tonka

I've been down in the rabbit hole of perfume blogs (currently in the archives of Bois de Jasmin, previously The Perfume Shrine), and to say that I feel overwhelmed is an understatement. This is a familiar feeling, like when I was digging through MarshalN on pu-er.

(Short interlude, David recommended this MTG color personality framework and I was initially unsure what I am. However, this post, and I think myself in general, is quite blue/white. Although certain situations I act in more green or black ways).

So I've come up with two rules to guide my exploration:

• Sample by brand: read about its philosophy / history and get a discovery set of samples. Ideally it's a locally available brand and I can visit their counter and chat with SAs (and hopefully score free samples). I'm arbitrarily limiting this activity to once a year, for both the sake of having a fuller wallet and also it'll probably take that long to use up the samples.
• Buy the full bottle if and only if: (1) brand aligns with me, (2) bottle design is to my preference, and (3) I like the scent and it doesn't induce a headache*

The theme are slowly and methodically-ish. In fact, I see very strong parallels between how I approach tea and perfume. The generally accepted strategy is sample widely and be very choosy about buying the full size. I'm surprised that the tea community haven't adopted an equivalent term for full bottle worthy (although there is the reverse of "a cake is the sample").

I'm not yet setting a limit on full bottle purchases, and am not against owning multiples of the same scent family (I already envision myself with many vetiver-centric perfumes). I'm also undecided on whether I want to develop slots for seasonality or activities (equivalent of assessing your wardrobe for "holes" and then shopping to fill those in). That said, I am brainstorming a good scent for humid summers, something like Jo Malone's Wood Sage and Sea Salt. Maybe I should just get that...but will need to test for longevity.

Ah, that's another of my important criteria, I want my scents to last. Have small projection (or to use the proper term, sillage), but last a very long time. It's nice to catch a sniff of the scent throughout the day. I'm quite happy that both Lord George and Jasminora actually lasts until the next day, even after my long hot showers.

Lastly, I want to be less precious with what I own. I have the same problem with my tea stash, saving my nicer wu-yi and pu-er for when I can sit down for an uninterrupted session. Well, that was rare and will be exceedingly rare now that I've finally started full time work. I'll still obviously save my best teas (eg. W2T's white whale, which is sold out), but I've started drinking a ~10 y.o. yiwu that I took from China grandpa style at work. Am I realizing the tea's full potential? Of course not, but not drinking the tea at all is literally infinitely worse. What this translate to my fragrance collection currently is using my Aveda Chakra 3 as a home scent, on towels, beddings, etc. Perhaps with enough use I'll Pavlov-dog myself into associating it with home and unwinding.



*I'm starting to question my assumption that it's the scent that's inducing a headache, it could also be dehydration, since in both times when this happened (that I remember clearly), I've been out for a while and did not drink enough water. So I'm revising my theory to be that scents are a trigger but dehydration is the underlaying cause.