September 2023 Edit: I finally found my signature scent in March of this year! It is another YSL Black Opium flanker (nobody was shocked) but this time, they've taken out the coffee entirely and it has four different vanilla notes in it instead. It's divine and I'm obsessed!! If you're looking for something that is super heavy on the vanilla like I was, try YSL Black Opium Le Parfum (the glossy bottle instead of the glittery one)
I also started wearing Sol De Janeiro's '71' last year and it's absolutely delectable, especially in the autumn! It smells like caramelised vanilla and buttery popcorn to me, I'm in love with it <3
I've never written about perfume before but I absolutely love pretty scents, I've been trying out various perfumes over the last few years to find my signature scent, (I'll get into this later), and since I've recently been on the hunt for a perfume to wear to our second wedding, I thought I would blog about the journey. I consider myself someone who knows quite a bit about perfumes, so I hope this is somewhat educational if you're looking to get into them!
While we were wedding planning for wedding day part 1, (our small 12-guest ceremony), I came across the idea where the bride buys a 'wedding day' perfume, that you wear to all of the wedding events in the run up to the big day, as well as on the day, and then after the wedding, you'll remember what a beautiful day you had every time you wear it on anniversaries and date nights etc. I went for Kayali Vanilla 28, and it's my absolute favourite. If you had to bottle up my personality, I feel like this is what that would smell like. It's sweet from the vanilla, but also rich from the brown sugar and tonka, so it's quite layered, and not too sickeningly sweet at all. It kind of smells like home-baked cookies, and I cannot get enough of it. The packaging is also absolutely gorgeous with the white and rose gold motif, so it was perfectly fitting for our wedding, as well as my overall vibe, in general. In case you haven't tried it, it reminds me of a more long lasting version of the Victoria's Secret 'Bare Vanilla' fragrance mist which is absolutely divine, if you like sweet scents. It's pretty much my (inexpensive) signature scent at this point.
I honestly wish that I could wear it every single day because I love it so much, but that sort of defeats the purpose of a wedding perfume, so for our second wedding, since Kayali 28 is definitely on the sweeter side so it's more of a daytime scent, I decided that I would just wear my usual perfume, (YSL Black Opium), as it's very much an evening scent anyway, I've worn it for absolute years so I know that I love it, and I wouldn't end up running into the same problem where I bought a perfume specifically for the wedding, fell in love with it, and then couldn't make it my everyday perfume. And then I ran out of it two months before the wedding. So the fun began in exploring whether I would like something else instead.
So, to explain the kind of scents that I like - I love oriental gourmand (sweet, edible, candy-like) scents with vanilla in them, as you can tell from the two perfumes I've mentioned already, where Kayali 28 is sweeter as it has more of a brown sugar and vanilla sweet scent, where Black Opium also has coffee in its middle notes, (these can sometimes also be referred to as 'heart' notes), so it has a darker, sexier vibe to it as well, which makes it perfect for an evening perfume. I also tend to love perfumes with patchouli in them, as that always tends to help a scent last longer on me. Fair warning that I'm quite particular in what I like in a scent, so if that's going to annoy you, please don't read this!
A little bit on 'notes' - you've probably seen what I mean here if you've ever looked at the description of a perfume on a website like The Perfume Shop, for example - that's actually my favourite site to look at perfumes on as I like the layout of their perfume descriptions the best, I like the pictures and how you can click on the individual notes and it'll show you other scents you might like with that note - it's revolutionary really. So. The top notes of a perfume are the initial scent that you get as soon as you spray a perfume, they tend to be quite light, as they only stick around for about 20 minutes to half an hour, (in most cases -you'll read later that some perfumes I tried didn't work on me because the top notes stuck around too long and what I really liked was the base notes). They can be fruity, sweet, or bitter depending on the kind of perfume that you like. The heart notes are the next stage of the perfume that you'll smell, and they tend to last for about an hour or two - they make up about 70% of the perfume, and then once this stage is over, the perfume will 'dry down' to its base notes. This is where the longevity of the perfume comes in, and this can linger for up to 6 hours, depending on how well scents last on you - it's different for every person, and every perfume. This also depends on whether it's an Eau De Parfum or an Eau De Toilette, where the latter are lighter scents and don't last as long as EDPs.
When I ran out of my YSL Black Opium, I started exploring some of the notes in another of my favourite perfumes that I've worn for absolute years, Viktor and Rolf's Bon Bon. This one is one of the only perfumes I like that doesn't feature vanilla, and instead it gets its sweetness from caramel accord in its base notes, which I love. I scent tested this one for a few hours and it turns out that while I still absolutely love it, I did miss the vanilla notes from Black Opium, so I continued my search.
I spent a few days researching, and I discovered that people who liked gourmand scents, and liked vanilla and caramel notes, tended to like the Prada Candy perfume - it honestly sounded like the perfect mix of the vanilla from Black Opium and the caramel from Bon Bon, so I thought I'd love it. This perfume also has a few flankers which I thought I'd like so I thought I'd go out in search of those too. A note on 'flankers' - most perfumes have these in recent times, a flanker is a perfume which shares the name, notes, or packaging of an already existing 'original' perfume. Sometimes flankers only share the name, and they smell entirely different to the original perfume altogether as in the Prada Candy line where some of the flankers really smell nothing alike, they just share the 'candy' title, as they're called 'Candy Gloss', 'Candy Sugar Pop', etc. The best line of flankers that I've found is the YSL Black Opium line - even though I personally only like the original myself, I enjoy that the flankers only swap out one note each from the original, so they're very close to the original, just with a slight difference which makes the perfume more citric, darker, sweeter, or more intense in some way so it's a fun way to switch up a scent.
Not going to waste too much of your time on this one - I really didn't love Prada Candy even though all of my research led me to believe that I would - perfume is so personal and it's important to try them on your skin, instead of blind buying! I thought it was too powdery, and although I really liked the sweetness of the top notes when I first sprayed it, I didn't love how mature it was in the dry down and it ultimately didn't smell nice on me, so it was a miss.
It's super important to wear a perfume on your skin for a few hours, if not days if you can try it repeatedly, (no matter how much it might confuse the staff in John Lewis when they keep seeing you), but I would always recommend doing this instead of just smelling it on the perfume cards you can find in stores. It's super important to wear test perfumes as they mix with everybody's skin differently, and longevity can only really be tested properly on the skin. In case you're interested, I couldn't find the flankers that I thought I'd like, which were Candy Pop Kiss and Candy Night. I could find Candy Gloss and Candy Sugar Pop, but I didn't like them. Another scent that I knew for sure I did not like was Floral Street - Wild Vanilla Orchid - and by 'do not like', I mean I sat with olive oil on my wrist for ten minutes before washing it off so that the scent would fully go away as it really wasn't my favourite - something about the bamboo notes didn't like me and vice versa. (also, there's a tip for you if you didn't know how to remove a perfume scent from your skin, if you don't like it or accidentally sprayed too much!)
The next four perfumes that I tried were Dolce & Gabbana The Only One, as well as The Only One Intense, and Caroline Herrera Good Girl, as well as Good Girl Légère (Light). I thought that I would love the vanilla and coffee notes in The Only One, the vanilla and coconut notes in the Intense flanker, the almond, vanilla, cacao, coffee and tonka bean notes in Good Girl, (I really thought this one would be my favourite) and the Dulce de Leche notes in the Légère flanker.
Here's what really happened for me personally. I made notes on how these four perfumes progressed on me from first spray to 5 hours later when they were pretty much gone. This will hopefully outline why it's important to skin test!
Upon first spritz, I couldn't really smell much of either of the D&G perfumes, but they dried down to be really beautiful. However, I could instantly smell that both of the Good Girl perfumes were really refreshing and sweet. After an hour, I had fallen in love with The Only One, as it was a very warm caramel, but I could tell it was fainter than the other perfumes - many reviews had stated that it really doesn't last on them, so I sort of expected this. The Intense version was a little bit too woody for my liking at this point, and while I could smell the coconut notes, it was more of a dark coconut than I tend to like as I'm more of a gourmand person. At this point, both of the Good Girl perfumes smelled very strongly of their top note which is tangerine, and as I'm not fond of citric scents, I wasn't loving them.
After two hours, The Only One was still a lovely warm scent, but it was already fading enough for me to not be able to pick out specific notes anymore - it was just very nice and warm instead of smelling like any particular note. The intense version had dried down to be a little more of a creamier sweet scent, but it was still too woody for me. Good Girl Légère had faded quite a bit, (as 'light' versions of perfumes tend to do, on most people), but I still couldn't smell anything except for the tangerine. Good Girl original was the same - still very strong tangerine, none of the heart/base notes had pulled through at all.
After three hours, The Only One had become much muskier, likely from the coffee and rose in the heart notes - unfortunately not in a sweet way like Black Opium dries down on me though, it pulled almost similar to a 'masculine' kind of scent on me, which I didn't love. At this point, the Intense flanker had finally started to smell like a creamy vanilla - I wish it smelled like this for more of the time, as 3 hours is a long time to wear a scent before you like it! I've also tried The One which is the original fragrance from this house and I feel the same way about it in that I absolutely love the dry down, (that one is a very, very sweet, cashmere vanilla), but I just didn't love the top notes of it. Both of the Good Girl perfumes were still very citric at this point, but Légère had started to smell a little sweeter, like an orange popsicle.
By the fourth hour, The Only One was still around but faintly, and I unfortunately didn't like the scent of it anymore. The Intense version was still around, (but not as strongly as you'd expect it to be for an 'intense' flanker), and it was still a lovely creamy vanilla, but not for much longer as it was starting to fade. Good Girl Légère had vanished, and Good Girl had finally lost its strong citric notes and swapped them for a vanilla mocha type of smell, which I did really like, but it's a shame it took 4 hours to get to that on my skin, and that was right as it was starting to fade so it didn't smell like that for long.
Other vanilla/gourmand perfumes that I've tried but unfortunately didn't like/like enough just in case you were thinking of sending me some recommendations (please do!)
Kayali - 21 Utopia Vanilla Coco - I didn't like this enough to make it my signature scent or my wedding perfume, but I do like it! It's very fresh and sweet from the pear in the opening, but it has a depth to it due to the vanilla bourbon. I would wear it again!
YSL Libre Intense - the vetiver and bergamot in this one pulled quite 'masculine' on me, and it wasn't my favourite.
Valentino Voce Viva Intensa - I genuinely loved this - such a warm, rich and sweet vanilla but it just didn't last on my skin. When I win the lottery, I will buy this and just top it up constantly when it fades!
Valentino Donna Born in Roma - I was so obsessed with the sweet, fruity top notes of this and I thought I'd found a new favourite but the cassis notes didn't smell good on me.
Giorgio Armani - My Way/My Way Intense - not a fan of the citric notes in the original, and disliked it even more in the Intense version!
So as you can see, sometimes all of the notes can sound absolutely perfect for you, and a perfume can still not be your favourite. Even though I will be repurchasing YSL Black Opium instead of venturing into something new, I did enjoy the process of hunting for a new perfume, and learning about what I like. I also liked furthering my understanding of how different notes can stick around much longer than they should, depending on the perfume! I think I've assumed that it's okay if you don't think you'd like the top notes of a perfume since they don't stick around anyway, as long as you like the base notes as that's what it'll dry down to - and while that's true, it's still important to like all of the notes just in case - you never know how a scent is going to pull on your skin specifically, until you try it properly.
If you got all the way to the end, congratulations! Hopefully you're not too frustrated with me for repurchasing my signature scent that I mentioned at the beginning of the post - I still enjoyed the journey! Admittedly, Black Opium, as well as being a beautiful vanilla and coffee scent that lasts forever, (on me), also has one of the prettiest bottles as it's a stunning glittery black bottle with a see through panel where you can see the pink tinted perfume, so it will also look lovely in the wedding reception flat lay photos.
In case you do want to recommend perfumes to me, here is a list of perfumes I think I would love but they're either way above my price point or they're not available in UK stores so I can't try before I buy, (sigh), so keep that in mind!
Philosophy - Fresh Cream Warm Cashmere
Juliette has a Gun - Vanilla Vibes
Nest - Madagascar Vanilla
Killian - Love Don't be Shy
The 7 Virtues - Vanilla Woods
Skylar - Vanilla Sky
As I mentioned at the beginning, I've never written about perfume before so I'm not really sure how many people this will have been enjoyable for, and I'm sure that there are people who are much more knowledgeable on perfumes than I am, but let me know if you learnt something anyway. ♡