Perfume Pen Pals: Dan vs. Serge


Katie,

Barneys is having its gift-bag giveaway, a favorite with Alicia, so I might buy something. Have you tried Serge Lutens Santal de Mysore? That might be the one for me.

Dan


Dan,

I'd steer clear of Santal de Mysore. Despite the promising name, it smells like a Shake’n’Bake bag of random spices.

Any experience with Daim Blond? That would be a respectable Barneys beauty event option for you....

Katie


Katie,

I don't remember trying Daim Blond, but I'm learning to dislike Serge Lutens all over again. Today was La Myrrhe, which smells like an ungodly combination of Chanel No. 5 and some heavy Neil Morris scent. I don't like it at all.

Dan



Dan,

Yes, those Lutens frags certainly lean towards the spice rack. But there are exceptions. Daim Blond is downright subtle, almost sheer. And Un Bois Vanilla is a pleasing burnt cotton candy -- an upmarket Pink Sugar.

Katie


Katie,

At Barneys yesterday, I wearily smelled my way through the familiar before landing at the Lutens station, where I was met by a particularly tenacious sales associate.

At first, I tried to be unfriendly, correcting her mistakes, telling her I didn't like the things she suggested, anything to stop her from gnawing at my ankles. But I couldn't shake her, and so I stood and smelled almost everything in the Lutens line, including Santal de Mysore. The sales associate was so enthusiastic about it, I ended up spraying it on my right wrist. First mistake.

You were right: it smelled like someone had shoved my face into a Moroccan spice market. The whole market! The whole Morocco! Ick. In the end, I wasn't crazy about most of the Lutens (again...it's like Groundhog Day every time I try that line) and the few I did like got lost in the shuffle. Except Un Bois Vanille, which always smells perfectly likable to me.

And then I tried Heeley Ophelia again, which, as you know, is also perfectly likable. And so those were my choices, the Lutens and the Heeley, moving into springtime, the time for perfectly likable perfumes.

And that's when I blew it. I started trying some things from The Different Company, mostly out of resentment for being so determinedly steered into buying a Lutens. And because I caught a whiff of coconut in the Un Bois Vanille. (I'm one who believes a 44-year-old man shouldn't buy anything with even the faintest hint of coconut.)

And so, at the last moment, I backed out of buying the Lutens and the Heeley and instead bought the last thing I smelled, The Different Company Un Parfum d'Ailleurs et Fleurs, an inoffensive white floral of almost no distinction. That'll show that Lutens sales associate!

Oh, and I sprayed Frédéric Malle Une Rose on my left arm and for a good 30-45 minutes, I was almost convinced the sample I’d sent you had been bad because I smelled like dark, wet roses. And then, over lunch, the cat showed up. And it had a full bladder. Throughout, Alicia insisted she smelled only roses, but for me it had definitely turned for the worse, just as my sample had.

So there you have it. I spent $175 on a perfume I didn't really want and now I smell like an incontinent Moroccan cat. It's times like this when I think I should take up stamp collecting.

Dan

Fumeheads, any Pyrrhic perfume victory stories to share?

17 comments:

  1. Dan, was Daim Blond one of the ones lost in the shuffle? I feel so sure you would like that one, with its peach-adjacent apricot.

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  2. Oh, how sad. Although I might prefer rosy cat pee over an inoffensive white floral. Well maybe not. I'd rather smell like an offensive white floral. Or an animalic, civet-laced cat pelt. But do try Daim Blond. It's none of the above. Nor is it cumin, cardamom and curry.

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  3. Oh Dan, I love how you say things like La Myrrhe is a bad combo of No.5 and some heavy Neil Morris scent. I'm with you there. I don't get the love.

    And I understand the irony. Because I keep trying to feel the love, too. Last night I sampled MKK *again*, because one of these days I'll like it, right? (And it would be timely to like it now, now that's it's export, now that it's back in stock at parfum1 for 20% off 10% off retail with free shipping...) Because I love skanky dirty fecal scents, I should love this. But I don't. Not even enough for a decant, much less a fb. It's not because it's too dirty. It's because it doesn't smell authentically dirty. I find it strangely animalic and too soapy. And shrill, insistent, too linear. Especially since I can smell the same accord faintly the next morning. So yay, I can finally let this one go. Give me a good animalic vintage any day.

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  4. Katie, yes, I tried Daim Blond straight away and liked it, especially compared to most of the ones that followed. Alas, the sales associate steered me elsewhere and while it's bush-league to blame a sales associate for my own bad decisions, jeez, it's difficult to maintain focus when someone's continually yapping at me. Next time I'll meditate first. Or maybe wear earplugs.

    And melisand61, I, too, take the incontinent cat's side when it comes to inoffensive white florals. In principle. Conceptually. But when it's lunchtime and the urine smell is all over my arm, I find myself wishing someone would send the cat away to a nice big farm where it can roam freely and not trouble anyone with its problem.

    And ahsu, I think you've just identified a new category of perfume: inauthentically dirty. The perfume equivalent of Meg Ryan in "In The Cut." Let the list begin with MKK.

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  5. melisan61: mmmm, cat pelts! ("Here, Kitty Kitty...")

    Dan, all that vertical perfume buying (suntan oil floral after suntan oil floral; woody floral after woody floral) means one thing: Frédéric Malle would be proud of you for "being honest with yourself about what you like".

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  6. Pee sniffers unite! But Dan, you are luckier than me as you didn't get malodorous loafers in Daim Blond. I seem destined to be troubled by human effluvia of every kind.

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  7. Dan I hope you don't mind me asking, but is Alicia your wife? I somehow thought you to be a single, perfuming man about town. But you sound positively domestic in this exchange. I love the pen pals part of this site!

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  8. Katie, I'm still determined to go both horizontal AND vertical with my collection. Right before I'm institutionalized.

    And flittersniffer, I merely smelled Daim Blond for a moment on paper, enough time to get "loafer" but not enough time to get "malodorous loafer." Stay tuned, I'll probably complain about that next.

    And Jenny, at the risk of ruining your image of me, Alicia is my lovely and patient girlfriend, and I'm guessing she's convinced herself my perfume habit is no more harmful than if I worked on cars or built bookshelves all day. Though I bet it's less likely to come up in conversations with her friends.

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  9. Jenny, when Perfume Pen Pals first started, Dan *was* a single,perfuming man about town. Alicia's gain is "The Ladeez" loss.

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  10. I bought Daim Blond for a *significant* birthday two years ago and it's been my "go-to" scent since. It's lovely, layered, transparent and easy to wear. But the reason I drifted over to it was because Caron reformulated "Tabac Blond." (Grrr!) About five years ago I re-ordered TB from the Caron boutique in NYC and couldn't BELIEVE the difference between it and my 1985 TB...no more smoky,furry under-belly; just a thin, sweeter approximation of the original scent! So, I've had to get my leather chypre fix with "Daim Blond," not a bad consolation...but still!

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  11. drixey1, I was describing this whole "sneaky reformulation" business to my friend Betsy, who was innocently wondering why her signature Lancôme Magie Noire didn't have the same "oomph" it used to. Betsy got quite fired up about the whole shebang, and adamantly declared that perfume companies shouldn't be allowed to call their fragrances the same name if they reformulate them.

    So how about "Tabac Blah"?

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  12. "Tabac Blah" nails it exactly! I agree with your friend Betsy. And the other thing that gets me is that I can never get an SA to admit when a particular fragrance has been tinkered with...does the industry think that we, their besotted customers, are all idiots?

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  13. I just got hold of a sample of vintage Magie Noire from the 80s to see why I used to wear it quite happily then, but recoil from the civet note in the modern formulation. It clearly has changed because the civet in the vintage version is either not there, or somehow more congenial!

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  14. "Incontinent Moroccan cat" sent me into a minutes-long fit of helpless giggling - I should be grateful I wasn't drinking tea at the time. Some of them Lutenses are just Too Much. Arabie is all regurgitated Indian take-out, possibly by way of a garbage bin, and Santal Blanc... well, the less said the better, really. I seem to be the only person in existence to dislike Daim Blond, too, but I suspect that is related to how oddly raspy & synthetic anything containing a plum or apricot note smells to me. (I find that same accord of awfulness in FemduBois, Mauboussin and a few other fan faves)

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  15. Arachne, the testier Dan gets, the funnier he gets.

    I don't want to think too hard about the potential fakeyness of peach/plum/apricots, because they're the only fruit notes I enjoy in perfumes. Can't get too worked up over the strawberry/melon/pineapple side of the fruit basket.

    flittersniffer, I find the new Magie Noire bizarrely dry and peppery as compared to the lush complexity of the older sample I tried. I didn't focus in on the presence/absence of civet - that's your thing, after all!

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  16. Oh, I agree; cognitive dissonance is the way to go, sometimes. Just like I refuse to hear people yap about turpentine or faux-sandlewoodiness in my beloved Tam Dao.

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  17. Yeah, it's "don't harsh my buzz, dude".

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