I recently acquired a 10ml decant of Loumari’s Porthole. An absolutely fantastic fruity floral that’s geared towards summer nights, linen pants and quiet company. Reading many in-depth reviews of clone houses, I looked into Alexandria Fragrances and took a chance on their version, Loophole. I was blown away at the nearly perfect match. The iodine note was missing but from the opening to the dry down and beyond were amazing. Overall, the performance was spot on. Longevity was even better, lasting an extra 2 hours in side by side comparison. That said, I’d recommend Loophole from Alexandria as a great alternative. I think it plays above expectations here. It certainly did for me.

This is gonna sound so stupid. But i’ve fallen in love with this subject so much that I’ve started teaching myself how to make perfumes now. I’ve spent a lot of hours studying chemistry, aromachemicals, even got a book on perfuming a few months ago. Been looking into proper suppliers and got a good supply of high end ingredients and musks. I’m nowhere NEAR the six year educated professionals like our brother who used to be here, Mike Payne. But i feel like im grasping it well. Now that being said, I really wanted to announce this sooner because of how proud I am to have started getting into this hobby. Maybe it’s just a fixation that I get, as a brother on the spectrum a little bit lol. I personally think that my fixation might be not intense as it is now, but i’ve always loved classy things and fragrance, and so I think this will stick for a lifetime. But now I’m reaching a point where collecting is awesome, but not enough. I want to start making them. And so as a hobby, when I can find the time, I’ve began this journey. I’m nowhere NEAR to the point where I can comfortably say that i’m good at this, nor will i let my stuff see the light of DAY for a little bit. But hey, no better place to announce this than here. So now getting into the subject of the post. The girl i made this for. First question is, why would I do this? Because i was in love once. It wasn’t a perfect relationship, it was actually incredibly painful for me, and I had to end it because it was getting too much, holding onto this, not knowing where I stood. But i loved her, deeply. We were just kids in highschool when we first met. Danced to a song by Ed Sheeran. Kept dancing even after the song ended. And I fell in love with her that night. And never stopped. But unfortunately, it didn’t end. I was tired of not knowing where I belonged in her life. It’s not that she was never there for me, but her inconsistency is what broke my heart. It was a constant cycle of intensity, push, pull, then nothing. And then restarting. And honestly, I felt like i was kept close enough to be there and decently present, but never close enough to really BE there. And as someone in love for years… that hurt me a lot!

What to say in your intro? Share where you're from, your reason for joining, perhaps your favorite fragrance, watch or a picture of you dressed sharp! It's a small action, but a HUGE step in you getting value from this community becasue you go from being a lurker to an ACTIVE member. In fact men that introduce themselves are 10X more likely to the actions to becoming their best selves. Bonus Point - By introducing yourself you're guaranteed to level-up. Seriously, you'll get at least 5-20 likes/points (oftentimes more) which will move you to level 2 and possibly level 3. And just like that you have access to more of this community!

As a couple of you may know, I'm in the process of moving from one house to another - from the Chicago area to SoCal full-time. The Chicago house is in the process of closing and things are getting a little sticky with the buyer's lawyer, etc etc. Luckily for me, the buyer has absolutely ZERO leverage on me given my situation (and their lawyer will discover that soon enough...) Nevertheless, I'm stressed because I am taking a hard line and sticking to my guns, but I want to be 100% sure that I handle this situation correctly. After getting all my ducks in arow to the best of my ability, the question is; What do I do to ease my stress? The answer? Amouage. Specifically Reflection Man. This stuff brings down my angst, agression, anxiety and general malaise to a much more managable level. It's actually acting like a psychologist (psychiatrist?) in bottle. Now I can at least get through the rest of the day without going postal (my apologies to all you postal employees. 😘) BoS, this stuff is WELL worth the price.

After about 15 months of building my collection I think I have hit a plateau of some sort. My collection is up to about 50 bottles and the same number of decants. I've sold several off the past few months and curated the collection a bit. I have all the seasons covered, I have(or at least tried) most of the fragrance categories and notes and now know what I like and don't like. I have dupes, designers and niche (mostly in decants). I find now though, I'm not really actively looking for new frags to try. I go on here everyday and check it out and on Rescented but not as many times a day as I used to. I don't stop in Sephora/Ulta/Macys every chance I get to try out the frags, only once in a while. This happen to anyone else or have I just reached a certain phase of collecting?