Cologne testing August 9, 2006
Posted by Niels in : Personal , trackbackYesterday was a blast. I went cologne testing with Deepthy. Forget wine tasting - I spent three hours smelling different colognes and haven’t so much fun in a long time. And this is coming from someone who’s never worn perfume in his entire life.
I prepared by browsing through basenotes.net and made a list of colognes that I wanted to smell. Some of them had really fascinating descriptions, like Thierry Mugler’s A*Men, a chocolate/coffee/caramel cologne that won Basenotes’ best scent competition three years in a row. Or there’s Guerlain’s Vetiver, a “harmonization of citrus, wood, vetiver and tobacco” that has also consistently been a top fragrance.
Having never even smelled a bottle of cologne before, I decided to start off slow and stopped by Sephora first. My list consisted of fairly unusual and distinctive colognes (would like to avoid the “oh, you smell like my ex-boyfriend” if at all possible), so I didn’t find too many among Sephora’s mainstream scents. I did learn a few things, though. As enticing as it may sound, walking around with your arm smelling like chocolate is really unsettling. People had told me that colognes interact with your natural oils, but it was still surprising to see how much. Some fragrances smelled completely different on the testing strip than they did on my skin. (Yeah, that last one was a women’s scent, but it didn’t smell that feminine until I put it on.)
To track down the remainder of the scents, I headed to Bloomingdale’s with Deepthy. When you start looking for cologne, go somewhere with a knowledgable sales staff who can describe the differences between the scents. It was like going wine tasting for the first time and learning the difference between reds and whites. I discovered that some “marine” scents actually smell pretty good on me, which I never would have anticipated. And I started to be able to pick out which colognes really were distinctive, and which just smelled like all the others. We had a great time.
But there were still a few unusual colognes that even Bloomingdale’s didn’t have. So it was off to Barneys. Barneys was a blast. I found a few scents at Bloomingdale’s that I liked and was even considering purchasing, but the stuff at Barneys put it to shame. And I am well known for having a lousy sense of smell.
We tried a number of limited edition artisan perfumes, some of which were incredibly complex, others beautifully simple. Barneys has these large tubes set up with continuously circulating air, into which you can spray a fragrance. The top notes dissipate quickly, leaving the midnotes and basenotes that really make up a fragrance’s true character. I remember one in particular that smelled like a flowery meadow in Hawaii, but just smelled like grass when sprayed on a card. Incredible. Unfortunately, my arms were still covered with colognes from Bloomingdales, so I’ll have to go back this weekend to see how the fancy stuff smells on me. It’s embarrasing how excited I am about it.
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so what did you ever decide? i’m in the market for a scent right now, and I really want to smell unique. or i could be bland and go with ChanelAllure or Davidoff, but i’d like unique.
My final choice is going to remain a secret, but for some really unique scents, try visiting Barney’s. Frederic Malle has some incredible high-end scents that you won’t run into anyone else wearing. L’artisan Perfumer also has some nice stuff, and there’s other lines at Barney’s that you won’t see anywhere else.