Best Scents For Aging?

[FeatherQwill]

Hi! I'm new to BPAL and I'm interested in getting scents that improve with age, or at least won't go off if I keep them around a couple of years. I would really appreciate it if some of you vets could recommend things for me.

 

(I've already decided to order Snake Oil)

 

I'm not really a floral person, but I don't mind subtle undertones. Nothing too strong or candy-sweet either!

 

 

What I'm really looking for in the long run is to acquire a signature scent, something to wear all the time - something that's subtle, a bit sexy, a bit unusual (at least to non-BPALers), and something that won't begin to bore or irritate me with everyday wear.

 

 

Please help! I'm really looking forward to experimenting, but I don't have the money to spend wildly, and anyways it's impossible to know how well a scent ages without the experience that you guys have.

[eyeska]

So of course I'm reading these threads just before I need to head to work, so I don't quite have time to edit or fiddle with this, BUT:

 

This thread is specifically on aging, and awhile ago I actually went through the thread and nabbed some highlights and stuffed them into a text doc for my personal use. Here are some of the things I gleaned:

 

Notes regarding aging:

 

Snake Oil, overall, seems to age VERY well.

 

Absinthe does not age well.

 

Lighter scents in general - Yggdrasil, Embalming Fluid (exception - three years later!), Midnight, Juliet, The Caterpillar - seem not to age very well, but keep an eye on citruses specifically, which DO NOT age well at all, and deteriorate quickly. Neither does lavender, or white musk, mint.

 

Jasmine, orris, patchouli, rose, sandalwood, frankincense, rosewood, cedarwood, Vetiver, violet, vanilla, (resins in general), chocolate, spice, all age well.

 

Dana O'Shee, after a few months, seems to improve and lose its "sharp bite".

 

Cathedral, Anne Bonny, O, Velvet, Desire, Queen Mab, Dorian, Sin(?), Fenris Wolf, Black Forest, Siren, Blood, Smut, Voodoo. Perversion, The Black Tower, Morocco, Dragon's Milk, Zephyr, Old Scratch, Oberon, Wicked, Fallen (leave for only a couple-five months?), Kali, Sloth, Iago, Bluebeard, Saturnalia, Blood Kiss, Queen Gertrude, Vixen, Eat Me, Maiden, Bliss, Blood Rose, Beatrice, Antique Lace, Haunted, Lust, Malediction, Lyonesse, Saint Germain, White Rabbit, Alice, Kubla Khan, Brown Jenkins, Priala, Crowley, Dragon's Musk, Coyote all age well.

 

Aged oils seem to wear a lot longer than fresh oils.

 

(A direct quote; I apologize for not having attributed it, but it IS in the aging thread. Thank you to the person who posted, this is excellent advice!) Some oils don't stay perfectly mixed, and have a tendancy to separate a little. I always roll my bottles between my palms for a few seconds before putting them on so as to be sure I get the full scent.

 

Faders: roses, ginger (but not red ginger), clear fruit notes, peach, citrus, clove.

Ampers: amber, lotus, cedar, violet, fig, most sweet notes, patchouli.

 

However, these are just the highlights that I personally gleaned, and I've not actually updated this since April. I apologize to anyone whom I've quoted without attribution - I've been trying to keep that to a minimum.

 

Hope this helps!

[ivyandpeony]

You definitely should take some time to look over the Aging BPAL thread in BPAL Chatter - there's a lot of discussion of specific blends that get better and better with time over there as well as info about which individual notes age the best.

 

Some of the general things people have found: Very delicate floral notes often fade (the one that immediately popped into my mind is linden blossom, which is in The Unicorn - a beautiful ethereal floral that I found became very light and weak after I owned it for a few years, sadly). Citrus notes are also notoriously shortlived in perfume terms. They tend to lose their brightness and depending on what they're combined with in a blend, may seem to disappear. But I have found that dominant citrus notes can occasionally become richer and sweeter in some cases when they've lost that brightness - lime becomes more like a lime LifeSaver or orange like orange marmalade.

 

Notes that age beautifully include patchouli - if you are a fan of patchouli, I think you'll appreciate the spicy, raw edge that a fresh BPAL patchouli can have, but as it ages it gets smoother and sweeter. All the resins seem to age wonderfully as well, so try blends with myrrh, frankincense (a.k.a. olibanum, boswellia), amber (my personal favorite), styrax, opoponax, rockrose, ambergris (the Lab uses a botanical resin blend to mimic the scent of this), galbanum, tolu balsam, and/or gum mastic (and I am sure there are other resins I am forgetting that people will add to this list). Any blends with incense listed as a note should have some resinous components that will help it age well. I don't know a lot about the different wood notes, but I do find that sandalwood blends age very nicely too.

 

I also think most vanillas age well, becoming richer and losing any hint of plastic they might have had when new and fresh (luckily I don't find that effect to occur very often, but I know some people suffer from it quite often and I sympathize.) Spicy blends usually get richer and more delicious over time too.

 

I know you are new to BPAL, but you may not be new to perfume in general and you may know of some notes that you already like - do you have any favorites that would help us narrow things down for you?

 

ETA: Thank you eyeska!! I was working on this and had to take a phone call, so your post went up between the time I started and the time I posted. Very good info!

Edited September 26, 2008 by ivyandpeony

[FeatherQwill]

@Eyeska : O_O Wow, that's a really big list! Thanks for compiling it for me. I'll have to compare it against the particularly tantalizing-sounding oils. :D

 

@Ivyanpeony : Great list! Thank you for the information about the individual 'notes' - in the past, I've just tried perfume on in the store and bought it if I liked it, but never really paid attention to what was in them (probably mostly chemicals, anyways).

[eanewsom]

Velvet! The first few months it's too sharp, but then it mellows into pure glory, and it just keeps improving. A very kind person sent me a 2-year-old bottle and it is insanely good.

 

ETA: Whoops, a description would be nice, huh? It's cocoa and sandalwood.

Edited September 27, 2008 by Ahania

[eyeska]

@Eyeska : O_O Wow, that's a really big list! Thanks for compiling it for me. I'll have to compare it against the particularly tantalizing-sounding oils. :D

 

*grin* Glad my notes could help.

 

As for the not really knowing what you liked in the way of perfumes - just think about what you like to smell like, or might like to smell like. Flowers? Sandalwood? Musk? Spices? If you're really unsure, you might want to see about getting a widely varied imp pack (ie: with lots of different notes) just to see what you like to sniff and what happens to work with your skin chemistry, though that can be a bit tough.

 

Oh, and standard "get at least one imp that you're not sure of/that's very different from your other choices" advice here.

Edited September 27, 2008 by Eyeska

[Czarina]

Boomslang, which is Snake Oil with cocoa. H-e-a-v-e-n-l-y.

 

You might want to check out the "Everything you ever wanted to know about Snake Oil" thread for a bunch of lore about aging Snake Oil (people lay imps on the side, leave the cap off the bottle, etc., etc.).

[whisperingmachines]

Ooooh this is great! I have to do a graphic design project where we organize something we have 100 of (in my case, BPAL), then make a bunch of variables and categories- whether or not something ages well is a great category! So thanks for unintentionally inspiring me and helping my project