My previous post as practically a love-note to Armani SWY Absolutely, especially as my cold weather signature scent, still stands. While I sadly have to put it away until Autumn rolls around (and either Hawas Tropical or Lattafa Qaed al Fursan dominate my summer), I recently acquired a sampler of Powerfully. Cherry fragrances intrigue me, especially paired with orange, and thought it would be an interesting twist on the SWY DNA. While it's sadly still not summer-friendly, figured I'd give it a try. It's nice... but Absolutely still wins by light years to me. I guess I'm just a sucker for more gourmand fragrances as I count the days until the first leaf change, dancing downward in the gilded earlier sunset on a crisp breeze. That, and ASWYA has the davana flower to add that personalized chameleon note, along with the seemingly ever-lingering balsamic note I still smell on my saxophone neck strap since March. As a final note, maybe it's just my nose, but I smell the Mandarin orange far more prominently than the cherry note. Maybe that's a good thing, as many cherry fragrances lean too sweet, like candy. Whereas this cherry is a heavier undercurrent. Thoughts?

After spending the majority of the day in the house, on the afternoon we decided to go for a ride & then stop by the Mall. Went with this fragrance for today, more darker than the OG, in fact is the darkest of all the flankers but is very good. I own a mini sprayer but I can see myself owning a full bottle of it in the future.

There’s a point where collecting stops being primarily about fragrance appreciation and becomes completion-driven collecting. It’s the mindset of: “I already have the one I love, but now I need the Intense, Parfum, Elixir, Limited Edition, Night Edition, Summer Edition…” The actual scent can become secondary. The urge to own the complete line becomes the motivation. A few signs of this collector mindset: Completion over preference: “I don’t love it, but I need the set.” Flanker propensity every new release creates an urge to acquire it. Fear of an incomplete line: owning 6/7 somehow feels incomplete. Bottle-family appeal: the visual continuity of a collection becomes part of the attraction. Acquisition becomes the reward: sometimes the excitement of obtaining the bottle exceeds the excitement of wearing it. Redundancy gets rationalized: “They’re different enough” even when the actual wearing experience is very similar. The house becomes the object: you’re no longer collecting fragrances; you’re collecting the brand’s universe. And honestly, this isn’t necessarily bad. It’s just a different type of collector. Someone may buy a flanker because they genuinely enjoy it; another buys it because the OG without the flanker feels incomplete. With a very large collection, that distinction becomes particularly interesting: Are you collecting scents, or are you collecting completeness?