Sources for Scents and Info?

[TheBurgh]

Have really enjoyed my 9 months of wet shaving apprenticeship thanks to the advice, experiences and generosity of the members on this Forum. Who new a 72 years old male could learn anything new and thoroughly enjoy it?

I'm just now embarking on my foray into colognes, eDTs and eDPs. Studied and bought a few items from shaving sources and am now ready to reach for the next tier of perfumery.

Can you recommend: fragrance forums (which even approach the wonderfulness of this Forum), CONUS decanters and reputable online sources of fine fragrances?

Thanks for reading and participating!

SHAVE ON!

 

[KCD]

TheBurgh,

For forums and reviews, check out basenotes.com and Perfume Reviews | Perfumes: the Guide - https://www.perfumestheguide.com.

For decants, look at Perfume Samples, Perfume Decants, Indie Perfumes, Scents and Vintage Perfumes - https://www.theperfumedcourt.com.

 

[SharpieB]

Fragrantica is good for reviews, new release info and such. Their forum sucks and they get too political sometimes (owned/run by Russians).

I have been on more than a few fragrance forums over the years and none of them are even close to the activity and number of great (and active) members of B&B.

 

[Owen Bawn]

Basenotes has useful info but the fragrance discussion forums aren't really conversational. In general, someone posts and not many reply. It's like 150 posters all talking to themselves.

 

[sarimento1]

FWIW, I've had good luck with samples from Luckyscent.com.

 

[Doug57]

FWIW, I've also had good luck with ScentSplit.com.

 

[TheBurgh]

OP here to provide followup and thanks.

Finding great information on Basenotes and Fragrantica. Not sure if I'll ever actively participate. Both seem fractured into individual participants.

Already taking advantage of samples at The Perfumed Court and SplitScent. Averaging $6 per sample, I foresee tremendous opportunity with trial-and-error. Luckily, I have already narrowed my preferred categories, e.g. tobacco, leather, brandy/cognac/whiskey, smoke and woods (not woodsy).

I'm sending along my earnest thanks to you, the above posters, for providing an excellent kickstart to my frag hobby!

You folks are the BEST!

 

[emwolf]

I like basenotes and I'll usually try to get a sample first before buying an expensive full size

 

[guitarslinger]

Info - fragrantica.com

Buying stuff - fragrancenet.com


If you have questions, ask here. I love answering fragrance questions.

 

[RRGGMM]

I've been leaning on YouTube for reviews and learning about different fragrances and ordered 2ml samples from decantx.com. I've been placing most of my orders through fragrancex.com which seems to have a reasonable selection of samples and smaller bottles.

 

[Jan Sobieski]

I find fragrantica the most helpful. Even if some posters here and there don't know what they are talking about, you can usually figure out which reviews those are pretty quickly, based on (lack of) detail and real content.

 

[user9]

Basenotes' value is in the reviews. My favorites are provided by someone who goes by the name of Darvant. When I got started, I would browse those reviews for new stuff to try. Discussions are sometimes helpful when they get technical, but it seems the more prolific the poster is, the less they have to say. There's one who only responds to everything with text tsunamis and another that has about 100,000 1 to 3 word replies to his credit, a little longer if he tells of his journeys to the wholesale fragrance district. Fragrantica is a good database for fragrances and the user input in aggregate (such as most appropriate season for a fragrance, etc.) is pretty helpful. The forums are a little weird though; they allow far too many topics where all people contribute is stream-of-consciousness lists of fragrances that may or may not be in their collection. Reviews on Fragrantica can provide some direction but you have to read a lot of them, and never rely on a single review for any information.

 

[Owen Bawn]

At various times I've purchased from FragranceX, Fragrancenet, Jomashop, and Lucky Scent. Prices between them often vary widely.

 

[Jermo]

I like the Fragranatica and Basenotes forums. Have found lots of good reviews and recommendations there. Research on there and sampling has really helped me figure out what I love.
For samples and decants, my goto's are scentsplit, decantX, Surrender to Chance, Perfuum and FragranceLine. Favorites for full bottles would be AuraFragrance (can't beat their prices, but limited inventory,) Fragrancebuy.CA (canadian, great prices, but I'm in the US so shipping is more expensive,) Fragrancenet, FragranceX, Maxaroma.