Perfumista "stepchild" scents - Gourmands

It´s known that among some perfumistas some scent families have higher status then others. This is of course not applieable on all perfumistas. But even among those of us that try not to care about these status scents, still in our backbone we "feel" some scents are consider much better than others...


On top of the perfumista status list we find the classic perfumes. Sure, classics that still are available can work, but top of the top is classic fragrances not longer available, preferable discontinued some fifhty years ago and only to be found among rarity collectors, some webshops are dedicated to hunt down this kind of scents and retails them for -often- very, very high prives, now and then a real rare bottle shows up on Ebay. It sound a little wrong to call the classic scents for childs, they rather that noble olda ladies we maybe dream about to be related with and wow, the day they die we can look forward to a secret -and huge- legacy...! Of course it´s necessary to honor this relation of obvious reasons.


Another scent family perfumistas usual won´t have second thoughts to welcome in the family is chypré scents. The older the better, but even modern chypres are better than most other modern scents. But, best of the best chyprés are those old one´s with oakmoss enough to suffocate a whole village of astmatic people. Personally it has take me some time to learn to like chypré scents, but now it has finally start working, at least OK.


Quite high in status is also all those glorious, magnificent, lovely, sheer, full bodied, powdery and creamy floral scents. Every perfumista has at least one grand floral fave, it could be jasmine, tuberose or rose, the important thing is that it should be grand and fill up a large space easily. The great florals seem to be slightly higher in status then the little, pretty ones. Pure florals seem to be prefered before blended scents (fruityflorals, woody florals, spicy florals etc).


Oriental scents seem to have a somewhat not so good reputation as the above mentioned, but on the other hand, oriental scents have a huge fanclub. Oriental perfumes has a variety in style most other scent families lack, most scents with a dash of vanilla can be oriental. Often the border between orientals, woody and spicy fragrances are quite fleeting. They have a lot of notes in common, such as patchouli, cinnamon, sandalwood, incense, saffron, pepper etc can be found in all the above cathegories, and patchluli is also common in modern chyprés.


When mentioning aquatic scent, we reach a scent cathegory not as popular as oriental. It´s not at all unusual that perfumistas says things like "This is one of very few aqautics that I really like..." I´ve said it myself, and several times that is. In fact I´ve realised that I do like auqatic perfumes, at least much more than I usually admits.


Say fruityfloral and make a lot of perfumistas to shiver (not by pleasure). This isn´t at all about big flroals, but a strange mix of several fruits and flowers, in best cases smelling like some overly sweet jam and in worst smelling like hairspray (even though that phenomen is most comon among floral woody musk scents). Among this kind of scents it´s hard for me to admit any favorites, honestly I don´t test this kind of scents so often. What an evil stepmother I am. Any tips on good fruityflorals? Please share with me.


Celebrity scents aren´t that popular, but they aren´t all alike even tough most of them can be fiópund within three different cathegories, fruityfloral, woody floral musk and my last scent cathegory for today... gourmands!


It isn´t that OK to like gourmands. Despite that I think gouramnd has more fans among perfumistas than fruityflorals. Look at the pics above, how come something trying to smell like vanilla, chocolate, fudge, ice cream and cookies aren´t popular? That time of month when I´m having chocolate cravings, I can put on one of my huge gourmands and be totally contempt by just smelling it, my choclate craving wears off without eating a single bit of chocolate! Unfortunatly, gourmands seem to have the reverse effect on some! Gourmand scents seem to be a little more accepted if they aren´t really gourmands. If you can smell something like "it isn´t really gourmand, it has some elements of smoke or animalic notes" then it´s OK, a vanilla scent that is described like "a grown up-vanilla" is also OK. Personally I´ve got lot of gourmand-gourmand faves like Keiko Mecheri´s Loukhoum, Profumum Romas Dulcis in Fundo, Comptoir Suds Vanille-Canelle, L de Lolita Lempicka, Hilde Solianis Fraagolaa Salataa and Lostmarchs Lann-Ael(which I should give a proper review of, but I don´t have anything left of it). Bois Farine is a kind of gourmand too, isn´t it? And I love the note of rice in scents, and soft almond, vanilla cookies, lemon sorbet, chewy toffee and nutty caramelle... one of few gourmand notes that don´t work that well on me is chocolate, which often ends up very soapy on me.


More gourmand scent for the people, and especially to me! ;)


Do you have any gourmand favorite that you think I need to try? Or do you have that kind of skin chemistry that shun gourmands? My skin chemistry seem to lift up gourmand and sweet note in an optimal way, which is probably the reason for my liking.