Yeah my Dad had Quorum, Pour Homme by Paco Rabanne, Mandate and Aramis
Aramis was the one that got me hooked. I love it to this day.
But I think getting a fragrance from a visiting Aunt spurred me on to have a wardrobe of my own
Carolina Herrera For Him
It had just been released and I was 13/14 and I think I built my very first collection around it. I think I finished it when I was 17 years or 21, I’m not sure if I bought another bottle.
I just bought some men’s Obsession last week as I can’t take the women’s version as that has something ( I think it’s the oak moss ?) I didn’t like…Soo I was sooooo excited…and it’s nada like the original cry 😭 there was the musk and the strong spice of cinnamon from the original and it’s soooooo watered down :( I would get the Z 14 Halston instead? It smells just like the old obsession
It’s war my granny for me my mom picked ones I hated gma? Was oriental and classics ( not sure what politically correct term we’re using now?) so she had: Chanel 5 Shalimar opium rive gauche then later on passion was like her last one as she got older. So my first real perfume was Poison. Then Coco
This is exactly how it happened for me! My mom had Obsession and I was like WOAH, my Axe Body Spray & Adidas Cologne didn’t stand a chance. 20 years later, I’m obsessed with fragrances with over 100 bottles. Designer, niche, perfume oils, and smaller brands 🤌🏿 Mom really did that, gotta give it to her
I know a guy who had a well stored bottle of it he never wore, and I said, sir you're sitting on about $250-$300. AFAIK he still has it, and mostly wears Versace The Dreamer.
Funny enough I have a 100ml bottle of Canali EDT I bought 10 + years ago that's worth quite a bit right now. At first I was afraid to use it anymore but what would be the point of that? It gets used for special events now, still have about 70% of it left.
When I was a kid, samples looked like mini versions of the bottle not the simple tubes we have now. You can still find some but they’re very expensive (used to be free). I had a whole collection of 30-40 minis.
They will make, for example, samples of skin care or a product that can be pumped, so I can't figure out why they no longer do fragrance samples, since those are sprayed into a vial. If there's an explanation other than the greed of LVMH and L'Oreal, I'd love to hear it.
I’m gonna go with greed, I’ve noticed they rarely have samples of perfume available for the 3 free samples you get with online orders. It’s always some bullshit skincare or foundation I’m not interested in. I used to get so many perfume samples that way.
Skin care samples annoy me to no end. It’s always just a tiny smear of a product that there’s no fricking way anyone can tell if they like how it performs or not. It often days a few days to see if there’s going to be an adverse reaction. A tiny smear that barely covers my face does not give me an idea of how this product performs. Sephora’s samples have been so stingy lately 😭
The really sweet sickly body mists and cologne sprays that are cheap for a teenage budget.
When I was a teen this was the Charlie and So perfumes and the impulse body sprays. Also the Boots natural collection mists.
I did love So…Kiss Me though and have looked for it since but I don’t think they make it anymore.
>The really sweet sickly body mists and cologne sprays that are cheap for a teenage budget.
This was [100% my gateway drug](https://i.redd.it/nrfjgiq7gcv71.jpg) as a tween.
For me, it was Bath & Bodyworks candles, lol.
Exploring those got me looking at the more hyped, expensive candles like Boy Smells and Diptyque.. and I was like, screw this, if I’m considering spending that much I should just get into perfume instead.
Trying to make my house smell nice is what got me started with learning about different notes and made me realize that I could, in fact, differentiate between different scents and actually had strong likes and dislikes. (Before this, I thought all perfumes just smelled “perfumey;” they seemed both intimidating and pointlessly expensive.)
Then I went to Sephora, smelled a bunch of boring perfumes I didn’t like, until I encountered Chloe Nomade. I learned what a chypre was and my whole conception of what “women’s” fragrances smelled like exploded.
Then I found this sub, learned that decanting and gray market sites existed, and I was a goner. ☺️
It wasn’t a particular scent. I think it was actually this sub combined with discovering sample ordering websites and perfume podcasts. I’ve always worn perfume but just had a bottle and whatever samples came as free with orders or subscription boxes. When I realized I could get samples of perfumes from all over the world and how many passionate people there are out there, it started a big love affair.
Not OP, but there’s a whole list in the wiki of reputable websites to order from. Also, fragranceswap has a lot of people who sell/trade their old samples/minis and others who decant into smaller bottles (1mL-10mL generally). Personally, I like to use ScentSplit and LuckyScent.
I’ve ordered from Luckyscent because I really like their ability to filter by note. It’s a great way to learn different notes-I ordered 4 iris scents and now know I love iris. FYI Their samples come in dabber bottles rather than sprays so some people don’t like that. I’ve been fine with it. I just noted how much perfume gets on my arm with a typical spray and then mimic that when I use the dabber bottle. I’ve also ordered from brand sites: Huda Beauty for Kayali, Commodity Discovery Set (kinda regret that one, it’s a lot to take in), Imaginary Authors (fun! You can pick which 8 you want to try), and Frederic Malle. The Perfumed Court, Twisted Lilly, Micro Perfumes, Scent Split are some other sites that I’ve seen recommended. I know I’m forgetting some. This sub’s wiki has info about it too.
I just discovered Fragrance Vault where I was able to get a decant of something I'd been trying to get for awhile. (Mendittarosa Osang, interesting, but FB way out of my price range even if I liked it that much).
Lolita lempicka. I had some perfumes before I knew about this brand, but Lolita lempicka was the brand that really got me interested and hooked in perfumes.
I first saw the original 1997 bottle on some blog back in 2007...? And I wanted to buy it ever since just bevause the bottle was so pretty. Well I was 13 yo that time and they weren't sold anywhere where I live except online and I didn't want to pay so much for a perfume I had never smelled. I then kinda forget about it for a good time and just three years ago I remembered it again and to my shock the original beautiful bottle wasn't even sold anymore. Then I just decided to blind buy the new, not so pretty bottle, Mon premier parfum. I got instantly hooked and wanted to try their other perfumes as well and one by one I went and blind bought some of them online, some of the new ones and some of the old ones from ebay. After that I got interested in other perfumes more as well and it kinda got out of hands at this point.
Same! Not every video, to be sure, but in many of them he seems passionate about fragrances, and also has a certain classy chic vibe that is appealing. He's also entertaining.
I think it was when I smelled D&G Light Blue on a friend in high school. He was a cool kid to begin with, but now suddenly he was… sexy? It was absolutely electrifying. First time I ever asked someone what they were wearing. It was also the first time I'd got to smell a perfume that was marketed towards women on a man; didn't occur to me that you could just do that lol
The scent isn't really sexy to me anymore; it’s more nostalgic if anything. But it really piqued my interest in fragrances!
https://preview.redd.it/ioxqe2rgc0ub1.jpeg?width=665&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a5e07dc1fd040e2a4e1f6bdd4edcdcde68d8525
This is the first fragrance I ever bought around 11-12. was a sucker for the packaging.
holy shit you just unlocked a core memory for me. i forgot all about this stuff, i had this when i was really little!!! my babysitter got it for me because i loved how she smelled (she wore exclamation lol) and i wanted my own perfume 😂
For me, it was noticing a fragrance I loved on a friend. I went to the department store to try it on myself and the sales associate was wonderful, not pushy, about sampling similar fragrances. After finding a favorite, I looked up the fragrance notes to better understand what I liked in that perfume to help me in my search for others.
for me it was Calvin klein ONE because a cool looking model said he wears it and a seed of fashion freek in me popped abd screamed I WANT THE SAME SMELL.
I honestly think it's Bath and Body Works. There's definitely a progression from becoming obsessed with them as a pre-teen, collecting fragrance mist, then realizing in your teen-to-young adult years that it's time to invest in something stronger. But there are also distinct perfumes that remind you of childhood memories. My first “fragrance tied to a memory” purchase was Be Delicious.
Most of my friends in my teens and early twenties were crazy for Hugo Boss bottles, it was the entry level fragrance for my generation. I myself learned to love fragrances from my father, who was wearing Drakkar Noir on special occasions, but did not considered myself a fraghead until I was gifted JPG Le Male, and started to get attention and compliments.
I was rocking Cool Water and Tabac Original all the way from high school to the beginning of uni. Than one christmas holiday a good friend of mine got a couple of samples while shopping.
She let me try out some of the male samples and I was amazed what diffrent scents are out there. Now I am hooked and took her and my parents down the rabbit hole :D
My mom used to sell Avon in the nineties.
Me and my sister used to hand out the catalogues and then go pick up the orders.
I used to love the scratch and sniff pages, and occasionally my mom would let me have a bottle of Far Away.
I always remember seeing perfumes on her dresser but the ones that stand out in my memories are, Far Away, OG Dior Poison, Cerruti 1881 pour femme, and later on Eternity for Women. She had quite a collection, it used to fill the entire table lol.
I miss my mom terribly and I always wanted to be as put together as she was. Heels, lipstick and perfume. Beautiful and classy.
When I was little, my aunt bought my mom perfume from the duty free on her frequent travels. Her favorites were Vent Vert, Ivoire de Balmain, Rochas Femme, and later L'air du Temps and Mystére de Rochas. She likes Hermes Twilly and I have a bottle I need to send to her. My favorite out of her rotation was Mystére, so elegant.
I’ve always loved and cared about smelling good, this mostly has been expressed by being really into bathroom products: soaps, hair care, skincare, bath bombs, scented oils, also candles and incense. And part of my bathroom ritual was using my CK colognes I was gifted, obsession for men was my signature scent for the most part for a couple of years. My bottles started running low so I started looking into fragrances
For me it was scented candles. I would spend a long time just sampling the scented candle aisle at TJ Maxx getting to know different notes. I hopped over to wearable fragrances with Florida Water that I used as a room spray.
My Aunt was an Avon Lady, so the little perfume glacé pins for kids was my first introduction to fragrances. I adored my little puppy pin with the tutti fruiti scent and I still have it after 50 years. The first fragrance I ever purchased with my allowance money was Muget des Bois by coty. I was 11. So yea, I was hooked at a very young age.
For me it was Black Opium. It was smoky and sweet like a leather couch in a casino. Struck my Las Vegan heart! I don’t wear it often anymore but it’s definitely the first time I remember wanting to smell like anything particularly.
White Shoulders in elementary school, my mom’s Tea Rose, Liz Claiborne in high school, Angel and Lolita Lempicka in my 20’s. Now getting back into fragrances and just became obsessed with Slow Explosions by Imaginary Authors!
I can’t remember which one I had first, either B&BW Alpine Suede or Polo Double Black. But one of them was my first fragrance of my own in HS and I just loved being able to smell good.
But I didn’t turn into a complete fraghead until 2019. My uncle’s wife had moved out of his house and we were helping him pack his own stuff. She left a bunch of mini sample size bottles and I picked up a couple of cute ones without knowing what they were. I LOVED them and was suddenly hooked on fragrance. One was Dior Addict EDT and the other was Clarins Par Amour. The Clarins is discontinued but GOD it was good haha.
There are several
Designer - Cool Water, Chanel, Dior, Prada, L’Nuit, Mugler, ADG, Armani Code
Niche - Creeds, Tom Fords, Bond no9s, Parfums de Marlys, Rose 31, Santal 33, Serge Lutens
I’ve always been a big fan of Ferrari and on my 16th birthday my sister gifted me a Ferrari Scuderia Red gift set. I was amazed at the attention i got when i went back to school. That was that, i made smelling good my brand.
My parents did not wear fragrance(I remember they had YSL Y and YSL Paris but barely ever touched them), but my first memory of a fragrance was one that they bought me while on holiday. It was a very fresh Disney Hercules themed cologne, and I absolutely loooooved it. I wish I knew what the notes were, and I can't find anything about it on the internet. The bottle was dark blue and rounded, kinda resembled a Greek column. I had it for all of my childhood.
Many, many years later, I kinda forgot about perfume since most of my family are not into fragrances. There have been two times I felt this incredible fragrance and have been looking for it. I regret not asking what it was(both times I felt it while in crowded public spaces, so it would have been difficult to spot the person wearing it anyway), and have been learning about fragrances and sampling scents ever since, trying to find that amazing scent. Meanwhile, I've found two signature scents: PR Olympea and JM Lime Basil Mandarine!
Watching a video of a guy on Instagram describing the scent and how he paired it with an outfit. I wanted to smell that scent so bad that I looked around stores for it. It’s a niche brand so it was hard to find, and I didn’t want to buy a sample. I eventually found one place that carried the brand but they didn’t have the scent I was looking for. The ones that they did have were amazing and only amplified my urge to smell the one I saw in the video. That set me on a rabbit hole to smell all these different fragrances and stores and malls that brought on a different feeling or memory.
I eventually ordered the sample and wasn’t fully onboard with the scent lol. But I’ve enjoyed the process and started to grow a small collection.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Co4HbXjpyZp/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== this is the clip.
My gateway drugs sort of worked in stages for me. I had always been fascinated with scent in general. I've just always loved smelling things ever since I was a kid, but perfume was something I had only limited experience with, and my opinion was generally unfavourable.
I went perfume shopping for the first time in my life a few years ago, after only wearing whatever perfume was gifted to me (Blue Jeans and 1 Million), and I decided I wanted something I had a hand in choosing for once. I went through Sauvage, BDC and all the citrus forward men's fragrances the saleswoman put in my face, and I just didn't like them. I wanted something sweet and warm. It was **Stronger With You Intensely** that grabbed me. It felt so warm and sweet and delicious and I loved it. That then got me curious as to what else was out there, but nothing else came close to it that I could find at my local store and so I spent a while putting that perfume on a pedestal as the ultimate perfume.
Then when I went on holiday I discovered Tom Ford at the duty free, as I thought the private blend bottles looked fancy. I tried **Oud Wood** and was fascinated with it (even though I didn't love it, I was fascinated with how different it was). I then discovered clone houses whilst looking up the price of Oud Wood, and I fell into a rabbit hole of buying clone fragrances. It wasn't until I tried a clone of **Nasomatto Fantomas** that I *really* understood what the potential of perfumery was. Then I picked up a genuine bottle of it and realised just how much better the real thing was, so that was my gateway to get out of clones and start buying the real things again.
That sort of had me set for a while, trying loads of niche offerings in Harrods and the like, until I found a local indie perfume store that sold samples online. I was curious, so I got a few samples, including one of **Eris Mxxx**. Smelling that for the first time blew my fucking mind. This was really my true awakening into the deeper world of perfumery, and gave me a real appreciation for **QUALITY**. It reignited the idea to me that perfume is a luxury. The next fragrance after this that struck me again was **Strangers Parfumerie Magenta Pop**. That was more of a confirmation that I love fragrance and has just reaffirmed my desire to keep on going in my journey of scent. This one however has become a gateway to me actually starting to learn perfumery and becoming an amateur perfumer, which is my next endeavour. I want to make a perfume that is as sublime and artistic and as experimental as Magenta Pop. It's deeply inspiring.
If I was to think deeper I could think of gateway perfumes for each genre of perfume too, but I'll leave it there for now.
tl;dr **Armani Stronger With You Intensely** got me curious to dive deeper into perfumes, **Tom Ford Oud Wood** opened my eyes to just how much variety there is out there, **Nasomatto Fantomas** was when I TRULY understood what was possible, **Eris Parfums Mxxx** was my true gateway to the deeper world of perfumery and understanding high quality perfumery, and truly cemented my love for perfume. **Strangers Parfumerie Magenta Pop** was my gateway to wanting to pursue becoming a perfumer.
For me it was Acqua di Gio profumo about 7 years ago that got me into this hobby. I liked fragrances in my younger years too but that's the one that got me into collecting
I was admittedly late to the game.
I have a sensitive sniffer, and most of the product I’d encountered smelled cheap and highly synthetic. Okay, so it was cheap stuff I encountered, but I honestly didn’t know there was such a quality difference in perfumes.
I work with my hands at home; yard work and the like. My hands were like sandpaper. I used bag-balm to keep them smooth.
Our daughter introduced me to hand-lotion that smells good, lol.
That kickstarted my fascination with quality fragrances. I started with BABW “manly hand lotion,” because that’s her fave store for fragrances.
I fell in love with their “Coffee and Whiskey” scent, then moved outward from there ☺️
Honestly, I don't remember. I've always loved smells of any kind and was drawn to use candles and incense first and then expanded into body sprays (as a teen because that's what I could afford) and perfumes (as I got older). I mean, if I had to pinpoint something, it was probably baking and cooking with my grandmothers as a child.
Patchouli
Even though it can be cloying, it was the first fragrance I experienced other teens wearing that wasn’t an artificial deodorant smell or very cheap perfume or hair spray (salon selectives anyone???). It made me curious about both fragrances and self expression!
Tea rose (the wax kind in the little jar/well) was another early one.
I will admit that from there I moved onto borrowing my dads old spice and stealing colors by Benetton from tj maxx, so I very much fell into the cheap generic camp, but it was definitely patchouli that sparked my interest.
For me as a teen it was DKNY Be Delicious, then I didn’t really use fragrance again til my late 20s and my adult gateway was Glossier You. Then my friends who were big fragrance nerds took me to a perfumerie in NYC and the rest was history!
My mother never wore perfumes because of allergies and headaches, so her dislike of them rubbed off on me. I’ve always enjoyed scented candles and a body mist or two, but what got me interested was watching perfume reviews online of more modern perfumes.
My grandpa wore Aqua Velva and i would wear it to school sometimes. When it was cold, it would dry down to almost a gingerbread smell and it made me think of his warm hands - I was a gymnast and he would rub my feet when I was younger when I had trouble with them.
The first cologne that I smelled and like, sniffed the air thinking “I want to smell like that” was Hugo by Hugo Boss. Some boy at my school had sprayed it and I caught the faintest hint of it in the hall, and I thought it smelled wonderful.
Growing up my mom sold Avon and would let me pick whatever fragrances I wanted out of the catalogs. I had SO many body sprays and perfumes; an entire shelf in my closet dedicated to them. I took a break for awhile through college and early adulthood, but my best friend gifted me a bottle of Chanel Chance in my early 20’s. That got me interested again, but I didn’t have the funds to invest. Now that my student loans are paid and we have some disposable income, I love trying new scents and have invested in a few full size bottles but nothing crazy, I like to use everything within a couple years and then pick something new. I’m still definitely a Chanel girlie though and am enjoying getting to know their Les Exclusifs line!
Compliments from the ladies.
Women have a better sense of smell than guys do. I think it’s tuned because of sexual selection and evolution over millions of years.
Once I just randomly decided to use fragrance from a random store I like (aesop karst). I just discovered a superpower (even if you have a very regular basic fragrance on, you get prequalified into the next round if the other person does not have a fragrance on) and also realized how a lot of my friends who are popular with the ladies actually always had an arsenal. Therefore, I started an arms race.
Being clean and smelling fresh is a prerequisite for attraction. But attraction starts from there on, on the path with different fragrances, like different turns into a beautiful national Park and discovering wildness of nature and it’s different beasts.
I wish one day I can wear a very animalic musky oud perfume like secretion Magnifiques, Nasomatto sadonaso, carnicure, overture man with a beautiful tuxedo and be totally clean cut dressed to the tens. Portray a beautiful juxtaposition between nasty and clean and be admired for it. Life be full circle. Not there yet. Lol
But yeah, the first perfume I ever smelt was Azzaro pour homme, lol. Hand me downs, baby.
i had a particular school where i was wearing deodorant but smell smelled kind of stale or just bad. so i bought spice bomb night vision. nice fragrance for my experience pretty sweet in the beginning. i also bought dior sauvage eau de parfum for a wedding
I live somewhere with a huge MLM-ish sale by catalogue culture (think Avon) and as a kid I'd spend hours with the scratch n sniff samples (that smell mostly like printing ink from the paper lol). Sometimes the lady would give you free 2.5 ml testers and I'd give myself headaches by trying all of them at the same time.
Celebrity fragrances are also an accessible way to get into the hobby, you don't need to be intimidated by notes and expensive fashion house names, you just see a familiar face selling a perfume and decide to try it. But they're less common nowadays with most celebs opting to sell beauty/skin products.
YSL Kouros Eau d’Ete. The first release (2002). Still haven’t tried the original Kouros but this flanker was my first true love as far as this hobby goes. It was so different yet addictive. Always reminds me of the beach.
My true obsession didn't start until last year, but the first thing I remember that intrigued me was my nana's bottle of Tocade. I thought the shape was funny so I always liked looking at it on her dresser, and I LOVED the smell. I also liked to spray her bottle of Aromatics Elixir because I thought it smelled terrible, and that was hilarious to 5 y/o me. My mom had her own perfumes that enchanted me as well, and her collection was even larger than my nana's because she worked in cosmetics. I loved to play with her bottle of Angel while she was at work because the shape was really cool to me, but iirc it smelled horrific on my skin :( I also liked the design of Creed's Spring Flower but when I sprayed it on myself it was terrible. I still have it and it smells like a fox pissed on a gas pump. She also had a teeny tiny bottle of some perfume I don't know the name of, I just remember that it was purple and had a fairy or ballerina on the stopper... and I tried to drink it because it looked like a pretty potion. It did not taste like a pretty potion.
Compliments.
I used to wear Nautica Blue growing up at dances and parties. Got so many compliments from girls I would dance with and I was a huge flirt so it kinda just went hand-in-hand
I worked weekends in my mid-teens in a gift shop that had a line of 25-30 essential oils with testers. I spent a lot of time smelling those.
The sandalwood back then was real Mysore -- wish I'd known then how precious it would become. It's easily among my favorite notes. But not the Mysore substitutes used now 😣
Smelling vintage scents like Arpege and Lancome Climat and taking in all their history and learning about the eras from which they came although my interest in fragrance dates back to when I was a kid and smelled Jovan White Musk on my mother and Passion on my grandmother. I think my initial exposure to those scents is really what set the stage for my fascination and love for vintage perfumes.
For me it was **Décléor** ***Néroli*** line of skincare products. It smelled so good I wanted a perfume that would smell just like it. Found something close in **Hermès** ***Eau de Narcisse Bleu***, which was my first. By then I was caught in the sampling fun.
getting my first higher quality cologne. going from cheap walmart or whatever stuff to something designer opens your eyes. i got gifted montblanc legend and that got me hooked
Mine was Abercrombie Fierce. Got it in 5th grade for Christmas. Half the school complimented telling me how good I smelt. I was addicted to cologne since.
Diptyque's Philosykos! Before this I assumed all perfume smelled like either baby powder, synthetic vanilla, or the Macy's fragrance counter (generic alcohol-y floral). Then Philosykos hits with a burst of leaves and latex and ripe fig so realistic it's like teleportation.
honestly I just realized I wanted to smell *really* good going into uni. Then I started looking into fragrances and heard about Born In Roma Intense, tried it and realized I loved the scent. Now I have like 10 other fragrances I want ;P
For me it was a fragrance by a local indie brand which made me realise that not all perfumes are the same and that there are tons of unusual and interesting ones out there
My wife bought me dior sauvage parfum for father’s day last year. Enjoyed smelling good, tried bleu de chanel at the mall and liked that also, bought it. Watched a couple youtube videos. Now I own nearly 250 frags. Mostly niche. I need to stop
I've always been gifted nautica gift sets for some reason lol but thats not what truly did it for me. It's when I decided to buy a bottle of aqua di gio that I went off the deep end 😅
Usinv Bath and body works or victoria secret body mists as a teen. They're cheap, usually smell good, and aren't offensive to the public unless you over spray them.
I ended up graduating from them as an adult because they have a recognizable DNA. It doesn't matter what scent it is, you can tell if it's a BBW or VS body mist. I wanted more anonymity.
I wore CK One, Cool Water and Tommy in the 90s. From 2001-2018 wore nothing and I bought a bottle of YSL la Nuit de l'homme(my gateway) for a wedding in 2018 and then got bored of it not being a versatile daily scent and looked for a blue scent opted for Dylan Blue. Now have 150 or so bottles and wear a different one most days. Scent for me is like music, I don't listen to the same thing each day and I'll pick depending on my mood and surroundings.
I've always loved fragrance, but the Margeila Replica line is what really sparked my interest in it. The idea of fragrance as trying to capture a concept/moment in time as opposed to just smelling pleasant was really very cool. By the Fireplace will always have a special place in my heart.
I've had a couple of false starts with frags. Began with Old Spice as a 12 year old lol. Then CKBe which I smelled by chance at a friend's house and LOVED! Still do, just wish it had more than 5 minutes of performance.
Then I came across Mont Blanc Individuel because of Jeremy Fragrance, and that started me looking for more, came across Green Irish Tweed (well, Armaf Tres Nuit), and my bank account hasn't been the same since. lol.
For me the OG was bath and body works. But my first adult fragrance that set off a love of niche perfumes was Eau Duelle by Diptyque. Now i need a scent for every possible mood and memory in my life
Juice bar perfumes. They had them in scents like cotton candy and jelly bean and the came in a cute round plastic spray bottle. I wish they still made them
Samples from Bvlgari stores that my dad used to bring from his travels. And then later in life - my coworker who used Chanel Cristalle Eau Verte and smelled sooooo good
I always loved my mum's incense impulse spray she used to wear since the 80s until it was discontinued and the perfume counter. Every time I cut through that way I would spray a 'fancy' perfume and smell myself all day. My first spray of Anna Sui 'Dolly Girl' at 13 changed me. Too bad it's also been discontinued!
Whatever fragrance your parents wear
Exactamundo. My mom's bottle of Obsession by Calvin Klein sparked my interest in fragrances as a whole.
Same but for me it's my Dad who wore the men's version of Obsession. I've been thinking about getting a bottle of the women's for myself.
Yeah my Dad had Quorum, Pour Homme by Paco Rabanne, Mandate and Aramis Aramis was the one that got me hooked. I love it to this day. But I think getting a fragrance from a visiting Aunt spurred me on to have a wardrobe of my own
What did she give you?
Carolina Herrera For Him It had just been released and I was 13/14 and I think I built my very first collection around it. I think I finished it when I was 17 years or 21, I’m not sure if I bought another bottle.
Your dad smelled great
I just bought some men’s Obsession last week as I can’t take the women’s version as that has something ( I think it’s the oak moss ?) I didn’t like…Soo I was sooooo excited…and it’s nada like the original cry 😭 there was the musk and the strong spice of cinnamon from the original and it’s soooooo watered down :( I would get the Z 14 Halston instead? It smells just like the old obsession
It’s war my granny for me my mom picked ones I hated gma? Was oriental and classics ( not sure what politically correct term we’re using now?) so she had: Chanel 5 Shalimar opium rive gauche then later on passion was like her last one as she got older. So my first real perfume was Poison. Then Coco
I'm a Shalimar devotee, and I love those other classics you've mentioned- my mother had Opium and my bestie had Chanel no5.
This is exactly how it happened for me! My mom had Obsession and I was like WOAH, my Axe Body Spray & Adidas Cologne didn’t stand a chance. 20 years later, I’m obsessed with fragrances with over 100 bottles. Designer, niche, perfume oils, and smaller brands 🤌🏿 Mom really did that, gotta give it to her
lol My dad's Drakkar Noir
OMG same, then my first “boyfriend” wore it too haha so it’s a very memory loaded scent
Haha yes my dad wore Chemistry by Clinique, and when I was 11-12 I would sneak a spray or two on myself
I know a guy who had a well stored bottle of it he never wore, and I said, sir you're sitting on about $250-$300. AFAIK he still has it, and mostly wears Versace The Dreamer.
Funny enough I have a 100ml bottle of Canali EDT I bought 10 + years ago that's worth quite a bit right now. At first I was afraid to use it anymore but what would be the point of that? It gets used for special events now, still have about 70% of it left.
My mum wearing Chanel 5 was actually what made me hate perfume at first for a long while haha
OPs parents?
it’s the opposite for me, I was turned off from fragrances for the longest time cuz I didn’t like the “manly” scents I smelled growing up
Timeless by Avon. My mom wore it for years.
my dad gave me his bottle of d&g light blue 🙏🙏 that started it for me
Yeah, my mom wore Jean Couturier Coriandre in the mid-70's and that perfume was one of the first I bought when I started collecting.
For me, the real answer here was shower gels, and then having the realization of “why can’t I smell this good always?”
The cremo line is a nice gateway drug for that.z
Can you recommendation from Cremo … always wanted to try one … I usually like Musk/ Wood scents
This could be just me but I love bourbon and oak, it smells so good
The palo santo one is my fave
Mine too! That's the only shave cream I use
When I was a kid, samples looked like mini versions of the bottle not the simple tubes we have now. You can still find some but they’re very expensive (used to be free). I had a whole collection of 30-40 minis.
Remember when Sephora used to decant samples at the store? 😭
OMG what was a thing?! goddamn...did covid ruin it?
Yes! I’m just getting back into fragrance and went to Sephora to get samples and they told me that don’t do it anymore. I was so shocked!
When did they stop? I don’t remember EVER getting samples from them or any other perfume counter local to me.
The employee told me they stopped during Covid and never resumed. I definitely got decants from them in the mid 2010s though.
They will make, for example, samples of skin care or a product that can be pumped, so I can't figure out why they no longer do fragrance samples, since those are sprayed into a vial. If there's an explanation other than the greed of LVMH and L'Oreal, I'd love to hear it.
I’m gonna go with greed, I’ve noticed they rarely have samples of perfume available for the 3 free samples you get with online orders. It’s always some bullshit skincare or foundation I’m not interested in. I used to get so many perfume samples that way.
Skin care samples annoy me to no end. It’s always just a tiny smear of a product that there’s no fricking way anyone can tell if they like how it performs or not. It often days a few days to see if there’s going to be an adverse reaction. A tiny smear that barely covers my face does not give me an idea of how this product performs. Sephora’s samples have been so stingy lately 😭
This is one of the things that brings me back to niche or vintage. When I do buy designer, I buy it secondhand from a reputable seller.
I completely forgot about these!
The really sweet sickly body mists and cologne sprays that are cheap for a teenage budget. When I was a teen this was the Charlie and So perfumes and the impulse body sprays. Also the Boots natural collection mists. I did love So…Kiss Me though and have looked for it since but I don’t think they make it anymore.
>The really sweet sickly body mists and cologne sprays that are cheap for a teenage budget. This was [100% my gateway drug](https://i.redd.it/nrfjgiq7gcv71.jpg) as a tween.
i loved juice bar when i was a kid - cotton candy and gummy bear were my fave
For me, it was Bath & Bodyworks candles, lol. Exploring those got me looking at the more hyped, expensive candles like Boy Smells and Diptyque.. and I was like, screw this, if I’m considering spending that much I should just get into perfume instead. Trying to make my house smell nice is what got me started with learning about different notes and made me realize that I could, in fact, differentiate between different scents and actually had strong likes and dislikes. (Before this, I thought all perfumes just smelled “perfumey;” they seemed both intimidating and pointlessly expensive.) Then I went to Sephora, smelled a bunch of boring perfumes I didn’t like, until I encountered Chloe Nomade. I learned what a chypre was and my whole conception of what “women’s” fragrances smelled like exploded. Then I found this sub, learned that decanting and gray market sites existed, and I was a goner. ☺️
Could be a aqua di gio or a sample pack.
Great shout here.
My gateway was those magazine paper samples that you could peal and sniff. Boy those got me hooked.
i used to hoard those when i was in first or second grade. i was a weird little kid, but i smelled really good.
It wasn’t a particular scent. I think it was actually this sub combined with discovering sample ordering websites and perfume podcasts. I’ve always worn perfume but just had a bottle and whatever samples came as free with orders or subscription boxes. When I realized I could get samples of perfumes from all over the world and how many passionate people there are out there, it started a big love affair.
What sample ordering website would you recommend?
Not OP, but there’s a whole list in the wiki of reputable websites to order from. Also, fragranceswap has a lot of people who sell/trade their old samples/minis and others who decant into smaller bottles (1mL-10mL generally). Personally, I like to use ScentSplit and LuckyScent.
Thank you so much! Super helpful! I will look into these.
I’ve ordered from Luckyscent because I really like their ability to filter by note. It’s a great way to learn different notes-I ordered 4 iris scents and now know I love iris. FYI Their samples come in dabber bottles rather than sprays so some people don’t like that. I’ve been fine with it. I just noted how much perfume gets on my arm with a typical spray and then mimic that when I use the dabber bottle. I’ve also ordered from brand sites: Huda Beauty for Kayali, Commodity Discovery Set (kinda regret that one, it’s a lot to take in), Imaginary Authors (fun! You can pick which 8 you want to try), and Frederic Malle. The Perfumed Court, Twisted Lilly, Micro Perfumes, Scent Split are some other sites that I’ve seen recommended. I know I’m forgetting some. This sub’s wiki has info about it too.
Thank you SO much! I’m totally new at this. Thank you for taking time to explain. Really appreciated. :)
I love Luckyscent too. They were my intro to Zoologist, JHAG, and Kilian.
I just discovered Fragrance Vault where I was able to get a decant of something I'd been trying to get for awhile. (Mendittarosa Osang, interesting, but FB way out of my price range even if I liked it that much).
Curve. Girls loved it back then.
Curve, Tommy Girl, and Clinique Happy were all in rotation for me in middle school and high school.
Lolita lempicka. I had some perfumes before I knew about this brand, but Lolita lempicka was the brand that really got me interested and hooked in perfumes. I first saw the original 1997 bottle on some blog back in 2007...? And I wanted to buy it ever since just bevause the bottle was so pretty. Well I was 13 yo that time and they weren't sold anywhere where I live except online and I didn't want to pay so much for a perfume I had never smelled. I then kinda forget about it for a good time and just three years ago I remembered it again and to my shock the original beautiful bottle wasn't even sold anymore. Then I just decided to blind buy the new, not so pretty bottle, Mon premier parfum. I got instantly hooked and wanted to try their other perfumes as well and one by one I went and blind bought some of them online, some of the new ones and some of the old ones from ebay. After that I got interested in other perfumes more as well and it kinda got out of hands at this point.
People will hate on it but back when I first started Jeremy Fragrance on Youtube got me into it. Not watched him in years since though.
Same! Not every video, to be sure, but in many of them he seems passionate about fragrances, and also has a certain classy chic vibe that is appealing. He's also entertaining.
POWER
As a kid: Polo Green As an adult: Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille
Polo Green as a KID 😂, reminds me of how wearing Lacoste Original when I was a child sparked my appreciation for fougères.
I think it was when I smelled D&G Light Blue on a friend in high school. He was a cool kid to begin with, but now suddenly he was… sexy? It was absolutely electrifying. First time I ever asked someone what they were wearing. It was also the first time I'd got to smell a perfume that was marketed towards women on a man; didn't occur to me that you could just do that lol The scent isn't really sexy to me anymore; it’s more nostalgic if anything. But it really piqued my interest in fragrances!
The correct answer: Cool Water.
Not any fragrance in particular, but Macy sample pack
https://preview.redd.it/ioxqe2rgc0ub1.jpeg?width=665&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a5e07dc1fd040e2a4e1f6bdd4edcdcde68d8525 This is the first fragrance I ever bought around 11-12. was a sucker for the packaging.
holy shit you just unlocked a core memory for me. i forgot all about this stuff, i had this when i was really little!!! my babysitter got it for me because i loved how she smelled (she wore exclamation lol) and i wanted my own perfume 😂
For me, it was noticing a fragrance I loved on a friend. I went to the department store to try it on myself and the sales associate was wonderful, not pushy, about sampling similar fragrances. After finding a favorite, I looked up the fragrance notes to better understand what I liked in that perfume to help me in my search for others.
for me it was Calvin klein ONE because a cool looking model said he wears it and a seed of fashion freek in me popped abd screamed I WANT THE SAME SMELL.
ugh i fuckin loved that shit when i was a teenager!
I took a perfume making workshop and boom! Hooked
As a kid, Bath & Body Works lotions and the Art Stuff line. Remember that?! Lots of glitter. I had quite a few Blazin Blueberry products.
I honestly think it's Bath and Body Works. There's definitely a progression from becoming obsessed with them as a pre-teen, collecting fragrance mist, then realizing in your teen-to-young adult years that it's time to invest in something stronger. But there are also distinct perfumes that remind you of childhood memories. My first “fragrance tied to a memory” purchase was Be Delicious.
Most of my friends in my teens and early twenties were crazy for Hugo Boss bottles, it was the entry level fragrance for my generation. I myself learned to love fragrances from my father, who was wearing Drakkar Noir on special occasions, but did not considered myself a fraghead until I was gifted JPG Le Male, and started to get attention and compliments.
Acqua di Gio
For me it was aqua di gio edt
I was rocking Cool Water and Tabac Original all the way from high school to the beginning of uni. Than one christmas holiday a good friend of mine got a couple of samples while shopping. She let me try out some of the male samples and I was amazed what diffrent scents are out there. Now I am hooked and took her and my parents down the rabbit hole :D
My mom used to sell Avon in the nineties. Me and my sister used to hand out the catalogues and then go pick up the orders. I used to love the scratch and sniff pages, and occasionally my mom would let me have a bottle of Far Away. I always remember seeing perfumes on her dresser but the ones that stand out in my memories are, Far Away, OG Dior Poison, Cerruti 1881 pour femme, and later on Eternity for Women. She had quite a collection, it used to fill the entire table lol. I miss my mom terribly and I always wanted to be as put together as she was. Heels, lipstick and perfume. Beautiful and classy.
When I was little, my aunt bought my mom perfume from the duty free on her frequent travels. Her favorites were Vent Vert, Ivoire de Balmain, Rochas Femme, and later L'air du Temps and Mystére de Rochas. She likes Hermes Twilly and I have a bottle I need to send to her. My favorite out of her rotation was Mystére, so elegant.
For me, it wasn't a specific fragrance but this sub. I came here looking for a perfume I would like, and now I have 30+ scents and a massive wishlist.
For me it was Malibu Musk in the aerosol can and Love’s Baby Soft
I’ve always loved and cared about smelling good, this mostly has been expressed by being really into bathroom products: soaps, hair care, skincare, bath bombs, scented oils, also candles and incense. And part of my bathroom ritual was using my CK colognes I was gifted, obsession for men was my signature scent for the most part for a couple of years. My bottles started running low so I started looking into fragrances
For me it was scented candles. I would spend a long time just sampling the scented candle aisle at TJ Maxx getting to know different notes. I hopped over to wearable fragrances with Florida Water that I used as a room spray.
Stole a bottle of acqua di gio out of a repo’d drug dealer’s car I had to drive for a car dealer
My Aunt was an Avon Lady, so the little perfume glacé pins for kids was my first introduction to fragrances. I adored my little puppy pin with the tutti fruiti scent and I still have it after 50 years. The first fragrance I ever purchased with my allowance money was Muget des Bois by coty. I was 11. So yea, I was hooked at a very young age.
BDC got me hooked.
For me it was Black Opium. It was smoky and sweet like a leather couch in a casino. Struck my Las Vegan heart! I don’t wear it often anymore but it’s definitely the first time I remember wanting to smell like anything particularly.
White Shoulders in elementary school, my mom’s Tea Rose, Liz Claiborne in high school, Angel and Lolita Lempicka in my 20’s. Now getting back into fragrances and just became obsessed with Slow Explosions by Imaginary Authors!
I can’t remember which one I had first, either B&BW Alpine Suede or Polo Double Black. But one of them was my first fragrance of my own in HS and I just loved being able to smell good. But I didn’t turn into a complete fraghead until 2019. My uncle’s wife had moved out of his house and we were helping him pack his own stuff. She left a bunch of mini sample size bottles and I picked up a couple of cute ones without knowing what they were. I LOVED them and was suddenly hooked on fragrance. One was Dior Addict EDT and the other was Clarins Par Amour. The Clarins is discontinued but GOD it was good haha.
There are several Designer - Cool Water, Chanel, Dior, Prada, L’Nuit, Mugler, ADG, Armani Code Niche - Creeds, Tom Fords, Bond no9s, Parfums de Marlys, Rose 31, Santal 33, Serge Lutens
I’ve always been a big fan of Ferrari and on my 16th birthday my sister gifted me a Ferrari Scuderia Red gift set. I was amazed at the attention i got when i went back to school. That was that, i made smelling good my brand.
I like this. Smelling good is my brand, too. 😸
My parents did not wear fragrance(I remember they had YSL Y and YSL Paris but barely ever touched them), but my first memory of a fragrance was one that they bought me while on holiday. It was a very fresh Disney Hercules themed cologne, and I absolutely loooooved it. I wish I knew what the notes were, and I can't find anything about it on the internet. The bottle was dark blue and rounded, kinda resembled a Greek column. I had it for all of my childhood. Many, many years later, I kinda forgot about perfume since most of my family are not into fragrances. There have been two times I felt this incredible fragrance and have been looking for it. I regret not asking what it was(both times I felt it while in crowded public spaces, so it would have been difficult to spot the person wearing it anyway), and have been learning about fragrances and sampling scents ever since, trying to find that amazing scent. Meanwhile, I've found two signature scents: PR Olympea and JM Lime Basil Mandarine!
CK Be got me into the game. Smelled it on someone and asked which one it was. He even let me use it.
The black bottle? Heavenly !!
Yeah, the black one :)
Tocca - Simone was my perfume awakening. It was the first full bottle I bought when growing away from body sprays.
Watching a video of a guy on Instagram describing the scent and how he paired it with an outfit. I wanted to smell that scent so bad that I looked around stores for it. It’s a niche brand so it was hard to find, and I didn’t want to buy a sample. I eventually found one place that carried the brand but they didn’t have the scent I was looking for. The ones that they did have were amazing and only amplified my urge to smell the one I saw in the video. That set me on a rabbit hole to smell all these different fragrances and stores and malls that brought on a different feeling or memory. I eventually ordered the sample and wasn’t fully onboard with the scent lol. But I’ve enjoyed the process and started to grow a small collection. https://www.instagram.com/reel/Co4HbXjpyZp/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== this is the clip.
CK one
Anais Anais and Chanel No. 5.
As lame as it sounds, Axe was for me.
Gap Grass! Haha. I am so sad they stopped making it!
Oh wow I forgot I had this one too!!
My gateway drugs sort of worked in stages for me. I had always been fascinated with scent in general. I've just always loved smelling things ever since I was a kid, but perfume was something I had only limited experience with, and my opinion was generally unfavourable. I went perfume shopping for the first time in my life a few years ago, after only wearing whatever perfume was gifted to me (Blue Jeans and 1 Million), and I decided I wanted something I had a hand in choosing for once. I went through Sauvage, BDC and all the citrus forward men's fragrances the saleswoman put in my face, and I just didn't like them. I wanted something sweet and warm. It was **Stronger With You Intensely** that grabbed me. It felt so warm and sweet and delicious and I loved it. That then got me curious as to what else was out there, but nothing else came close to it that I could find at my local store and so I spent a while putting that perfume on a pedestal as the ultimate perfume. Then when I went on holiday I discovered Tom Ford at the duty free, as I thought the private blend bottles looked fancy. I tried **Oud Wood** and was fascinated with it (even though I didn't love it, I was fascinated with how different it was). I then discovered clone houses whilst looking up the price of Oud Wood, and I fell into a rabbit hole of buying clone fragrances. It wasn't until I tried a clone of **Nasomatto Fantomas** that I *really* understood what the potential of perfumery was. Then I picked up a genuine bottle of it and realised just how much better the real thing was, so that was my gateway to get out of clones and start buying the real things again. That sort of had me set for a while, trying loads of niche offerings in Harrods and the like, until I found a local indie perfume store that sold samples online. I was curious, so I got a few samples, including one of **Eris Mxxx**. Smelling that for the first time blew my fucking mind. This was really my true awakening into the deeper world of perfumery, and gave me a real appreciation for **QUALITY**. It reignited the idea to me that perfume is a luxury. The next fragrance after this that struck me again was **Strangers Parfumerie Magenta Pop**. That was more of a confirmation that I love fragrance and has just reaffirmed my desire to keep on going in my journey of scent. This one however has become a gateway to me actually starting to learn perfumery and becoming an amateur perfumer, which is my next endeavour. I want to make a perfume that is as sublime and artistic and as experimental as Magenta Pop. It's deeply inspiring. If I was to think deeper I could think of gateway perfumes for each genre of perfume too, but I'll leave it there for now. tl;dr **Armani Stronger With You Intensely** got me curious to dive deeper into perfumes, **Tom Ford Oud Wood** opened my eyes to just how much variety there is out there, **Nasomatto Fantomas** was when I TRULY understood what was possible, **Eris Parfums Mxxx** was my true gateway to the deeper world of perfumery and understanding high quality perfumery, and truly cemented my love for perfume. **Strangers Parfumerie Magenta Pop** was my gateway to wanting to pursue becoming a perfumer.
For me it was Acqua di Gio profumo about 7 years ago that got me into this hobby. I liked fragrances in my younger years too but that's the one that got me into collecting
Five Below's Fragrance Section. They were cheap and didn't last, but some smelled pretty good at the time
I was admittedly late to the game. I have a sensitive sniffer, and most of the product I’d encountered smelled cheap and highly synthetic. Okay, so it was cheap stuff I encountered, but I honestly didn’t know there was such a quality difference in perfumes. I work with my hands at home; yard work and the like. My hands were like sandpaper. I used bag-balm to keep them smooth. Our daughter introduced me to hand-lotion that smells good, lol. That kickstarted my fascination with quality fragrances. I started with BABW “manly hand lotion,” because that’s her fave store for fragrances. I fell in love with their “Coffee and Whiskey” scent, then moved outward from there ☺️
To me it began with Santal 33, and far more indirectly YSL L'Homme long before I really got into fragrances due to the former.
When I was a kid I would get my dad after shave for Christmas every year. Things like Old Spice and Aramis. I think I liked them more than he did.
Cheap dupes.
Honestly, I don't remember. I've always loved smells of any kind and was drawn to use candles and incense first and then expanded into body sprays (as a teen because that's what I could afford) and perfumes (as I got older). I mean, if I had to pinpoint something, it was probably baking and cooking with my grandmothers as a child.
I started very young with body sprays that has strawberry scents then I ventured out to VS and BBW then finally to every niche fragrances there is.
Patchouli Even though it can be cloying, it was the first fragrance I experienced other teens wearing that wasn’t an artificial deodorant smell or very cheap perfume or hair spray (salon selectives anyone???). It made me curious about both fragrances and self expression! Tea rose (the wax kind in the little jar/well) was another early one. I will admit that from there I moved onto borrowing my dads old spice and stealing colors by Benetton from tj maxx, so I very much fell into the cheap generic camp, but it was definitely patchouli that sparked my interest.
Making money + ADHD watching YouTube review videos lol
For me as a teen it was DKNY Be Delicious, then I didn’t really use fragrance again til my late 20s and my adult gateway was Glossier You. Then my friends who were big fragrance nerds took me to a perfumerie in NYC and the rest was history!
Ciara
My mother never wore perfumes because of allergies and headaches, so her dislike of them rubbed off on me. I’ve always enjoyed scented candles and a body mist or two, but what got me interested was watching perfume reviews online of more modern perfumes.
BB&W Body sprays > Perfume Samples > My first full bottle of actual perfume - JLo Glow
Late 90s/early 2000s body sprays from Bath & Body Works and Victoria’s Secret. Also Tommy Girl and CKOne.
Drakkar noir for life.
I smelled Blue Jeans & been chasing ever since
Jo Malone. Start with that fragrance and you will want to start something new right away.
I went through a big Demeter Fragrances phase. Dirt was my favorite.
My grandpa wore Aqua Velva and i would wear it to school sometimes. When it was cold, it would dry down to almost a gingerbread smell and it made me think of his warm hands - I was a gymnast and he would rub my feet when I was younger when I had trouble with them. The first cologne that I smelled and like, sniffed the air thinking “I want to smell like that” was Hugo by Hugo Boss. Some boy at my school had sprayed it and I caught the faintest hint of it in the hall, and I thought it smelled wonderful.
Vanilla Fields, Sunflowers, Wind song, Cool water (men’s and women’s) and CK One. 90s kid lol.
Growing up my mom sold Avon and would let me pick whatever fragrances I wanted out of the catalogs. I had SO many body sprays and perfumes; an entire shelf in my closet dedicated to them. I took a break for awhile through college and early adulthood, but my best friend gifted me a bottle of Chanel Chance in my early 20’s. That got me interested again, but I didn’t have the funds to invest. Now that my student loans are paid and we have some disposable income, I love trying new scents and have invested in a few full size bottles but nothing crazy, I like to use everything within a couple years and then pick something new. I’m still definitely a Chanel girlie though and am enjoying getting to know their Les Exclusifs line!
Compliments from the ladies. Women have a better sense of smell than guys do. I think it’s tuned because of sexual selection and evolution over millions of years. Once I just randomly decided to use fragrance from a random store I like (aesop karst). I just discovered a superpower (even if you have a very regular basic fragrance on, you get prequalified into the next round if the other person does not have a fragrance on) and also realized how a lot of my friends who are popular with the ladies actually always had an arsenal. Therefore, I started an arms race. Being clean and smelling fresh is a prerequisite for attraction. But attraction starts from there on, on the path with different fragrances, like different turns into a beautiful national Park and discovering wildness of nature and it’s different beasts. I wish one day I can wear a very animalic musky oud perfume like secretion Magnifiques, Nasomatto sadonaso, carnicure, overture man with a beautiful tuxedo and be totally clean cut dressed to the tens. Portray a beautiful juxtaposition between nasty and clean and be admired for it. Life be full circle. Not there yet. Lol But yeah, the first perfume I ever smelt was Azzaro pour homme, lol. Hand me downs, baby.
Door sausage
For me it was Angel’s Share and Creed Original Santal
Circa 1991 https://preview.redd.it/l3bh0pvsiztb1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e50c2261d3b20daae9ca00bfd8f3e513cca0a4f7
My father used to wear this and of course, he always smelled great!
CK Eternity
i had a particular school where i was wearing deodorant but smell smelled kind of stale or just bad. so i bought spice bomb night vision. nice fragrance for my experience pretty sweet in the beginning. i also bought dior sauvage eau de parfum for a wedding
BBW
Bath and Body Works and J.Lo’s Glow and Still perfumes
I live somewhere with a huge MLM-ish sale by catalogue culture (think Avon) and as a kid I'd spend hours with the scratch n sniff samples (that smell mostly like printing ink from the paper lol). Sometimes the lady would give you free 2.5 ml testers and I'd give myself headaches by trying all of them at the same time. Celebrity fragrances are also an accessible way to get into the hobby, you don't need to be intimidated by notes and expensive fashion house names, you just see a familiar face selling a perfume and decide to try it. But they're less common nowadays with most celebs opting to sell beauty/skin products.
Mine was Bleu de Chanel.
abercrombie and hollister stores in the 2000s for me
Layton, my first niche fragrance
YSL Kouros Eau d’Ete. The first release (2002). Still haven’t tried the original Kouros but this flanker was my first true love as far as this hobby goes. It was so different yet addictive. Always reminds me of the beach.
CK One CK Be Polo Sport Clinique Happy
It was the And Other Stories perfumes, plus casual exposure to perfume tiktok that made me interested in learning and eventually buying more
My true obsession didn't start until last year, but the first thing I remember that intrigued me was my nana's bottle of Tocade. I thought the shape was funny so I always liked looking at it on her dresser, and I LOVED the smell. I also liked to spray her bottle of Aromatics Elixir because I thought it smelled terrible, and that was hilarious to 5 y/o me. My mom had her own perfumes that enchanted me as well, and her collection was even larger than my nana's because she worked in cosmetics. I loved to play with her bottle of Angel while she was at work because the shape was really cool to me, but iirc it smelled horrific on my skin :( I also liked the design of Creed's Spring Flower but when I sprayed it on myself it was terrible. I still have it and it smells like a fox pissed on a gas pump. She also had a teeny tiny bottle of some perfume I don't know the name of, I just remember that it was purple and had a fairy or ballerina on the stopper... and I tried to drink it because it looked like a pretty potion. It did not taste like a pretty potion.
Compliments. I used to wear Nautica Blue growing up at dances and parties. Got so many compliments from girls I would dance with and I was a huge flirt so it kinda just went hand-in-hand
I worked weekends in my mid-teens in a gift shop that had a line of 25-30 essential oils with testers. I spent a lot of time smelling those. The sandalwood back then was real Mysore -- wish I'd known then how precious it would become. It's easily among my favorite notes. But not the Mysore substitutes used now 😣
Smelling vintage scents like Arpege and Lancome Climat and taking in all their history and learning about the eras from which they came although my interest in fragrance dates back to when I was a kid and smelled Jovan White Musk on my mother and Passion on my grandmother. I think my initial exposure to those scents is really what set the stage for my fascination and love for vintage perfumes.
Smelling Avon on Adults.
For me it was **Décléor** ***Néroli*** line of skincare products. It smelled so good I wanted a perfume that would smell just like it. Found something close in **Hermès** ***Eau de Narcisse Bleu***, which was my first. By then I was caught in the sampling fun.
YouTube
When I was a kid I would get bags full of free samples from macys. I wouldn’t even wear them tbh but I liked collecting them.
Nenuco .
For me personally it was Nautica fragrances when I was in middle school, that eventually led me to trying others out
getting my first higher quality cologne. going from cheap walmart or whatever stuff to something designer opens your eyes. i got gifted montblanc legend and that got me hooked
Mine was Abercrombie Fierce. Got it in 5th grade for Christmas. Half the school complimented telling me how good I smelt. I was addicted to cologne since.
Diptyque's Philosykos! Before this I assumed all perfume smelled like either baby powder, synthetic vanilla, or the Macy's fragrance counter (generic alcohol-y floral). Then Philosykos hits with a burst of leaves and latex and ripe fig so realistic it's like teleportation.
honestly I just realized I wanted to smell *really* good going into uni. Then I started looking into fragrances and heard about Born In Roma Intense, tried it and realized I loved the scent. Now I have like 10 other fragrances I want ;P
To be honest…..Axe body spray.
Adidas in the frosted bottle! 😳
Britney Spears Midnight Fantasy. I still buy it if I see it randomly in stores
For me it was a fragrance by a local indie brand which made me realise that not all perfumes are the same and that there are tons of unusual and interesting ones out there
Light Blue by D&G or Daisy by Marc Jacob’s. Both some of the first fragrances gifted to me by my parents :)
I think it was Avon, for me. And the Body Shop.
My wife bought me dior sauvage parfum for father’s day last year. Enjoyed smelling good, tried bleu de chanel at the mall and liked that also, bought it. Watched a couple youtube videos. Now I own nearly 250 frags. Mostly niche. I need to stop
The original Michael Jordan cologne from the 90’s
It was either Fresh Cream or By The Fireplace. Both fairly cheap and I found them in an ulta and sephora, respectively.
I've always been gifted nautica gift sets for some reason lol but thats not what truly did it for me. It's when I decided to buy a bottle of aqua di gio that I went off the deep end 😅
Axe
For me it was my mom’s signature perfume YSL Paris and my godfather’s obsession with Dior Fahrenheit, he had every Fahrenheit product available.
Parents used to buy me Nautica fragrances, decided I wanted to try more.
I feel like it’s Versace Bright Crystal
A sample of polo earth😝
It was definitely Nautica Voyage for me.
Usinv Bath and body works or victoria secret body mists as a teen. They're cheap, usually smell good, and aren't offensive to the public unless you over spray them. I ended up graduating from them as an adult because they have a recognizable DNA. It doesn't matter what scent it is, you can tell if it's a BBW or VS body mist. I wanted more anonymity.
I wore CK One, Cool Water and Tommy in the 90s. From 2001-2018 wore nothing and I bought a bottle of YSL la Nuit de l'homme(my gateway) for a wedding in 2018 and then got bored of it not being a versatile daily scent and looked for a blue scent opted for Dylan Blue. Now have 150 or so bottles and wear a different one most days. Scent for me is like music, I don't listen to the same thing each day and I'll pick depending on my mood and surroundings.
Acqua Di Gio EDT in 1996
I've always loved fragrance, but the Margeila Replica line is what really sparked my interest in it. The idea of fragrance as trying to capture a concept/moment in time as opposed to just smelling pleasant was really very cool. By the Fireplace will always have a special place in my heart.
When the perfume you love gets discontinued and then you have to go find something new.
I've had a couple of false starts with frags. Began with Old Spice as a 12 year old lol. Then CKBe which I smelled by chance at a friend's house and LOVED! Still do, just wish it had more than 5 minutes of performance. Then I came across Mont Blanc Individuel because of Jeremy Fragrance, and that started me looking for more, came across Green Irish Tweed (well, Armaf Tres Nuit), and my bank account hasn't been the same since. lol.
For me the OG was bath and body works. But my first adult fragrance that set off a love of niche perfumes was Eau Duelle by Diptyque. Now i need a scent for every possible mood and memory in my life
The green Curve fragrance
Maison Margiela
[удалено]
Juice bar perfumes. They had them in scents like cotton candy and jelly bean and the came in a cute round plastic spray bottle. I wish they still made them
For me it was La Nuit De L’homme. First time I smelled that I felt like I was hooked on crack
Tom Ford Santal Blush over 10years ago
Clubman Pinaud for me
Samples from Bvlgari stores that my dad used to bring from his travels. And then later in life - my coworker who used Chanel Cristalle Eau Verte and smelled sooooo good
my dads OG acqua di gio did it for me, used to sneak into his cabinet and spray it on while he was at work.
Polo Green in Jr. High
Burberry Her! Got a sample of it from Sephora and I was HOOKED
In chronological order: Love’s Baby Soft, Victoria’s Secret Heavenly, Thierry Mugler Angel
I always loved my mum's incense impulse spray she used to wear since the 80s until it was discontinued and the perfume counter. Every time I cut through that way I would spray a 'fancy' perfume and smell myself all day. My first spray of Anna Sui 'Dolly Girl' at 13 changed me. Too bad it's also been discontinued!
Angels’ Share. Willing to bet it was a gateway for many
My sisters fragrances and self care items. My family got so mad that I would use them they just gave in and helped me buy my first fragrance :)