I saw this on YouTube tonight and nearly shouted at the TV, laughing loud and hard for a long time. I for one 100% agree with this person’s opinion on the shameful five. But I really want to know what everyone else thinks about the choices of these choices? https://youtu.be/Fr8mKgIxSWg?si=XL_ZAdGnNf5Oj2Kt I want to stress that this is opinion, but it’s one I can agree with wholeheartedly, especially regarding the fragrances of Sauvage, Lalique Encre Noir, and Montale Black Aoud, and Afnan 9PM.

Saw the new Maahir Honor being compared to Torino 21 and it got me wondering: Outside of the original, what is the best dupe / cline / inspired by version of Torino 21? Be respectful in the comments please

And i don’t just mean boring generic ones like “Performance is important”, I mean like your smoking hot takes on this. Start off simple, and as they go on, they get progressively hotter. Be respectful, but also don’t hold back! This is a safe space, and we all respect the subjectivity of this hobby :) I’ll go first. 1- Parfums de Marly is a highly overrated house, and not worthy of the true niche title to me. I might be a bit of a Charlatan for saying this, and i’m aware that the term niche can apply to a lot of fragrance houses, but as i’ve really done my research and understood it better, i’ve realized the quality isn’t there, compared to other niche brands like Roja and Clive Christian. You’re paying absurd amounts of money for something that smells designer in quality. Theres no doubt that they’re still great scents, but to me personally, pale in comparison to brands like Diptyque and Le Labo. 2- Synthetics aren’t bad… but blending determines quality. Now, considering the knowledge and wisdom here, most of you probably already know that, but hey, i need to admit that i didn’t realize this sooner. A lot of ingredients in affordable fragrances are synthetic aromachemicals. And that’s not a bad thing. They improve performance, add room for unique notes or experimental ideas, and also cut costs. The difference between good and bad synthetics is the quality of chemicals used, and the way they’re blended. Compare Mancera to Diptyque. Mancera is a performance beast house, but to me personally, a lot of their scents, especially in the openings aren’t the best blended, especially scents like Red Tobacco. Drydowns are good on a lot of them, but the blend quality is still there. Then compare it to a house like Diptyque. They might not be as loud as Mancera, but a lot of people wouldn’t even be able to guess they use synthetics in their fragrances. It’s because of how well blended the scents and ingredients are. The key for me is, every brand uses synthetics, what separates the good from the bad is how detectable those synthetics are.

Just wondering how you organize your collections? Alphabetically, by house, by season, by notes or something else?

Got my hands on a bottle of Aaron Terrence Hughes’ new release Gin Sling today and am giving it a test wear. It literally just got listed on Fragrantica and I think I’m the very first person to rate it (beyond the one vote for “I have it” which I made, at the time I’m writing this no one else had it listed as “I have it” or “I want it“). First impressions are positive - 4 sprays to the arm and it’s very softly projecting, the open is a tart but lightly sweet lime with a hint of bitter tanginess and mild effervescence that’s vaguely reminiscent of tonic water. I don’t really get a lot of gin or even anything juniper-berry like. It’s very well blended and seems mass appealing for sure. There’s something in here that is reminiscent of other ATH‘s (this actually reminds me a bit of last year’s special release Electric Fever, swapping out the aromatics for this tangy effervescent lime) so it’s unmistakably his. I was worried that this would be redundant vs my beloved GNTonic, but thankfully that’s not the case as they are actually pretty different. Frankly, I prefer GNTonic - that one to me is pretty groundbreaking and unique, and really captures the essence of a gin and tonic, whereas this one doesn’t seem very revolutionary to me. That said, it is easy and pleasant to wear. Not really sure what the longevity is like – we’ll see how the four test sprays on my arm do. I did try two sprays to the hand earlier today and after 4 1/2 hours it was barely a skin scent, so hopefully with more sprays this will last longer than that.