Barriers to the Fragrance Hobby : "Information Overload – Drinking from the Firehose" (2/6)

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Hey guys, Joe A. here with another one for ya'! Another potential barrier to this hobby is information overload! Top notes. Heart notes. Base notes. Reformulations. Batch codes. Projection debates that feel like physics lectures. For newcomers, fragrance culture can feel less like a hobby and more like enrolling in a semester-long course titled Advanced Aromatic Theory 301. The language alone can be overwhelming!

The irony is that fragrance is sensory before it is intellectual, right? You smell it and you either like it or you don’t. But somewhere along the way, we layered on vocabulary and metrics that, while helpful, can intimidate. Knowledge enhances appreciation, but it shouldn’t become a barrier to entry.

I believe the key is progression. Learn a little at a time. Start with broad families. Notice how woods behave on your skin versus citrus. Let experience build understanding organically. The hobby should feel like discovery, or a #Journey, not an exam you forgot to study for!!

What say you, guys? Did the terminology ever overwhelm you when you first started? What fragrance “concept” took you the longest to understand? And when did we all collectively agree that sillage needed to be measured like wind speed? Love to hear from ya'!

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