Received this samples kit from a friend of mine in yesterday’s mail. Nice treat. Decided to try Istanbul by Atelier today. Top: grapes, citrus, tea, parsley, lemon; middle: jasmine, pink pepper, geraniums; base: toffee, vanilla, musk, wood I really like his fragrance and I’m looking forward to trying more of the remaining samples. Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend.

9. Don’t spray too close give the atomizer some distance: One thing people don’t always think about is how far the bottle is from the skin when they spray. I like to hold the bottle roughly 4-6 inches away so the atomizer has a chance to create a proper mist and spread the fragrance over the area instead of soaking one tiny spot. If you spray extremely close, you can end up with a wet, concentrated patch of fragrance on the skin. Backing the bottle away a little gives you a more even application and lets the atomizer do what it was designed to do. Different bottles have different atomizers, so there isn’t one perfect distance for every fragrance. Some put out a fine mist, and others practically fire a hose. I adjust accordingly. For me, the goal is simple: you want the fragrance to land on the skin as a mist, not as a puddle.

Haven’t worn this in a long time. Dua’s hybrid of Aventus, Reflection Man and Baccarat Rouge 540 Reflection of Casino Elixir. Great fragrance combo for a Monday morning.

Found this sample of Enchouku, a Barrett clone of Tom Ford’s Plum Japonais I’ve never tried. The fragrance breaks down like this: Top: cinnamon and saffron Heart: Japanese plum, plum blossom, liquor, cypress, camellia Base: Oud, benzoin, fir, vanilla I really like this fragrance. It’s warm and woody and really smells different than any fragrance I have. Tom Ford’s scent is discontinued so I’ll never have the opportunity to try it. Have a good weekend everyone. Anyone family with the OG from Tom Ford?

I am probably going to piss off some clone warriors with this one, but so be it. I can say this because I have been there. I chased everything. I owned hundreds of dupes and clones. I chased every new “95% identical” release, every beast-mode version and every $30 alternative that supposedly made the original obsolete. But I also chased every inexpensive designer brand I could find. Rack-store bargains, discounted designers, cheapies that somebody on YouTube said were hidden gems — if it was inexpensive and getting attention, I wanted to try it. Then I started doing the same thing with niche. I chased niche brands, affordable niche, hyped niche and whatever house everybody happened to be talking about that month. For a long time, the hobby became about the next bottle. And eventually I had to ask myself a question: Do I actually love perfumery, or do I just love collecting bottles? Because those are not necessarily the same thing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying affordable fragrances. There is nothing wrong with clones either. Some are excellent, some perform better than the original, and some are incredible values. But if your entire collection is built around copies of fragrances you have never even smelled, I have a hard time calling that a deep appreciation of perfumery. Especially when those same people turn around and say: “Why would anybody pay $300 for the original?” “The clone is better.” “It smells exactly the same.” “The original is a ripoff.” How do you know? You never smelled it. Watching a YouTube reviewer tell you something is 95% accurate does not mean you have experienced the original. And this is one of my biggest problems with clone culture. Somewhere along the way, price and performance became the only measurements of quality. If a fragrance costs $25 and lasts 12 hours, it is automatically considered better than a $250 fragrance that lasts seven. That makes absolutely no sense to me anymore. Perfumery is more than projection and longevity.