hubris can backfire spectacularly, and second, that capitalism has a sense of humor. (And, I must admit, that nearly 20 years later, the scent improved considerably, though not enough to keep it.) 

Eau de Boujee Verdant is Exhibit B. I am a sucker for green fragrances that are lush, leafy, and fresh, but I had completely forgotten that the “cactus” note in Verdant was actually crafted with Calone, a chemical I personally find horrid. The real reason I bought it? FOMO. I’d heard the On the Scent Podcast hosts raving about this British brand and felt like I needed to own something from Eau de Boujee. Shipping from the UK was $50, so I decided to go big: a full bottle of Verdant, travel sprays of the other three scents, and a candle. I wanted a taste of the hype, but what I got was a punch of synthetic cucumber and the faint, mocking laughter of my own impulses. (Two of the other scents remain in my collection, as does the candle, so all was not lost.)

Slice Society Snif is Exhibit C, and it broke my heart. The promise? Pizza. A fragrance that would summon mozzarella, dough, tomato sauce... all the comforting, greasy magic of a proper slice. What arrived instead was a cruel joke. For about ten glorious seconds, it hinted at tomato sauce, a fleeting whisper of what might have been. Then came a yeasty note that smelled far more like beer than bread, as if some sad tavern ghost had wandered into my bottle. And then, just when I thought it might recover, BAM! Tart blackcurrants hit, merciless and uninvited, leaving not a trace of pizza behind. I wore it once and never touched it again. Now I'm even afraid to try fragrances with a prominent blackcurrant note.

Akro Awake is Exhibit D, the coffee fragrance that should have awakened my senses but instead gave me nothing but regret. It’s technically accurate: the promised coffee, cardamom, and lemon notes are all present, but the vetiver dominates with the subtlety of a jackhammer. Wearing it felt like enduring a caffeine headache trapped in a glass bottle. It was sharp, spiky, and totally relentless. Every inhale reminded me that just because a fragrance hits all the right notes on paper doesn’t mean your nose will agree. I sampled it, thought I liked it, bought it, and realized my nose had been playing a joke on me.

Guerlain Spiritueuse Double Vanille is Exhibit E, a regret of the heartbreakingly subtle variety. I adored this smoky, rich vanilla so much that I treated it like a treasure: kept it in its original box, stored carefully in a plastic bin alongside other fragrances, and decanted in tiny amounts into a smaller bottle to use at will. But eventually, life got busy, and I didn’t touch it for a while. When I was ready to decant a little more, I discovered the horror. The screw cap had betrayed me and the liquid had leaked, leaving nothing but a smear of residue in the bottle. Years of love, care, and obsessive rationing, gone! (Yes, I cried.) 

I thought this fragrance was expensive when I bought it, but it now costs twice as much. Sadly, it will never again be part of my collection--unless some rich benefactor comes my way.

Ormonde Jayne Ambre Royal is Exhibit F, and its regret lies not in the scent itself but in the Kafkaesque nightmare of getting it. I had smelled the line years ago and remembered loving Ambre Royal, so when a coupon made a 30ml bottle affordable, I snapped it up. Shipping from the UK was fast, but my excitement curdled the moment I opened the package and found that they sent the wrong fragrance.

The website promised a smooth exchange if I notified them within 14 days. I emailed the same day. Five days later, nothing. I emailed again. Five more days later, the message had been read but ignored. Third email. A few days after that, I finally got a reply. They’d agree to exchange it. Around the same time, Black Friday sales started, and I realized 50ml of Ambre Royal was now $30 cheaper than the 30ml I had not yet received. I tried negotiating a creative solution: send me the 50ml plus another fragrance at the sale price, bill me the difference.

By the time the correct order arrived, about a month and a half later, after approximately 18 emails, I no longer wanted it. I haven’t even worn it. Ambre Royal remains, unopened, a trophy of bureaucracy and lost enthusiasm.

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Posted by theminx on Minxstinks
Note: this post is my opinion. I am not affiliated with the companies mentioned in this post or any other companies.

Blind Buys for October 2019

Who else is brave enough to make "blind buys?" That is, fragrances purchased over the Internet based only on their descriptions and/or word of mouth. I do it a lot, and it is occasionally quite dangerous. So many times I've bought something and found it either quite unsuitable for my body chemistry and tastes, or it downright stinks. At that point, I bring it to work and leave it in the ladies' room for someone to take. I do try to buy scents that I'm pretty sure I like, though it's sometimes impossible to tell, and I always purchase them from a discounter like Fragrancenet.com or Fragrancex.com, so I'm not spending a ton of money.

This month, I was pretty successful. I purchased three scents from Fragrancenet, and am pretty happy with two of the three. I think I will keep the third one, at least for now, and give it a try now and again, but the other two are going right into my fall fragrance rotation.

Miller Harris Terre D'Iris
Lyn Harris
Calabrian Bergamot, Sicilian Bitter Orange, Valencia Orange, Florida Grapefruit, Spanish Rosemary, French Clary Sage, Tunisian Orange Blossom, Turkish Rose, Indonesian Patchouli, Tree Moss, French Fir Balsam, Iris Butter

There's a lot going on in this very unisex scent. The opening is very citrus-aromatic, rather sharp, with lots of bergamot and clary sage. The middle phase of the scent stays very green, with traces of the iris coming through. As it dries down, Terre d'Iris loses the citrus. It is replaced by patchouli, which retains some of the scent's initial sharpness. Eventually--and that is after some hours--the scent softens, but never into what I would call an iris scent. I have seen Terre d'Iris called a chypre, but the moss comes in so late in this fragrance's development, I am not sure that's accurate. At any rate, it doesn't strike me as a chypre, and I like it, so I'm not going to call it that.

Although I will probably wear Terre d'Iris in the fall, I think it would make a nice spring scent as well.

Van Cleef & Arpels Collection Extraordinaire Bois D'Iris
Emilie Coppermann
Sweet Notes, Frankincense, Iris, Driftwood, Vetiver, Ambergris, Labdanum, Myrrh, Vanilla

While also unisex, Bois d'Iris is much softer and warmer, a cozier iris, if you will. The opening has a custardy quality (what are those "sweet notes" exactly?) which goes quickly into a woody iris that's neither powdery nor dry. Sadly, I'm not getting the frankincense, because I think a smoky note would make this fragrance more interesting than it is, at least on my skin, but the myrrh and vanilla keep the scent sweet into the drydown. Bois d'Iris reminds me a lot of Odori Iris, which is among my favorites. I need to try them side by side once I unearth my cooler-weather fragrances. Overall, a very pleasant perfume for lovers of iris. Especially when one can snag a bottle for around $70 on Fragrancenet.com.

O De Lancome
Robert Gonnon
Bergamot, Lemon, Tangerine, Basil, Rosemary, Coriander, Honeysuckle, Jasmine, Sandalwood, Vetiver, Oakmoss, Cistus, Labdanum

Now this one is definitely a chypre scent. And I'm not at all partial to chypres. Once the oakmoss kicks in, that's pretty much all I smell. I really wish the citrus notes shone more, because the chypre quality of this scent is almost oppressive to me. Still, it was worth trying, and who knows? My taste in fragrances changes from time to time. Maybe one day I'll get into chypres.

Or maybe not.

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Posted by theminx on Minxstinks