I was around 14 yrs old when I got a bottle of Preferred Stock for xmas. I probably went through 5-8 bottles of the stuff during my high school years. Then when I moved out on my own, perfume was a luxury a poor working teen couldn't justify spending his money on... so i wore nothing, but deodorant, for many years. Wearing Sauvage Elixir today, and it has a faint resemblance to my old favorite. (They share a number of notes) What was you first fragrance? Is there a modern scent that reminds you of it?

Part 3: The Bottles Have Landed Hey guys, Joe A. here with another one for ya’! Welcome back to SHELF CONTROL, where one man attempts to bring order to a fragrance collection that clearly stopped respecting boundaries, triggered mild family concern, and may or may not have been one blind buy away from needing a full-blown intervention! Well gentlemen… The Great Bottle Migration is officially complete! The drawers, cabinets, boxes, shelves, corners and mysterious little fragrance hideouts around the house have finally surrendered their contents. For the first time, my collection feels like ONE collection that's together, visible, accessible and staring back at me with the collective expression of, “Yeah Joe… you bought all of us.” And seeing everything together has been eye-opening! There are forgotten gems I’m excited to wear again, bottles that immediately reminded me why I bought them, obvious phases I apparently went through and more than a few fragrances quietly challenging my repeated claim that, “I don’t own anything like this...” BUT... something else happened that I really wasn’t expecting. Once every bottle was finally sitting in front of me, the question stopped being, “Where am I going to put all this?” and quietly morphed into: “What exactly am I trying to build here?” When a collection is scattered around the house, it’s surprisingly easy to focus on what you’re missing. When it’s all staring back at you at once? Gentlemen… suddenly you become very aware of what you’re NOT missing. Maybe the next step isn’t automatically buying another bottle. Maybe it’s finding the ACTUAL gaps. Rediscovering something great that got buried three years ago. Giving more attention to fragrances that never got their fair shot. Or realizing you already own six answers to a question you were about to solve with bottle number seven. And maybe that’s the biggest surprise of Shelf Control!! I built all this shelving because I wanted to see and enjoy my collection better. I didn’t realize that seeing it better might actually change the way I collect.

We all like compliments, but what's the worst comment you have heard, about a fragrance that you like?

Not a surprise that I wore this one today to start the week, been enjoying this one more and more lately.

https://nypost.com/2026/08/30/lifestyle/gen-z-men-are-skipping-showers-in-pheromone-maxxing-dating-trend/ "A new trend has some men skipping their usual hygiene routines before meeting a prospective partner. So-called “pheromone-maxxing” is a viral TikTok trend primarily associated with teen boys and young men that involves skipping showers and deodorant before a date. " I mean...it's scent related, right?