Are You Using Fragrantica?

 No? If you love perfume, you should be. 

(Check the images throughout this post for some of the Fragrantica features.)

Fragrantica is my best friend when it comes to perusing perfumes. When my best friend was alive, she was my fragrance guru. 

"Barbsie" became my fragrance guru about 3 weeks after we started working together. We were both known around work for how good we always smelled. (Not for how great we were at our jobs, mind you, though we both were!) We kind of bonded over our love of perfume and purses. She had collections of both that were enviable.

One day I mentioned that really wished I could find something that was as soft as my signature scent, Shalimar, but with more of a chocolate and caramel scent to it. Without blinking or missing a beat in her typing, she said, "Angel." The next time I saw her, she brought me one of her half-used bottles (she said she had a few!).

She was so right about Angel. I have not worn it in 20 years now but, back in the day, it was a staple. It smelled like Shalimar took a nibble of chocolate, and then had a big chunk of caramel before following it up with a few sips of a vanilla shake. It would have been my signature but I was loyal to Shalimar at the time. I wore Angel on the weekends to save my Shalimar for workdays.

These days, I (and my body chemistry) have matured past a lot of easy perfume choices. When it comes to reacting to any fragrance, my skin is moody. One day, I love all things honey, vanilla, and musk, and the next day, I want to smell like baby powder and new tissue paper.

For months now, I've been wanting to find something oil-based that I can love and wear mostly year-round. I thought I'd found it in Auric Blends Egyptian Goddess oil. It's lovely and I do enjoy wearing it but it gets on my nerves some days. It's like a person you are really fond of but their personality just hits you wrong sometimes and you try avoiding them. Also, the formula is not consistent. I have 2 bottles and one is much more fragrant.

Anyway. As I started saying before my mind went off on a road trip, Fragrantica is my favorite place for checking out perfumes, whether I'm buying or just browsing for fun. Such a large variety of fragrances can be found there and I really like having an idea of which notes a scent is based on. Mostly, I rely on the reviews. The people in the review section do not pull their punches. Sometimes, I get really excited about a perfume only to see someone's warning not to try it unless I want to smell like something your poor dog chucked up after it ate a whole roll of mint-flavored antacids. I think one review said something like, "Smells like an old lady. Not an elegant older lady with taste but like an old lady wearing an unchanged Depends and loving it." Damn.

Recently though, I did find a perfume oil that is going to be a part of my life for as long as it smells as lovely as it does right now. It is Madagascar Vanilla from NEST New York. My country bumpkin behind had not heard of NEST before seeing this oil on Fragrantica. And this oil is indescribably wonderful on my skin. You can see the Frangantica page for it here. Apparently, I need to start adding coconut to my list of favored notes.

What I really like about Fragrantica is that you can search for perfumes in so many ways. If you know what notes you like or if you're looking for something similar to a perfume you like, etc. For instance, when I wondered what might be a bit like the Madagascar Vanilla but a bit more affordable (because, honey chile, I can only afford that one in samples & decants!), I got several suggestions to check out. Most of them are super-affordable.

One other thing to like about Fragrantica is that it shows the year a fragrance was launched. That's important to some people. It's only important to me because I know that if a perfume has been discontinued, even if you can find it, it's probably going to be quite pricey.

Fragrantica has some downsides though. Since money is such an issue for most people, I wish there was a way to search within price ranges. Also, as I mentioned, the notes aren't always spot on. In a few cases, I noticed they weren't even close. And because I prefer checking reviews from people who actually use a fragrance, it would be nice to be able to comment on or reply to their posts. There is a forum but forums tend to be messy and unorganized. 

Overall though, Fragrantica is the best site I've found for getting info on various perfumes. There are similar sites. Here is a page for finding some of those sites. You can also search out other "competitors" of Fragrantica. 

r/Perfumes  on Reddit is where I go to ask for suggestions on perfume dupes, pricing, decant and sampling sites, etc. This is where I learned about using eBay for finding rarities, vintages and fragrances. It's thanks to a great seller on eBay that I was able to score several samplers. This is how I found tiny bottles of Madagascar Vanilla (that, in total, equal a 6ml travel-size vial) for around 18 bucks instead of paying almost $40 - or almost $100 or 30ml. And I'm pretty sure the samples came from a NEST liquidation from the way they are labeled and marked...

perfectly sized for a
small purse.

So, yeah, if you are into fragrances, you might want to be into Fragrantica. 

By the way, the Frangantica page for a fragrance will link to a seller search page - eBay, Amazon, or some other site. It doesn't always land right, but, there ya go.

Peace

--Free