My perfume was the old Armani “Mania”. It has been taken off the market and replaced by the new “Mania”, a horrible floral concoction.
The old perfume was an oriental, woody kind of perfme, and was oil, rather than alcohol based. It was subtle, spicy and very sexy.
I can’t find anything even remotely like it, the fashion seems to be for very feminine floral or anonymous citrus scents. All of the other oriental/woody scents on the market are too strong and overpowering, I’m not really an Opium or Shalimar kind of girl.
I can’t suggest an actual perfume, I tend to go for light, fresh types which are probably the opposite of what you want. However, if you go to a decent department store, they often have a book where they can look up the name of your perfume and it has suggestions for similar types. You could probably find it or something similar by googling “perfume families”.
I found this out through a male friend who seemed to have an amazing knack of buying me a different but lovely perfume for each of the past several Christmasses.
You may have some success looking at men’s fragrances – woody and oriental get used a lot.
I agree with you regarding Opium and Shalimar – not nice. Well actually I’m generally quite rude about them but don’t want to risk offending anyone who wears the stuff.
Oh and if there is nothing you like in women’s fragrances try men’s - they are generally less prissy and some smell great on some women. Men’s JOOP is a far better choice for many women than the women’s equivalent.
Fragrances vary considerably from person to person. I wear Opium almost exclusively, and I have this conversation a LOT:
“I love your perfume. What are you wearing?”
“Opium.”
“No, it can’t be Opium. I hate Opium.”
Regarding the OP: I sympathize. Finding a new fragrance can be a pain, largely because fragrances DO differ from person to person. If you have a Perfumania or Perfumerie store in your local mall, you can often get free sample vials of fragrances to try at home. Department stores perfume counters can be pretty nice about this, too. Or, you might try one of those fragrance oil stores (I think the Body Shop has a selection of pure fragrance oils). You can custom-blend your choice of oils into a perfume base.
Try the Guerlain line. You say you don’t like Shalimar, but you might like Samsara. My personal favorite is L’heure Bleue, which has both spicy/woody and floral overtones and is pleasant - not overwhelming.
I suppose another part of the problem was that rather than smelling like everyone else, I used a perfume no-one else did…part of the reason they took it off the market was that no-one else seemed to buy it!
There are too many fragrances where people would go “oh, she’s wearing XYZ”, rather than “irishgirl smells nice, I wonder which perfume she uses”. I know that sounds terribly vain, but there you go.
Thanks for the web sites, but supplies of this stuff are going to run out eventually, so I’d rather face up to it and start looking for something new now.
I liked a few things I tried (Stella, Kingdom, Comme des Garcons 2) but they stopped smelling right after a few hours…my body chemistry tends to mess up the bass notes in most perfumes.
Try Salvadore Dali perfume. That’s what I wear, and I’m always getting compliments on it. I don’t know anyone else who wears it. It’s got more of a spicy that floral scent, and it comes in a cool-looking bottle. There are 3 or 4 different ones, get the “original” one in the clear bottle. The one in the blue bottle is very citrusy, and I don’t particularly like it.
I hear ya! I’ve been wearing Coty’s Wild Musk for the past 15 years, and even though it’s a cheap perfume I’ve been complimented on it many times over the years. Plus, I like the way it smells. {grin} Several years ago I was having trouble finding it, and started looking around for a replacement . . . and had the exact same problem as you, in that everything else was too floral or citrus-y. Even the other musk perfumes out there were too “light” for my taste. I went so far as to e-mail Coty and ask if the scent had been discontinued, but they assured me it hadn’t been and within a week or two I was able to find it again.
Lately, though, it doesn’t smell right on me anymore. My body chemistry must have changed, because it still smells the same when I spray it in the air. I’ve taken to just spraying it on my undergarments instead of my skin, and that seems to be working ok for now (it’s more subtle that way, too). But I’m thinking again that it may be time to find a replacement, even though I dread the process.
All of which is a really long-winded way of saying that I will be paying careful attention to the suggestions you get in this thread.
I like Lolita Lempika-it’s spicy, but it’s also pretty sweet, so if you don’t like sweet it might not work for you. I also like Feminine by Dolce & Gabbana, which I think is not as sweet. My favorite, which is unique, but really sweet and probably not your taste at all is Butterflies by Hanae Mori.
I have been wearing Yves Saint Laurent’s Paris since I was in high school. Not too many women around here wear it, so it’s almost my scent. For some strange reason every female around here seems to wear Estee or Lauren (both of these are way too heavy a scent for me). Although there are quite a few floral scents blended into Paris, you might want to give it a try, as I don’t think it comes off as too perfumey-flowery. It’s much more subtle.
You might have liked Aveda’s Mizan…but they discontinued it. I hoard my last three small bottles like they’re gold. See if you can find it for trade on Makeup Alley Boards.
I also own
Shalimar…if you hate the original Shalimar because it’s too heavy they made Shalimar Light
Obsession Light
Hypnotic Poison (cross between a foodie and an oriental…it’s a spicy vanilla with an undernote of bitter almond)
Estee Lauder makes two really wonderful smells that I adore but I warn you that most people find them off-putting. In small doses they are gorgeous though…Youth Dew and Cinnabar. Youth Dew makes me smell like Cardamom!! They are traditional orientals.
If it helps, I use a non-alcohol base perfume, too, Mat. It’s more citrusy than woodsy, and it’s a kinda frou-frou brand, but I think you could find it here in specialty shops like Sephora. It’s a very subtle scent and I adore it, despite the cost.
Thanks again for all the help…the quest continues.
(Inigo Montoya, you’re decribing what I smelled like for the majority of my teenage years…cheap musk, leather jacket and a cigarette…well it’s always there if I need it)
Check out Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab - blackphoenixalchemylab.com/welcome.html - they make some very interesting blends and you can search by the notes you’re interested in/like - and then read reviews from people who bought them. They’re pretty inexpensive, oil based, and you can sample 6 little tiny teeny bottles for under $20 - the downside is it takes forever for them to ship anything. And I mean FOREVER - this is not instant gratification. But the forums that are linked with them also have trading pages so sometimes you can hook up a quicker deal with someone who has already tried a scent and didn’t like it.
I’m not much of a perfume person but I’m loving quite a few of their scents, and they’re certainly a fun place to go for the “ultimate perfume quest” thing! Just because there are so many to try. One of their warm, spicy ones is Old Morocco - I don’t like it on me, but it’s a lovely scent.
That wasn’t meant to be advertising, by the way. :smack: It’s just that since other people were mentioning specific perfumes you might like, I thought, what the hey, lots of good smellies there. If it’s too much like piming (even though I’m in no way associated with the site apart from spending too much money there already) then I’m sure a mod can get rid of that post.
