Help Identifying Notes, What Certain Notes Smell Like

[Donnababe]

What does delphinium smell like?

 

Spicy? Sweet? Bitter?

 

Any ideas?

[magpiedee]

All I remember is that strange old poem about the mouse that lived surrounded by them...

 

There once was a doormouse who lived in a bed

Of delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red)

And all the day long he'd a wonderful view

Of geraniums (red) and delphiniums (blue).

 

But, if they're associated with the Cheshire Cat and the Dormouse, they are probably lovely.

[Donnababe]

Yes indeedy Shall probably get it anyway!!!

 

Oh, nice poem!

[kebechet]

What does delphinium smell like?

 

Spicy? Sweet? Bitter?

 

Any ideas?

 

It's a light floral. The best comparison is a dry, sparklier lily note. =)

[Donnababe]

Oooooh that sounds lovely, thanks Beth

[eadavenp]

can any of you reccomend how i can better educate my scent palate? im trying to make up my second order of imps, and i was wondering if any of you have any advice on making your sniffer more sensitive.

[Vicious Mistress]

Do you use essential oils at all? They help me figure out notes more easily, because I recognize the scents. What you might also do is look at the different notes of the ones you liked/didn't like and see if you can find similar notes in all of them to determine what does and doesn't work for you.

 

This is the easy way. Just buy/swap lots of imps and try things you think you may not like. Sometimes those are the ones that end up as your favorites.

[hypothermya]

What I do is figure out which scents i own that share a common ingredient. For example, in my first order I got Kitsune-Tsuki, Katharina, and Endymion, which all shared the common element of white musk. So after sniffing at all of them (well, less of the Kitsune-Tsuki, which has a plum that particularly *hates* my skin chemistry), I figured out what the BPAL white musk smells like (and also figured out how much I love it). Now I can pick out the smell of it in Embalming Fluid, Whitechapel, etc.

 

It's pretty much the same exercise with the other scents. Voodoo, Burial, and Samhain were the three that got me to figure out the smell of patchouli (oh, how yummy it is!). Dana O'Shee and Voodoo had me figuring out the scent of almond. Basically, if you compare enough scents with similar elements, your nose will begin to notice the similar elements. And then you'll know if you want to try out more of that element or less.

[ViolentKitten]

I agree with Vicious Mistress and Hypothermya: try scents with similar notes and also get single notes (sandalwood, amber, different musks) if you can too. I've been doing this over the past year and am slowly (very slowly!) getting a bit more of a nose for notes. I inadvertently got red musk in a few things in my first order and not only managed to find out what it smelt like, but that I love it! It's in a few of my faves: Fenris Wolf, Spellbound, Lust and Hollywood Babylon.

 

See if you can get your mitts on Essence & Alchemy by Mandy Aftel. It's a wonderful book which describes the history of perfumery, rituals, how to create it and many other lovely bits and bobs; but most importantly fantastic descriptions of the many essential oils that are used in natural perfumery - base notes (musk, vetiver, patchouli etc), heart notes (tuberose, jasmine, orange flower etc) and headnotes (lavender, pink grapefruit, spearmint etc) and it describes how they smell. Although everyone's interpretation is slightly different and there's nothing like smelling the real thing, it very much helps having the descriptions in conjunction with smelling them. Though I try to get a feel for it myself first and write that down before I read the description.

 

A couple of sites that might help too with identifying some notes:

 

Holistic Shop

 

Perfume 2000 Essential Oils

[eadavenp]

hey guys. thanks so much. i'll check out those sites and ive also been sniffing my lush very carefully to see what i can pick out in there. happy sniffing!

 

 

ps ive decided both old venice and black rose are great for me. i am also loving the pomegranate scents such as persephone and swank (although my imp of swank seems to have gone missing)

[yellowrose]

Hiya Friends:

 

I'm posting this in hopes more olfactory glands are better than, well, just mine alone. What does cassia/cassie smell like?

 

Why do you ask?

 

I'm trying to find out what this scent is in Estee Lauder's Youth Dew that I DO NOT like. To be fair, I never wore this. Someone I knew did and I could not abide the smell. Ever. Here's the list:

 

Estee Lauder Youth Dew

Top Notes: Orange, bergamot, peach, spices

Heart Notes: Clove, cinnamon, cassie, rose, ylang-ylang, orchid, jasmine

Base Notes: Frankincense, amber, vanilla, oakmoss, clove, musk, patchouli, vetiver, spices

 

 

Here's what I found: that one note seems to be present in Old Morocco. Honest. I think they are very close -- or at least are between present and scent memory. Old Morocco is a kinder, gentler version of Youth Dew. It's giving me that achy joints and lungs feeling however.

 

What in the Sam Hill blazes is it? It's driving me nutso. I'd like to isolate it so I can skip it. Or could it be the generic "spices" in both or a combination of notes that's at issue ... HELP! Please?

 

yr

 

p.s. i really hope someone from the lab will answer this question, not to divulge the contents, but to help me.

[pekeana]

I would put my bet on there being something in the spice blend that you can't handle -- possibly saffron or something similar.

[hypothermya]

Old Morocco also shares the same unspecified "spices" and the "musk" component, as well as the cassia. I'm not sure what it would be, and I suspect that only testing out different perfumes will give you the answer (if that). But good luck.

[yellowrose]

Thanks gals.

 

I went to the local health food place to start some sniffing. I let the clerk who works in the aromatherapy/beauty section sniff my scrubbed down arm to which the scent was clinging. I didn't say anything about what I thought or, well, I just asked her to smell. Her immediate response was cassia and vanilla. I'm going to be careful with cassia for the present.

 

I'm curious about why you'd single out saffron, t3andcrumpets?

 

Hypothermya, yeah ... "spices."

 

I'm really frustrated because I wanted so to love this scent and it's not what I wanted on me.

 

I'd still be interested to read what others have to share.

[pekeana]

I'm curious about why you'd single out saffron, t3andcrumpets?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ahhh... because a lot of people are allergic to, or have some kind of "ew, gross" reaction to the scent of saffron. When I put Old Morocco, Scherezade, and India Bouquet on, the first thing my mother zooms in on is the saffron, and she goes, "God, wash it off! Wash it off now! UGH!"

Edited November 13, 2004 by pekeana

[yellowrose]

I'm curious about why you'd single out saffron, t3andcrumpets?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ahhh... because a lot of people are allergic to, or have some kind of "ew, gross" reaction to the scent of saffron. When I put Old Morocco, Scherezade, and India Bouquet on, the first thing my mother zooms in on is the saffron, and she goes, "God, wash it off! Wash it off now! UGH!"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Gotcha. Perhaps I should crack that imp of Scherezade in a few days.

 

I've decided that weekend/Monday scents will be either Tamora/Amber (non-BPAL), then Tombstone, then Dragon's Milk.

 

Still bummed about this...

 

 

yr

[Britt1975]

I'm new and I'm trying to sort out what I don't like. I went a little crazy and bought 30 or 40 imps just based on what sounded interesting, and now I'm going nutty trying to determine what doesn't work on me and why.

 

I'd like to buy more, but first I want to determine what notes are causing that nose wrinkly, turn my head reaction. Because some of the things that I thought I would love don't work at all. I keep having this "People like this?" reaction. But the problem is that everytime I think I figure out what it is that I don't like...I find out that something I do like has that in it.

 

*sigh* So I guess my only option is to just try them all.

 

Has anyone else had a problem picking out their problem notes? Or is it just me? Are there scents that you try that you think you should like, but just don't work?

[Dinerdulcinea]

Hello! I had the same kinds of questions when I first started. I made a spreadsheet of the notes in each blend as I tried them and then made three other columns that said "AWESOME" "GOOD" "AWFUL" where I could mark blends as I tested. If a blend was awful on me, I added a mark in the column for awful next to EVERY note in the blend. If a blend was awesome on me, I did the same thing for each not in that blend under the SWESOME category.

 

That helped me to determine trends in individual notes. For example, I discovered that as much as I like rose/the idea of rose, most rose blends at BPAL turn nasty on me. I can successfully wear SOME blends that conain rose, but I know that I might want to be leery of them initially and not buy a bunch of blends with rose as a primary note.

 

I hope that idea helps you!

[nineveh]

I think it just takes some practice getting to know what the notes smell like, which can be done by comparison. Try testing blends at the same time with a shared note; if one blend works while the other doesn't, the shared note can probably be ruled out as the culprit. Simpler blends (like 2-4 notes listed) are probably best for doing this.

 

The downfall here is that sometimes, a blend with a problem note can turn out to work. So yes, you should try everything. At least that's affordable with the swap forum!

[klavierbarrette]

and, be sure you try a scent you do not like more than once, and watch, er, smell it. make sure that your first impression doesn't make you hate it because it may end up smelling great once it dries.

 

but yeah, like others have said, look up what's in the scents you don't like and see if they share anything. chances are if they share a note or two, you don't like it. or your skin doesn't at least.

[kraken]

I did much the same thing that Dinerdulcinea did. I'm a spreadsheet fiend

 

My first order was of notes that I knew I liked (vanilla and rose), notes I thought I might like (leather and rum), and scents that people on the forum seemed to like (Snake Oil and O). Then I kept piles of OMG-SoGood!, WouldWearIt, Meh, and BlehNeverAgain!. In my spreadsheet I tried to isolate what was in the OMGSoGood! scents as opposed to the BlehNeverAgain! scents. I even sought help here when I couldn't figure out one of the scents. I also tried anything in the BlehNeverAgain! pile at least one more time to make sure I wasn't just having a bad day.

 

I just started doing swaps and it's really given me a chance to try those scents I haven't tried yet. I'm also more willing now to try something that I think doesn't sound so great because I can just swap it to someone else. And I might just be pleasantly surprised.

[columbus]

I totally know what you mean. I'm just starting to get the hang of discerning notes now, and I bought my first BPAL in March, I think? I remember the first time I recognized a note, I was so proud: I was wearing Alice and realized there was something in it that reminded me of Pink Phoenix, and the only note they had in common was honey.

 

So now I'm really good at picking out honey notes. And sniffing De Sade has gotten me pretty good at getting leather notes, and I can grab Orange Blossom 'cause it's GROSS and I hate it. That's how it tends to be. Slowly I'm getting better as I've smelled more and more.

 

You'll get the hang of it with practice! (Which is a statement that is totally just an excuse to buy muchos BPALitos).

 

And I would second trying things you don't like twice. And also, if you smell something that you hate in the bottle, you should still give it a try, because you never know what your chemistry will to do a blend.

[Ghost_Light]

I have had the same problem, and I really agree with the advice that practice and sniffing a lot of imps helps a lot. I'm lucky to have a friend with an amazing nose who just happens to know what things like ambergris and lemon verbena smell like, so I always make Geolinguist sniff and explain what he gets to me, which is helping me to refine my nose a lot.

[smallvoice]

Because I always have to contribute to these threads, it seems, I must agree with the other posters here. Try stuff and keep what you like. I wasn't organized or into spreadsheets, so it's possibly taken me longer than others, but I've started sorting out what notes smell awesome on me (lime, white musk, honey, spices and others....) which ones are just okay, most of the time, but can be amazing (almond, cinnamon, amber, violet, certain woods) and some that I sincerely dislike (blackberry-alcohol is ick, patchouli smells awful on me, plumeria is way too overpowering, laudanum is hit or miss, and sandalwood is usually sawdust). I don't think I'll ever be somebody who can read the notes on a BPAL blend and just know without testing it that it'll never work on me. Not after Euphrosyne was so delightful. Also, if you list what you liked of your testers, people can often recommend scents that fall into similar "families" of notes.

 

But, yes! Test as many as you can! It should keep you busy for a while... and it's so exciting to discover the ones that work, as I'm sure you know by now! Anyway, good luck! Ask questions! Enjoy!

[Laurel the Woodfairy]

A spreadsheet is smart--I have one now, but for the first two years or so it was pure trial and error--and reading reviews, since I was pretty ignorant about notes. So, for example, I knew Glitter had "a floral note that hates me"; reading reviews helped me understand that that's heliotrope. Not terribly scientific, but after enough sniffing, the patterns do begin to emerge for you! Have fun getting to know your chemistry--that's an aspect of myself I'd never given a second thought before I found BPAL.

Edited September 23, 2006 by Laurel the Woodfairy