some favorite perfumes (so far)
from my year of perfumes
This was the year I found a new expensive hobby (perfume) to replace my old expensive hobby (drinking gin). So I wanted to put down some of my favorites from this year—all of which, weirdly, I have not actually posted about yet, though some of them will almost definitely get posts before the end of the year, unless I get hit by a car or something.
At this point in my journey to the center of perfume, I have tested something over 170 perfumes.1 (This was achieved by wearing at least one new sample every day, and sometimes more than one depending on the longevity of the first one I tried.) I have not tried very many “canonical” perfumes outside of Chanel No. 5 or even that much of the niche perfume world that tends to dominate forums I look at online (ELDO, By Killian, Byredo, Frederic Malle, etc).
This wasn’t really on purpose, I have a bunch from these more prominent brands bookmarked to try sometime, I just didn’t get around to them. In hindsight, probably one of the reasons I have stuck to very small brands is that I have to really push myself to describe what they smell like. Slowing down and paying attention to how things smell has been good to do and helped me notice things in the world I might have not really picked up on before.
An actual year-in-review post will come in late December no doubt, but I would say that while 2022 and 2023 were what one might call “bad” years because I was “in the hospital,” 2024 has mostly just been a year of frustrating stasis. I am working on things but they take more time than I think, so it feels like nothing happens. I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of time sleeping and being depressed (or not sleeping and being depressed), I worry about having no professional future, I wonder if I should go back to school and train for a day job, etc.
Something I was reading from an archive (so I’ll paraphrase it) said that, writing-wise, you are the only person for whom your career does not exist, which I thought was very true and explains how I can have had a good year in some ways and yet feel like I’ve done nothing at all. But perfume has always taken me out of my head and given me something to puzzle over, ordering my little samples has given me something to look forward to even when I feel gloomy and just want to stay in bed, and for that I’m extremely grateful. And I don’t even mind the credit card bill… too much.
My Favorite Scent In General
madeleine cake, pink pepper, kitten fur, amber, vanilla bean, ambrette musk, tonka bean
This one is really the perfume that set me on this path and wanting to be able to describe it contributed to this whole project, because I had no idea what to say, I just knew I loved it and it made me happy.
The truth is though, I still don’t really know how to describe it. Despite its listed notes of cake and vanilla and tonka bean, it’s not super sweet. (It is somewhat sweet.) Nor is it spicy. It feels luxurious and cozy. When the weather gets cool my preferred lounging around wear is a silk slipdress with an old cashmere sweater on top of it. That is what wearing this perfume feels like. As I test other perfumes I periodically return to it, and it still feels special, it still makes me smile, it still feels like the one that’s me.
My Favorite Mainstream Scent
“Je Reviens Couture,” Worth
(discontinued)
musk, orange, coriander, tonka bean, vetiver
I bought this because of Ursula K. Le Guin, who mentions it in a letter:
If I want to flirt I will just have to flirt with Charles, which is always the best, or passing idiots like the Welsh Professor of Economics whom I really flirted up a storm with the other night, it was lovely because he was such an idiot but eminently flirtable and I knew that after 1 hour I would never see him again. I was wearing Je Reviens that night, but had no intention whatever of doing so! I have never tried Joy,2 they make such an issue of its being the most expensive perfume in the world.
Like most perfumes that have been around for ages and ages, “Je Reviens” has been reformulated as time went on and ingredients became unavailable or illegal. Supposedly, “Je Reviens Couture” smells like the original “Je Reviens” formula, or at least as close to such as can be achieved now. I haven’t smelled the vintage formula, so I don’t really know. But I really like it! It’s an intriguing mix of powdery elegance and (on me, anyway) underlying skank.
Also, it projects like crazy. I first tested it on my foot and I could smell it easily.
My Favorite Indie Eau de Parfum
red champaca absolute, red mandarin, a deeply sexy vanilla, red musk, and a blend of natural sandalwoods
I knew I was going to put a Cirrus scent on here, but not which one.… Until I tried this one, which I got a sample of after I posted some other Cirrus reviews. I was like: yes. This is the one. I love the red champaca, which smells here like a slightly earthier jasmine. This scent feels truly indolent,3 the essence of lazy mornings. It dries down to a lovely woody-floral scent that hugs the skin and elevates the day.
Of the various places I tried, Cirrus and Odette are the two to whom I really feel the most affection and even loyalty. At this point, I am willing to try whatever they put out (as long as I can afford it). Unfortunately, both brands are currently only available in the continental US—I hope that will change!
My Favorite Indie Oil Perfume
stacked books, spilled ink, black tea, shy violets hiding deep in the forest
Poesie is (temporarily?) discontinuing this one but it’s supposed to smell like ink, paper, and violets, and that… is exactly how it smells to me. It’s inspired by Charlotte Brontë and while I think that inspiration is maybe a little loosely worn—it’s more of a generally bookish scent—I really like it. I find that it’s a great scent to put on to help you “lock in” to writing. It also helps that it’s not sweet at all; obviously, I like a lot of sugary perfumes, but sometimes you want something altogether different.
Honorable mention: “Kitten and the Falling Leaves,” Alkemia. I’m not sure about the “kitten” part, but it nailed the “falling leaves.” Crisp and delightful.
My Favorite Scent I’m Afraid to Wear
a blast of fresh, aromatic cardamom. Animalic leather and suede wrap around a narcotic Indian tuberose, drying down to a cozy base of birch tar, patchouli, cinnamon and tonka.
I loved “Night Flower.” So much.
I also feel like if I wear it within three hundred feet of another human being I should probably be tried for assault. I feel like if I step outside wearing it birds will drop dead from the sky. I feel like if I go down into the depths of the earth and spritz it on an earthquake will start. If I wore it in a cemetery I’d start a zombie outbreak.
I believe tradition maintains that Rebecca (of Rebecca) wore “Je Reviens” (as it was the name of her boat) but if she wore this I would one hundred percent believe that not only did everything she’d ever touched remain smelling that way, it would for a hundred years. Even after Manderley burned down. The smoke would smell like “Night Flower.” Eventually I will probably buy this and it will sit on my dresser and I will gaze at it with appreciation but also terror.
My Favorite Slightly Off-Putting Scent
Orris root, wilted violets, incense, iris, palo santo, silence & reverence
Depending on the day, “Ossuary” will either smell like a beautiful, mildly smoky meditative stroll through powdery iris—or—it will smell like ham. It’s a real roll of the dice. You don’t know until it’s on your wrist.
Still, even when it’s “on,” the slightly acrid smoke makes this a perfume you’re really wearing for you—it’s not the more pleasant smoke smells of a fireplace or incense.
Honorable mention: Solstice Scents has “Sea of Gray” and “Parlor Trick,” both of which are what I can only call… “unsettling vanillas.”
My Favorite Perfume That Smells Like Dirt
“Koschei the Deathless,” Fantôme
Forest mushrooms, turmeric, myrrh, treemoss, dry bones, sea kelp, dark patchouli, creamy ylang.
I tried a wide spread of Fantôme samples and I may never write them up because my conclusion was that the brand mostly just wasn’t for me.… But the two that were hits were big hits.4 This one, which I ordered entirely because of the name, really does smell like you are dirt, or perhaps a mushroom, living your undead mushroom life.
If you put on perfumes to go to bed I tried this once and found it a pleasant experience—most of the “sleep scents” out there are sweet and have vanilla or lavender or both at once. Those are nice too (Cirrus’s “Snooze” is in heavy nighttime rotation right now) but sometimes… you just want to smell like dirt. Sometimes, really, you need to smell like dirt. And now you can (without actually rolling around in dirt).
My Favorite Perfume That I Gave To Austin Because I Was Slightly Allergic
amber, cedar, tobacco leaves, honeycomb, basil, and cloves.
I got a sample of this from Ministry of Scent and sprayed it on only to think:
wow I love this so much
the cedar, the beeswax, that lil pop o basil…
…why are my eyes itching…
For every problem, however, there is a solution.
The full number is hard to know because not all of these indie perfumes end up on sites like Parfumo.
There’s no point in doing a “favorite vintage fragrance” category because I only tried one—but I did get my hands on some vintage Joy (from estate sales) and I liked it a lot—the only problem was that I was absolutely persecuted by bees when I wore it.
I do mean indolent (it is not a typo for “indolic”).
Copper Skies 👀👀👀👀
I got samples of some of the Odette perfumes after you wrote them up the first time! The dry-down across the board did not work for me, but it was very fun checking out a few from one designer. Apart from that, I believe Pas de Chat was my fave--I have a note that's something to the effect of "Hope I don't like this one too much as it's already BDM's perfume." Saved by dry-down from being a copycat. Also Moulin Rose was this interesting & lovely kind of vintage pink experience, but not for me.