my favourite scents
Dec. 2nd, 2013 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberett[Daily December masterpost; still open slots, if there's anything you'd like me to write about!]
I've written before about my relationship with perfume, which is probably helpful but unnecessary background to this post; nonetheless! It is there if you want it.
And then, of course, one of the things that I want to note first off is that the perfumes I most like to wear don't always have any relation at all to the scents I'm fondest of. Yesterday, I talked some about foods that smell reassuringly of home: parsley and nutmeg and walnuts and caraway and rye. There's more, of course: fresh yeast; stewing apples; the sea; catabatic winds.
Whereas the perfume I wear - I wear it for myself, not for other people, so that I have something familiar and comforting that I can bury myself in if I need to escape. It's very much about having something familiar and sensory to retreat to, if necessary; more on this later in the month.
-- I was saying. The perfume I wear is intended to be things that are comforting to me; I care relatively little about what other people think of it, beyond the obvious points of "not setting off people's allergies" and "treat for the boything". I tend to gravitate towards things that are heavy on woods or vanillas or stones or leathers as base notes - things I can interpret as weighty and grounding and strongly located - though on days when I am feeling sharper, spikier, I've got a range of scents based on white musk, with varying amounts of citrus and lavender. I mostly don't wear florals, largely because I'm allergic to lots of them; and beyond that because I tend to prefer things that aren't just or overwhelmingly floral - Penhaligon's Vaara is pretty much the only floral nonsense I wear, and that mostly in summer.
Fruits is a different matter: I routinely wear things that smell of mandarin or apricot or raspberry over the top of the base notes I talked about above. Herbs and spices are also, in general, a yes - though BPAL's cinnamon note amps to the point of drowning out everything else in the perfume on me (and their snow note turns into "motorway service station toilet cleaner"). Chocolate and hazelnut are things I adore.
If you want to know about particular things I wear a lot, or am wearing this week, by all means ask in comments; or if you'd like to list things you like and ask me for a rec by all means do :-)
I've written before about my relationship with perfume, which is probably helpful but unnecessary background to this post; nonetheless! It is there if you want it.
And then, of course, one of the things that I want to note first off is that the perfumes I most like to wear don't always have any relation at all to the scents I'm fondest of. Yesterday, I talked some about foods that smell reassuringly of home: parsley and nutmeg and walnuts and caraway and rye. There's more, of course: fresh yeast; stewing apples; the sea; catabatic winds.
Whereas the perfume I wear - I wear it for myself, not for other people, so that I have something familiar and comforting that I can bury myself in if I need to escape. It's very much about having something familiar and sensory to retreat to, if necessary; more on this later in the month.
-- I was saying. The perfume I wear is intended to be things that are comforting to me; I care relatively little about what other people think of it, beyond the obvious points of "not setting off people's allergies" and "treat for the boything". I tend to gravitate towards things that are heavy on woods or vanillas or stones or leathers as base notes - things I can interpret as weighty and grounding and strongly located - though on days when I am feeling sharper, spikier, I've got a range of scents based on white musk, with varying amounts of citrus and lavender. I mostly don't wear florals, largely because I'm allergic to lots of them; and beyond that because I tend to prefer things that aren't just or overwhelmingly floral - Penhaligon's Vaara is pretty much the only floral nonsense I wear, and that mostly in summer.
Fruits is a different matter: I routinely wear things that smell of mandarin or apricot or raspberry over the top of the base notes I talked about above. Herbs and spices are also, in general, a yes - though BPAL's cinnamon note amps to the point of drowning out everything else in the perfume on me (and their snow note turns into "motorway service station toilet cleaner"). Chocolate and hazelnut are things I adore.
If you want to know about particular things I wear a lot, or am wearing this week, by all means ask in comments; or if you'd like to list things you like and ask me for a rec by all means do :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-03 08:24 am (UTC)... hmm. I think I like single-note perfumes. Never thought about it like that before, but then, I don't often wear perfume. I do have a perfume oil on a eucalyptus base with a bunch of other Australian native notes in it, I should dig that out and make myself REALLY NOSTALGIC with it.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-03 08:34 am (UTC)Do you find that you connect particular scents with certain seasons?
Also, what perfume are you wearing this week?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-03 11:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-03 12:02 pm (UTC)In terms of seasons: yes, absolutely. My white musk-based scents mostly come out during summer, because I find them cooling and sharp and refreshing (so that's BPAL's Katharina, which is white musk and apricot; and Whitechapel, which is a lime-lavender cologne over white musk; and related but not musk-based, Penhaligon's Opus 1870). November I wear a lot of The Winter Of Our Discontent and All Souls' blends (I own the All Souls' 1918 BPAL blend, because -- All Souls' continues to have personal significance to me.) In winters I go warmer and woodier; in summer I'm more likely to wear my heather-and-blackberries and rose-based blends. Is that... some things?
There's also stuff that is much more about mood than about season for me - like Alecto, but also The Appalling Abattoir (more BPAL...) and a few other bits and bobs.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-03 05:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-03 07:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-03 08:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-03 08:11 pm (UTC)Penhaligon's is expensive enough (like, By Appointment To Their Majesties) that I wouldn't expect them to... and yeah, I've just checked ingredients on most of my big bottles of their stuff: no phthalates.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-03 08:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-03 08:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-03 09:18 pm (UTC)There are some great perfume names there.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-04 01:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-04 01:49 am (UTC)Some BPAL I know I like are Whitechapel, Golden Priapus, Chimera, Mary Read in tiny quantities because of the patchouli, and Plunder. (Today I'm wearing The Gentleman, one of last year's Yules, which is like Whitechapel but with more depth.)